US07779481B2
Systems and mehods for electronic postmarking of location data are provided. Electronic postmarking of location data (S.20) includes generating a hash value corresponding to merged data (S.30). Electronic postmarking further includes generating an electronic postmark data structure (S.40) comprising the hash value and a date/time stamp. The electronic postmarking data structure (S.40) may further include a digital signature.
US07779468B1
A system and associated method/computer program product are provided including an intrusion detection tool for determining whether network communications violate at least one of a plurality of policies. Such policies are defined to detect potential attacks in the network communications. Further included is a vulnerability assessment scanning tool coupled to the intrusion detection tool. The vulnerability assessment scanning tool is adapted for performing a vulnerability assessment scan for identifying vulnerabilities.
US07779467B2
Provided are N grouping of traffic and pattern-free Internet worm response system and method. According to the method, traffic factors generated by respective worms are grouped into N groups so that a great quantity of Information may be effectively understood and a worm generated afterward is involved with characteristics of a relevant group. Damages of a network or a system predictable through already classified N traffic characteristics are defined so that corresponding step-by-step measures are taken. Characteristics of the grouped worms are quantitatively analyzed so that a danger degree of a new worm is predicted when the new worm appears afterward and forecasting and alarming through the prediction are performed. Easiness with which a controlling operator instantly understands an accident using a visualization method having an approximate real-time characteristic is increased, so that detection efficiency for most worms not detected using a conventional rule is increased.
US07779464B2
A method and system for ensuring system security is disclosed. Based on the content of the data units the method and system monitor, the method and system retrieve the states and the dependency relationships among these states that are representative of unwanted patterns. The method and system store the states and the dependency relationships mentioned above in different types of memories according to the frequency of accessing the states. The frequency is calculated by comparing a number of test data patterns with the states in a sequence specified by the dependency relationships. The method and system further identify a set of suspected data units by comparing the data units with the retrieved states in a sequence specified by the retrieved dependency relationships, wherein the content of the set of the suspected data units collectively matches any of the unwanted patterns.
US07779463B2
Systems and methods for correlating and distributing intrusion alert information among collaborating computer systems are provided. These systems and methods provide an alert correlator and an alert distributor that enable early signs of an attack to be detected and rapidly disseminated to collaborating systems. The alert correlator utilizes data structures to correlate alert detections and provide a mechanism through which threat information can be revealed to other collaborating systems. The alert distributor uses an efficient technique to group collaborating systems and then pass data between certain members of those groups according to a schedule. In this way data can be routinely distributed without generating excess traffic loads.
US07779461B1
A system establishes a virtual private network (VPN) tunnel to a destination and determines a next hop for the VPN tunnel. The system inserts the next hop, and an address associated with the destination, into an entry of a first table. The system inserts the next hop, and a tunnel identifier corresponding to the established VPN tunnel, into an entry of a second table. The system associates one or more security parameters, used to encrypt traffic sent via the VPN tunnel, with the tunnel identifier.
US07779458B1
The present invention is a wireless communication system and method. In an exemplary embodiment, the wireless communication system includes a destination system and a source network. The source network provides network services to the destination system. Further, a plurality of mobile nodes are communicatively coupled with each other for allowing data packets to be transferred between the source network and the destination system. In addition, at least one firewall is communicatively coupled with the destination system and at least one of the mobile nodes included within the plurality of mobile nodes for monitoring data packet exchange between the source network and the destination system. The at least one firewall utilizes at least location as a controlling parameter for regulating data packet exchange as the at least one mobile end node moves into areas associated with varying degrees of threat.
US07779454B2
A system and method for using a client-side hypervisor in conjunction with a secure network-side monitoring mechanism to detect removable media insertions since a client's last network session with the secure network is presented. The hypervisor uses a “client-side insertion value” to track the number of times that a user inserts removable media into a socket located on the client. When the client is connected to the secure network, the client's hypervisor notifies the secure network of each insertion and the secure network increments a “secure network-side tracker value.” For each login request, the client includes the client-side insertion value, which the secure network compares against its secure network-side tracker value. When the two values are different, the secure network sends an action request to the client, such as a request to perform a full system scan. Once the client performs the action, the client's hypervisor resets its client-side insertion value and attempts to logon to the secure network again.
US07779449B2
A method and system for sharing data between networks comprises an interface for receiving data from plural inputs; a policy-based router operationally connected to the interface, the policy-based router assigns security levels to the data based on security characteristics of the inputs and the policy-based router assigns virtual Internet protocol addresses to the data; a memory for retaining the data with the Internet protocol addresses, the memory being operationally connected to the policy-based router; a translator for converting the data into a standard format; and a network stack for transmitting the data to a network. The method includes assigning security levels to the data based on security characteristics of the inputs; assigning virtual Internet protocol addresses to the data; retaining the data with the Internet protocol addresses; converting the data into a standard format; and transmitting the data to a network.
US07779448B2
A virtual channel table for broadcasting protocol and a method for broadcasting by using the virtual channel table includes identification information identifying and permitting discrimination of active and inactive channels contained in the virtual channel table. At a receiver, the virtual channel table transmitted from the transmitting side is parsed, thereby determining whether the current received channel is an active or inactive channel.
US07779444B2
A video on request (“VOR”) system is disclosed. The VOR system includes a producer having a location device for providing location data and a video recording device. The VOR system also includes an information exchange having a producer database configured to store a producer profile having current location and status of the producer. The current location and status are continually updated based on the location data. The VOR system also includes a viewer having access to the information exchange to search the producer database for available producers within a predetermined range of a desired location. Upon finding the available producer at the desired location, the viewer requests an information segment to be produced by the producer from the desired location. The producer thereafter records the information segment and transmits the information segment to the viewer.
US07779441B2
An electronic program guide system and a method for generating an electronic program guide are disclosed. A first information handling system obtains programming information from a program information source and generates a program guide based upon the obtained program information. A second information handling system receives the program from the first information handling system via downloading or transmission. The first information handling system searches a worldwide network for information regarding a transitory broadcast event and incorporates the transitory event information into the generated program guide prior to transmitting the program guide to the second information handling system. The transitory broadcast event information may be added to the program guide as additional, temporary channels that include links to the nodes from which the transitory broadcast event may be obtained. The program guide is thereby augmented with the additional, transitory broadcast event information.
US07779438B2
A method and system for embedding a message in compressed content comprising at least one key frame and at least one non-key frame, the method comprising embedding a message in the at least one key frame. Related methods and apparatus are also described.
US07779427B2
Described is a technology by which a device pre-enables application programs of a computer system to work with the device when the device is connected to the computer system. A set of data is obtained from a device, such as by an installer at installation time. The set of data includes information that identifies one or more computer system application programs that the device desires to work with when each application program runs. When the data set is obtained, the application program is enabled (e.g., given appropriate permissions) such that the application program may communicate data with the device when the program is run on the computer system. In one implementation, a device driver provides an installer with access to the data set, which may also include additional information such as application configuration parameters. The installer may be automatically run on the computer system upon initial device detection.
US07779425B2
A model in which filter drivers are managed to receive callbacks for I/O requests in which the filter drivers have registered an interest. Per-volume instances of filter drivers register with a filter manager for pre-callbacks (for I/O to the file system) and post-callbacks (for I/O from the file system), and identify which I/O requests (e.g., create, read, write) they are registering to receive callbacks. The filter manager orders the instances for callbacks. When an I/O request is received, the filter manager converts the I/O request to callback data and calls the interested filters in the callback order, whereby the filter instances can process the I/O data. As the request returns from the file system, filters desiring post callbacks are called in the reverse order. Efficient context management for the filters and other functions, such as non-reentrant file I/O, are also provided by the model.
US07779417B2
One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates making an inter-process procedure call through a shared memory that is shared between a client process and a server process, wherein the client makes the inter-process procedure call as if the client is making a local procedure call, but the procedure call actually executes on the server. The system operates by providing an Application Programming Interface (API) to allow the client to make an inter-process procedure call. The system then allocates a section of the shared memory for the data structure parameters of the inter-process procedure call.
US07779410B2
Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, for control interfaces for distributed system applications. A method includes, at an application deployed on a first computing system in a grid computing environment, monitoring a communication channel connecting the first computing system to a second computing system, receiving a command over the communication channel from the second computing system, and in response to the received command, generating a descriptor file including descriptions of one or more actions to be performed by the second computing system in order to move the application from the first computing system to a third computing system.
US07779404B2
Configuration versioning and partitioning are provided as methods for managing large configuration for a network element such as a router or switch. In one aspect, a method performed in a network element, the network element comprising a plurality of software components that control operations and features of the network element, wherein operations and features of the network element are defined in part by a configuration, comprises creating and storing one or more configuration partition namespaces each comprising a version identifier and one or more configuration tuples; associating one or more of the configuration partition namespaces in a configuration partition; associating one of the software components and the one or more configuration partition namespaces; and creating and storing information identifying one of the software components, its associated configuration partition namespaces, and the version identifier of each of the configuration partition namespaces.
US07779401B2
A reverse patch for undoing a forward patch for obtaining a new binary image from an old binary image is generated in two parts. First a reverse index file is generated when the forward patch is created at a host or server. The reverse index file identifies regions of similarity between the old binary image and the new binary image. The reverse index file is transmitted with the forward patch to an electronic device. Second, while applying the forward patch to obtain the new binary image from the old binary image, the electronic device generates the reverse patch based upon the new binary image, the old binary image, and the reverse index file. The forward patch and reverse patch may both be incremental patches. Incremental patches are generated and applied on a sector-by-sector basis.
US07779382B2
Validity of one or more assertions for any concurrent execution of a plurality of software instructions with at most k−1 context switches can be determined. Validity checking can account for execution of the software instructions in an unbounded stack depth scenario. A finite data domain representation can be used. The software instructions can be represented by a pushdown system. Validity checking can account for thread creation during execution of the plurality of software instructions.
US07779381B2
In the field of integrated circuit design and testing, especially directed towards integrated circuits intended to operate at low power, a method and system are provided for circuit design and simulation and testing for mapping portions of a circuit, such as a power domain or portion of a power domain, to a test mode. Thereby only those portions of the circuit which need to be powered up in a particular test mode are powered up both in the design (simulation) phase and in the actual testing. This conserves power usage during actual testing as against powering up all portions of the circuit, which is not desirable during the testing of the circuit after manufacture. This ensures that the power conditions required to excite and observe any circuit faults during testing exist for the power conditions that are applied during, for instance, manufacturing testing. By automatically partitioning the faults to remove those that cannot be excited or observed during manufacturing and testing, the testability of the device in terms of its partitions or parts will accurately reflect the power state of the logic portions of the circuit.
US07779379B2
A routing tool allows a user to create a set of routing templates, each specifying the shape of a routing corridor and identifying the corridor's terminal edges. Each routing template also specifies a set of constraints on routing of an unspecified number of conductors that are to be routed between the corridor's terminal edges. To direct the tool to create a routing plan for a particular set of conductors in a particular routing space, the user selects one of the routing templates and modifies the routing template if necessary to adjust the specified shape of the corridor to match that of the particular routing space or to adjust its specified routing constraints if necessary to accommodate any particular routing constraints to be imposed on that set of conductors. The routing tool then processes the modified routing template to generate the routing plan for routing the set of conductors between the terminal edges of the specified corridor in a manner that satisfies the specified routing constraints.
US07779359B2
A method that includes but is not limited to accepting user input specifying a geometrical arrangement of two or more buttons on one or more displayed pages; accepting user input labeling at least two of the two or more buttons on the one or more displayed pages; accepting user input defining at least one interaction between the labeled at least two buttons; accepting user input specifying at least one constraint cost for the defined at least one interaction; and assigning the labels of the at least two buttons among the two or more buttons on one or more displayed pages such that the at least one constraint cost is substantially optimized.
US07779357B2
An audio user interface that generates audio prompts that help a user interact with a user interface of a computing device is disclosed. The audio prompts can provide audio indicators that allow a user to focus his or her visual attention upon other tasks such as driving an automobile, exercising, or crossing a street, yet still enable the user to interact with the user interface. As examples, the audio prompts provided can audiblize the spoken version of a user interface selection, such as a selected function or a selected (e.g., highlighted) menu item of a display menu. The computing device can be, for example, a media player such as an MP3 player, a mobile phone, or a personal digital assistant.
US07779353B2
Error checking for web documents may be provided. Text errors within a web page are identified by determining text to be error checked within content used in generating a web page and by determining where the text is located within the web page. The text is sent to an error checking module, and errors are displayed to a user.
US07779349B2
A method and structure for clustering documents in datasets which include clustering first documents and a first dataset to produce first document classes, creating centroid seeds based on the first document classes, and clustering second documents in a second dataset using the centroid seeds, wherein the first dataset and the second dataset are related. The clustering of the first documents in the first dataset forms a first dictionary of most common words in the first dataset and generates a first vector space model by counting, for each word in the first dictionary, a number of the first documents in which the word occurs, and clusters the first documents in the first dataset based on the first vector space model, and further generates a second vector space model by counting, for each word in the first dictionary, a number of the second documents in which the word occurs. Creation of the centroid seeds includes classifying second vector space model using the first document classes to produce a classified second vector space model and determining a mean of vectors in each class in the classified second vector space model, the mean includes the centroid seeds.
US07779348B2
An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for rendering multiple segment hypertext script. An identification module identifies a plurality of segments in a hypertext script. Each segment is delimited by at least one tag and includes an instruction for rendering a segment display region that is a portion of a display image described by the hypertext script. A calculation module calculates display coordinates for each segment display region. The display coordinates specify the spatial location and dimensions of the segment display region. A format module formats each segment as an independently displayable formatted segment hypertext script configured to be displayed within the corresponding segment display region. A rendition module renders each formatted segment hypertext script within the corresponding segment display region as a Java object using Java functionality.
US07779345B2
In the presently preferred embodiment of the invention, every time a user submits a form the client software tries to match the submitted information with the stored profile of that user. If a match is discovered, the program tags the field of the recognized data with a corresponding type. The resulting profile can be used after that to help all subsequent users to fill the same form.
US07779341B2
A NAND flash memory device performing an error detecting and data reloading operation during a copy back program operation is provided. The device includes a cell array having a plurality of planes and a parity cell array having a plurality of parity planes. Each of the parity planes stores a parity of each of the planes. Additionally, the device includes a parity generating and parity column selecting circuit generating a new parity about reloaded data from an outside during a copy back program operation, and storing the new parity on a parity plane corresponding to a plane on which the reloaded data is stored.
US07779338B2
Pairs of parallel Viterbi decoders use windowed block data for decoding data at rates above 320 Mbps. Memory banks of the deinterleavers feeding the decoders operate such that some are receiving data while others are sending data to the decoders. Parallel input streams to every pair of decoders overlap for several traceback lengths of the decoder causing data input to a first decoder at the end of an input stream to be the same as the data input to a second decoder of the same pair at the beginning of an input stream. Then, the first decoder is able to post-synchronize its path metric with the second decoder and the second decoder is able to pre-synchronize its path metric with the first. Either, the deinterleaver data length is an integer multiple of the traceback length or the data input to only the first block of the first interleaver is padded.
US07779333B2
There is provided a semiconductor device of which the circuit scale does not significantly increase even with an ECC function. A microcomputer having an internal flash memory inserts one weight in a sense amplifier activation signal only when an error detection signal is on the H level at a given time in a read cycle or when the error detection signal which was on the H level in a previous read cycle has shifted to the L level in a current read cycle. This allows the retrieval of output data signals after waiting till the output data signals through error correction are determined only when an error is contained in the output data signals.
US07779325B2
A data detection and decoding system includes a SOVA channel detector that uses single parity (SOVASP) to improve the accuracy with which the detector estimates bits. Each column or row read back from the read channel constitutes a code word and each code word is encoded to satisfy single parity. Because the SOVASP channel detector detects whether each code word satisfies single parity, it is unnecessary to use both a column decoder and a row decoder in the channel decoder. Either the row decoder or the column decoder can be eliminated depending on whether bits are read back on a column-by-column basis or on a row-by-row basis. This reduction in components reduces hardware complexity and improves system performance. The output of the row or column decoder is received by a second detector that processes the output received from the decoder to recover the original information bits.
US07779316B2
A method and system for testing a chip at functional (operational) speed. The chip may include an integrated circuit having a number flops and memory arrays arranged into logically functioning elements. Additional flops may be included to output to one or more of the other flops in order to provide inputs to the flops at the functional speed such that the receiving flops executing at the functional speed according to the received input at a next functional clock pulse to facilitate testing the chip at the functional speed.
US07779311B2
Disclosed are systems and methods of producing electronic devices including an auxiliary circuit mounted on another, underlying, circuit at the wafer level. The auxiliary circuit is electrically connected to the underlying circuit via micro-scale interconnects. The systems are capable of testing the auxiliary circuit and/or interconnects using an interface within the underlying circuit. For example, the auxiliary circuit may be tested although it is mounted such that the interconnects are hidden, i.e., inaccessible for testing purposes after assembly using conventional testing systems and methods.The systems and methods further allow for including excess circuits and/or excess interconnects that can be reconfigured to replace parts of the auxiliary circuit and/or micro-scale interconnects found defective during testing.
US07779299B2
Systems, methods and computer program products for efficiently re-starting and/or recovering interrupted synchronizations between a client and a server are described herein. A server transmits sync data to a client during a synchronization operation. The sync is interrupted for some reason prior to the client receiving all of the sync data. The client sends to the server a request to re-start the synchronization operation. The request includes information that identifies a point in the sync data that was received by the client prior to interruption of the sync. Such information may include (a) information identifying the last data received by the client prior to interruption of the sync; and/or (b) information identifying the next data needed by the client upon re-start of the sync. Thereafter, the server re-starts the sync by transmitting to the client the sync data starting from said point in said sync data identified by said request.
US07779297B2
A management server obtains configuration information of an active server and creates a logical partition in a backup server so as to correspond to the active server. The backup server starts up the created logical partition. And when the created logical partition reaches a predetermined state, the backup server releases allocation of the first processor resource to the logical partition, thereby the logical partition stands by. The management server, when detecting an error occurred in the active server, stops the active server and searches the logical partition having same configuration as the active server in which error is detected, and enables allocation of the first processor resource to the searched logical partition, thereby completing the start-up of the logical partition.
US07779293B2
A system controlling apparatus includes a renewal detecting unit that acquires FWD data from an FWD of an operations system core I/O device bridge and stores the acquired FWD data in an FWD data storing unit. If an operations system core I/O device bridge fails, an FWD data copy processing unit copies the FWD data to an FWD of a standby system core I/O device bridge; and a system is rebooted after an operations bridge switchover processing unit switches OFF the operations system core I/O device bridge and switches ON the standby system core I/O device bridge.
US07779290B2
Systems and methods are provided for collecting, aggregating, and analyzing data associated with the installation and deployment of systems. Energy systems, (500) specifically renewable energy generation systems, are used as examples. The aggregated data serve as the basis for a variety of services that improve the system performance, improve the installation, lower the cost, and provide monitoring and service to maintain optimum performance. Finally, services are provided that facilitate the optimization of responses to poor system performance based on criticality of the failure, servicing of the system by a Certified VAR, or other prioritization method.
US07779287B2
Techniques that may be utilized in a multiprocessor system to reduce power consumption are described. In one embodiment, one or more internal components of a processor core are clocked at least partially by a frequency controlled clock signal.
US07779284B2
A technique of operating a processor subsystem masks interrupts to the processor subsystem during a power-down sequence of a processor of the processor subsystem. A boot vector for the processor of the processor subsystem is set. The boot vector provides an address associated with a saved processor state. A current state of the processor is saved to provide the saved processor state. The technique determines whether one or more first masked interrupts occurred during the saving of the current state of the processor. The processor that is to be powered-down is stopped when the one or more first masked interrupts did not occur during the saving of the current state of the processor. The technique also determines whether one or more second masked interrupts occurred following the saving of the current state of the processor. The processor is powered-down when the one or more second masked interrupts did not occur following the saving of the current state of the processor.
US07779273B2
A mechanism is provided for booting a multiprocessor device based on selection of encryption keys to be provided to the processors. With the mechanism, a security key and one or more randomly generated key values are provided to a selector mechanism of each processor of the multiprocessor device. A random selection mechanism is provided in pervasive logic that randomly selects one of the processors to be a boot processor and thereby, provides a select signal to the selector of the boot processor such that the boot processor selects the security key. All other processors select one of the one or more randomly generated key values. As a result, only the randomly selected boot processor is able to use the proper security key to decrypt the boot code for execution.
US07779272B2
A hardware cryptographic engine for encrypting transmission data may include a plurality of ciphertext engines that generate intermediate ciphertexts and final ciphertexts. At least one of the ciphertext engines may receive an intermediate ciphertext output from at least one neighboring ciphertext engine to generate a corresponding intermediate ciphertext and final ciphertext. A method of encrypting transmission data may include inputting a second intermediate ciphertext of a second ciphertext engine to a first ciphertext engine and generating a first intermediate ciphertext of the first ciphertext engine using the second intermediate ciphertext.
US07779271B2
Advanced watermark embedders use psycho visual/acoustic models to minimize perception of the embedded watermark in media contents. However, it is expensive to implement such advanced watermark embedders in consumer appliances (3) such as DVD recorders. In accordance with the invention, embedding strength parameters (JND) are calculated (13) off-line at a remote location (1) and transmitted along with the media contents to the consumer appliance (3). A relatively simple embedder (33) uses the received parameters to control the strength of the watermark (36) to be embedded. The parameters may be accommodated in the transmitted signal as payload of a fragile watermark or as user data in an encrypted MPEG stream.
US07779268B2
Biometric parameters acquired from human forces, voices, fingerprints, and irises are used for user authentication and access control. Because the biometric parameters are continuous and vary from one reading to the next, syndrome codes are applied to determine biometric syndrome vectors. The biometric syndrome vectors can be stored securely while tolerating an inherent variability of biometric data. The stored biometric syndrome vector is decoded during user authentication using biometric parameters acquired at that time. The syndrome codes can also be used to encrypt and decrypt data.
US07779264B2
An operation of an authentication apparatus is as follows: Moving image data including a plurality of pieces of still image frame data is accepted, and the move locus of at least one person image is detected based on the moving image data. Individual determination processing of adopting at least one piece of the still image frame data as attention frame data and determining the individual corresponding to the detected move locus of the person image in the attention frame data is executed. The result of the individual determination processing is provided for predetermined authentication processing.
US07779249B2
A host securely transmits content to a peripheral thereof. The peripheral has a symmetric key (PK) and a copy of (PK) encrypted according to a public key (PU) of an entity ((PU(PK))). In the method, the host receives (PU(PK)) from the peripheral, and sends (PU(PK)) to the entity. The entity has a private key (PR) corresponding to (PU), applies (PR) to (PU(PK)) to obtain (PK), and sends (PK) back to the host. The host receives (PK) from the entity, encrypts at least a portion of the content according to (PK), and transmits the encrypted content to the peripheral. The peripheral may then decrypt the encrypted content based on (PK). A bind key (BK) encrypted by (PK) ((PK(BK))) may accompany (PU(PK)), where the content is to be encrypted according to (BK). Thus, (PK) is not revealed to the host.
US07779247B2
A rules evaluation engine that controls user's security access to enterprise resources that have policies created for them. This engine allows real time authorization process to be performed with dynamic enrichment of the rules if necessary. Logging, alarm and administrative processes for granting or denying access to the user are also realized. The access encompasses computer and physical access to information and enterprise spaces.
US07779241B1
Systems and methods for history based pipelined branch prediction. In one embodiment, access to prediction information to predict a plurality of branches within an instruction block is initiated in a same clock cycle of the computer processor as a fetch of the instruction block. The prediction information may be available to the predictor not later than a clock cycle of the computer processor in which the plurality of branches are decoded.
US07779237B2
A method, system and processor for adaptively and selectively controlling the instruction execution frequency of a data processor. Processing logic or a software compiler determines when a number of first-type instructions, requiring longer execution latency, are scheduled to be executed. The logic/compiler then triggers the CPM unit to automatically switch the execution frequency of the instruction processor from a first frequency that is optimal for processing regular-type instructions to a second, pre-established lower frequency that is optimal for processing the first-type instructions, to enable more efficient execution and higher execution throughput of the number of first-type operations within the processor. When the first-type instructions have completed execution, the processor's instruction execution frequency is returned to the first optimal frequency.
US07779236B1
The invention provides a method and system for operating a pipelined microprocessor more quickly, by detecting instructions that load from identical memory locations as were recently stored to, without having to actually compute the referenced external memory addresses. The microprocessor examines the symbolic structure of instructions as they are encountered, so as to be able to detect identical memory locations by examination of their symbolic structure. For example, in a preferred embodiment, instructions that store to and load from an identical offset from an identical register are determined to be referencing the identical memory location, without having to actually compute the complete physical target address.
US07779235B2
A method for dispatching instructions in the data processing system, having in memory for storing instructions and a plurality of central processing units, where each central processing unit includes a circuit to provide data indicating internal performance, the method having steps of receiving internal performance data signals from a pool of central processing units, selecting a central processing unit according to the received internal performance data and dispatching instructions from the memory to the selected central processing unit.
US07779234B2
The present invention includes a system and method for implementing a hardware-supported thread assist under load lookahead mechanism for a microprocessor. According to an embodiment of the present invention, hardware thread-assist mode can be activated when one thread of the microprocessor is in a sleep mode. When load lookahead mode is activated, the fixed point unit copies the content of one or more architected facilities from an active thread to corresponding architected facilities in the first inactive thread. The load-store unit performs at least one speculative load in load lookahead mode and writes the results of the at least one speculative load to a duplicated architected facility in the first inactive thread.
US07779222B1
A dynamic memory work-stealing technique involves the implementation of a deque as a doubly-linked list of nodes. All, or almost all, of the nodes are memory structures that may be dynamically allocated and freed from a shared node pool accessible to a plurality of processes. When a process has exhausted its local memory resources, the process may “steal” memory resources from another process that has available memory resources.
US07779217B2
A storage device is provided. The storage device includes a memory that includes interleaved fast and slow pages and a controller. In response to a command from a host of the storage device the controller stores fast-reading data in the memory. If the fast and slow pages alternate, the controller stores the fast-reading data in the first pages alternately with filler data in the low pages, and if contiguous pluralities of the fast and slow pages alternate, the controller stores the fast reading data in the contiguous pluralities of the fast pages alternately with the filler data in the contiguous pluralities of the slow pages.
US07779204B2
A removable media storage network environment employs a media management system for managing a removable media system on behalf of client applications, and a media management agent to enhance the management of the removable media system by the media management system. The media management agent operates to determine an operational state of the removable media system, and to enhance an availability and a performance of the removable media system as managed by a media management system, wherein one or more one error recovery techniques are conditionally initiated based on the determined operational state of the removable media system and wherein the media management system is conditionally reconfigured based on the determined operational state of the removable media system.
US07779201B1
A system and method for determining a disk ownership model to be utilized by a storage system is disclosed. The storage system and method determines the individual disk ownership of each accessible disk to the storage system. If the number of disks utilizing a first ownership model is exceeded, the storage system utilizes the first ownership model. Otherwise, the storage system utilizes a second ownership model.
US07779199B2
A storage device that includes: a flash memory device being a main storage medium; a cache memory for use for the flash memory device; and a control circuit. In the storage device, based on a write command and address information provided from outside, the control circuit selects either the flash memory device or the cache memory as a writing destination of input data.
US07779195B2
A communication control apparatus for common bus connection devices is provided between a plurality of devices to which addresses are allocated and a common bus and controlling an access between each of the plurality of devices and the common bus, the communication control apparatus includes: an input determination unit configured to recognize an identification signal indicating the beginning and end of a packet for the common bus which is an information unit capable of being transmitted by one transfer operation through the common bus and determining whether or not there is an input from the common bus to the device in question, a transmission determination unit configured to determine whether or not there is a transmission of the packet from the device in question on the common bus to the common bus, and an access suspend unit configured to determine that another device on the common bus is performing a packet operation and suspending a clock in each unit in the device in question when the input determination unit determines that the address of the packet inputted through the common bus from the other device is not destined for the device in question and when the transmission determination unit determines that there is not a transmission request for the packet from the device in question.
US07779184B2
A peripheral device is disclosed having two associated memory modules, and which is configured to fit within the ExpressCard slot. One memory module communicates with a host over the PCIe bus interface of the ExpressCard slot, while the other memory module communicates with the host over the USB interface of the ExpressCard slot.
US07779183B2
The invention generally relates to a communication adapter for use with an ambulant medical device. The device carries out a data transmission to the communication adapter that carries out a data transmission to a computer by means of a data connection. The communication adapter processes the data to be read-out from the devices in such a fashion that it can be displayed on a computer without the use of specific software.
US07779177B2
A reconfigurable multi-processor computing system including a plurality of configurable processing elements each having a plurality of integrated high-speed serial input/output ports. Interconnects link the plurality of processing elements, wherein at least one of the integrated high-speed serial input/output ports of each processing element is connected by at least one interconnect to at least one of the integrated high-speed serial input/output ports of each other processing element, thereby creating a full mesh network. The full mesh network is located on a processor card, multiples of which may be grouped in a shelf having a backplane card with a shelf controller card for providing cross-connects between processor cards. Multiple shelves may be interconnected to form a large computer system.
US07779174B2
A direct memory access controlling method includes checking a length value of remaining data corresponding to data remaining after transmission of the data stored in the source memory to the destination memory, and a currently set burst length value, comparing the length value of the remaining data with the currently set burst length value based on a result of the checking, and selectively changing the currently set burst length value based on a result of the comparing, and transmitting data to the destination memory.
US07779170B2
A storage network includes a path processor for directing data onto one of two or more paths between an application host and two or more storage controllers in a storage subsystem. To determine a data path within the storage network, the operational status of a storage controller in the storage subsystem is monitored. It is determined whether a change in the operational status of the storage controller is a failure or a potential failure. This determination is sent to the path processor. The path processor redirects application host data from the path controller on the basis of the determination.
US07779160B1
A financial transaction processing system (10) enables processing transactions from various types of card activated terminal devices (12) which communicate using a variety of electronic message formats. The transaction processing system may operate to authorize transactions internally using information stored in a relational database (32) or may communicate with external authorization systems (18). The transaction processing system includes among its software components message gateway routers (MGRs) (24, 164) which operate using information stored in the relational database to convert messages from a variety of external message formats used by the external devices and authorization systems, to a common internal message format used within the system. The system further uses database information to internally route messages to message processing programs (MPPs) (108, 138) which process messages and generate messages to the external devices and authorization systems. The MGR also converts the outgoing messages from the internal message format to the external message formats which can be interpreted by the external devices and systems to which the messages are directed.
US07779149B2
The present invention relates to a compound contents delivery method capable of reducing the network transmission quantity and of distributing the system processing load. The method according to the present invention comprises a compound contents element acquisition step of, in each of contents servers, acquiring a compound contents element undergoing a conversion into an encoding format for a portable terminal in corresponding relation to a contents portion which is an object of a fetching instruction in a contents portion fetching instruction step to return it to an intermediate apparatus and a production step of, in the intermediate apparatus, combining the compound contents elements returned from the contents servers according to time series on the basis of instruction information from a management server to produce compound contents oriented to the portable terminal.
US07779148B2
A mechanism for performing dynamic request routing based on broadcast source request information is provided. Each processor chip in the system may use a synchronized heartbeat signal it generates to provide source request information to each of the other processor chips in the system. The source request information identifies the number of active source requests sent by the processor chip that originated the heartbeat signal. The source request information from each of the processor chips in the system may be used by the processor chips in determining optimal routing paths for data from a source processor chip to a destination processor chip. As a result, the congestion of data for processing at each of the processor chips along each possible routing path may be taken into account when selecting to which processor chip to forward data.
US07779139B2
The transformation of data between binary data and hierarchical data, such as might be processed by an Infoset Processor. When data is received from a network in binary format, the transformation module transforms the binary data into a hierarchical data representation of the binary data, and then provides the transformed data to message processors (e.g., Infoset processors) that understand the hierarchical schema. The transformation module may also transform hierarchical data into binary data for transmission on a network.
US07779138B2
The invention relates to a device for either generating or maintaining an organic data network having an dynamic topology, comprising a data processing unit, at least one data connection to a data network to which several devices provided with a data processing unit are connected by means of a data connection, and software having a receiving routine for receiving data packages of at least one transmitting device in the data network, a transmission routine for transmitting data packages, received from the transmitting device or devices in the data network to at least one receiving device that is connected to the data network, independent of the transmitting device or devices. Additionally the invention relates to a method and software for data packages received from a transmitting device to at least one receiving device, independent of said transmitting device.A device according to the invention can be used in for instance mobile phones, streaming internet applications and cable television.
US07779124B2
An active monitoring system and method thereof are provided to solve the problems of no real-time monitoring and bandwidth usage in the prior art. A triggering end detects a monitoring device to generate a device tag. The device tag is packed and actively sent to the server end via a network. The server end automatically generates an OPC tag for an integrating server to use. The mechanism can increase monitoring efficiency and bandwidth usage.
US07779117B2
Digital images are monitored by enabling access to a digital image, receiving a notification associated with the digital image from a first user, and regulating access of the first user to the digital image based on the notification received from the first user.
US07779114B2
Methods, systems, and products are disclosed for administering devices that include creating a user metric vector including a plurality of disparate user metrics, creating a plurality of user metric spaces, each user metric space including a plurality of metric ranges, and selecting, from the plurality of user metric spaces, a user metric space. Administering devices also includes determining whether the user metric vector is outside the selected user metric space, identifying an action in dependence upon the user metric vector, if the user metric vector is outside the selected user metric space, and executing the action.
US07779104B2
A sense-and-response system that may include a server with a rules-engine where the server may receive sensor values for rules-engine operation from a plurality of sensors. The system may further include a controller that provides controller parameters to the server for the rules-engine operation. The server may provide to the controller rules-engine output based upon the controller parameters and sensor values related to the controller parameters.
US07779101B1
A method, apparatus and computer-program product for mapping and identifying root causes of performance problems in network based services, wherein the service is composed of applications and transactions, is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of establishing a performance objective value, and a threshold value therefrom, for selected ones of the transactions for each of the applications, wherein the aggregate of the performance objective values insures a known service performance, monitoring a measure of performance for each of the selected transactions, generating an indication for each of the performance measures that exceeds a corresponding threshold value and determining the cause of the degradation by correlating the transactions generating the indication with the elements executing the transaction.
US07779100B2
Access to network elements of a telecommunications network is integrated through a common access point by an integrated access application which receives a request for communication with a network element. An element management system (EMS) group, including at least one EMS server, associated with the network element is identified. The at least one EMS server is queried to identify an active EMS server and to determine whether the active EMS server has an available connection sufficient to support the request. When the active EMS server has the available connection, the request is sent over the available connection. When the active EMS server does not have the available connection, the request may be buffered and, after a predetermined time, it is again determined whether the active EMS server has the available connection. When the request is sent, it may be multiplexed with other requests over the same available connection.
US07779098B1
A method includes issuing a retrieval instruction, such as a database query, to retrieve from a database system a datum associated with a network circuit. Upon receiving the datum from the database system, it is determined, based on the datum received, whether the network circuit is stranded or whether the network circuit is incurring a charge but is not generating sufficient revenue. When the network circuit is stranded, a disconnect instruction to disconnect the network circuit is issued. When the network circuit is incurring a charge but the amount of revenue generated by the network circuit is below a predetermined threshold, a termination instruction to terminate a service associated with the network circuit is issued.
US07779097B2
The present embodiments provide methods, systems and apparatuses for use in managing content on at least a local network. Some embodiments provide a method for use in managing content that detects there is a change to content on a local network, determines whether the change is additional content on a first client device, determines whether the additional content can be identified, determines whether there is a predictive distribution scheme when the additional content is identified, distributes the additional content over the local network according the predictive distribution scheme when a predictive distribution scheme applies to the additional content, determines whether a new predictive distribution scheme can be defined when a predictive distribution scheme does not apply to the additional content, and saving the new predictive distribution scheme when a new predictive scheme can be defined.
US07779095B2
An apparatus receives an address for use in communication with an external apparatus and a lease period of the address. When the apparatus is switched into a state where the amount of electric power provided to the apparatus is reduced, the apparatus determines whether the address is valid based on the lease period of the address. If the address is valid, the apparatus carries out communication using the received address.
US07779091B2
Methods and systems for providing virtual workspaces are provided. Example embodiments provide a Application Workspace System “AWS,” which enables users to access remote server-based applications (e.g., thin client applications, terminal server applications, applications on hosted operating systems, etc.) using the same interface that they use to access local applications, without needing to know where the application is being accessed. The AWS automatically determines which applications the user is entitled to use, and then figures out automatically, based upon a variety of parameters, which applications are to be made available to the user (resolved to version, particular package etc.), and whether they are to be installed locally, or accessed remotely. This abstract is provided to comply with rules requiring an abstract, and it is submitted with the intention that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims.
US07779082B2
Conventionally, when a switch virtualizing a storage (storage virtualization switch) is installed in a computer system including an SAN, a host computer, and a storage device, since a port ID of a virtual storage and a port ID of a storage device assigned to the virtual storage are different, the computer system has to be suspended at the time of installation of the storage virtualization switch.The storage virtualization switch installed in the computer system assigns a port ID to a port of a virtual storage generated by the storage virtualization switch so as to be equivalent to a port ID of an existing storage device and, in the case in which the port ID is designated as an access destination by an access request from one computer to the storage device, sends the access request to the virtual storage.
US07779081B2
Provided are a method, system, and program for forwarding a message from a transmitting node. A first message is received encoded using a first communication protocol from the transmitting node, wherein the first message includes a direct reference to a memory location in one node. A determination is made as to whether the first message is directed to a receiving node using a second communication protocol. A second message is generated that is compatible with the second communication protocol, wherein the second message causes an operation to be performed with respect to the direct reference in the first message. The second message is transmitted to the receiving node.
US07779077B2
A file transmission method in an instant messaging service by which clients can transmit files to each other during an instant messaging using a mobile communications terminal, and the mobile communications terminal for supporting the same, wherein clients can transmit and receive the file to/from each other while using an instant messaging service, using a new command related to the file transmission which is added to a protocol between a server and a client for a wireless instant messaging and using an MMS function, so that the clients can share files with each other.
US07779074B2
A method and apparatus for dynamically partitioning data across a cluster in a tree-based structure is disclosed. In one embodiment, cache nodes in the cluster are detected. A partition group is formed with members including one or more cache nodes of the cluster. An instance of a cache node in the partition group is copied to each cache node in the partition group. The membership of the partition group is adjusted based on a participation of data in the partition group.
US07779071B2
A process of controlling a flow of data in a wireless network providing wireless access to the wireless network by wireless devices is disclosed. Data is received from a wireless device by a network device, through one access point of a plurality of access points in communication with the network device, indicating a client identifier for the wireless device. The client identifier is forwarded to an authentication server and the network device mediated authentication of the wireless device with the authentication server. Thereafter, data packets received from portions of the wireless network and from the plurality of access points are evaluated and the received data packets are passed to portions of the wireless network and to the plurality of access points, based on the evaluation of the received data packets. In addition, the network device periodically polls for a status of the wireless device from the access point.
US07779068B2
A Web content fetch and delivery system is disclosed. The system comprises a proxy server configured for receiving requests for content from requesting end user browsers and fetching the content from content provider servers over at least one communication network. The proxy server is programmed for maintaining a log of all content fetched including a time of the fetch and the requesting end user browser, and storing associations between content fetched within a fixed time period by the same requesting end user browser. When subsequent requests for particular content are received by the proxy server, the proxy server will pre-fetch all content associated with that particular requested content.
US07779062B2
A method and system is provided for securing user entry data against keyboard login attempts. The method/system masks user input data, either insulating the data from vulnerable parts of the operating system or application, or contaminating user data that is supplied to those vulnerable parts of the operating system or application. The method/system securely stores data, either intercepted prior to reaching the vulnerable parts of the operating system or extracted from the contaminated data, and securely provides the data directly to a verified application.
US07779060B2
A method for generating cryptographically secure (or unpredictable) pseudo-random numbers uses simple functions whose inverse is not a well-defined function and has a large number of branches, although the inverse could be easily computed on each particular branch. In this way the sequence of numbers is practically unpredictable and at the same time may be generated using very simple functions. A generator of such a pseudo-random bit sequence comprises circuit means for storing bit strings representing integer numbers of the pseudo-random sequence; a shift register coupled to the circuit means; a command circuit generating shift commands for the shift register; second circuit means for storing the bits output by the shift register; an adder modulo 2 summing the bits stored in the second circuit means, generating a bit of the chaos-based pseudo-random bit sequence; a second adder summing up the bit strings currently stored in the shift register and in the first circuit means, generating a bit string representing a successive number of the pseudo-random sequence.
US07779049B1
A method of optimizing regular expressions including determining an optimized form for regular expressions and presenting the optimized forms for the regular expressions to a user in a source-level representation. A system is provided for authoring regular expressions including a user interface enabling a user to author a regular expression defining a particular text pattern. The user interface enables the user to specify a target data set and a matching algorithm to be used with the regular expression. An optimizer implements transformation rules and processes for applying the transformation rules to an authored regular expression to generate an optimized regular expression presented in a source-level representation. The optimizer may select an alternate preferred pattern matching algorithm and an alternate preferred data source making adjustments to the pattern. An interpreter/compiler operates to receive source-level representations of optimized regular expressions and generate machine executable forms of the optimized regular expressions.
US07779046B2
A web server and a method to provide web-pages to manage devices. A storage stores data for a web-page setting attributes and attribute values related to at least one device. A web-page generator generates a basic web-page based on the stored data of the web-page if to display of the web-page is requested from a user terminal. A communicator transmits the generated basic web-page to the user terminal. A server controller controls the web-page generator to generate a first web-page to display at least one attribute and attribute values of the at least one attribute on the basic web-page displayed on the user terminal. Thus, only attributes and attribute values, which can be supported by a device, can be displayed on a user interface (UI) screen. As a result, a user can easily write a workform.
US07779043B2
An extensible framework for object oriented programming comprises a reception component that receives a customized strategy relating to composing a target object. An implementation component automatically implements the customized strategy to compose the target object based at least in part upon context associated with the target object. The extensible framework can further comprise a context component that determines the context, including context of an application associated with the target object, existing objects associated with the target object, and relationships between the existing objects.
US07779031B2
An enterprise business intelligence system includes a data access service that provides consistent availability of functionality for querying multidimensional data sources regardless of the capabilities of the underlying data sources. The data access service disassembles a multidimensional query into execution units, and may optimize the multidimensional query such that individual execution units may be executed locally or remotely to achieve increase computational efficiently.
US07779027B2
Methods and systems for network-based or Internet-based software delivery are described. In one embodiment, an application program or software platform resides on a client and is configured so that it is extensible based on software extensions that are deliverable over a network such as the Internet. Various extensions can be developed by third party developers for incorporation into the program or platform.
US07779021B1
A log file processing system sorts records from large log files and groups them by session without making a complete copy of the log files by capturing a subset of the log files in a sliding memory window and identifying all records in the window that form a complete user session. Records belonging to a complete session are output for analyzing, and the remaining records are output as raw log data for additional processing. Using a ring buffer to implement the sliding memory window, data structures are used to group records by session, to identify completed sessions, and to index into the ring buffer to retrieve records for completed sessions that are to be directly analyzed. Any records remaining in the ring buffer at the end of slide window processing may be output as raw log file data and are processed as incomplete or malformed session records. An embodiment of the log file processing system provides a significant improvement on the speed of data extraction from log files into analyzable session data.
US07779017B2
The subject disclosure pertains to systems and methods for connecting pipeline components such as data flow pipeline components. Pipeline components are wrapped in metadata components that include the component as well as abstracted metadata in the form of input and output metadata descriptors. A connector can arbitrate metadata differences between pipeline components based on the metadata descriptors, thereby preventing upstream modifications from invalidating or breaking components downstream. Native or plug-in heuristic and/or related components can provide the functionality necessary to resolve metadata differences.
US07779016B2
Methods, apparatus, and products are disclosed for parallel execution of operations for a partitioned binary radix tree that include: receiving, in a parallel computer, an operational entry for the PBRT, the PBRT comprising a plurality of logical pages that contain a plurality of entries, each logical page included in a tier and containing one or more subentries corresponding to the tier of the logical page containing the subentry, each entry is composed of a subentry from each logical page on an entry path; processing in parallel, on the parallel computer, each logical page in each tier, including: identifying a portion of the operational entry that corresponds to the tier of the logical page, and performing an operation on the logical page in dependence upon the identified portion of the operational entry for the tier; and selecting operation results from the logical pages on the entry path for the operational entry.
US07779008B2
Techniques are provided for performing a parallel aggregation operation on data that resides in a container, such as a relational table. During generation of the execution plan for the operation, it is determined whether partition-wise aggregation should be performed, based on the grouping keys involved in the aggregation and the partition keys used to partition the container. If partition-wise aggregation is to be performed, then the assignments given to the slave processes that are assigned to scan a container are made on a partition-wise basis. The scan slaves themselves may perform full or partial aggregation (depending on whether they are the only scan slaves assigned to the partition). If the scan slaves perform no aggregation, or only partial aggregation, then the scan slaves redistribute the data items to aggregation slaves that are local to the scan slaves.
US07779004B1
Methods, systems, and products are disclosed for characterizing a target system. A query is sent. The query includes an ontology of interest, a predicate, and a scoring algorithm. The predicate describes a membership qualification for a node in the ontology of interest. A response is received comprising a score. The score represents an evaluation of the predicate to metadata associated with the target system. The score represents how well the metadata matches the ontology of interest.
US07779002B1
An improved duplicate detection technique that uses query-relevant information to limit the portion(s) of documents to be compared for similarity is described. Before comparing two documents for similarity, the content of these documents may be condensed based on the query. In one embodiment, query-relevant information or text (also referred to as “snippets”) is extracted from the documents and only the extracted snippets, rather than the entire documents, are compared for purposes of determining similarity.
US07778997B1
In certain embodiments, a database system for processing a query request comprises a first master node operable to receive a plurality of requests from a plurality of clients coupled to the database system. The first master node is capable of processing a first predetermined number of query requests substantially concurrently, each of the plurality of query requests comprising one or more parameters and being associated with at least one of a plurality of precompiled queries. The first master node is also operable to assign at least a first subset of the first predetermined number of query requests as being available to a first client, and to assign at least a second subset of the first predetermined number of query requests as being available to a second client.
US07778989B2
A file management apparatus includes the following elements: a first non-volatile storage medium that holds a metadata group including a plurality of pieces of metadata corresponding to a predetermined file type; a detector that detects a file of the predetermined file type; a metadata guide unit that introduces, as selection options, the plurality of pieces of metadata included in the metadata group corresponding to the predetermined file type of the detected file; a metadata selection unit that accepts selection of at least one piece of the introduced metadata; and a management data storage unit that stores the selected metadata in association with the detected file in a second non-volatile storage medium in which the detected file is stored.
US07778988B2
The present invention provides an information processing device including a generating section, a calculating section, a link detecting section, and a presenting section.
US07778985B2
A database management system managing one or more databases to suspend access to at least one selected database by one or more processes or applications (e.g., message processing programs, batch messaging programs, etc.). In some instances, the one or more databases may include one or more IMS databases. Access to the at least one selected database may be suspended to enable one or more operations to be performed on the at least one selected database by the database management system and/or an outside entity (e.g., a user, an external application, etc.). For example, the one or more operations may include an imaging operation, a loading operation, an unloading operation, a start operation, a stop operation, and/or other operations. In some instances, access to the at least one selected database may be suspended without canceling transactions being executed by the one or more processes or applications on the selected at least one database.
US07778972B1
Dynamic object replication in distributed storage systems. A system may implement a web services interface, storage nodes, storage node selection logic and a coordinator. The web services interface may be configured to receive, according to a web services protocol, client requests to store data objects including a given client request to store a given one of the data objects. The storage nodes may be configured to store replicas of the data objects. The storage node selection logic may be configured to dynamically determine a write plan for storing replicas of the given data object to corresponding storage nodes, where the write plan is dynamically determined according to current state information of the storage nodes. The coordinator may be configured to receive the client requests from the web services interface, and for the given client request, to store the replicas of the given data object to the corresponding storage nodes according to the write plan.
US07778964B2
A method and architecture having components for performing a method comprising the steps of: forming a simple bi-directional communication link between each of the clients and a server; and, transmitting along the communication link at least one of two kinds of messages comprising a first message which is a synchronous query/response, and a second message which is an asynchronous subscription based event notification, to allow arbitrary data structures to be rendered into a standard communication format.
US07778952B2
A set of objects having facts is established. Facts of objects having positions in an order are identified. Some facts explicitly describe the positions in the linear order, while are facts do not explicitly describe the positions. The facts are presented in the order on a linear graph, such as a timeline. Facts of the objects describing geographic positions are presented on a map.
US07778949B2
Disclosed is a method for training a transductive support vector machine. The support vector machine is trained based on labeled training data and unlabeled test data. A non-convex objective function which optimizes a hyperplane classifier for classifying the unlabeled test data is decomposed into a convex function and a concave function. A local approximation of the concave function at a hyperplane is calculated, and the approximation of the concave function is combined with the convex function such that the result is a convex problem. The convex problem is then solved to determine an updated hyperplane. This method is performed iteratively until the solution converges.
US07778946B2
A neural network comprising a plurality of neurons in which any one of the plurality of neurons is able to associate with itself or another neuron in the plurality of neurons via active connections to a further neuron in the plurality of neurons.
US07778944B2
A system, a method, and a machine-readable medium are provided. A group of linear rules and associated weights are provided as a result of machine learning. Each one of the group of linear rules is partitioned into a respective one of a group of types of rules. A respective transducer for each of the linear rules is compiled. A combined finite state transducer is created from a union of the respective transducers compiled from the linear rules.
US07778943B2
A system for obtaining diagnostic information, such as evidence about a mechanism, within an algorithmic framework, including filtering and aggregating the information through, for instance, a stochastic process. The output may be an overall belief value relative to a presence of an item such as, for example, a fault in the mechanism.
US07778930B2
An apparatus and method for delivering targeted informational messages includes a computer system for creating a de-identified encrypted PID and de-identified patient transaction data in a retail store for transmission and storage. A subset of de-identified encrypted PIDs are associated with targeted informational messages by the system and transmitted to retail stores, where a targeted message is printed on behalf of the patient corresponding to the de-identified encrypted PID.
US07778926B1
An electronic catalog system provides an interface for users to author and post content for viewing by others. Users who are verified as creators of works represented in the electronic catalog (e.g., authors of books) are additionally granted the capability to post content that is displayed on the catalog pages of such works with attribution to the works' creators. In one embodiment, the system is capable of verifying a user's claim to be a creator of a particular work through automated communications with a third party verifier designated by the user. The third party verifier may, for example, be a publisher (in the case of books), a recording company (in the case of musical works), or a motion picture studio (in the case movies).
US07778916B2
A first price and first size of a published offer to sell shares of a security are determined, and a second price and second size of orders to sell shares of the security are determined. A third price and third size of orders to sell shares of the security are determined, wherein the second price is greater than the published offer and the third price is greater than the second price. A market order to buy shares of the security is received with a buy size greater than a sum of the first size and the second size. A first portion of the market order that is equal to the first size is executed at a first price, and a second portion of the market order is executed at the third price. The sum of the size of the first portion and the size of the second portion equals the buy size. Market orders to sell are handled in a similar fashion.
US07778914B1
A system, method, apparatus, computer program code and means for performing a netting analysis of an agreement is provided. Pursuant to some embodiments, the netting analysis is performed by receiving agreement information, the agreement information identifying a party and a counterparty. The agreement information is compared with a netting rule. A netting determination for the agreement is generated based at least in part on a result of the comparing.
US07778881B2
According to some embodiments, a transaction entity may determine historical pricing information associated with a plurality of vendors and a plurality of products. The transaction entity may also receive, from a remote customer, purchasing information associated with a requested product. A first price may be automatically calculated based at least in part on the purchasing information and the historical pricing information. Moreover, the transaction entity may agree to provide a selected product to the customer in exchange for payment of an amount based on the first price. It may also be automatically arranged for a remote selling vender to ship a sold product to the customer in exchange for payment of a second price from the transaction entity to the vendor.
US07778878B2
A facility for responding to a request for information about an item: The facility receives a request for information about the item. Among a plurality of sellers, the facility identifies those sellers (1) that are offering the item for sale, (2) whose availability level for the selected item exceeds a predetermined availability threshold, and (3) that have a seller score relating to a number of different items offered for sale by the seller that exceeds a predetermined score threshold. The facility uses the identified sellers and the price of the item to select the featured seller of the item. The facility replies to the request for information with a web page containing both information describing the item and a control that can be activated to order the item from the featured seller.
US07778876B2
Payment systems and methods using wireless transponders in a community of retailers are disclosed. The disclosed systems and method include a community of retailers, an RFID transponder card, a number of readers for reading an identification number from the RFID transponder card when a subscriber carrying the card enters the community, a local computer in communication with the plurality of points of sale for receiving the identification number and associating the identification number with a subscriber account, and a Clearinghouse computer for validating the transponder card and notifying the local computer of the card's validation.
US07778861B2
A method and system to receive transaction data; determine a gap in the transaction data; and use an algorithm to generate data to fill in the gap is described. The algorithm is selected from a group including a first algorithm and a second algorithm. The first algorithm is to determine a dominant pattern in the transaction data; identify a region within the dominant pattern that corresponds to the gap in the transaction data; and adopt data associated with the corresponding region into the gap to minimize impact on the dominant pattern. The second algorithm includes a Moore-Penrose pseudo-inverse algorithm to choose the transaction data to fill in the gap based on a set of substitute data from among a group of substitute data sets and adopts the set of substitute data into the gap.
US07778853B2
Systems and methods are described for processing queue data and for providing queue messaging over a network. An illustrative queuing system includes a first queue configured to hold resource requests from a plurality of users, and program code stored in computer readable memory configured to determine or estimate whether a resource requested by a first resource request submitted by a first requester will be available when the first resource request will be serviced, and to transmit a message over a network to the first requester indicating that the requested resource will not be available when the queued request is serviced if it is estimated or determined that the requested resource will not be available when the first request is serviced.
US07778847B2
A method for determining an optimized surveillance schedule of follow-up diagnostic tests and doctor visits considers the tradeoff between timely detection of relapse and the cost of the diagnostic procedures. A method for generating a surveillance schedule for monitoring a recurrence of a condition includes the steps of (a) scheduling an initial testing date to test for the recurrence of the condition; (b) establishing a threshold, wherein the threshold is the cost associated with a subsequent testing date over the cost per recurrence detected; and (c) scheduling each subsequent testing date to test for the recurrence of the condition when a cumulative risk of recurrence of the condition since the previous testing date exceeds the threshold. A system utilizing this method is also disclosed.
US07778843B2
It is provided with a medical inquiry processing unit for acquiring the response to a medical inquiry presenting medical inquiry items to a person to be examined, a nutrient requirement amount calculating unit for calculating the nutrient requirement amount of the person to be examined from the response to the medical inquiry, a nutritional supplement suggesting unit for suggesting the blend of a nutritional supplement based on the nutrient requirement amount of the person to be examined and a nutritional supplement blending unit for blending nutrients to prepare the nutritional supplement based on the blend of the nutritional supplement.
US07778841B1
System and method for generating information relating to a vehicle's history. In one embodiment, the method includes the steps of identifying target records in a database, determining a total number of owners for each vehicle based on the target records, and displaying a listing of the vehicles including corresponding number of owners. A step of determining and displaying the ownership type may be provided. A vehicle history information system is also provided, including a database having vehicle history records, a vehicle history report module adapted to retrieve the vehicle history record, an ownership module adapted to determine the number of owners for the vehicles based on the vehicle history records, and a user interface module adapted to generate a listing of the vehicles and the number of owners. The system may be adapted to determine and display the ownership type.
US07778838B2
An audio data stream from a processing system may be buffered to allow low power states in the processing system during audio playback. An audio buffer may be provided external to the processing system and between the processing system and an audio codec. The audio buffer may also shift to an alternate audio data interface mode when the processing system is in the low power state. Of course, many alternatives, variations, and modifications are possible without departing from this embodiment.
US07778837B2
Systems and methods that create a classification of sentences in a language, and further construct associated local versions of language models, based on geographical location and/or other demographic criteria—wherein such local language models can be of different levels of granularity according to chosen demographic criteria. The subject innovation employs a classification encoder component that forms a classification (e.g. a tree structure) of sentences, and a local language models encoder component, which employs the classification of sentences in order to construct the localized language models. A decoder component can subsequently enable local word wheeling and/or local web search by blending k-best answers from local language models of varying demographic granularity that match users demographics. Hence, k-best matches for input data by users in one demographic locality can be different from k-best matches for the same input by other users in another locality.
US07778829B2
Various embodiments are disclosed relating to the real-time monitoring and control for audio devices. An apparatus may include a peripheral audio device configured to operate in an operational mode or a debug mode, the peripheral audio device including an audio enhancement logic configured to include at least one tunable parameter. The apparatus may also include the peripheral audio device being further configured to transmit and receive data via a data channel to allow a debug or test to be performed on the peripheral audio device, while operating in the debug mode, and the at least one tunable parameter to be adjusted.
US07778824B2
A device and a method for frame lost concealment are disclosed. A pitch period of a current lost frame is obtained on the basis of a pitch period of the last good frame before the current lost frame. An excitation signal of the current lost frame is recovered on the basis of the pitch period of the current lost frame and an excitation signal of the last good frame before the lost frame. Thereby, the hearing contrast of a receiver is reduced, and the quality of speech is improved. Further, in the present invention, a pitch period of continual lost frames is adjusted on the basis of the change trend of the pitch period of the last good frame before the lost frame. Therefore, a buzz effect produced by the continual lost frames is avoided, and the quality of speech is further improved. In addition, by attenuating the energy of the excitation signal obtained from the continual lost frames, the device and method accord with the hearing physiological characteristics of human and reduce the hearing contrast of the receiver.
US07778816B2
A method and system for applying input mode bias is disclosed. A schema is applied to an input field of an electronic document. The schema is associated with a grammar that defines the set of acceptable strings that may be input into the input field. When text is input into the input field, the schema is determined and the associated grammar is determined. The grammar is then sent to the input method. Based on the grammar, the input method may determine what text the user is trying to enter. The grammar may also be used to apply semantic categories to text input into a document. After the text is entered it is compared to a grammar. If the entered text matches the form of the grammar, then the schema is applied to the text as a semantic category.
US07778809B2
Values of multiple tire dynamic element parameters are set for a tire dynamic model constructed using the tire dynamic element parameters for calculating a tire axial force and a self-aligning torque under a given slip ratio. Next, the values of the tire axial force and the self-aligning torque are calculated using the tire dynamic model and output. The tire dynamic model allows a center position of a contact patch thereof against a road surface to move in accordance with a longitudinal force that occurs as the tire axial force when a slip ratio in a braking/driving direction is given so that a position of the contact patch moves in a longitudinal direction due to the longitudinal force. When designing a vehicle or when designing a tire, the tire dynamic model is used.
US07778808B2
A geospatial modeling system may include a geospatial database for storing geospatial data points each having respective elevations associated therewith. The system may further include a processor for data thinning the geospatial data points by selecting discriminant points therefrom. The processor may select discriminant points based upon: (a) identifying a current patch having a plurality of spaced-apart current geospatial data boundary points; (b) selecting a current discriminant point within the current patch based upon sequentially stepping through the geospatial data points therein to determine respective elevation differences relative to the current geospatial boundary points and comparing the elevation differences to a threshold range; (c) identifying a plurality of new patches, each having a plurality of spaced-apart new geospatial boundary points including the current discriminant point; and (d) iteratively repeating steps (b) and (c) for each of the new patches until no further new discriminant point is selected.
US07778806B2
A method and apparatus for developing microcomputer-based systems. A controller model having at least one parameter is simulated and, similarly, a plant model having at least one parameter and controlled by the controller model is simulated. A user interface then has access to the parameters of the controller model and plant model and optionally suspends the execution of the controller model and plant model in response to a trigger event. The user interface determines the status of the controller model parameters and/or plant model parameters at the time of the trigger without altering the controller model parameters or plant model parameters or the program code of the controller model.
US07778804B2
Apparatus for producing an electronic model of a communications network or system having at least one host and a plurality of nodes connected thereto, directly or otherwise, the apparatus comprising means for obtaining data relating to at least some of the nodes and/or the host and means for creating an electronic model of the system or network using the data. The apparatus comprises a trusted computer host for use in analysing the network. The trusted computer host comprises means for detecting nodes on the network. As nodes are detected, sampling probes are inserted at each such node wherever possible. The probes take measurements at the respective nodes and return the resultant data to the trusted computer host. For a case where it is not possible to insert a probe at a detected node, the trusted computer host comprises means for performing traffic analysis and obtaining a profile of behavior between that node and the network host. The data received from the probes and the traffic analysis data is used by model simulation means in the trusted computer host to create a model of the network.
US07778789B2
A method of digital phase calibration is disclosed. An input signal is sampled using a clock. The sample points of the sampled signal are changed by a scaler. A phase calibration is performed by adjusting the phase of the scaler to obtain an optimum phase for the scaler. It is determined whether the input signal represents a static frame and the phase calibration is performed only if the input signal represents a static frame.
US07778769B2
This disclosure outlines a method, which enables a vehicle driver to achieve increased fuel efficiency by implementing least-cost route planning based on terrain data and derived from advanced mapping, logging and location based services. Actual fuel efficiency is recorded and correlated by vehicle conditions, time of day and date, and then referenced to achieve the most accurate least-cost route plan for the intended destination.
US07778768B2
A system and method for reducing airport delays using passive radar information and analytics. The system includes (a) a data receiving arrangement receiving, from a data source, at least one type of information for a plurality of aircraft; (b) a data processing arrangement calculating efficiency data based on the received information; and (c) a data distribution arrangement organizing efficiency data into a displayable file and distribute the file to users of the system.
US07778767B2
An engine control module includes an engine starting module that communicates with an electric motor to operate an internal combustion engine including M fuel injectors and that determines whether manifold pressure is below a manifold pressure threshold. A warming module communicates with the M fuel injectors to inject fuel into N of M the fuel injectors when the manifold pressure is less than the manifold pressure threshold. N and M are integers and N is less than M.
US07778750B2
An adapter is disclosed for allowing communications between a vehicle control computer coupled to one or more vehicle communications networks and a remote computer. The one or more vehicle communications networks may be configured for data communications in accordance with, for example, an SAE J1939 or an SAE J1587 communications protocol, or the like. The adapter includes a first interface for operatively coupling to the one or more communications networks and a second interface including a universal serial bus (USB) controller configured for operatively coupling to the remote computer. The USB controller may be coupled to the remote computer via a device port and a host port, and/or a USB on-the-go port. In any case, the vehicle control computer and remote computer communicate through the adapter via the vehicle communications network and the first and second interfaces.
US07778746B2
An apparatus and method for a remote diagnostic system for motorized vehicles. Apparatus according to this aspect of the invention includes a base station having a processor associated with a transceiver and a remote unit installed in a vehicle. The remote unit includes a controller associated with a transceiver, where the controller gathers diagnostic data. The remote unit controller transmits a vehicle identification signal in conjunction with diagnostic data to the base station transceiver such that the base station processor monitors the diagnostic data for the vehicle. Another aspect of the invention further includes a mapping processor associated with a memory. The memory stores a virtual map of a local operating area having areas that are allowable and restricted. The controller is coupled to the mapping processor and a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver is coupled to the mapping processor. The GPS receiver determines a current vehicle location and the mapping processor correlates the current vehicle location to a corresponding location on the virtual map. The mapping processor determines whether the vehicle is in a restricted area. The vehicle transceiver is configured to transmit a vehicle identification signal and location to the base station transceiver such that the base station processor monitors the location and status for each of the motorized vehicles.
US07778743B2
A counter increases a counted value at regular time intervals during a transmission time of a request signal Sr transmitted based on trigger signals input from a door unlocking sensor or the like. On the other hand, the counter decreases the counted value at regular time intervals during a non-transmission time of the request signal Sr. A determination unit either prohibits or permits transmission of the request signal Sr to a portable unit, based on comparison results of the counted value with a prohibition value and a lifting value.
US07778741B2
A control system (10) for a vehicle (16) includes a sensor (35-47) that generates a sensor signal and a stability control system (26). Tire monitoring sensors (20) in each wheel generate tire signals including temperature, pressure and acceleration. The controller (26) is coupled to the sensors (20, 25-47), and generates a first roll condition signal as a function of the sensor signal, and generates a second roll condition signal as a function of the tire signals. The first or second roll condition signals control the rollover control system to mitigate a vehicle rollover event.
US07778740B2
A point-sequence approximation apparatus determines whether a proportion of a straight-line approximation region is high as compared to that of a curve approximation region. In addition, if it is determined that the proportion of the straight-line approximation region is high as compared to that of the curve approximation region, the point-sequence approximation apparatus repeatedly performs random setting of a candidate of an approximation straight line, and evaluation of approximation accuracy of the candidate of the approximation straight line based on distances between the candidate of the approximation straight line and the points constituting the point sequence. Moreover, the point-sequence approximation apparatus performs straight-line approximation by using the candidate of the approximation straight line with the best result of evaluation of the approximation accuracy as an approximation straight line.
US07778737B2
A method and system for shedding loads based upon a power system characteristic, such as voltage or frequency, is provided. In one embodiment, a remote party, such as a power generator or utility, transmits a signal to a control device proximately located with a load device. Upon receipt of the signal, the control device measures the power system characteristic for a predetermined time to establish a baseline threshold. The control device then monitors the power system characteristic. When the power system characteristic falls outside the baseline threshold, the control device sheds load. In one embodiment, the loads are prioritized such that the load of least importance may be shed first.
US07778718B2
A system and method is provided to produce a flatter frequency response from an audio source that has a non-flat frequency response and, as such, has missing spectral content. The system and method achieves a flatter frequency response by characterizing the frequency response of the audio source based upon a reference input signal. This reference input signal is used to establish a reference frequency response, which is stored in a memory and used to select equalizer settings. The system restores missing spectral content by way of summing multiple input signals from the audio source. The system then normalizes the frequency response based on characterizations of the signal by utilizing equalizer settings from memory.
US07778716B2
A command generating device includes a command shape calculating unit for calculating an nth derivative command shape which is a fixed multiple of the nth derivative with respect to time of a position command for causing a machine to reach a target position at a positioning time so that a convolution of a velocity command which is the first derivative with respect to time of the position command and the impulse response of a transfer function determined from the frequency of a vibration which occurs in the machine becomes equal to zero, the convolution being calculated over the time period from the positioning time onward, and an associating processing unit for integrating the nth derivative command shape n times with respect to time, and for multiplying the integral result by a constant which associates the position command at the positioning time with the target position so as to determine the position command.
US07778709B2
A method and a device are disclosed for evaluating the cardio-circulatory and pulmonary condition of a patient, including determining the patient's thoracic impedance based on information solely derived from the electrical energy generated by the patient's own heart.
US07778705B2
Heart pacing systems include at least one electronic or biological pacemaker as a primary pacemaker, and at least one electronic or biological pacemaker as a backup pacemaker. When implanted, the primary pacemaker(s) produce primary pacing stimuli that modulate cardiac function. The backup pacemaker(s) provide backup pacing stimuli when the electronic pacemaker is unable to modulate cardiac function at the predetermined pacing rate. The heart pacing systems are implemented by implantation in regions where they can provide pacing stimuli to cardiac tissue.
US07778688B2
Method for delivering a stent coupled with a catheter, to a selected position within a lumen of the body of a patient, the method includes the procedures of: selecting a single image of the lumen, among a plurality of images of an image sequence of the lumen, receiving a position input associated with the selected image and respective of the selected position, the position input is defined in a coordinate system respective of a medical positioning system (MPS), detecting the current position of the stent in the coordinate system, according to position data acquired by an MPS sensor attached to the catheter in the vicinity of the stent, superimposing on at least one maneuvering associated image of the lumen, at least one stent representation respective of the current position, and at least one marking representation respective of the position input, according to a real-time organ timing signal of an inspected organ of the body, maneuvering the catheter through the lumen, toward the selected position, according to the current position relative to the position input, and producing an output when the current position substantially matches the selected position.
US07778687B2
A leadless marker for localizing the position of a target within a patient. In one embodiment, the marker includes a casing, a resonating circuit, and a ferromagnetic element. The casing is configured to be positioned at a selected location relative to a target site in the patient; the casing, for example, can be configured to be permanently or semi-permanently implanted into the patient. The resonating circuit has an inductor within the casing comprising a plurality of windings of a conductor, but it does not have external electrical lead lines extending through the casing. The ferromagnetic element is at least partially within the inductor. The ferromagnetic element has a volume such that when the marker is in an imaging magnetic field having a field strength of 1.5 T and a gradient of 3 T/m, then the force exerted on the marker by the imaging magnetic field is not greater than gravitational force exerted on the marker.
US07778685B2
A system and method for positioning a device at a desired location in a tubular organ such as an artery. A three-dimensional reconstruction of the organ is obtained, and the desired location is marked in the reconstruction. The device is inserted into the organ and an image is obtained of the device and organ. The reconstruction with the marked location is projected onto a plane from the perspective of the image and the projection and image are superimposed. If the device is not at the desired location, the device is repositioned in the organ and an additional image of the device is obtained. The reconstruction is then projected onto a plane from the perspective of the additional image and the additional image and the projection are superimposed. This process is repeated, as required, until the device is in the desired location.
US07778683B2
A blood rheology measurement device and a blood rheology measurement method which detect a fingerprint or a vein to thereby measure a positional relation between an artery in a living body and a sensor on the same conditions for each subject during non-invasive measurement and which correctly evaluate a change of blood rheology with elapse of time. A vein pattern or a fingerprint pattern peculiar to a subject is detected, recognized, and stored, a position of a sensor is adjusted so that the detected vein pattern or fingerprint pattern agrees with the stored vein pattern or fingerprint pattern every measurement, and a blood rheology index value indicating blood fluidity (fluidity/viscosity) is measured.
US07778676B2
A display panel is mount behind a conductive structure with a gasket sandwiched between the panel and the conductive structure. ESD protection is provided by holes through the gasket between the panel and the conductive structure.
US07778669B2
A nonvolatile memory stores the contents ID of a downloaded content in association with the identification information of a removable UIM card. When downloading of contents data is requested, the CPU determines whether or not contents data which is identical to the requested contents data is already stored in a cellular phone. If the contents data which is identical to the requested contents data is not stored in the cellular phone, the CPU downloads the contents data. If stored, the CPU does not download the contents data, but determines whether or not identification information associated with the contents data matches with the identification information of the currently loaded UIM card. If the identification information does not match, the CPU updates the association of the contents ID and the identification information.
US07778663B2
Disclosed is a hinge module for a three-step open type portable terminal and a portable terminal having the same, in which a body of the portable terminal is divided into three body sections and semi-automatically slides. The portable terminal includes a hinge module, which couples the upper body to the intermediate body in such a manner that the upper body is movable in a transverse direction relative to the intermediate body and couples the lower body to the intermediate body in such a manner that the lower body is movable in a longitudinal direction relative to the intermediate body.
US07778660B2
The present invention provides a portable telephone which allows the efficient storage of data. The portable telephone 100 comprises a pattern data receiving unit 103, a pattern data extraction unit 104, and a pattern data storage unit 105. The pattern data receiving unit 103 receives a plurality of sets of pattern data that are transmitted from a server device 10 in accordance with a pattern data transmission request. The pattern data extraction unit 104 extracts specified pattern data from the plurality of sets of pattern data received by the pattern data receiving unit 103 on the basis of terminal information that relates to the portable telephone 100. The pattern data storage unit 105 stores the specified pattern data that is extracted by the pattern data extraction unit 104.
US07778656B2
Disclosed is a transmission power control method for controlling a target SIR which is a target ratio of signal to interference upon comparing error rate and target error rate of receive data on a receiving side, and causing transmission power control to be performed on a transmitting side in such a manner that measured SIR will agree with the target SIR. The method includes previously measuring and storing a correspondence characteristic between error rate and SIR; finding, from the correspondence characteristic, a first SIR with respect to a target error rate and a second SIR with respect to a measured error rate; and updating the target SIR by increasing or decreasing the target SIR by the difference between the first SIR and the second SIR.
US07778651B2
The wireless communications system includes a plurality of wireless communications devices, with each device type having a known latency profile associated therewith. A wireless device detector includes a controller for cooperating with a transceiver for transmitting a plurality of device finding signals to a target wireless communications device. The target wireless communications device transmits a respective reply signal for each of the device finding signals. Also, the controller generates an observed latency profile for the target wireless communications device based upon the transmission of device finding signals and the received reply signals therefor, determines a propagation delay based upon the observed latency profile and the known latency profile, and estimates a range to the target wireless communications device based upon the determined propagation delay.
US07778645B2
A computer-based program performs calculations to analyze, vary, test, manage, and/or improve the performance of channels and/or frequencies in the communication spectrum. The program varies parameters of a point of communication, such as the location, transmission power, channel frequency, antenna height, and the like, alone or in combination, to measure, test, and/or evaluate which parameter changes increase the market coverage of a target market or area. In some scenarios, changes to one point of communication cause the regulations governing the broadcast relationship between one or more nearby points of communication to be violated. When this occurs, the program determines which of the parameters, such as the location, transmission power, channel and/or frequency, antenna height, and the like, alone or in combination, of the point of communication interfering with the increased market coverage scenario to vary to overcome the conflict with communications and/or regulatory law. In addition, the program can determine simultaneously which of the parameters of multiple points of communication to vary to overcome the conflict with communications and/or regulatory law. The program outputs multiple solutions with varying degrees of difficulty and varying amounts of performance improvement.
US07778638B2
A method, system, and terminal for handling or processing roaming errors between networks that can support broadcast services is provided. When a roaming service between networks is requested, if a user authentication request is unsuccessful due to non-matching identification information between the networks, a corresponding error message is delivered to the subscriber terminal and network information that has been recently updated using various methods is provided such that repetitive requests and responses for authentication can be avoided when the subscriber requests a roaming service, and thus a roaming service between networks can be quickly provided without delays.
US07778635B2
An apparatus to control remote devices or equipment via existing cellular telephone networks. The apparatus receives information from a customer concerning a specific function, which the customer wants to perform at the remote equipment. A Central Control receives this information from the customer and correlates the function to a specific cellular telephone MIN number, which has been pre-programmed in a computer at the Central Control. The MIN number is then sent to a cellular provider. The cellular provider then transmits the MIN number to an antenna, which transmits the MIN number to a remote equipment controller at the remotely located equipment. The remote equipment controller then takes the a part of the MIN and gives these numbers to a PLC at the remote equipment controller. The PLC then memory maps the part of the MIN to a specific function to be carried out by the remote equipment controller. Then the remote equipment controller carriers out specified functions at the remote equipment.
US07778630B2
A system and method for switching a voice call from an Instant Messaging (IM) based voice network to a cellular voice network. A telephone adapted to switch a voice call from an Instant Messaging (IM) based voice network to a cellular voice network.
US07778615B2
An indicator of a strength of a signal comprising a training sequence portion received in a radio propagation environment is provided. Samples are taken from the training sequence portion, an energy value of the samples over an estimated channel impulse response is computed and the indicator of the strength of the signal is estimated from the energy value.
US07778611B2
A radio communication apparatus for performing transmission and reception of radio communications simultaneously by using different carrier frequencies for transmission and reception, comprising: a transceiver having a coupling loop interference signal removal function for analog domain and/or a coupling loop interference signal removal function for digital domain, for removing a coupling loop interference signal contained in a signal; and a power suppressor for coupling loop interference signal for attenuating the signal power in order to suppress the coupling loop interference signal power that is contained in the signal.
US07778610B2
A novel and useful apparatus for and method of local oscillator (LO) generation with non-integer multiplication ratio between the local oscillator and RF frequencies. The LO generation schemes presented are operative to generate I and Q square waves at a designated frequency while avoiding the well known issue of harmonic pulling. The use of analog mixers of the prior art is avoided and replaced with an XOR gate configured to generate the correct average frequency. The edges are dynamically adjusted by ±T/12 or zero based on the state of the controlled oscillator down-divided clock.
US07778609B2
A power consumption control method applied to a communication system adjusts the power consumption of a portion of circuit in the communication system according to a transmission distance between the communication system and another communication system. Another power consumption control method applied to a communication system adjusts the power consumption of a portion of circuit in the communication system according to a signal index of the communication system.
US07778602B2
Provided are a method and an apparatus for searching neighboring Bluetooth devices in a portable terminal having a Bluetooth module. In the method, addresses of searched neighboring Bluetooth devices are used to determine whether the searched neighboring Bluetooth devices are newly-searched Bluetooth devices. If the searched neighboring Bluetooth devices are newly-searched neighboring Bluetooth devices, name request signals are transmitted to the newly-searched neighboring Bluetooth devices to acquire names of the newly-searched neighboring Bluetooth devices. Names of the newly-searched neighboring Bluetooth devices are created, and the addresses, names and names of the newly-searched neighboring Bluetooth devices are registered in a Bluetooth management database.
US07778592B2
A downstream adaptive modulation system and method. The downstream adaptive modulation system comprises a wireless access termination system and one or more wireless modems. The wireless access termination system includes a plurality of queues and a parser. The parser parses data traffic onto the plurality of queues. Each queue is associated with a different coding and modulation scheme. Each of the one or more wireless modems receives data traffic from the plurality of queues based on the wireless modem's ability to demodulate and decode the signal from each of the plurality of queues. When a wireless modem experiences a change in signal strength, the present invention enables the wireless modem to adapt to data from other queues to compensate for the change in signal strength. Thus, if the signal strength improves over a period of time, the wireless modem may receive data at a higher order modulation and FEC code rate. If the signal strength weakens over a period of time, the wireless modem may receive data at a lower order modulation and FEC code rate.
US07778585B2
An electrophotographic cleaning blade is provided which is free of blade turning-up coming from both end portions of the blade in its lengthwise direction. The cleaning blade having a blade formed of a polyurethane resin, which is to come into touch with the surface of a photosensitive drum of an electrophotographic apparatus to remove a toner remaining thereon, and a support member which holds the blade. The blade has a polyurethane resin portion having a dynamic hardness of 0.05 mN/μm2 or more and 0.16 mN/μm2 or less and a high-hardness portion having a dynamic hardness 1.3 times or more and 30 times or less the dynamic hardness of the polyurethane resin portion, provided at each end portion of the blade in its lengthwise direction at its part coming into touch with the photosensitive drum.
US07778578B2
A toner container for use in an image forming apparatus to discharge toner from the toner container upon rotation of the toner container in the image forming apparatus along a direction of a rotation axis of the toner container has a cylindrical body unit for containing a toner; a cylindrical end portion at a first end of the toner container, the cylindrical end portion including a first end face and a second end face; a toner supply port provided in the cylindrical end portion; and a protruded portion provided on the first end face of the first end portion, the first end face being recessed from the second end surface and positioned under said toner supply port.
US07778567B2
Image forming apparatuses include: a casing; an image forming unit removable from the casing in a first direction; and plural developer cartridges. The cartridges may be attached and detached with respect to the image forming unit in a second direction that is inclined toward the first direction. Other image forming apparatuses include: a casing; an exposure device; a plurality of cartridges configured to be attached and detached with respect to the casing in a first direction; and a recording medium transport system for transporting recording media adjacent the photosensitive members in a second direction. The first direction may be inclined with respect to the second direction, and at least a portion of optical paths of the light emitted from the exposure device may extend parallel with the first direction. Aspects of the invention also relate to image forming units, e.g., for use in image forming apparatuses as described above.
US07778565B2
A heating device includes a magnetic field generating unit, and a heat generating body having a heat generating layer generating heat due to electromagnetic induction, and a temperature-sensitive layer. The heat generating layer is disposed opposing the magnetic field generating unit. The temperature-sensitive layer has a Curie temperature greater than or equal to a set temperature of the heat generating layer and less than or equal to a heat-resistant temperature of the heat generating layer, and is disposed at a side of heat generating layer opposite a side where the magnetic field generating unit is disposed such that heat from the heat generating layer is conducted. At temperatures lower than the Curie temperature, the temperature-sensitive layer causes the magnetic field to penetrate in from the heat generating layer, and at temperatures greater than or equal to the Curie temperature, causes magnetic flux of the magnetic field to pass therethrough.
US07778563B2
Systems and methods are described that facilitate reducing temperature droop during an initial portion of a print job by reducing fuser speed to increase fuser-to-paper interaction while fuser heat is absorbed by the paper during a temperature transient. For instance, during a first N pages of a print job, where N is an integer, the paper acts as a heat sink and exerts a thermal load on the fuser roll. To compensate, fuser speed is reduced initially to ensure that a given amount of heat is applied to toner on the pages. Fuser speed is increased until fuser temperature reaches steady state. Acceleration of the fuser is also adjustable.
US07778552B2
An integrated optical source includes a Directly Modulated Laser (DML) and a filter which is positioned with the DML on a common substrate. The filter is configured to receive an input signal in the form of a modulated chirped optical signal. The filter is further configured to provide an output optical signal in the form of an amplitude and/or phase modulated optical signal, optimized for long-distance transmission in optical fiber.
US07778548B2
A communication system has lighting equipment that has transmitter comprising multiple light-emitting elements that each emit light of different wavelengths and terminal equipment that has light-receiver comprising multiple light-receiving elements that receive optical signals for each of the different wavelengths.
US07778546B2
Methods and apparatus are described for transmitting and receiving data. A method includes a process of transferring data over a coaxial network at a bandwidth above 1000 MHz, wherein the process of transferring data transfers the data between an optical node and a plurality of cable modems of a hybrid fiber-coaxial cable network. An apparatus includes a data transfer system which sends and receives data over a coaxial network at a bandwidth above 1000 MHz, wherein the data transfer system is located at an optical node of a hybrid fiber-coaxial cable network.
US07778545B2
Systems and methods for bandwidth doubling in an Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) enable an optical line terminal (OLT) to transmit downlink to at least one double rate optical network unit (ONU). The double rate transmission is preferably facilitated by use of single rate devices (OLT and ONU) functionally connected to provide the double rate capability. The methods include packet-by-packet multiplexing, bit-by-bit line code interleaving, doubling an inter-packet gap (IPG) length, defining windows of transmission for different transmission rates, using the 8B/10B code, removing the 8B/10B code from just the downlink transmission and symbol-by-symbol multiplexing is downlink transmissions from the double rate OLT.
US07778542B2
This invention can efficiently remove, within a short period of time, a foreign substance such as dust adhering on an optical element arranged on the front surface of an image sensor. An image capturing apparatus includes an image sensor which photo-electrically converts an object image, an optical element inserted between the image sensor and a photographing optical system which forms the object image, a foreign substance position storage unit which stores the position of a foreign substance adhering on the surface of the optical element, a vibration unit which vibrates the optical element to remove the foreign substance adhering on the surface of the optical element, and a control unit which controls a driving parameter of the vibration unit on the basis of the foreign substance position information stored in the foreign substance position storage unit.
US07778532B2
An installation for heating grounds, in particular sports grounds, using cables (9, 9′, 9″) supplied with electric current which are buried in the ground. The installation is characterized in that the surface of the grounds to be heated is divided into a number of sectors (1a, 1b, 1c, . . . , 1n), and each sector is heated by at least two heating lines (9, 9′, 9″) constituting each a secondary of a common transformer (3a, 3b et 3c).
US07778529B2
A method is proposed for supplying electrical power to a DC motor (16) which can be commutated electronically via a semiconductor power output stage (28), preferably a three-phase DC motor, through which a control unit (22) passes current in blocks, corresponding to the signals from a rotor position sensor (20). Current is passed through the motor (16) variably in steps, in such a manner that the magnitude and/or the duration and/or the trigger angle of the current blocks can be varied as a function of the rotation speed and/or of the load, with respect to the profile of the induced voltage (E).
US07778528B2
The present invention relates to an interactive disk reproducing method using a network. The present method downloads various content-related information and the latest contents associated with A/V data pre-recorded on a placed interactive disk from a remote content-providing server connected through a network before reproduction of the placed interactive disk, and makes presentation of video or audio reproduced from the interactive disk along with contents already-received from the server while synchronizing presentation time of the A/V data and the contents with reference to the downloaded content-related information.
US07778527B2
Access point pictures designated as randomly accessible positions are I pictures or P pictures. Information indicating the decoding sequence (I1, P1, B1, B2, B3, B4, P2, . . . ) of pictures functioning as access points and attribute information (picture_type) indicating whether a picture functions as an access point or is necessary for decoding of the access point following a given access point are recorded on the video information recording medium. Random access is possible even if the GOP interval is lengthened.
US07778521B2
A BD-ROM has a video stream and an entry map recorded thereon. The entry map indicates a plurality of entry points (SPN_EP_start) in the video stream, in one-to-one correspondence with a plurality of entry times (PTS_EP_start) and flags (is_angle_change_point). Each flag (is_angle_change_point) indicates whether a picture located at a corresponding entry point is an IDR picture for causing decoder refresh or Non-IDR I picture having a reference to a preceding picture.
US07778520B1
The present invention is a set top box or other content management device that can convert television programming stored in a temporary buffer into a persistent event. The present invention may also trim data from a temporary buffer, such as an input buffer, without requiring additional software, RAM and other hardware normally associated with general purpose computers.
US07778518B2
Random access reproduction in prompt response to user commands is realized. A stream analyzing block analyzes sequentially inputted transport streams to get entry point data. Discontinuity point data are obtained in correspondence to a discontinuity occurrence flag inputted from a PLL block. Sequentially inputted transport packets are analyzed to get mark point data. A stream database creating block creates a stream database by use of the discontinuity point data and the mark point data. The stream database is recorded on a recording medium.
US07778516B2
A signal processing system comprises a recorder (500,204) for recording information signals representing video audio and/or data material on a tape (502, 126). The recorder (500, 204) generates (152,178) first material identifiers for identifying respective pieces of material on the medium such that each piece is differentiated from other pieces on the medium, and generates second, universally unique, identifiers for pieces of material, the second identifiers being associated with the first identifiers.The recorder (468, 472, 470 FIG. 31) records the material on successive slant tracks. A slant track stores a video timecode. At least one linear track stores a linear track timecode. The timecodes each have a plurality of user-definable bits. The material identifiers (464) are stored in the user-definable bits of the slant track timecode and in the user-definable bits of the linear track timecode. The identifiers associate the material with metadata objects. The metadata objects are repeatedly recorded (FIG. 33, 2)on the tape. The metadata objects are recorded a number of times corresponding to the relative importance of the metadata objects. [FIGS. 1, 31 and 33]
US07778515B2
A system and method for automatically linking DVD text to recommended viewing, based on a viewer selection of a word or phrase displayed in a DVD-based program. A microprocessor in a PVR associated with the TV can automatically record TV programming or recommend additional products and/or programs based on the selected word or phrase from the DVD text.
US07778512B2
A light-pipe array system is provided. The system comprises a light projector that projects light, and a light-pipe array. The light-pipe array comprises a plurality of light-pipes. Each light-pipe comprises a dielectric transparent to the light, and an electrically conductive light barrier layer surrounding the dielectric. The barrier layer guides the light from an entrance of the dielectric surrounded by the barrier layer to an exit of the dielectric surrounded by the barrier layer. Each light pipe also comprises a light-receiving element that increases throughput of the guided light transmitted within the barrier layer via the dielectric. In one embodiment, the light-receiving element comprises an electrical conductor positioned along a central longitudinal axis of the dielectric. In another embodiment, the light-receiving element alternatively comprises a focusing element. The guided light transmitted within the barrier layer via the dielectric is used in fabricating photosynthesized bio-materials such as, for example, oligonucleotides.
US07778506B2
A multi-port RF MEMS switch, a switch matrix having several multi-port RF MEMS switches and an interconnect network have a monolithic structure with clamped-clamped beams, cantilever beams or thermally operated actuators. A method of fabricating a monolithic switch has clamped-clamped beams or cantilever beams.
US07778504B2
An optical waveguide device which includes an optical waveguide part and a photonic device mounting part is provided. A mask to form a pedestal block on which a light emitting device is mounted is patterned after high-temperature annealing. Thus, there is no influence on the mask, even if the device undergoes the heat treatment at a high temperature during the manufacturing process. This enables formation of the pedestal block with high accuracy. Therefore, it is possible to achieve an optical coupling with high accuracy in mounting a light emitting device on the pedestal block.
US07778495B2
An image processing system, which includes an image processing device including at least one of an image reading unit which reads an image and generates image data representing the image and an image printing unit which prints an image represented by image data, a service supply unit configured to execute a service regarding at least one of image data generated by the image reading unit and image data representing an image to be printed by the image printing unit, in response to a request from the image processing device, and an information supply unit which supplies the image processing device with information on services executable by the service supply unit. The information supply unit includes a service storage unit that stores the information on services executable by the service supply unit, and a service information transmitting unit that transmits the stored information on services to the image processing device.
US07778484B2
A method of reducing noise in an image comprises decomposing the image to generate wavelet coefficients at different scales. The wavelet coefficients are then modified based on the energy of the wavelet coefficients at the different scales. The image is reconstructed based on the modified wavelet coefficients.
US07778471B2
A dynamic capacitance compensation (DCC) apparatus and method for a liquid crystal display (LCD). The apparatus includes a one-dimensional block-encoding unit reading pixel values of an image in line units, dividing the pixel values of the read image into one-dimensional blocks in predetermined pixel units, transforming and quantizing the one-dimensional blocks, and generating bit streams; a memory storing the generated bit streams; a one-dimensional block-decoding unit which decodes the bit streams stored in the memory by inverse quantization and inverse transform; and a compensation pixel value-detecting unit detecting a compensation pixel value for each pixel based on a difference between each pixel value of a current frame and each pixel value of a previous frame decoded by the one-dimensional block-decoding unit.
US07778469B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide a system and method for discriminatively selecting keyframes that are representative of segments of a source digital media and at the same time distinguishable from other keyframes representing other segments of the digital media. The method and system, in one embodiment, includes pre-processing the source digital media to obtain feature vectors for frames of the media. Discriminatively selecting a keyframe as a representative for each segment of a source digital media wherein said discriminative selection includes determining a similarity measure for each candidate keyframe and determining a dis-similarity measure for each candidate keyframe and selecting the keyframe with the highest goodness value computing from the similarity and dis-similarity measures.
US07778466B1
A method, computer program product, and system for processing imagery is presented. The imagery is processed by receiving data regarding a scene (such as from a sensor monitoring a scene). The scene includes an object having a dimension. Flow vectors are computed from the data, while a flow histogram space is generated from the flow vectors. A line segment (with a length) is found within the flow histogram space. An object in the scene is associated with the length segment, and the dimensions of the object are estimated based on the length of the line segment.
US07778462B2
A technique is provided for classifying images in a library (1) for subsequent selective retrieval. Each library image is segmented (2) into a plurality of coherent regions. Each of the regions is analysed in respect of a plurality of visual properties, each of which is ascribed a number according to the value of the visual property. The property numbers are then compared (4) with bands of the available property range and a computer-readable character, such as a letter of the alphabet, is ascribed to each of the property values. The characters are then arranged (5) in a predetermined order to form a region character string. The strings for each region are then indexed (7) to form an index (8) of the images by region character string. For image retrieval, a target image (10) is analysed in the same way to form region character strings which are then supplied to a text retrieval system (12) for detecting matches with entries in the index (8). Library images having matching regions are retrieved from the library (1).
US07778454B2
At least one embodiment of the present application relates to a method and/or an apparatus for determining the concentration of a substance in a body material that is composed of two different material components in an unknown ratio. In an embodiment of the method, two computed tomography pictures from which two image data records are reconstructed are recorded in conjunction with two different spectral distributions of the x-radiation. The x-ray attenuation values for each voxel of the two image data records are decomposed into three material components. The decomposition is performed on the assumption that the x-ray attenuation value xM of the body material without the substance is composed of the x-ray attenuation values xM1, xM2 of the first and second material component in accordance with the following equation: xM=f*xM1+(1-f)*XM2, f being a volume fraction of the first material component in the body material. The concentration of the substance is then determined for each voxel of interest on the basis of the decomposition. The concentration can be determined reliably in a simple way with the aid of an embodiment of the present method and/or an embodiment of the associated apparatus.
US07778449B2
The apparatus greatly reduces the registered data amount and the verification computation amount required for user verification, in comparison with the verification using image information itself, and also decreases the false verification rate. The apparatus divides a biometric information image into cells, and extracts minutia information as well as cell basic information from the individual cells. After comparison of direction information of the individual cells of the registered data with direction information of the individual cells of the to-be-verified data, thereby aligning the registered fingerprint image and the to-be-verified fingerprint image, the apparatus compares the minutia information of corresponding cells between the registered data and the to-be-verified data to make a match/non-match decision. Such an apparatus is applicable to systems that employ pattern matching type image verification to perform user verification utilizing biometric information such as fingerprints, palm prints, blood vessel patterns, iris patterns, and facial images.
US07778444B2
An image processing system (250) and method (300) are disclosed for correcting a head pose in a video phone image, so that a frontal view is presented on a display. A disclosed head pose corrector (250) estimates the orientation of a head pose and adjusts the orientation of the head pose, if necessary, to present a frontal view. The orientation of the head pose is adjusted by generating a three dimensional model of the face surface and adjusting the orientation of the three dimensional face model to provide the desired frontal view. The head pose corrector (250) may be included in a video phone (100) to correct the head pose of transmitted or received images (or both) or may be included in a server on a network to automatically adjust the head shots of one or more participants to a video phone communication.
US07778441B2
The picture information of video can be used in various ways to identify the video or its topical subject matter. This enables numerous novel arrangements in which particular video of interest to a particular consumer can be discerned. A variety of other embodiments and features are also detailed.
US07778438B2
This invention relates to the storage and search retrieval of all types of digital media files, whether allowing the user to create index keys, metatags within each media file(s), provides search and indexing capability. The search terms and index keys are based on contextual elements within the media, including meta data such as time, date and location, but including as well elements within the media itself, such as people or elements (car, animals, street, events, historical location and other) within a picture or a video, audio, voice, spoke word, instruments used in a musical work, or scenes in a movie. An authorized client can then retrieve the media from the remote location. Specific works can then be referenced by means of the generated search terms and index keys. When the user transmits these media files via e-mail, FTP, public server, or copies to a digital media or other distribution method, these index keys are contained within the media files, therefore allowing the third party to search and retrieve the media files based on metatags.
US07778424B2
An adapter for coupling a probe tube (6) for real ear measurements to a microphone of a hearing aid comprises a sleeve (2) adapted to be arranged around the housing (8) of a hearing aid. The sleeve comprises a sound opening allowing sound to pass from the probe tube to the microphone. The device may be used in a method for performing real ear measurements comprising the steps of providing the device, fitting the device around the housing of the hearing aid with the sound opening is placed over the microphone of the hearing aid, placing the probe tube in the ear in such a way that a free end thereof presents an opening in the cavity between the earplug and the tympanic membrane, and detecting the sound pressure from sounds produced by said hearing aid in the cavity using the microphone.
US07778413B2
A cryptographic system for encrypting input data in accordance with an encryption algorithm having a repeated-round structure may include an encryption unit updating and storing encrypted data in accordance with the encryption algorithm in each given round, and outputting the encrypted data after executing the encryption for a given number of rounds. The system may include a compensation unit generating and storing compensation data so that a sum of a Hamming distance for the updated and stored data and a Hamming distance of the compensation data is maintained at a constant value.
US07778411B2
A universal stand is provided integrating a microphone array for use with a variety of telephone sets. The stand includes an enclosure having a surface for supporting a telephone set, and a cable for transmitting signals detected by the microphone array to the telephone set.
US07778409B2
An apparatus and method for enabling Cisco legacy power to support IEEE 802.3af standard power. A network power system capable of delivering data terminal equipment power via a media dependent interface (MDI) includes power source equipment according to a first power via MDI scheme such as Cisco legacy power and at least one powered device according to a second power via MDI scheme such as IEEE standard power. A power compatibility module is inserted between the power source equipment and the powered device to enable the power source equipment to appear according to the first power via MDI scheme and the powered device to appear according the second power via MDI scheme. In one embodiment, the module includes switches, a DC/DC converter, an IEEE power source equipment circuit, and an isolator. The module may optionally include a user signaling device for communicating operating conditions of the module to a user.
US07778402B1
The invention comprises a method and apparatus for routing an incoming call to at least one network endpoint in a communication network. Specifically, the method comprises identifying at least one registered network endpoint associated with a user in response to an incoming call destined for the user, obtaining presence information associated with at least one active network endpoint from the at least one registered network endpoint, and routing the incoming call towards the at least one active network endpoint using the presence information.
US07778390B2
The invention relates to a residual-current circuit breaker for an X-ray device. In one embodiment, the residual-current circuit breaker comprises at least one input, via which a detector identification signal of a detector identification element can be received, said signal characterizing the presence of an X-ray detector and at least one input, via which a selection signal for an exposure measurement element can be received, said signal characterizing the activation of an exposure measurement element. A deactivation signal can be issued via at least one output of the residual-current breaker, the deactivation signal being generated as long as a detector identification signal and a selection signal that is assigned to the same detector as the detector identification signal are not received at the same time.
US07778389B2
The present invention provides an X-ray imaging system and method capable of performing time-resolved observation in a short measurement time at the same density resolution and in the same dynamic range as those for a diffraction enhanced X-ray imaging method, and also capable of observing a sample with high sensitivity even if the intensity of an incident X-ray varies with time. A refraction angle of X-ray beams caused by the sample is detected at a time by X-ray imagers by utilizing multiple X-ray diffractions by multiple analyzer crystals.
US07778386B2
Disclosed are embodiments of methods for reconstructing x-ray projection data (e.g., one or more sinograms) acquired using a multi-source, inverse-geometry computed tomography (“IGCT”) scanner. One embodiment of a first method processes an IGCT sinogram by rebinning first in “z” and then in “xy,” with feathering applied during the “xy” rebinning. This produces an equivalent of a multi-axial 3rd generation sinogram, which may be further processed using a parallel derivative and/or Hilbert transform. A TOM-window (with feathering) technique and a combines backprojection technique may also be applied to produce a reconstructed volume. An embodiment of a second method processes an IGCT sinogram using a parallel derivative and/or redundancy weighting. The second method may also use signum weighting, TOM-windowing (with feathering), backprojection, and a Hilbert Inversion to produce another reconstructed volume.
US07778384B2
Cone-beam CT scanners with large detector arrays suffer from increased scatter radiation. This radiation may cause severe image artefacts. An examination apparatus is provided which directly measures the scatter radiation and uses this measurement for a correction of the contaminated image data. The measurement is performed by utilizing a 1-dimensional anti-scatter-grid and an X-ray tube with an electronic focal spot movement. Image data is detected at a first position of a focal spot and scatter data is detected at a second position of the focal spot. The image data is corrected on the basis of the scatter data.
US07778380B2
An apparatus includes a computed tomography (CT) scanner (10), a reconstructor (46), a polychromatic corrector (50), a material classifier (54) and an image processor (60). The scanner provides spectral CT information. The reconstructor (46) reconstructs the data from the CT scanner (10) into a volume space. The material classifier (54) determines a material composition of locations in the volume space as a function of their location in an attenuation space. Information indicative of the material composition is presented on a display (62).
US07778367B1
A method and apparatus for receiving geolocation signals wherein the geolocation signals are received by receiving a plurality of perspectives of a geolocation signal and a jamming signal; generating a plurality of wavelet transformations corresponding to the plurality of perspectives; determining a covariance between corresponding elements in the plurality of wavelet transformations; weighting each element in each wavelet transformation by weights derived from the determined covariance; generating a nulled wavelet transformation by summing together corresponding weighted elements from each of the plurality of wavelet transformations; and generating a time-domain rendition of the geolocation signal according to the nulled wavelet transformation through use of the inverse wavelet transform.
US07778366B2
A MISO wireless LAN includes multiple inputs and a single output. The present invention includes a method and apparatus of compensating for time sensitive or frequency sensitive channel fading using zero forcing. The time sensitive channel fading is represented by the vector [H(t)], and the interference compensation is performed by multiplying the incoming data by a zero forcing factor that is determined as [(H*·H)−1·H*]. More specifically, the H* represents channel matching and (H*·H)−1 represents interference cancellation due to channel fading over time or frequency.
US07778364B2
A signal strength estimation circuit for a code division multiple access system comprises a channel compensator, a demodulator, an extractor and an average circuit. The channel compensator compensates different channel effect upon a received signal and outputs first and second compensated signals wherein the received signal comprises a first signal and a second signal. The demodulator electrically connected to the channel compensator demodulates the first and second compensated signals and outputs first and second demodulated signals wherein the demodulator demodulates the first and second compensated signals by corresponding 4 bits pilot patterns when each of the first and second compensated signals only has 2 pilot bits in a slot and the second signal is obtained by space time transmit diversity encoding the first signal. The extractor coupled to the demodulator respectively extracts first and second pilot signals from the first and second demodulated signals. The average circuit coupled to the extractor averages the first and second pilot signals, thereby obtaining a signal strength estimation.
US07778346B2
An upstream signal power in a communication system is optimized. At least one system parameter is determined and a bits and gains table is modified. For example, a maximum received power parameter for the transmitting device is used by the receiving device to calculate a power backoff parameter. The power backoff parameter is used to calculate the bits and gains table which is then used by the transmitting device. The new SNR may be estimated. This estimation may distinguish between noise sources that vary with the signal level received and those that do not.
US07778345B2
In one embodiment of the invention, a modulator mixes a transmit-path signal based on a local oscillator (LO) signal and an amplifier amplifies the mixed transmit-path signal to generate an output signal for transmission. A demodulator generates a receive-path signal based on the output signal and the LO signal. Phase-shift control components provide the output signal and the LO signal to the demodulator during a first time duration and provide a phase-shifted version of one of the output signal and the LO signal to the demodulator during a second time duration. The demodulator generates a second receive-path signal based on the one of the phase-shifted output signal and the phase-shifted LO signal during the second time duration. At least one predistortion circuit adjusts at least one of the transmit-path signal and the receive-path signal based on a difference in signal characteristics of the receive-path signal during the second time duration relative to the first time duration.
US07778328B2
A motion estimation method and apparatus for video coding of a multi-view sequence is described. In one embodiment, a motion estimation method includes identifying one or more pixels in a first frame of a multi-view video sequence, and constraining a search range associated with a second frame of the multi-view video sequence based on an indication of a desired correlation between efficient coding and semantic accuracy. The semantic accuracy relies on use of geometric configurations of cameras capturing the multi-view video sequence. The method further includes searching the second frame within the constrained search range for a match of the pixels identified in the first frame.
US07778324B2
A system for controlling the delay applied to one branch of a pulse width modulation amplifier. The delay typically incorporated whether input signal level is low and diminished when the input signal level increases. The system may be implemented using a switch, a level detector and a timer, which in conjunction determine whether the delay unit is included in the branch or bypassed. The system may also use a programmable delay that can adjust the period of delay applied or be programmed to operate as a pass-through where delay is no longer beneficial for providing high signal quality.
US07778312B2
A receiver includes a baseband processor for selecting a set of demodulation processing delays for received signal demodulation from a larger set of candidate delays. In one embodiment, the baseband processor selects the set of demodulation processing delays by calculating at least one metric for each demodulation processing delay in the set of candidate delays, iteratively reducing the set of candidate delays by eliminating one or more demodulation processing delays from the set as a function of comparing the metrics, and setting the processing delays for received signal demodulation to the candidate delays remaining after reduction. In a Generalized RAKE (G-RAKE) embodiment, the metric corresponds to combining weight magnitudes associated with G-RAKE finger delays. In a chip equalizer embodiment, the metric corresponds to coefficient magnitudes associated with equalization filter tap delays. In other embodiments, the metric corresponds to Signal to Interference Ratios (SIRs) associated with the set of candidate delays.
US07778311B2
Methods to achieve data bit synchronization from weak navigational satellite signals are based on a maximum likelihood criterion. The bit synchronization technique may be implemented by calculating a normalized dot product of two consecutive one-millisecond correlation values. Similar normalized dot products are calculated at intervals separated by one bit duration, and these dot products are summed and compared with pre-computed thresholds to declare bit edge detection. In another implementation, the normalized dot product of adjacent correlation values is replaced by a coherent integration powers of adjacent correlation values.
US07778308B2
The invention relates to an apparatus and method for processing received data (I1/Q1, I2/Q2; d1, d2) of a radio interface, wherein the received data includes a sequence of data which have been transmitted for the purpose of error reduction through different branches of a carrier (Rk) of the radio interface, and which are combined into a sequence of data (DATAOUT) to be outputted, wherein the combining is implemented on the basis of carrier information values (Req,k, SINRk) of the different branches (k) relative to each other. A maximum ratio combining (MRC) is implemented in which the amplitudes of the branches of the carrier information (Req,1, (Req,2) are combined using a division method as a function of a disturbance information value (MIX, SINR1, SINR2) of the branches (k).
US07778307B2
A wireless communication device for receiving a frame (200) corresponding to a transmission time interval, the frame having a control channel (210) including at least two control channel elements (212, 214) and an embedded bit sequence, the location of which indicates a portion of the control channel used for radio resource assignment, wherein the portion of the control channel used for radio resource assignment may be less than the entire control channel of the frame having the embedded bit sequence, and wherein the at least two frames may use different portions of the control channel for radio resource assignment.
US07778305B2
For increasing the power emitted by surface emitting lasers and for improving the spatial coherence of the laser beam, emitted in particular by disk lasers, microchip lasers and VCSELs having a relatively wide emitting area, the invention proposes to select a low order transverse cavity mode by means of a mirror structure (12) of high reflectivity, and of high angular selectivity. The mirror structure comprises a multilayer (14) receiving the optical beam (24) and a resonant grating mirror (16) following the multilayer and arranged for highly reflecting the optical beam in a narrow angular range at each side of a determined incidence angle.
US07778292B2
It is an object to enable control according to an optimum temperature condition for a wavelength conversion device. There are provided a laser medium for creating fundamental-wave laser light with a fundamental frequency; a wavelength conversion device which, if the fundamental-wave laser light from the laser medium is inputted thereto, creates higher-harmonic-wave laser light with a harmonic wavelength of a higher order than the wavelength of the fundamental-wave laser light; a temperature measurement section for measuring the temperature of the wavelength conversion device; a temperature adjustment section for adjusting the temperature of the wavelength conversion device; a temperature control section for controlling the temperature adjustment section for changing the temperature of the wavelength conversion device within a predetermined range; an output monitoring section for measuring the laser power emitted from the wavelength conversion device at each temperature of the wavelength conversion device which is changed in temperature by the temperature control section; and a temperature setting section for setting the temperature of the wavelength conversion device at which the laser power measured by the output monitoring section has a maximum value, as an optimum temperature of the wavelength conversion device.
US07778290B2
Fiber lasers for producing Band I wavelengths include a laser cavity having an optical fiber with specific parameters in length and thickness and doping concentration, and having high reflectivities. Examples show the feasibility of producing such fiber lasers. Fiber lasers for producing Band IV wavelengths include a depolarized laser oscillator, at least one amplifier and a polarizer. Depolarized laser oscillator is an inherently depolarized CW laser, or a depolarized laser diode, which is depolarized by a depolarizer. Additional fiber lasers in accordance with embodiments of the present invention include a double clad active optical fiber having a pump power entry point for sending pump energy through the active optical fiber in a first direction, and a loop portion at a second end of the fiber for sending pump energy through the active optical fiber in a second direction which is opposite to the first direction. A system for coupling light into a fiber in accordance with embodiments of the present invention include a first fiber, a second double clad fiber, and a bulk optic component positioned between the first and second fibers. A mode stripper included within the second fiber allows for removal of high power light which is propagated through the outer clad rather than launched into the core of the second fiber.
US07778275B2
In an arrangement comprising a partitioned computer system and a switch with multiple adapters, wherein adapters are combined to form channels on respective partitions, a method is provided for dynamically changing the configuration of channels to which some of the adapters are assigned. The method allows better utilization for over-all network bandwidth. In one embodiment, the method includes initially allocating the adapters to establish at least one communication channel between each partition and the switch, wherein one or more adapters are allocated to each channel. Metric data is acquired for each channel during a time period, wherein the metric data indicates bandwidth utilization of respective channels. The metric data is evaluated to detect a first channel that under-utilizes available bandwidth when a second channel is over-utilizing available bandwidth. Adapters are reallocated from the first channel to the second channel by leveraging advanced Operating System and firmware support for dynamic adapter configuration, following detection of such event.
US07778260B2
A seamless solution transparently addresses the characteristics of nomadic systems, and enables existing network applications to run reliably in mobile environments. A Mobility Management Server coupled to the mobile network maintains the state of each of any number of Mobile End Systems and handles the complex session management required to maintain persistent connections to the network and to other peer processes. If a Mobile End System becomes unreachable, suspends, or changes network address (e.g., due to roaming from one network interconnect to another), the Mobility Management Server maintains the connection to the associated peer task—allowing the Mobile End System to maintain a continuous connection even though it may temporarily lose contact with its network medium. An interface-based listener uses network point of attachment information supplied by a network interface to determine roaming conditions and to efficiently reestablish connection upon roaming. The Mobility Management Server can distribute lists to Mobile End Systems specifying how to contact it over disjoint networks.
US07778259B1
An architecture, system and method are provided for efficiently transferring packets of data across a communication network. Portions of the communication network is structured such that there are hierarchical levels of high speed Routing Switches existing throughout the network. Distributed routing of packets is achieved by comparing identification numbers of Routing Switches with the destination address of a data packet. Once routing is achieved within the transport ID based network, transfer to a destination termination device occurs through a single look-up table only when departing the network. The routing operation between termination devices can therefore be achieved using a single mapping operation and is backward compatible with devices external to the network and protocols used by those devices. Each Routing Switch thereby serves as a traffic manager, having registers that are configured so as to allow the traffic manager to direct packets of data from an input port to an output port in the quickest, most efficient manner without having to decode the entire destination address or requiring time-consumptive routing tables.
US07778256B2
A method and a system for implementing virtual circuit status consistency. A transmitting provider edge router (PE) send an extended network layer reachability information (NLRI) message to a remote PE; the remote PE updates the status of the virtual circuit from the remote PE to the transmitting PE, according to the received extended NLRI message, so as to make the status of the virtual circuits between the transmitting PE and the remote PE consistent. A system for implementing virtual circuit status consistency, the first provider edge router (PE1) in the system sending an extended network layer reachability information (NLRI) message to a second provider edge router (PE2); the PE2 updates the status of the virtual circuit from the PE2 to the PE1 according to the received extended NLRI message, so as to make the status of the bidirectional virtual circuits between the PE1 and the PE2 consistent.
US07778250B2
A method and apparatus for securing a layer II bridging switch for subscriber aggregation is described. The method receives packets from a circuit on the layer II bridging switch and makes a forwarding decision for each packet based on at least one of the addresses of the packet being currently assigned to a second circuit.
US07778247B2
A method determines channel state information of a channel of a wireless network. Each of the wireless devices is configured to operate over the wireless network. An allocation of available transmission resources is performed according to a utility-based cross-layer resource management framework that transforms a utility function into an equivalent bipartite graph to concurrently maximize throughput and fairness in the resource allocation.
US07778246B2
Provided is an IP data transmission apparatus using a legacy transmission system and a broadband downstream transmission system in a HFC network. The IP data transmission apparatus includes: an headend unit for receiving data from an application server system that is a service providing apparatus, splitting the received data into general user data and management message, determining whether the general user is transmitted using a broadband or an existing service band, and transmitting the general user data through the HFC network; and a user cable terminal unit for receiving the split data transmitted from the headend unit through the HFC network, transmitting the received data to an IP based user device, and transferring the management message to the IP based user device through the legacy transmission system.
US07778242B1
A wireless communications system includes components to apply unequal error protection to different portions of a packet containing real-time data (e.g., speech data, video data, and so forth). The packet is separated into plural portions (e.g., subflows of radio bearers), with different protection techniques applied to the plural portions.
US07778234B2
A system for local allocation or provisioning of resources in a network. Allocation rules are defined based on one or more factors of user identity, device identity and device location. A communication is given a priority level based on the rules. A device in the network performs local provisioning according to the rule definitions. Rule definitions can be set or changed via a user interface. Automated ways to obtain factor values can be used such as automatic identification of users, devices, and location. Other possible factors to use to determine resource allocation can be time of day, date, identity of an originating or target device, identity of a caller or callee, etc. Resources that can be allocated include bandwidth, processing cycles, network storage and power.
US07778227B2
In accordance with the teachings described herein, systems and methods are provided for managing communications between a mobile device and a wireless network. The mobile device may include an executable network management program that causes the mobile device to terminate a first communication link with the wireless network while in an out-of-coverage state, and queue data in the mobile device relating to the first communication link. The network management program may further cause the mobile device to receive instructions to establish a second communication link between the mobile device and the wireless network, and delete the queued data relating to the first communication link.
US07778220B2
The invention relates to load balancing the binding creation on a home agent with a mobile node in an IPV6 network. A home agent serving a prefix learns about load on other home agents and when a home agent address discovery request from a mobile is received by a home agent, the home agent processing the message returns addresses of the least loaded home agent to the mobile node.
US07778218B2
An apparatus, method, and computer-readable medium in various embodiments includes a transmitter that establishes a radio connection that sends signals to a user equipment using a required transmission power; a receiver that receives a signal sent by the user equipment over the radio connection, the signal comprising at least one power control command determined by the user equipment; and a processor configured to specify the required transmission power in the transmitter using a delay requirement of a service to be transferred over the radio connection and the at least one power control command as a basis for making the power control decision, wherein at least one dedicated physical channel and at least a part of a shared physical channel that is time-divisionally shared are allocated to the user equipment on the radio connection, wherein the processor is further configured to carry out the power control of the time-divisionally shared physical channel on the basis of the power control decision of the dedicated physical channel.
US07778216B2
A satellite multimedia broadcasting terminal and method for updating pilot channel information is provided. By determining whether pilot channel information has changed and updating pilot channel information based on the determination, processing of unchanged pilot channel information can be minimized and the efficiency of a system enhanced.
US07778207B2
A network tap device array including one or more passive full-duplex bidirectional ZPL network tap devices is disclosed. The array enables data from multiple nodes in a communications network to be tapped and forwarded to a plurality of monitoring devices. In one embodiment the network tap device array includes a chassis that is configured to receive a plurality of passive full-duplex bidirectional ZPL network tap devices. Each passive full-duplex bidirectional ZPL network tap device includes network ports for passing network data via communication cables and tap ports for forwarding the tapped network data to the monitoring device. In another embodiment, a sub-chassis includes a plurality of passive full-duplex bidirectional ZPL network tap devices and an aggregator that aggregates tapped data from each of the tap devices. The aggregator then forwards the aggregated data to the monitoring device. The sub-chassis can be included in a chassis that is configured to receive multiple populated chassis.
US07778201B2
Element managers and processes receive, from a selected network element, first neighbor information describing a first neighboring network element directly connected to the selected network element and second neighbor information describing a different second neighboring network element directly connected to the selected network element. Based at least in part on the first neighbor information and the second neighbor information, the element managers and processes determine that the first neighboring network element is a logical neighbor that is connected by a tunnel to the selected network element and is coupled to the selected network element via one or more intermediate packet switches.
US07778196B2
Methods and apparatus are provided for measuring and evaluating access link performance in IP networks that reduce the amount of required test traffic. Performance values supported by access links in a packet network that interconnects regions of an enterprise network are evaluated by (i) obtaining a plurality of test measurements for a set of N access links; (ii) formulating a matrix equation (Ax=D), where A is an invertible matrix, such as a Hadamard matrix, x is a vector of unknown access link performance parameters and D is a vector based on the plurality of test measurements; (iii) assigning one or more numeric values to one or more unproducible equations in the matrix equation based on one or more system properties; and (iv) obtaining a performance parameter value on each directed edge for the set by applying an inverse matrix A−1 to each side of of the matrix equation.
US07778194B1
Methods, apparatuses and systems directed to the classification of encrypted network traffic. In one implementation, the present invention facilitates the classification of network traffic that has been encrypted according to a dynamically-created encryption mechanism involving a handshake between two end-systems, such as the SSL and TLS protocols. In one implementation, the present invention observes and analyzes attributes of the handshake between two nodes to enhance the classification of network traffic. In one embodiment, the enhanced classification mechanisms described herein operate seamlessly with other Layer 7 traffic classification mechanisms that operate on attributes of the packets themselves. Implementations of the present invention can be incorporated into a variety of network devices, such as traffic monitoring devices, packet capture devices, firewalls, and bandwidth management devices.
US07778176B2
Methods, apparatuses and systems facilitating the concurrent classification and control of tunneled and non-tunneled data flows in a packet-based computer network environment. As discussed in more detail below, embodiments of the present invention allow for the “intra-tunnel” classification of data flows and, based on the classification, the deterministic and intelligent application of aggregate bandwidth utilization controls on data flows corresponding to a given tunnel. Embodiments of the present invention allow for the allocation of bandwidth on an application-level basis between tunneled and non-tunneled traffic, as well as between applications within a given tunnel. Other embodiments of the present invention can be configured to provide a differentiated security model for non-tunneled and tunneled traffic. In addition, embodiments of the present invention can be further configured to implement a layered security model for tunneled traffic.
US07778175B2
In a method of managing a request for remote access to a multimedia content, a corresponding datum stream is inserted at the instant or in a delayed manner with the set of the data streams being transmitted on a distribution network as a function of a capacity threshold of this network. Each data stream is of the variable-throughput type, with a data throughput profile corresponding, whose width corresponds to a time of transmission of the stream. The management of the request comprises a verification that the capacity of the network is not exceeded on the width of the profile, as a function of a given instant of insertion, of the throughput of the data stream or streams in progress on the said distribution network, obtained on the basis of the throughput profiles of these streams, and of the throughput profile of the requested stream.
US07778173B2
A method and apparatus for clock recovery for constant bit rate MPEG-2 compliant single program transport stream and multiple program transport stream delivered over UDP/IP is disclosed. Clock recovery utilizes a dejittering filter to remove arrival time jitter from received packets and a phase lock loop is used to recover a PCR clock rate up to a range allowed by the MPEG-2 System specification. An MPEG-2 compliant output stream is produced, even when the input PCR does not meet the timing requirement specified by the MPEG-2 System specification.
US07778172B2
The invention discloses a home networking system and an admission control method for the home networking system. First, a first request information representative of a first traffic request for a terminal station is received. The first request information includes a first padding information column which includes a first routing path, a first required bandwidth, and a first compression format corresponding to the first required bandwidth. Subsequently, according to the first routing path and the first required bandwidth, it is judged whether one available bandwidth allocated to each link of the first routing path satisfies the first required bandwidth. If YES, the first traffic in the first compression format is admitted.
US07778161B2
A pair of devices (400, 401) appear to be a Common Channel Signaling (CCS) network nodes on each end of a pointdigital data link, that is, a normal CCS signaling link (402, 403). Multiple transport methods may be used to provide a redundant and diverse path for the signaling link. These methods include the encapsulation of the CCS protocol, at one or more layers, within other network protocols. In another embodiment, the present invention implements a virtual Signal Transfer Point by means of one or more encapsulating STPs (eSTPs). A packet data network (408) using standard packetdata protocols, rather than a backplane bus or specialnetwork, connects the encapsulating STPs (405, 406), and CCS messages are dynamically routed across the internal packet data network to an appropriate eSTP for transmission to the appropriate next hop address. The entire group of eSTPs appears to be one STP to the CCS network, but on the internal packet data network each eSTP operates as an autonomous message router for CCS traffic.
US07778160B2
A transmission device in which a bus of a central processing unit is used to synchronize timing signals between units, thereby restraining enlargement in scale of wiring. A reference signal generator generates a reference signal. A reference signal receiver is mounted on a unit set as an active or standby unit and receives the reference signal. A timing signal generator divides the frequency of the received reference signal by means of a frequency divider/counter to generate a timing signal. A count holder holds the count value of the frequency divider/counter. The bus connects the units and the central processing unit. A count receiver receives, via the bus, the count value from the count holder of the active unit. A count updater updates the count value of the frequency divider/counter to the count value received by the count receiver.
US07778157B1
A method includes assigning a port identifier to a first port on a node and communicating data on a first path between the first port and a logical unit on an active/passive storage array. The port identifier is registered in a persistent reservation scheme for the logical unit. The method also includes detecting a failure of the first path, de-assigning the port identifier from the first port, assigning the port identifier to a second port on the first node, and resuming communications between the node and the logical unit. One implementation of a system includes a first port configured to communicate with a storage device, a second port configured to communicate with the storage device, and an identifier management block. The identifier management block executes a failover with N_Port ID Virtualization commands that transfer a world wide port name from the first port to the second port.
US07778155B2
A broadcast router includes a router matrix having input and output sides. Coupled to the input side of the router matrix are first and second reference inputs. The first reference input is configured for application of a first reference signal thereto while the second reference input is configured for selective application of either a second reference signal or a redundancy of the first reference signal thereto. The broadcast router further includes N inputs, M outputs and a routing engine, coupled between the N inputs and the M outputs, for applying selected ones of the N inputs to the M outputs. A reference select circuit is coupled between the first and second reference inputs and the routing engine.
US07778152B2
Non-intrusive method and system for coupling powerline communications signals to a powerline network
In one embodiment, a powerline system includes a data connection, a powerline module coupled to the data connection, a physical socket coupled to the powerline module and including a female connector device, a male connector device inserted into the female connector device, and a pair of wires coupled to and extending from the male connector device. The female connector device comprises a first female connector and a second female connector. The male connector device comprises a first male connector coupled to the first female connector and a second male connector coupled to the second female connector. The first wire of the pair of wires is coupled to and extending from the first male connector, and the second wire of the pair of wires is coupled to and extending from the second male connector respectively.
US07778151B2
In a method for transmitting a contention free scheduling request in a cellular network, a set of N frequency opportunities is defined within a scheduling request slot. A set of R CAZAC root sequences is then defined per frequency opportunity. A set of C cyclic shifts is then defined per CAZAC root sequence. Within a given cell, a unique identification number is assigned to each user equipment (UE) that is in an uplink (UL) synchronized state. Each UL synchronized UE is mapped to a unique combination of one of the N frequency opportunities, one of the R CAZAC root sequences and one of the C cyclic shifts. A cyclic shifted preamble sequence for a given UE is transmitted as a scheduling request on the mapped frequency, CAZAC root sequence and cyclic shift opportunity, wherein the unique identification number of the given UE is encoded by the combination of the frequency opportunity, CAZAC root sequence opportunity, and amount of cyclic shift, such that up to all of the plurality of UE can transmit a schedule request (SR) in a non-contentious manner in one schedule request slot.
US07778150B2
A control unit adjusts the number of streams for each of a plurality of packet signals and specifies a packet signal whose number of streams is the maximum among the packet signals whose number of streams has been adjusted. The control unit assigns a known signal and a data signal to each of streams for the specified packet signal. While setting another stream, the control unit assigns an extensional known signal to the another stream. The control unit also assigns a known signal and a data signal to at least one of streams for the packet signals which have not been specified.
US07778145B2
By use of a substrate which can be stably formed and has a relatively small groove depth, a very high density optical recording medium having good recording/reading characteristics is provided. In an optical recording medium of a surface incidence type, in which a reflective layer, a recording layer containing a dye as a main component and a cover layer are sequentially formed on a substrate having guide grooves formed therein, a guide groove part on a far side from a plane of incidence of a recording/reading light beam on the cover layer is set as a recording groove part, and reflected light intensity in a recorded pit portion formed in the recording groove part is increased by a phase shift and is set higher than reflected light intensity in unrecorded.
US07778143B2
An optical disk according to the present invention includes: a substrate in a disk shape; guide grooves arranged at a pitch p in a radial direction of the substrate, each of the guide grooves being formed so as to extend in a circumferential direction of the substrate; and a pre-pit formed in a space between the guide grooves so as to extend along the guide groove. The optical disk is configured so that an address signal assigned to each location on a signal surface is indicated by the arrangement of the pre-pit in accordance with a predetermined rule. The pre-pit is composed of a pair of pre-pits formed on respective sides of the guide groove. The pair of pre-pits are arranged so as to be displaced in the circumferential direction so that a distance between inner edges of the respective pre-pits in the circumferential direction is smaller than the pitch p of the guide grooves. An optical disk apparatus of the present invention detects light reflected from the optical disk configured as above, calculates a differential phase detection signal, and detects an address signal using the differential phase detection signal. According to this optical disk apparatus, an address signal can be read reliably even at a region where a recording mark is formed so as to lie over the address pre-pit.
US07778141B2
The present invention can simplify the configuration of a polarization adjustment plate. According to the present invention, the crystal axis of the polarization adjustment wavelength plate 32 is so arranged as to be turned up from the X-Y plane being an orthogonal plane with respect to the optical axis 40a, and the wavelength dependence which the crystal material is originally provided with is largely expressed, and further the thickness “ta” with respect to the optical axis 40a is set up such that the phase difference Δ to be brought about at the beam center becomes low from 360°+180°=540° being a desired design value to irradiate the optical beam as the P-polarization by a predetermined difference value or 60°.
US07778132B2
A method for optimizing write parameters using two-stage adjustment is provided. A first kind of write strategy parameters optimization procedure for adjusting at least one static write strategy parameter of a write strategy is performed. A second kind of write strategy parameters optimization procedure for adjusting at least one dynamic write strategy parameter of the write strategy is performed after performing the first kind of write strategy parameters optimization procedure. The static write strategy parameter corresponds to a signal length of a pit on an optical disk and the dynamic write strategy parameter is utilized to overcome heat interference when forming the pit.
US07778130B2
An optical disc apparatus comprises, an optical pickup, a signal extracting unit for reading address information and an RF signal from an optical disc based on signal read by the optical pickup, and a main controller for performing jitter control and focus control. At an initial reading of the optical disc, the main controller determines whether an address information detector succeeds in reading the address information. If not successful (NO in S3), the main controller offsets a defocus position to two points in plus and minus directions from a defocus position giving best jitter (S7), calculates an approximate curve of signal level characteristics with a peak value (S8), and adjusts and allows the defocus value to correspond to this peak value (S9). If the optical disc apparatus cannot read address information, depending on the defocus value, it increases the signal level of the address information by the defocus position adjustment.
US07778129B2
An optical disk apparatus can reliably detect the target recording layer of an optical disk having two recording layers. The optical disk apparatus is adapted to recording information on and reproducing information from an optical disk formed by sequentially laying a first recording layer, a second recording layer and a cover layer. The focal point of the light beam is moved closer to the optical disk from the side of the cover layer and the focal point of the light beam is determined to be coming close to the recording layer when the signal level of the focus error signal falls below a positive focus error threshold value after rising above the latter or rises above the negative focus error threshold value after falling below the latter. Then, the focal point of the light beam is kept on moving toward the optical disk after the detection of the recording layer and the recording layer that is detected last is determined to be the first recording layer when the recording layer is not re-detected within a re-detection period.
US07778123B2
An optical disk drive capable of detecting occurrence of tooth jump in a mechanism for transferring an optical pickup. The optical pickup is transferred in a radial direction of an optical disk by means of a stepping motor. A control section having received a seek operation command from a host machine drives the stepping motor by way of a controller, to thus cause the optical pickup to perform seek up to a target address. The amount of displacement between a current address achieved after seek operation and a target address is computed. When the amount of displacement is equal to or greater than a pitch P of the transfer mechanism; namely, the pitch P of a lead screw, the tooth jump is determined to have arisen. Seek conditions are changed, and seek is reperformed.
US07778118B2
A watch device includes a touch-sensitive user interface employing a sensor positioned within the bezel of the display for detecting when the bezel is touched by a user of the watch device. The sensor may be capable of detecting single presses, multiple simultaneous presses, and scrolling motion presses about the bezel.
US07778116B2
A timepiece, including a compass for indicating north, a directional display, and a controller, where the controller allows a user to select a bearing direction relative to north, and where the directional display provides a first visual indication to the user when the timepiece is aligned with the bearing direction, and a second visual indication when the timepiece deviates from the bearing direction.
US07778111B2
A method for navigating underwater is disclosed. The method uses a navigation system to project a first velocity measurement along one or more signal beams having a second velocity measurement, where the second velocity measurement is related to at least one of the one or more signal beams. The method determines a position and location of an object associated with the navigation system based on a prediction of at least the second velocity measurement, and the navigation system is adjusted to perform within a prescribed measurement range based on a covariance of the first and second velocity measurements. The performance adjustments made in determining the position and location of the object are operable independent of the navigation system maintaining each of the signal beams due to one or more external environmental conditions.
US07778109B2
A method for use in seismic surveying includes determining the shape of a seismic cable during a seismic survey; determining the tension on the seismic cable at a plurality of points along the seismic cable; and predicting a current that will impact the seismic cable from the determined shape and the determined tension. The method may be practiced two-dimensionally in the context of a marine survey employing a towed streamer array or three-dimensionally in the context of laying an array of ocean bottom cables on the seabed. The predicted currents can, in some embodiments, be used to make steering corrections for the seismic cables.
US07778105B2
A memory with a write port configured for double-pump writes. The memory includes a first and second memory locations each having one or more bit cells, and one or more bit lines each coupled to corresponding ones of the bit cells. A write port is coupled to each of the bit lines. Selection circuitry, responsive to a first clock edge, latches first data from a first data path through the write port, and responsive to a second clock edge, latches second data from a second data path through the write port. A first pulse is generated during a first phase of the clock signal to cause writing of the first data into the first memory location. A second pulse is generated during a second phase of the clock signal to cause writing of the second data into the second memory location.
US07778104B2
A semiconductor memory includes a cell mat configured to include a plurality of memory cells to which a first bit line pair or a second bit line pair is connected; a sense amplifier configured to amplify a positive sensing line and a negative sensing line in response to a first bit line equalize signal; a column selecting unit configured to connect the positive sensing line and the negative sensing line to a first data bus and a second data bus, respectively, in response to a column selection signal; and a share control unit configured to connect the positive sensing line and a positive first bit line of the first bit line pair or a positive second bit line of the second bit line pair in response to a second bit line equalize signal, a positive share control signal and a negative share control signal.
US07778102B2
The present invention provides a semiconductor memory device that can reduce unnecessary current consumption, as banks not accessing data maintain an inactivation state and do not receive an input address. A semiconductor memory device includes a plurality of banks grouped into a first group and a second group; and a bank control unit for selecting one of the first group and the second group in response to a bank address to transfer an address to the selected group.
US07778101B2
A memory module and a method of performing the same for access of an external electronic device are provided herein. The memory module includes a NAND-type flash memory, a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) unit, and a memory controller. The dynamic random access memory unit which is electrically connected to the NAND-type flash memory includes a dynamic random access memory and an internal power. The memory controller is used for controlling at least one of both the NAND-type flash memory and the dynamic random access memory unit. When the memory module is disconnected with the external electronic device, the internal power of the dynamic random access memory unit powers the dynamic random access memory, actively. Accordingly, data stored in the dynamic random access memory will be retained.
US07778093B2
A memory control method for adjusting deglitch windows utilized by a memory control circuit receiving an original data strobe signal of a memory includes: deglitching according to the original data strobe signal by utilizing a plurality of deglitch windows that are set by delaying an original deglitch window signal in order to derive a plurality of deglitch results, where the deglitch windows have different beginning time points; and utilizing the deglitch results to dynamically determine a delay amount for delaying the original deglitch window signal, where the beginning time point of one of the deglitch windows is kept centered at a middle time point of a preamble of the original data strobe signal.
US07778078B2
A memory system includes: a flash memory that stores data; a memory that stores a read count table that indicates the number of times of data read from the flash memory; and a controller that performs: reading out the data from the flash memory; updating the read count table when the controller performs reading out the data from the flash memory; and refreshing the flash memory based on the read count table.
US07778076B2
A memory unit is provided herein. Two non-volatile devices are used to store a logic state of the memory unit into the non-volatile devices. Although a power supply for the memory unit is shut down, the non-volatile devices still keep the data stored therein. The present invention not only has an advantage of high speed operation of a static random access memory (SRAM), but also has a function for storing data of a non-volatile memory.
US07778074B2
Systems and methods to control one time programmable (OTP) memory are included. A method may include determining a functionality for a hardware capability bus in an integrated circuit. The method may also include storing data in a first register of the integrated circuit based on the functionality. The method may also include disabling the functionality in the integrated circuit by setting at least one bit in a one time programmable memory bank in the integrated circuit based on the data.
US07778073B2
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to integrated circuits and methods for manufacturing an integrated circuit. In an embodiment of the invention, an integrated circuit having a memory cell is provided. The memory cell may include a trench in a carrier, a charge trapping layer structure in the trench, the charge trapping layer structure comprising at least two separate charge trapping regions, electrically conductive material at least partially filled in the trench, and source/drain regions next to the trench.
US07778072B2
A manufacturing method of a charge-trapping memory device is provided. This method includes forming a stacked structure having at least a charge-trapping medium. An annealing process in a hydrogen gas is then performed on the stacked structure subsequent to the device fabrication process. The annealing process is conducted at a temperature of about 350° C. to 450° C. and with the concentration of the hydrogen gas greater than 0.5 mole percent.
US07778069B2
An electrically rewritable non-volatile memory device is configured by the EEPROM 3, and an electrically non-rewritable non-volatile memory device is configured by the OTPROM 4a. Both the EEPROM 3 and the OTPROM 4a are configured by phase change memory devices each of which can be fabricated in the same fabrication step and at a low cost. The EEPROM3 uses a phase change memory device in which an amorphous state and a crystal state of a phase change material are used for memory information, while the OTPROM 4a uses a phase change memory device in which a non-disconnection state and a disconnection state of a phase change material are used for memory information.
US07778060B2
A ferroelectric memory includes: a memory cell having a ferroelectric capacitor, wherein, in a read-out operation, a first signal Q1 is given when a first voltage is applied to the ferroelectric capacitor, and a second signal Q2 is given when a second voltage having an identical magnitude as a magnitude of the first voltage in a different polarity is applied to the ferroelectric capacitor, and a judgment is made that the memory cell stores first data when Q1/Q2 is greater than ½, and second data when Q1/Q2 is smaller than ½.
US07778059B2
A phase change memory device having a uniform set and reset current includes a first and second sense amplifiers that are respectively placed adjacent to both ends of a plurality of active regions. The active regions include a first active region and a second active region. The first active region has a first area having a first width, a second area having a second width greater than the first width, and a third area having a third width greater than the second width and are sequentially arranged in a direction extending toward an area adjacent to the first sense amplifier. The second active region has a first area having a first width, a second area having a second width greater than the first width, and a third area having a third width greater than the second width, which are sequentially arranged in a direction extending toward an area adjacent to the second sense amplifier.
US07778050B2
The present invention includes a turn-off signal modulating circuit that periodically varies a turn-off timing of a switching element 2 at a preset modulation time after a current detection by a drain current detecting circuit 15, and by modulating the peak of a current flowing through the switching element 2, diffuses switching noise while preventing concentration of an oscillating frequency at a constant frequency even under a constant input voltage and a constant load.
US07778046B1
A non-isolated and isolated both polarity non-inverting and polarity inverting switching DC-to-DC converters with three switches are provided with a basic voltage step-up DC gain characteristics and a very efficient operation without a danger of voltage overstress of any of the three switches over the full operating range from duty ratio of 0 to 1.0, thus resulting in wide input voltage operating range. The isolated extensions feature transformer with no DC-bias for efficient operation and small size. Full-bridge secondary side implementation further reduces the output filtering requirements.
US07778036B2
A structure for mounting a heat-generating component includes a circuit board on which a heat-generating component is mounted, a base on which the circuit board is disposed upright, a cover having thermal conductivity, a heat-conductive member electrically isolated from the heat-generating component and a heat transfer plate. The heat transfer plate is attached to the circuit board so as to extend in the sliding direction of the cover to cover a surface of the heat-conductive member. The cover presses the heat transfer plate by an inner surface thereof against the heat-conductive member in a direction perpendicular to the heat-conductive member so that the heat-generating component is thermally connected to the inner surface of the cover through the heat-conductive member and the heat transfer plate.
US07778020B2
An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for a modular blade. The blade has a first carrier card and a second carrier card. At least one of these cards connects into the backplane of a blade server and provides connectivity for the modular blade to the backplane. The carrier cards also provide connectivity between their respective attached devices. In order to increase the density available in a modular blade, the computing components on the first and second cards interleave with one another such that a maximum number of components fit in a minimal space. The modular blade also provides an airflow channel for air circulation necessary to provide cooling. The first carrier card and second carrier card may also be identical, with one of the identical pair rotated one-hundred and eighty degrees with respect to the other.
US07778017B2
A clamp-type hard disk (hard disk) mount includes a base having a hard disk contact surface; two clamping arms pivotally connected at rear ends to two fulcrums provided in and near two lateral ends of the base; and two restoring elements disposed in the base. The two clamping arms respectively have an extension section rearward extended beyond the two fulcrums. Two short rods are separately provided near front ends of the two clamping arms corresponding to two retaining hole provided on two lateral sides of a hard disk. The restoring elements normally push the extension sections of the clamping arms outward, so that the two clamping arms automatically clamp on the two lateral sides of a hard disk installed on the clamp-type hard disk mount.
US07778016B2
According to one embodiment of the invention, an electronic apparatus comprises a housing including a keyboard mount portion. A keyboard is mounted on the keyboard mount portion. The keyboard has a plurality of fixing pieces. The fixing pieces are protruded at the rear of the keyboard mount portion, and are removably fixed to the housing. A receptacle on which a module is removably mounted is provided in the housing. The receptacle is located between the fixing pieces at the rear of the keyboard mount portion.
US07778009B2
A thin-film capacitor element having two conductive films and a dielectric film sandwiched therebetween is provided above a substrate. An inorganic protective film covering the thin-film capacitor element and having a second opening exposing at least a part of the conductive films is provided. An organic protective film covering the thin-film capacitor element from above the inorganic protective film and having a first opening therein, which is larger than the second opening and exposes the second opening, is provided. Besides, a bump connected with the conductive films via the first opening and the second opening is provided.
US07778007B2
An optical emission analysis apparatus includes a discharge gap, an ignitor circuit, and a main discharge power supply. The ignitor circuit includes an ignition transformer, a pair of current control devices, and an excitation power supply. On a secondary coil of the ignition transformer, the discharge gap and the main discharge power supply are connected in series to form a main discharge current path. On a primary coil of the ignition transformer, the pair of current control devices and the excitation power supply are connected in series to form an excitation current path. A pair of current control devices is connected to each other via mutually opposite polarities. The polarity of the high voltage generated in the secondary coil is reversed by reversing the polarity of the voltage of the excitation power supply. The direction of the main discharge current is reversed by reversing the polarity of the voltage of the main discharge power supply. Through the reverse polarity discharge, the deposits on the electrode are removed.
US07778004B2
An apparatus produces contractions in skeletal muscles of a target to impede locomotion by the target. The apparatus is used with a provided deployment unit that deploys an electrode away from the apparatus. The electrode conducts a current through the target. The apparatus includes a bus; a plurality of ports, and a controller. Each port couples a module to the bus. The controller is coupled to the bus to communicate with each module to determine a description of each module.
US07777999B2
An electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection device includes an I/O terminal structure and a current discharge structure. The current discharge structure includes a conductive region separated from a bridge region by a gate electrode, a well region formed below the conductive region, another well region separated from the well region by another conductive region, and multiple additional conductive regions implementing dual current discharge paths through another well region.
US07777998B2
Circuitry on integrated circuits usually includes protection against electrostatic discharge (ESD) events. A second ESD current path may be provided in addition to a first ESD current path for shunting ESD current away from circuitry to be protected during an ESD event. In addition to the standard power and ground buses used to provide power and ground voltages to the protected circuitry, one or more extra power and/or ground buses and associated circuitry may be added for improved ESD protection.
US07777994B2
A device for preventing the explosion of an element of an electrical transformer provided with a tank containing a combustible cooling fluid, comprising a pressure release element for decompressing the tank, and a bag placed downstream of the pressure release element and configured to pass from a flat state to an inflated state upon the rupture of the pressure release element and for confining fluid.
US07777990B2
In a magnetic disk unit, the flying height margin of a magnetic recording element part during recording is reduced, whereby improvement in recording density and increase in capacity or decrease in size of the unit is realized. In one embodiment, a magnetic disk unit has a magnetic disk arranged in a freely rotational manner and a magnetic head slider disposed to face a surface of the magnetic disk, and generates air flow between the magnetic disk and the magnetic head slider for flying, and records data using a magnetic recording element. The magnetic head slider has a slider substrate part and a thin-film head part formed on the slider substrate part using a thin-film process. The thin-film head part has an insulating member, a magnetic recording element provided in the insulating member, and a heat radiation member for radiating heat generated by the magnetic recording element from lateral regions of the magnetic recording element to the slider substrate part.
US07777988B2
Prior art designs of single pole writers have been limited by premature saturation at the tip. This limits the head field that can be achieved without simultaneously widening the write profile. This problem has been solved by means of a vertical main pole whose thickness has its conventional value a short distance from the tip but that tapers down to a significantly reduced value as it approaches the tip. A process for manufacturing this tapered tip design is also presented.
US07777969B2
A camera module in which a lens holder holding one or more optical lenses is movable in the direction of the optical axis and in which an auto-focus function and a zoom function are incorporated is reduced in size and weight. A bearing section is formed in the lens holder, and a drive shaft is inserted in the bearing section. An operation part of a piezo element is made to be in contact with the drive shaft. The surface of that first part of the drive shaft which is in contact with the operation part and the surface of that second part which slides on the bearing section are differently processed.
US07777967B2
A zoom lens including, in order from an object side to an image side, a first group having a negative focal length, a second group having a positive focal length, a third group having a negative focal length, a fourth group having a positive focal length, and an aperture stop between the second group and the third group, wherein when changing a magnification from a short focus end to a long focus end, at least the second group monotonically moves from the image side to the object side such that a distance between the first group and the second group decreases, and a distance between the second group and the third group increases, and the third group includes a three-cemented lens having a negative lens, a positive lens and a negative lens in order from the object side.
US07777963B2
The invention relates to a method -for improving the imaging properties of a micro lithography projection objective (50), wherein the projection objective has a plurality of lenses (L1, L2, L3, L4, L5, L6, L7, L8) between an object plane and an image plane, a first lens of the plurality of lenses being assigned a first manipulator (ml, Mn) for actively deforming the lens, the first lens being deformed for at least partially correcting an aberration, at least one second lens of the plurality of lenses furthermore being assigned at least one second manipulator, and the second lens being deformed in addition to the first lens. Furthermore, a method is described for selecting at least one lens of a plurality of lenses of a projection objective as actively deformable element, and a projection objective.
US07777962B2
Apparatus, methods, and systems provide negatively-refractive focusing and sensing of electromagnetic energy. In some approaches the negatively-refractive focusing includes providing an interior focusing region with an axial magnification substantially greater than one. In some approaches the negatively-refractive focusing includes negatively-refractive focusing with a transformation medium, where the transformation medium may include an artificially-structured material such as a metamaterial.
US07777960B2
A projection system, such as a system suitable for head-up displays in automobiles, includes a laser projection source (101) and a scanner (102). Light from the laser projection source (101) is scanned across a projection surface (104), which can be a car's windshield. The projection surface (104) includes a buried numerical aperture expander (105) capable of reflecting some light and transmitting other light. The system may also include an image projection source (551) capable of presenting high-resolution images on a sub-region (552) of the projection surface (604) that has a optical relay (650) disposed therein.
US07777958B2
An erecting equal-magnification lens array plate includes a stack of a plurality lens array plates built such that pairs of corresponding lenses form a coaxial lens system, where each lens array plate is formed with a plurality of convex lenses on both surfaces of the plate. The plate receives light from a substantially straight light source facing one side of the plate, and the plate forms an erect equal-magnification image of the substantially straight light source on an image plane facing the other side of the plate. The main lens arrangement direction differs from the main scanning direction of the erecting equal-magnification lens array plate. The erecting equal-magnification lens array plate is provided with a first light shielding member operative to shield light not contributing to imaging and formed in the neighborhood of a position in the intermediate plane in the erecting equal-magnification lens array plate where an inverted image of the substantially straight light source is formed, and with a second light shielding member operative to reduce the amount of light incident on at least some of the lenses at the periphery in the sub-scanning direction and provided on a lens surface facing a light source.
US07777948B2
A projection screen is disclosed, which includes an upper housing, an upper roller, a reflecting curtain, a lower housing, a lower roller, a lower mask and a positioning assembly. The upper roller is pivoted in the upper housing. The reflecting curtain is wound on the upper roller and has a reflecting surface to form a projection area. The lower housing is fixed at a free end of the reflecting curtain. The lower roller is pivoted in the lower housing. The lower mask is wound on the lower roller. The positioning assembly detachably connects a free end of the lower mask to the reflecting curtain, so that the lower mask covers a portion of the reflecting surface of the reflecting curtain to define the boundary of the projection area.
US07777946B2
A bag type portable screen device is disclosed. A screen is coupled with a rotary rod with ½ to ⅓ the size of a conventional screen to complete a screen case. The screen case is coupled with one of upper and lower sides of a bag, and has rings to fix the screen, when the rotary rod rotates to open and use the screen. The screen is released from the rings to carry. The screen may be a fixed type reflective screen whose end is fixed to the bag. Since the bag accommodates a laptop computer, and a projector, the bag type portable screen is convenient to carry, install, and use.
US07777935B2
An actuator is disclosed that has a contacting part smaller than a processing limit of a lithography technique, and is able to reduce a contacting area or a contacting length of the contacting part during operation, reduce a sticking force induced by contact, and decrease a driving voltage of the actuator. The actuator includes an operating part and a contacting part in contact with the operating part. The contacting part is formed by overlapping a first pattern on an end of a second pattern. The first pattern has a solid structure and the size of an upper portion of the solid structure of the first pattern on the second pattern is less than a processing resolving power or resolution.
US07777925B2
The present invention relates to a color adjustment apparatus and a method thereof. The color adjustment apparatus according to the present invention includes a calculation unit and an adjustment unit. The calculation unit receives an input color signal, and divides the input color signal into color groups and performs a calculation operation thereon to generate at least two calculation signals. The adjustment unit receives the calculation signals and the input color signal, and adjusts at least one of contrast group and complement group of the input color signal according to at least two of the calculation signals and a predetermined color value to generate an output color signal for a video-display apparatus. Accordingly, viewers can enjoy better visual experience.
US07777920B2
An image copier according to the invention comprises a scanner for reading an image and a printer for forming an image on sheet, and the scanner includes a document table for positioning an original document from which an image is to be read; a document holding cover holding the original document on the original document table and having a light-emitting element for detecting the size of an original document which emits light when the size of the original document is detected, a light source for irradiating the original document with light when an image on the original document is read, a light-receiving element for image reading which receives reflected light from the original document, a controller for the light-emitting element for detecting the size of an original document which controls the light-emitting element for detecting the thickness of the original document, a specific region determination unit for identifying a specific region based on the numbers of pixels in a main scanning direction and a sub scanning direction of image data, and a background correction unit for performing a process of correcting the background of an image which has been read. In the image copier according to the invention, see-through copying of the bottom side can be suppressed by performing a background correction process after an image is read without blocking a sensor hole of a sensor for detecting the size of the original document from light.
US07777919B2
Methods using a modular document sorting apparatus are disclosed. A plurality of modules are functionally connected to one another to enable them to scan documents for information and sort the documents according to the scanned information. Each module performs at least one function. Functions can include, feeding documents into the apparatus, singulating documents, transporting documents through at least a portion of the apparatus, scanning documents, printing on documents and sorting documents according to scanned information. Each module may be powered by a separate power supply. A single on/off switch can control a plurality of modules.
US07777912B2
A method of allowing for selective editing of a digital image that has undergone a correction of at least one area of interest is provided. The method includes: providing for the identification and correction of the at least one area of interest in the digital image while maintaining the digital image; providing the correction of the at least one area of interest as correction metadata; providing a low resolution corrected image using a low resolution version of the digital image and the correction metadata; and allowing the correction metadata to be edited to establish modified correction metadata, wherein a revised version of the low resolution corrected image includes the modified correction metadata.
US07777902B2
A system and related techniques generate printing and other output operations via a resolution-independent visual tree object. According to embodiments the operating system or other resource may receive the visual tree object and related data from applications or other sources, and perform logic to scale or process the visual output for resolution, effects or other purposes directly from that object. The operating system or other resource itself may be configured to receive the componentized visual tree object and condition or render that object for output to a printer, facsimile machine, copy machine or other output device. The operating system may serialize or spool that object from the source object in native form, relieving applications of the need to prepare documents or other output objects to generate specified resolutions, effects or to adapt the output to specific output drivers.
US07777901B2
An imposition for at least one page frame is applied onto a paper, and a page is disposed in the page frame on a layout in which an imaginary page frame including the page frame is set up. At that time, in the event that the page disposed on the layout juts out the imaginary page frame, a processing interruption section interrupts a series of processing of creating the paper image and outputting the created paper image to the paper, or a paper image creating section creates a paper image after the size adjustment of coinciding the page with the imaginary page frame.
US07777894B2
A method and apparatus are provided for monitoring an immersion photolithography process, the method including supplying an immersion fluid having an initial refractive index, performing photolithography using the supplied immersion fluid, recovering the used immersion fluid; and the apparatus including a light source, one or more fluid passageways disposed relative to the light source, and a light detector disposed on an opposite side of the fluid passageways relative to the light source for measuring a refractive index of a fluid in the fluid passageways.
US07777893B2
A fundus oculi observation device acts as an optical image measurement device capable of measuring an OCT image such as a tomographic image of a fundus oculi, or the like, and is configured so as to calculate the signal level of the formed OCT image, determine whether the signal level exceeds a threshold value, and change the position of a reference mirror so that the signal level is determined to exceed the threshold value.
US07777889B2
A computer-implementable method of reducing bias instability in a fiber optic gyroscope includes receiving, with a computer, a first data set enabling the computer to generate a model of the gyroscope, including a light source, a photodetector, and a plurality of optical components and fiber sections coupling the light source to the photodetector, and a light signal to be propagated from the light source to the photodetector. The light signal has an associated wavelength spectrum. For each wavelength of the spectrum, the relative lightwave intensity reaching the photodetector is calculated. A signal-wave intensity and a spurious-wave intensity are determined from the calculated relative lightwave intensities. A scale factor is determined from the signal-wave intensity. The spurious-wave intensity is integrated over the wavelength spectrum of the light source to obtain a total spurious-wave intensity. A rate bias error is determined based on the total spurious-wave intensity and the scale factor.
US07777880B2
Method and a polarimetric measurement device of a planar object carrying patterns repeated regularly and forming the lines of a grid. A first measurement is carried out at zero order, under an angle of incidence θ1 and for a first azimuthal angle φ1, a second measurement at least is carried out at zero order, under an angle of incidence θ2 and for a second azimuthal angle φ2, the polarization of the incident beam is modulated and the polarization of the reflected beam is analyzed for each measurement, theoretical polarimetric data is calculated for a model object of the real object, the model object including parameters adjustable using a formalism of electromagnetism. An iterative comparison of the measurements is conducted with the theoretical polarimetric data for different values of the adjustable parameters.
US07777879B2
An optical rotary encoder uses polarization difference imaging techniques to calculate an angle of orientation of a rotatable member. The optical rotary encoder includes a light source, a polarization sensor that has a polarizer and image sensing structure, and a polarizer disk fixed between to the rotatable and interposed between the light source and the polarization sensor.
US07777869B2
The invention concerns a device (DA) for analyzing microscopic elements, comprising firstly a measuring space (CM) for microscopic elements to be analyzed, secondly at least one source (S) delivering conjugated rays at the measuring space (CM), having at least two different analyzing wavelengths and designed to interact with the microscopic elements in the measuring space (CM) to form interacting rays, thirdly coding means (M) for encoding the rays upstream of the measuring space (CM) with different codes, fourthly optical filtering means (FO) for selectively filtering the interacting rays of fluorescence and/or diffusion depending on their wavelength, fifthly detecting means (DE, DF) for transforming into electric signals part at least of the interacting rays from the measuring space (CM), and sixthly analyzing means (MA) including decoding means (DRE, DRF) for decoding the electric signals to enable data representing the analyzed microscopic elements to be determined.
US07777864B2
A near-field exposure apparatus for exposing a substrate to light via an exposure mask under a condition that the exposure mask is close to the substrate. The apparatus includes a pressure adjustable container to control a relative position of the exposure mask to the substrate by adjusting a pressure of the pressure adjustable container. The pressure adjustable container has a structure adapted to be tightly closed with the exposure mask being held mounted so as to prevent volatile substances or foreign substances from entering into the pressure adjustable container. The pressure of the pressure adjustable container is adjustable through a change in capacity of the pressure adjustable container.
US07777858B2
A liquid crystal display device including a first substrate, a common electrode formed over the first substrate, and a second substrate disposed opposite the first substrate. A common voltage-applying member applies a common voltage to the common electrode and maintains a cell gap between the first substrate and the second substrate. The common voltage-applying member includes an insulator and a conductor formed over the insulator.
US07777843B2
A transflective diode substrate for a liquid crystal display device, includes: a reflective zone including a diode having a scan electrode, an insulating pattern on the scan electrode and a pixel electrode over the scan electrode, organic patterns around the diode, and a reflection electrode over the organic patterns; and a transmissive zone adjacent to the reflective zone; wherein the pixel electrode is formed in the reflective zone and the transmissive zone.
US07777834B2
In a display device, white LEDs and bluish white LEDs are arranged in alternating fashion on the light-incident surface side of a light-guide plate. On the light-exit side of the light-guide plate is disposed a transparent/scattering switching element switchable between a state of scattering incident light, and a state of transmitting light unchanged without scattering. During a narrow-angle display, only the white LEDs are lit, and the transparent/scattering switching element is placed in the transparent state, while during a wide-angle display, both the white LEDs and the bluish white LEDs are lit, and the transparent/scattering switching element is placed in the scattering state.
US07777829B2
A liquid crystal display device includes a liquid crystal display panel for displaying images, a light guide plate adjacent the liquid crystal display panel for providing light supplied to an edge of the light guide plate to the liquid crystal display panel, and a bottom chassis having at least one slit thereon. A flexible printed circuit board on the light guide plate includes at least one housing within the at least one slit, the at least one housing supporting a light emitting diode for supplying light to the light guide plate. A thickness of a lower end of the housing on a first side of the light emitting diode varies from a thickness of an upper end of the housing on a second opposite side of the light emitting diode.
US07777828B2
Disclosed herein is an inspection apparatus for liquid crystal display panels, which can perform inspection for orientation abnormality of the liquid crystal display panels while maintaining a uniform temperature. The inspection apparatus comprises a heating chamber to heat a plurality of LCD panels received in a cassette, an inspection unit positioned near the heating chamber to receive the LCD panels heated by the heating chamber, and to inspect abnormality of each LCD panel, and a panel transferring part to withdraw each of the LCD panels from the cassette and supply each of the LCD panels to the inspection unit, and to withdraw each of the LCD panels from the inspection unit and supply each of the LCD panels to the cassette while moving between the cassette and the inspection unit.
US07777824B2
A liquid crystal display device with a repair structure that facilitates repair of a short circuit or an open circuit. In the device, a gate line is formed on an insulating substrate and a gate electrode is integral to the gate line. A semiconductor layer is formed on the gate electrode with having an insulating film therebetween. A data line is crossed with the gate electrode, and a source electrode is integral to the data line on the semiconductor layer and the gate electrode. A drain electrode is spaced oppositely the source electrode. A protective film has a first contact hole at the drain electrode. A pixel electrode is formed on the protective film and is connected, via the contact hole, to the drain electrode. The pixel electrode has an area overlapped partially with the data line and is spaced from the gate line by a desired length (α) at one or more corners thereof. A storage electrode extends from the pixel electrode to be overlapped partially with the gate line and is spaced from the data line by a desired width (δ) at one or more corners thereof.
US07777823B2
A thin film transistor array panel includes: first and second gate lines disposed on a substrate and separated from each other; a data line intersecting the first and second gate lines; first and second thin film transistors connected to the first gate line and the data line; a third thin film transistor connected to the second gate line and having a drain electrode; and a pixel electrode including a first subpixel electrode and a second subpixel electrode, wherein the first subpixel electrode is connected to the first and third thin film transistor, the second subpixel electrode is connected to the second thin film transistor and includes a projection overlapping the drain electrode, and the projection has a first pair of edge portions that meet a first edge of the drain electrode and are substantially parallel to each other.
US07777796B2
A solid-state image pickup apparatus includes a pixel unit consisting of a plurality of pixels; a pixel control unit for controlling the plurality of pixels; a readout unit for reading a signal of each pixel output from the pixel unit; a shutter unit for establishing a state of a light incident to the pixel unit and that of shielding the pixel unit from the light; and a control unit. The control units includes an exposure mode changeover unit for changing over an exposure mode to either a first exposure mode performing a simultaneous exposure for all pixels or a second exposure mode performing an exposure for each of a predetermined unit of pixels. The control unit controls the pixel control unit, readout unit and shutter unit according to an exposure mode changed over by the exposure mode changeover unit.
US07777788B2
The present invention relates to a digital camera, which is designed such that a recording medium can be loaded thereon, the medium capable of recording photographed image data and prohibiting recorded image data from being erased. The digital camera includes an initialization instruction unit for instructing the loaded recording medium to initialize, and a notification unit for performing a predetermined notification operation for notifying execution of initialization. In the digital camera, the notification unit performs the predetermined notification operation when image data which is prohibited from being erased is recorded on the recording medium when the recording medium is instructed to initialize by the initialization instruction unit. When the recording medium on which the image data which is prohibited from being erased is recorded is loaded, and when the recording medium is instructed to initialize, the digital camera can prevent the image data from being inadvertently erased.
US07777785B2
An operability in performing an image correction process on a picked-up image of an object shot at approximately the same shooting angle is improved and a process time is shortened. A CPU in a cellular phone extracts the contour of the object from one of a plurality of picked-up images sequentially picked up in a sequential image pickup mode, and calculates correction data to be used in image correction based on the extracted contour. Thereafter, the CPU performs an image correction process on the plurality of picked-up images picked up sequentially to correct the distortion of the image of the object included in each picked-up image, using the calculated correction data.
US07777784B2
A system and method for generating multiple processed images from a single captured image generated by an electronic imaging device. In one embodiment, a digital camera includes multiple sets of operating parameters which may be advantageously configured according to the demands of particular photographic environments. For each image captured by a digital camera as raw data, the data is processed according to each parameter set prior to compression, storage in temporary memory, and ultimate upload onto a computer or other permanent storage device.
US07777778B2
A system and method are provided for actively illuminating and monitoring a subject, such as a driver of a vehicle. The system includes a video imaging camera orientated to generate images of the subject eye(s). The system also includes first and second light sources offset from each other and operable to illuminate the subject. The system further includes a controller for controlling illumination of the first and second light sources such that when the imaging camera detects sufficient glare, the controller controls the first and second light sources to minimize the glare. This is achieved by turning off the illuminating source causing the glare.
US07777773B2
Image quality assessment test charts and objective image quality measurement systems may be used to evaluate the printer sub-system health before artifacts become objectionable to human observers. Diagnostic images may be printed to allow measurement of a number of system performance attributes, such as: density, banding, streak, granularity, mottle, color, gloss, gloss uniformity, edge gradient, raggedness, sharpness, background, registration, line width, and satellite measurements. By comparing these measurements to historical values or ideal values of the same measurements, preventive maintenance suggestions may be generated to avoid both unnecessary maintenance and objectionable print quality.
US07777769B2
An image forming unit is provided in which, through making a distance limiting member to limit a distance between an exposing unit and an image carrying body be able to contact and separate with respect to the image carrying body by a contact/separation enabling section, it is eliminated that developer remaining on the surface of the image carrying body coagulates on the distance limiting member, so it is eliminated that the surface of the image carrying body is scraped by the developer, and that a bad print occurs. The image forming unit has an image carrying body exposed by an exposing unit, a distance limiting member to limit a distance between the exposing unit and the image carrying body. The distance limiting member is installed capable of contacting with and separating from the image carrying body by a contact/separation enabling section.
US07777765B2
A liquid crystal display device, including (a) a liquid crystal panel for carrying out display by voltage application to pixels, each of which has a liquid crystal layer, and (b) a driving circuit for applying, within one frame time, (i) voltages that respectively correspond with image signals and (ii) a voltage that corresponds with a clear command signal, to the pixels of said liquid crystal panel, is arranged such that said driving circuit includes a combination detector circuit for generating, by looking up an OS parameter table, corrected image signals according to combination of first image signals for a preceding frame time and second image signals for a present frame time, the corrected image signals thus generated causing liquid crystal orientation in the pixels to be transited from initial orientation of the present frame time to orientation indicated by the second image signals. With this arrangement, it is possible to display gray scale levels of the image signals, thereby realizing display of a moving image of high image quality.
US07777763B2
A method of displaying an image of at least a portion of a virtual patient including accessing identification of a video file, the video file comprising video data that depicts virtual patient features over a range of the features, determining an offset into the video file and presenting the video image corresponding to the offset.
US07777758B2
Methods, program products and systems for automatically trapping drop shadows. For at least one segment incident to an atomic region which includes a drop shadow, and for each side of the segment, determining a first flattened color of the side's incident atomic region, and if the atomic region includes a drop shadow, additionally determining a second flattened color omitting the color of the drop shadow. An effective neutral density from the side's first flattened color is determined and, if the side has a second flattened color, the side's second flattened color. The two atomic regions incident to the segment are trapped based upon the effective neutral densities for the respective sides.
US07777753B2
An electronic system, an integrated circuit and a method for display are disclosed. The electronic system contains a first device, a memory and a video/audio compression/decompression device such as a decoder/encoder. The electronic system is configured to allow the first device and the video/audio compression/decompression device to share the memory. The electronic system may be included in a computer in which case the memory is a main memory. Memory access is accomplished by one or more memory interfaces, direct coupling of the memory to a bus, or direct coupling of the first device and decoder/encoder to a bus. An arbiter selectively provides access for the first device and/or the decoder/encoder to the memory based on priority. The arbiter may be monolithically integrated into a memory interface. The decoder may be a video decoder configured to comply with the MPEG-2 standard. The memory may store predicted images obtained from a preceding image.
US07777747B1
A handheld bird identification tool is provided that assists users in identifying birds based on field observations. A user desiring assistance in classifying a bird uses interactive on-screen options to create a set of bird identification filter attributes. An interactive graphical view of a bird may be used to assign appearance characteristics such as color, pattern, and shape attributes to selected anatomical regions. The appearance characteristics and other filter attributes may be used as query terms in searching a bird identification database. A user may review audio clips of bird songs and images of birds matching the filter attributes. The bird identification tool may be used to manage a user's life list. Images, audio clips, and field notes may be gathered using the bird identification tool.
US07777745B2
A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture provide the ability to render an edge effect for an object. An object is obtained in a computer-generated rendering having vector geometry. An interior geometry is created for a fill of the object. Contour geometry is created for an outline stroke that covers an edge of the object. A proximity to the edge of the object is calculated for each pixel of the object and each pixel of the contour geometry. An effect is then rendered based on the proximities.
US07777738B2
An active matrix display comprises a select driver (SD) to drive select electrodes (SE), and a data driver (DD) to supply data (D) to data electrodes (DE). Pixels (10) are associated with intersections of the data electrodes (DE) and the select electrodes (SE). The pixels (10) comprise a light emitting element (L) and a pixel driving circuit (PD). The pixel driving circuit (PD) receives a power supply voltage (VB) via a power supply electrode (PE), and data (D) via a data electrode (DE) to control a brightness of the light emitting element (L). A power supply (PS) supplies the power supply voltage (VB). The power supply electrodes (PE) are arranged to supply the power supply voltage (VB) to the pixel driving circuits (PD) of lines of pixels (10) extending in the same direction as the select electrodes (SE) or in the same direction as the data electrodes (DE). The load (AL; MA; IL) on the power supply electrodes (PE) caused by the pixels (10) associated with the lines of pixels (10) is determined (LL), and the level of the power supply voltage (VB) is controlled (CO) dependent on the load (AL; MA; IL).
US07777734B2
A liquid crystal displayer for preventing the generation of moisture includes a front cover, a touch panel, a nameplate, a partitioning plate and a liquid crystal displayer module. With the partitioning plate dividing a region between the touch panel and the liquid crystal displayer module into a first space and a second space, the first space is smaller, whereas the second space is larger. After the liquid crystal displayer module is supplied with electricity, the hot air staying in the first space is less. Further, the heat-obstructing effect of the partitioning plate causes the hot air not to condense in the second space, and thus it is not easy to generate a temperature difference from the external environment, thereby preventing the generation of mist.
US07777732B2
Multi-event input systems, methods, and devices for use in connection with touch-sensitive electronic devices are disclosed. In accordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure, a third state called “hover” can be achieved on a touch-base user interface device in addition to the states of pointer down and pointer up. In an embodiment involving a capacitive touch-sensing surface, one way to achieve the third state is for the user to contact the touchpad or touch screen with a non-flesh part of a finger, such as a fingernail, rather than the fleshy part of a finger. In other embodiments, the non-flesh part may comprise an electrically insulative layer covering a portion of a finger. The third state enables an adjunct system's user interface to achieve active navigation around the screen in a pointer-up (or left-up) input tool condition. One result is that mouseover pop-ups can be used on touch screen devices. Another result is that tooltips can be used on touch screen devices. Another result is that text can be selected using touch screen devices.
US07777731B2
A system for selecting points of interest on an anatomical image includes a main image display; a touch-screen display; a processing unit; and a network configured to interface the processing unit with the main image display and with the touch-screen display. An image displayed on the main display is concurrently displayed on the touch-screen display. The touch-screen display and the main image display concurrently display anatomical points of interest and the touch-screen display is configured to enable selecting anatomical points of interest by touching the points of interest on the touch-screen display. Touching of the points of interest can be effected by a user touching the touch-screen display, by a stylus, by a light pen, by a mouse, by a track ball, and by a joystick control. A corresponding method is also disclosed. Quantitative results are displayed on the main display.
US07777728B2
It is presented a text input method for an electronic apparatus with a touch sensitive display, the apparatus comprising a user interface, wherein a virtual keyboard is displayed on the display so as to facilitate input of an intended character for a user by touching keys of the virtual keyboard with a pointer, wherein the intended character is determined by considering: a plurality of candidate characters, the plurality of candidate characters being determined with regard to a raw distance, the raw distance being a distance between a first position, the first position being a position of a detected touch of the pointer, and a position corresponding to a character, and linguistic probabilities of each character of the plurality of candidate characters being an intended character. A corresponding electronic apparatus and computer program product are also presented.
US07777723B2
A mouse is provided with function buttons being aligned back and forth on its surface. Thus, the width is narrower than in a general mouse to make the mouse slim. Furthermore, the back-and-forth function buttons can be pressed by a finger tip put on the upper surface of the mouse to operate the mouse.
US07777721B2
The Invention relates to a computer input pointing device which comprises its casing (2), an upper movable steering element (3), steering element's movement detector (5a), and the system transmitting information about such movement to the computer. Such device is applicable especially in portable computers. To enhance ergonomics and the precision of steering element (3) movement as well as the comfort of its control, the steering element is supported by a bearing (21a) in the casing (2), with the possibility of two dimensional spherical movement, while the center of the spherical surface (4) defined by the movement of the steering element (3) in relation to the bearing is situated above the largest horizontal secant surface of the steering element (3).
US07777716B2
A haptic feedback planar touch control used to provide input to a computer. A touch input device includes a planar touch surface that inputs a position signal to a processor of the computer based on a location of user contact on the touch surface. The computer can position a cursor in a displayed graphical environment based at least in part on the position signal, or perform a different function. At least one actuator is also coupled to the touch input device and outputs a force to provide a haptic sensation to the user contacting the touch surface. The touch input device can be a touchpad separate from the computer's display screen, or can be a touch screen. Output haptic sensations on the touch input device can include pulses, vibrations, and spatial textures. The touch input device can include multiple different regions to control different computer functions.
US07777710B2
A display device is proposed in which scan line driver circuits are not disposed on opposite sides of a scan line, but one end of the scan line is driven by a scan line driver circuit, while the other end of the scan line is driven by a scan line auxiliary circuit which has a significantly smaller circuit scale and lower power consumption than the scan line driver circuit. The scan line auxiliary circuit is controlled with a selection pulse of the scan line or a signal of the scan line driver circuit, and is electrically connected to a fixed potential through a transistor. When a potential of the scan line is switched by the scan line driver circuit, the scan line auxiliary circuit operates so that the scan line is driven from its opposite ends.
US07777706B2
An impulse driving method and apparatus for liquid crystal device are provided. A data driver of the LCD outputs pixel data signals for driving pixels of the LCD at a first level of the load signal. Next, the data driver outputs black data signals for driving pixels of the LCD at a second level of the load signal. Thus, the image dragging problem is resolved by using the impulse driving method and apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and the need of double frequency for the load signal is prevented.
US07777705B2
The present invention discloses an OLED driving device, including a first switch transistor, a first transistor, a second switch transistor, a storage capacitor and a second transistor. The first switch transistor is used to receive a data signal, and output the data signal by the control of a first scan signal. The first transistor is used to compensate the effect of the threshold voltage of the second transistor. The second switch transistor is used to receive a voltage signal, and output the voltage signal by the control of a second scan signal. The storage capacitor is used to store a data voltage. The second transistor is electrically connected to the second switch transistor through the storage capacitor. The present invention can efficiently release the charges from the storage capacitor, enhance display effect, and change the input voltage level for adapting different operating voltages of integrate circuits.
US07777702B2
System and method for driving solid-state light sources utilizing saturation mode current drivers. A preferred embodiment comprises charging a first drive circuit, discharging the first drive circuit into the solid-state light source, charging a second drive circuit, and discharging the second drive circuit into the solid-state light source. The alternating of the charging and discharging of two drive circuits ensures that there is a minimum amount of time without the capability of providing the drive current to solid-state light source. The use of saturation mode drive circuits ensures that it is possible to rapidly switch the solid-state light source on and off, improving the performance of the solid-state light source by minimizing the minimum amount of light producible by the solid-state light source, while reducing power consumption by eliminating the need to provide a headroom voltage.
US07777681B2
A receiver device for receiving audio signals from a remote source has a magnetic loop antenna for receiving radio frequency signals carrying audio signals, a signal processing unit for reproducing audio signals from the radio frequency signals received by the antenna, an output interface which is capable of being mechanically connected to an input interface of a hearing instrument to be worn at a user's ear in order to supply the audio signals from the signal processing unit as input to the hearing instrument, and a housing enclosing the antenna and the signal processing unit. The antenna is designed as a printed board circuit with a loop-shaped conductor on an at least partially flexible insulating substrate. A first portion defines a first plane and a second portion defines a second plane, the first plane and second planes being oriented at an angle of 60° to 120° relative to each other.
US07777677B2
There is provided an antenna device including a substrate, an earth section which is disposed on a portion of the substrate, a feed point which is disposed on the substrate, a loading section disposed on the substrate and constructed with a line-shaped conductor pattern which is formed in a longitudinal direction of an elementary body made of a dielectric material, an inductor section which connects one end of the conductor pattern to the earth section, and a feed point which feeds a current to a connection point of the one end of the conductor pattern and the inductor section, wherein a longitudinal direction of the loading section is arranged to be parallel to an edge side of the earth section.
US07777663B2
The present invention is intended to attain simplified circuit configuration and low current consumption in a discrete time amplifier circuit and an AD converter, to improve the convergence from the transient response state to the steady state of the amplifier circuit and to reduce noise and distortion owing to the variation in the output common-mode voltage. The discrete time amplifier circuit and the AD converter are provided with a switched-capacitor common-mode feedback (CMFB) circuit capable of detecting and feeding back the output common-mode voltage at every sampling timing in the case that the circuit operates at double sampling timing (every ½ cycle).
US07777662B2
An analogue-to-digital (A/D) converter converts an analogue input signal to a digital code representing the analogue input signal. The A/D converter includes a comparator for comparing the input signal with a reference signal, a search logic block for determining the digital code, and an A/D converter arranged for receiving input from the search logic block and for providing the reference signal to be applied to the comparator. At least a first portion of the A/D converter is implemented with equal capacitors and may be controlled by a thermometer coded signal. Additionally, the A/D converter may include a second portion implemented using binary weighted capacitors controlled by a thermometer coded or binary coded signal. The A/D converter may also include a plurality of A/D converters coupled by an analogue addition circuit or a weighted summing amplifier.
US07777659B2
While combining AD converters that one is wide band but narrow dynamic range and the other is narrow band but wide dynamic range, it allows settings to provide a common intermediate frequency signal to the AD converters. A first BPF 50 provides a first AD converter 54 with the output signal obtained by getting an intermediate frequency signal Sif through a first band in the second Nyquist zone of the first AD converter 54. A second BPF 52 provides a second AD converter 56 with the output signal obtained by getting the intermediate frequency signal Sif through a second band in the third Nyquist zone of the second AD converter 56. At this time, the second band is set in the center portion of the second Nyquist zone band, and the first band is set in the center portion of the band of the intermediate frequency signal.
US07777645B2
One embodiment includes an apparatus that includes a piezoelectric transducer to generate an acoustic signal that is to modulate along a mandrel, wherein the piezoelectric transducer includes at least one piezoelectric element and at least one electrode that is without non-permanent joints.
US07777644B2
A wired drill pipe for a drill string of a downhole tool positioned in a wellbore penetrating a subterranean formation is provided. The wired drill pipe includes a drill pipe, a cable and a wire retainer. The drill pipe has a slot at each end thereof. The slots are adapted to receive at least one transformer. The drill pipe has an inner surface defining a passage for the flow of mud therethrough. The cable extends from the transformer into the passage of the drill pipe. The wire retainer is positioned on the inner surface of the drill pipe. The wire retainer is adapted to secure the cable therein.
US07777643B2
One embodiment includes an apparatus that includes a storage medium to store data. The apparatus also includes a connector having an optical interface for data communication, coupled to the storage medium, to communicate in a combustible gas environment.
US07777642B2
An integrated remote control system includes a remote control device for selecting and controlling a plurality of digital devices, each including a bit pattern tag having location information and device information. The remote control device includes a display, a light emitting module for emitting light toward the digital devices, a sensor for recognizing the tags of the digital devices, and a controller for analyzing the tags recognized by the sensor to provide the display information of the digital devices on the display and then controlling a digital device selected from the displayed digital devices.
US07777641B2
Systems for facilitating communication between a first and second device include a voltage level translator circuit configured to convert a voltage level of one or more digital signals that are transmitted from the first device to the second device to a voltage level substantially equal to a supply voltage level of the second device. The conversion is based on a first input voltage signal into the translator circuit. The systems further include a diode in series with a capacitor. The diode is configured to generate the first input voltage signal by charging the capacitor to a voltage level that is substantially equal to the voltage level of the one or more digital signals. Methods of facilitating communication between a first and second device include providing a voltage level translator circuit configured to convert a voltage level of one or more digital signals that are transmitted from the first device to the second device to a voltage level substantially equal to a supply voltage level of the second device. The conversion is based on a first input voltage signal into the translator circuit. The methods further include providing a circuit comprising a diode in series with a capacitor and generating the first input voltage signal by charging the capacitor to a voltage level that is substantially equal to the voltage level of the one or more digital signals.
US07777635B2
A heater unit includes power failure management to detect disruptions in the electrical power supply, such as the AC supply, for the unit. The heater unit emits an audible alarm in response to detection of such a disruption, and may shut down the heater(s) and visuals display(s). The heater unit advantageously includes a power storage device, such as a super-capacitor, to temporarily power the electronic circuitry of the heater unit. Operating parameters, such as of a processor of the electronic circuitry, may be stored in a non-volatile memory response to the disruption, and recalled if the disruption terminates before the level of power has gotten too low to sustain reliable operation of the processor.
US07777633B2
The present invention relates to a system for determining particle transmittance Tx of a filter for use with a particle detection system to provide a filter warning for aspirated particle detection systems by detecting a level of first particles having a size indicative of smoke particles and which pass through the detection system; determining an integrated smoke hours value by integrating the detected level of first particles over time; estimating the smoke particle transmittance Tx of the filter by applying a predetermined weighting operation to the integrated smoke hours value. An empirical measure of a filter's particle transmittance Tx, due to at least first particles having a size indicative of smoke particles may be achieved by way of integrating a level of such first particles passing through a particle detection system over time to determine the proportion of smoke particles arrested by a filter, “integrated smoke hours”. The “integrated smoke hours” value is, generally, a measure of cumulative filter blockage over time by smoke like particles and is a measure of a given amount of ambient smoke detected and recorded by a smoke detector system and integrated over the time of exposure of the smoke detector system to the ambient smoke. Using this method it is not necessary to infer the actual “filter load” per-se or, the actual particle mass trapped in the filter.
US07777630B2
Methods and systems of RFID tags using RFID circuits and antennas having unmatched frequency ranges. At least some of the illustrative embodiments are RFID tags comprising a RFID circuit configured to operate with an antenna having a first range of resonant frequencies, a tag antenna coupled to the RFID circuit (the tag antenna having a range of resonant frequencies different than the first range of resonant frequencies, the range of resonant frequencies of the tag antenna being a second range of resonant frequencies).
US07777628B2
A radio frequency identification (RFID) assembly is configured for use with cast concrete components. The RFID assembly has a planar back plate having a plurality of break-away, registration posts extending perpendicular to the nominal plane of the back plate, and a plurality of gripping surfaces extending opposite the registration posts. The RFID assembly further includes a RFID transponder encapsulated between the back plate and a cover. The RFID transponder is programmed with information concerning the cast concrete component to which the RFID tag is affixed.
US07777627B2
An electronic seal may be associated with a container and configured to detect an access event associated with the container, and may be further configured to output a notification of the access event in response thereto. A tag writer may be configured to receive the notification of the access event and further configured, in response, to write a data element to a write-once memory of a tag that is attached to an item within the container, the data element signifying the access event.
US07777617B2
A back-up safety apparatus and method that enables the driver of a large vehicle with inherent rear blind spots to receive signals, to proceed or stop, based on changing safe or unsafe conditions. A spotter who monitors the vehicle's progress from a safe and remote vantage point in the rear, uses a hand held wireless transmitter to signal the driver. The transmitter also provides a deadman style safety switch for the benefit of the spotter that will automatically signal the driver to stop if the spotter becomes disabled, falls or drops the transmitter.
US07777609B2
A radio-frequency tag communication device arranged to transmit a transmitted signal toward a radio-frequency tag and to receive a reply signal transmitted from the radio-frequency tag in response to the transmitted signal, for thereby effecting radio communication with the radio-frequency tag, the radio-frequency tag communication device including (a) a receiver portion including a receiver antenna device which has a plurality of receiver antenna elements for receiving the reply signal from the radio-frequency tag, (b) a reception-directivity control portion which controls the directivity of reception of the receiver portion device, by controlling the phase of a received signal which is received by each of the plurality of receiver antenna elements and which may include a leakage signal which is a part of the transmitted signal, (c) a modulated-component extracting portion which extracts a modulated component of the received signal which is modulated by the radio-frequency tag, and (d) a direction detecting portion which detects the direction in which the radio-frequency tag is located, on the basis of the modulated component extracted by the modulated-component extracting portion.
US07777607B2
A material stack has an electrical resistance generally the same in the presence of a magnetic field and in the presence of no magnetic field. The electrical resistance of the material stack has a temperature coefficient generally the same as a magnetoresistance element.
US07777599B2
Methods and apparatus for controlling characteristics of a plasma, such as the spatial distribution of RF power and plasma uniformity, are provided herein. In some embodiments, an apparatus for controlling characteristics of a plasma includes a resonator for use in conjunction with a plasma reactor, the resonator including a source resonator for receiving an RF signal having a first frequency; a return path resonator disposed substantially coaxially with, and at least partially within, the source resonator; and an outer conductor having the source resonator and the return path resonator disposed substantially coaxially with, and at least partially within, the outer conductor, the outer conductor for providing an RF ground connection.
US07777581B2
A wide tuning range and constant swing VCO is described that is based on a multipass Ring Oscillator enhanced with feed-backward connections. This VCO is designed to overcome tuning range limitations of prior-art “feed-forward” ring oscillators. The Feedback multipass Ring Oscillator of the invention provides decreasing frequency when tuned by increasing the feedback, thus covering a much wider tuning range irrespective of the speed limit of the technology while at the same time providing almost constant amplitude.
US07777575B2
An inverting stage is coupled between a single-ended in-put node and a first differential output node, and a non-inverting stage is coupled between the single-ended input node and a second differential output node. The inverting stage includes at least one transistor with a first current terminal, a second current terminal, and a control terminal, the first current terminal being coupled to the first differential output node and the control terminal being coupled to a single-ended input node. The non-inverting stage includes at least one transistor with a first current terminal, a second current terminal, and a control terminal, the first current terminal being coupled to the second differential output node, and the second terminal being coupled to the single-ended input node. A bias current of the inverting stage is larger than a bias current of the non-inverting stage.
US07777567B2
A radio frequency (RF) generator for applying RF power to a plasma chamber includes a DC power supply (B+). A radio frequency switch generates the RF power at a center frequency f0. A low-pass dissipative terminated network connects between the DC power supply (B+) and the switch and includes operates at a first cutoff frequency. The switch outputs a signal to an output network which improves the fidelity of the system. The output network generates an output signal fed to a high-pass subharmonic load isolation filter that passes RF power above a predetermined frequency. A low-pass harmonic load isolation filter may be inserted between the output network and the high-pass subharmonic load isolation filter, and a high-pass terminated network may connect to the output of the output network. The high-pass terminated network dissipates RF power above a predetermined frequency. An offline short or shunt network may connect between the output of the switch and the input of the output network for shorting the output of the switch at predetermined frequencies.
US07777563B2
A circuit includes a variable frequency generator circuit and a quantization circuit. The variable frequency generator circuit provides a discontinuous switching frequency signal. The variable frequency generator circuit varies the discontinuous switching frequency signal between a first and second frequency while avoiding at least one frequency band between the first and second frequency. The quantization circuit provides a plurality discrete switching signals each separated by a second frequency band that vary in accordance with the discontinuous switching frequency signal, wherein the avoided frequency band of the discontinuous switching frequency signal is greater than the second frequency band.
US07777558B2
A bandgap reference circuit generating bandgap reference voltage/current. The bandgap reference circuit generates a negative temperature coefficient current (ICTAT) and the first and the second positive temperature coefficient currents (IPTAT and INL), and compensates the non-constant components of the current ICTAT by multiplying the currents ICTAT, IPTAT and INL by three specially designed numbers K1, K2 and K3, respectively, and then summing up the results. The bandgap reference circuit transforms the summation current (K1·ICTAT+K2·IPTAT+K3·INL) to generate a bandgap reference voltage or a bandgap reference current.
US07777557B2
A boosting circuit comprises a first boosting cell row and a second boosting cell row. The boosting circuit further comprises an analog comparison circuit for comparing the potential of boosting cells on the same stage, and selecting and outputting the lower or higher of the potentials. The potential of an N well is controlled using the output potential of the analog comparison circuit. Thereby, the amplitude of an N well potential can be suppressed, and a single N well region can be shared.
US07777548B2
A level shifter includes a level shifting unit for level-shifting an input signal at a first voltage level into a signal at a second voltage level, and an output controller for controlling the level shifting unit to maintain output at a predetermined logic level in response to a deep power down mode signal generated from power which is not turned off in a deep power down mode.
US07777547B2
The present invention discloses a voltage level shifter capable of interfacing between two circuit systems having different operating voltage swings. The voltage level shifter comprises an input buffer having a low supply voltage for inverting an external input signal to an internal input signal, and an output buffer having a high supply voltage for inverting the internal input signal to an external output signal. The high level of the external input signal is lower than the high level of the external output signal. The voltage level shifter is designed such that the input buffer is operating to achieve a low-leakage and high-speed performance.
US07777546B2
A DC offset calibration apparatus includes a first adjustment unit, a first offset calibration circuit, a second adjustment unit, and a second offset calibration circuit. The first adjustment unit adjusts a first input signal to generate a first output signal according to a first offset calibration signal. The first offset calibration circuit is coupled to the first output signal and the first adjustment unit for determining the first offset calibration signal according to the first output signal and predetermined threshold value. The second adjustment unit adjusts a second input signal to generate a second output signal according to a second offset calibration signal. The second offset calibration circuit is coupled to the second output signal and the second adjustment unit for determining the second offset calibration signal according to the second output signal and the predetermined threshold value. The first and the second input signals are a differential signal pair.
US07777542B2
A semiconductor memory device includes a delay locked loop for achieving a delay locked state by correcting a phase difference between a reference clock and an internal delayed clock and for indicating the state that a larger delay amount than a maximum delay amount of a delay line is required, or a smaller delay amount than a minimum delay amount of delay line is required. A control unit resets the delay locked loop according to the state of the delay line.
US07777540B2
The present invention discloses a PLL, a lock detector thereof and a lock detection method. The lock detector includes: a first detecting unit, adapted to compare a counting value of a reference clock signal with a counting value of a feedback clock signal every first interval and output a valid first prelock signal when the counting value of the reference clock signal is equal to the counting value of the feedback clock signal; a second detecting unit, adapted to output a valid second prelock signal when the counting value of the reference clock signal is equal to the counting value of the feedback clock signal during a second interval which is at least two times higher than the first interval; a third detecting unit, adapted to output a valid lock signal if the first prelock signal output from the first detecting unit every first interval is valid and the second prelock signal output from the second detecting unit is valid during the second interval. The PLL, lock detector thereof and lock detection method can detect the lock state quickly and correctly.
US07777538B2
Methods and apparatus are provided for controlling at least one of a rise time and a fall time of a signal. A plurality of time shifted clock signals are generated; and a received data signal is sampled using a plurality of parallel data paths, where each of the data paths are controlled by a corresponding one of the plurality of time shifted clock signals. The plurality of time shifted clock signals can be generated, for example, by at least one delay element. The plurality of parallel data paths can be substantially identical and comprise, for example, at least one latch or at least one flip flop. Compensation can optionally be provided for variations in, for example, process corner, supply voltage, aging and operating temperature.
US07777532B2
The invention relates to a method and a corresponding circuit for protecting a power MOSFET from thermal overload when switching the MOSFET off and on, wherein the MOSFET is switched on again after at least a determined off-period has passed.
US07777531B2
A method and apparatus for providing a low power low voltage differential signaling driver are disclosed. In an example, a low voltage differential signaling driver circuit is described, comprising a first current source to provide current to a first differential pair of PNP transistors, a pair of transresistance amplifiers driven by a corresponding pair of transconductance stages, a second current source to provide current to a second differential pair of PNP transistors, and an output port having a common mode output voltage and a differential output voltage based on a state of the first differential pair of PNP transistors and the second differential pair of PNP transistors.
US07777526B2
Signal offset variation caused by transistor variation/mismatch in integrated circuits may be reduced. In one embodiment, a buffer circuit has variable-valued circuit elements. Offset variation measurements are made and the variable-valued circuit elements are calibrated to reduce the measured offset variation. In another embodiment, each amplifying stage of a multi-stage buffer provides variable gain. The total DC gain of the cascade is distributed unevenly across the stages, with more DC gain being provided by amplifier stages at the beginning of the cascade than at the end. An additional pre-amplifier stage can also be provided at the beginning of the cascade.
US07777524B2
Provided are a high-voltage semiconductor device including a junction termination which electrically isolates a low voltage unit from a high voltage unit, and a method of fabricating the same. The high voltage semiconductor device includes a high voltage unit, a low voltage unit surrounding the high voltage unit, and a junction termination formed between the high voltage unit and the low voltage unit and surrounding the high voltage unit to electrically isolate the high voltage unit from the low voltage unit. The junction termination includes at least one level shifter which level shifts signals from the low voltage unit and supplies the same to the high voltage unit, a first device isolation region surrounding the high voltage unit to electrically isolate the high voltage unit from the level shifter, and a resistor layer electrically connecting neighboring level shifters.
US07777521B2
Disclosed are various embodiments of a differential logic to CMOS logic translator including a level-shifting and buffering stage configured to receive differential inputs and to provide resulting signals with lower common mode voltage. Further, a gain stage is included to receive the resulting signals and to provide increased swing signals. A CMOS buffer is also included and is configured to receive the increased swing signals and to provide a CMOS logic output. Also disclosed is a method of translating a differential logic signal to a CMOS logic signal including level-shifting and buffering differential input signals to provide resulting signals with lower common mode voltage. The method also includes using a gain stage to provide increased swing signals from the resulting lower common mode signals and using a CMOS buffer to provide a CMOS output from the increased swing signals.
US07777517B2
A signal transmission circuit comprising: first and second transmission lines connected to each other; a first impedance storage circuit storing an impedance of the first transmission line; and a control circuit that outputs match information between an impedance of the second transmission line and the impedance stored in the first impedance storage circuit.
US07777515B2
Methods and systems of semiconductor testing where reference dice and non-reference dice in a wafer and/or lot are tested differently. In one embodiment of the invention, geography, lithography exposure, other characteristics, performance and/or behavior are taken into account when selecting reference dice, thereby improving the likelihood that the response of reference dice to testing is well representative of the wafer and/or lot. In one embodiment, based on data from the testing of reference dice, the test flow for non-reference dice and/or other testing may or may not be adjusted.
US07777493B2
A method of adjusting an excitation and detection circuit for nuclear magnetic resonance, the circuit comprising a probe (S) of the type comprising a single coil (L) for transmitting pulses to excite the nuclear spins of a sample immersed in a magnetic field and for detecting a resonance signal from said nuclear spins, said method being characterized by a step of tuning the resonant frequency in reception of said circuit to the Larmor frequency (f0) of the nuclear spins of the atoms that are to be detected. An excitation and detection circuit for nuclear magnetic resonance, said circuit being characterized in that it is adapted to implement an adjustment method as described above.
US07777489B2
A passive shim coil is disposed in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) apparatus for shielding magnetic flux of a gradient magnetic field at an inner circumference side generated by a gradient coil, and is set at an outer circumference side of the gradient coil. The coil body is formed of a portion including a superconducting material and a portion including a non-superconducting material.
US07777487B2
Methods and apparatus for joint image reconstruction and coil sensitivity estimation in parallel MRI
A method of parallel magnetic resonance imaging (pMRI) comprising acquiring pMRI signals simultaneously through a plurality of receiving coils, wherein each coil has a localized sensitivity with respect to an imaged volume; jointly estimating values for the imaged volume and for a sensitivity function for at least one of the plurality of receiving coils; and transmitting the reconstructed image to a device.
US07777478B2
A sensor including at least one sensor probe including a pair of electrodes; a vertically aligned nanotube disposed between the pair of electrodes; optionally a piezoelectric polymer on the nanotube; and optionally, a field source for generating a field, the field source operatively connected to the pair of electrodes; whereby when the sensor probe is contacted, a change in the field occurs or electricity is generated. Methods of using the sensors are also described.
US07777471B2
An analog baseband, a computer readable medium, and a method for powering on and off a set of regulators in the analog baseband, where each regulator is configured to provide a predefined voltage. The method includes storing in a register of the analog baseband at least n bits, where n is an integer larger than 2, assigning in the analog baseband, to each regulator, a number of m bits of the n bits, where m times a number of the regulators is smaller than or equal to n, programming in the analog baseband the at least n bits in a sequence of m bits that describes a time when each regulator is powered on or off and an order in which each regulator is powered on or off upon reception of a sleep signal, receiving in the analog baseband the sleep signal that indicates whether the set of regulators are powered on or off, and instructing, based on sequence of m bits stored in the registers of the analog baseband, the set of regulators to power on or off based on the received sleep signal.
US07777463B2
A method includes coupling a variable output DC power source to power control circuitry, and detecting a type of the variable output DC power source in response to the coupling operation. In one embodiment, the detecting operation may include sending an interrogation signal from the power control circuitry to the variable output DC power source, and evaluating a response to the interrogation signal to determine the type of said variable output DC power source. Power control circuitry may include source type recognition circuitry configured to detect a type of a variable output DC power source in response to a coupling of the variable output DC power source to the power control circuitry.
US07777454B2
A battery charger integrated circuit with temperature control is disclosed that includes a temperature sensor circuit and a charging current generator circuit. Upon receiving a temperature reading voltage (VDT), the temperature sensing circuit is operable to generate a second reference voltage (VREF) that is a function of the first reference voltage (VREF1). The charging current generator circuit generates and continuously adjusts a reference current (I1) and a charging current (IOUT) according to the second reference voltage (VREF). Whenever the temperature reading voltage (VDT) exceeds the first reference voltage, the temperature sensor circuit is operable to adjust the second reference voltage (VREF).
US07777440B2
A motorized roller incorporating a driving motor for driving the roller and accompanied with a motor driving circuit for driving the motor, including a lock detecting structure adapted to detect a lock of at least one of the driving motor and the motorized roller and a power control structure adapted to control electric power supplied to the driving motor, wherein the power control structure is adapted to reduce the electric power supplied to the driving motor upon detection of the lock of the at least one of the driving motor and motorized roller by the lock detecting structure.
US07777436B2
A system for controlling a trapezoidally (square wave) driven DC motor includes a unipolar commutation circuit coupled between a DC power supply and a brushless DC motor. The motor has three phases formed by respective stator windings coupled at respective proximal ends to a common node and having respective opposite ends remote from the common node. The commutation circuit drives the motor according to a commutation cycle including three primary steps. During each primary step, one of the phases is driven while the other two phases are not driven. Voltages at the remote ends of the undriven phases are sensed, and timing signals are generated at points where the voltages coincide. The timing signals are used to determine motor position and speed, and to synchronize the commutation cycle with motor position and speed. In one embodiment, the commutation cycle includes transitional steps between the primary steps for smoother operation. The system is compatible with high side and low side switching configurations.
US07777434B2
A system and method for operating, or electrically communicating with, an electrical supply network are disclosed. A vehicle is coupled to the electrical supply network, a trigger causes a partial discharge of an electrical energy storage device of the vehicle into electric power network, discharging electrical energy into the electric power network from the vehicle.
US07777430B2
Thermal management and control techniques for light emitting diode and other incandescent replacement light technologies using a current controller are disclosed.
US07777429B2
A discharge lamp lighting circuit is provided. The discharge lamp lighting circuit includes an inverter circuit which has two output ends; a series resonant circuit which includes a capacitor, an inductor and a transformer, coupled in series; a driving portion; and a controlling portion which provides a control signal for controlling said inverter circuit, said controlling portion including a first signal producing portion which produces a first signal indicative of a phase of a current flowing through said series resonant circuit; and a second signal producing portion which produces a second signal indicative of a phase of the AC voltage output from said inverter circuit, said controlling portion producing the control signal on the basis of a phase difference between the first and second signals, wherein one component of said series resonant circuit is coupled between one of said output ends, and a detection point.
US07777427B2
A controllable dimmer/relay used in combination with a power cycle control lighting device, wherein the controllable dimmer/relay serves as a network interface for the power cycle control lighting device. The controllable dimmer/relay is controlled by lighting commands formatted according to any of a variety of communications protocols, which instruct the controllable dimmer/relay to output one or more power cycles (interruptions in power) rather than gradual increases or decreases in power. In response to the power cycle(s) output by the controllable dimmer/relay, the power cycle control lighting device alters some aspect of the generated light (e.g., change one or more of color, color temperature, overall brightness, dynamic effect, etc.). In this manner, a power cycle control lighting device may be made responsive, via the controllable dimmer/relay, to lighting control commands formatted according to any of a variety of industry standard (e.g., DMX, Ethernet, DALI, X10) or proprietary protocols.
US07777425B2
A multi-lamp backlight system is disclosed. The multi-lamp backlight system includes a plurality of lamps, an inverter circuit and a current balance circuit. The inverter circuit is capable of converting a DC input signal to a pair of AC output signals, which have a 180 degree phase shift. The pair of AC output signals are delivered to the plurality of lamps. The current balance circuit is connected to the low voltage sides of the plurality of lamps for balancing the lamp currents.
US07777423B2
An electronic ballast presenting an input capacitor (C) and including a step-up converter (LH, DH, SH, CH) for operating a load, for example a discharge lamp (CFL), on a phase control dimmer (DIM) having an integrated or parasite inductance (L). According to the invention, excessive voltage after connection with a phase control can be reduced by adjusting currents via of the step-up converter (LH, DH, SH, CH).
US07777421B2
An object of the invention is to suppress the amount of heat generated by a light emitting diode and prevent the light emitting diode from being overheated without reducing the amount of emitted light even when the light emitting diode is a high-power light emitting diode. A light emitting device is configured so that one or more light emitting diodes (11) are lighted by a lighting circuit (12). A DC power is converted into a pulse power by a switching regulator (13) of this lighting circuit (12) and the voltage of a pulse power converted by this switching regulator is lowered by an output control portion (14). The pulse width of a pulse power lowered in voltage by this output control portion is adjusted by a pulse width adjusting oscillation means (16), and the current of a pulse power adjusted in pulse width by this pulse width adjusting oscillation means is limited by a limiting resistor (17). The light emitting device is configured so that a pulse power limited in current by this limiting resistor is outputted to a light emitting diode.
US07777408B2
Provided is an organic light-emitting device exhibiting lower driving voltages and improved lifetime characteristics and emission efficiency. The organic light-emitting device includes a cathode; an anode; and a light-emitting layer interposed between the cathode and the anode, wherein a buffer layer is disposed on at least one surface of the light-emitting layer.
US07777404B1
Means for achieving the purpose of the present invention includes an field emission type cathode composed of a single fibrous carbon substance and a conductive substrate supporting the same; an extraction apparatus for causing field emission of electrons; and an accelerator for accelerating electrons, wherein the aforementioned field emission type electron gun is further contains means for heating the aforementioned field emission cathode, and means for applying the voltage of the polarity that does not allow the aforementioned field emission type cathode to field-emit electrons.Thereby, the amorphous carbon is removed from the tip end of the fibrous carbon substance of the field emission type electron gun, without the tip end thereof being damaged.
US07777403B2
A photonic-crystal filament is formed by mixing a slurry comprising particles of substantially uniform size and a precursor material for a desired metal, urging the slurry through an orifice to force the particles and precursor material into a combination having a desired crystallographic configuration, drying the combination emerging from the orifice, and sintering the precursor material.
US07777402B2
A second transparent electrode of each of the row electrodes in each row electrode pair corresponding each of the discharge cells located in an internal peripheral portion of the panel has an electrode area smaller than the electrode area of a first transparent electrode corresponding each of the discharge cells located in a central portion of the panel. The head portion of the second transparent electrode corresponding to each of the discharge cells located in the internal peripheral portion has a row-direction width greater than the row-direction width of the head portion of the first transparent electrode corresponding to each of the discharge cells located in the central portion.
US07777394B2
With the aim of quickly returning the voltage of an output line to an ultrasonic transducer from a positive voltage or a negative voltage to the ground voltage and reducing the circuit size, immediately after turning on and turning off of a positive FET in accordance with a positive pulse signal, a negative FET goes on for only a pull-back period allowing for the output line to return to the ground voltage. Also, immediately after turning on and turning off of the negative FET in accordance with a negative pulse signal, the positive FET goes on for only a pull-back period allowing for the output line to return to the ground voltage.
US07777393B2
An ultrasound system for providing megasonics and ultrasonics to a liquid at different frequencies and/or sweeping frequencies with associated generators, transducers, operations between resonance and anti-resonance, non-resistive output with phase shift, multiple/sweep/single frequency modes, individually controlled sections, gate drive power control, variable inductive compensation for temperature changes, parallel inductor matching, stacked ceramics and non-volatile memory storage of fault, error and failure history.
US07777388B2
A distributed coil stator (102) for external rotor electric motors includes a core having a cylindrical surface bounded by a first end surface and a second end surface, wherein a first set of openings (110) aligned in a first circular path (111) extends within the core from the first end surface to the second end surface, a second set of openings (114) aligned in a second circular path (115) positioned concentrically within the first circular path extends within the core from the first end surface to the second end surface, and a third set of openings (118) aligned in a third circular path (119) positioned concentrically within the second circular path extends within the core from the first end surface to the second end surface.
US07777383B2
MP-A and MP-T machines are members of the Multipolar (MP) family of electric motors/generators and have similarly low weight and high power densities. Their current tubes comprise conductive “S-ribbons” in electrically non-conductive material. S-ribbons are shaped so as in operation to periodically substantially overlap a multiplicity of neighboring zones of high magnetic B-field, alternating with gaps with low B in which B changes sign. Accordingly, MP-A and MP-T machines, respectively, generate AC and 3-phase current in the generator mode, and as motor are driven by AC or 3-phase at the appropriate frequency. Two modifications are introduced: (i) Machines with stationary magnet tubes/rotating current tube and (ii) machines with stationary current tube/rotating magnet tubes. The latter do not require electrical brushes and are eminently suited for simultaneous multiple uses. Also, these may operate while immersed in hostile fluids, including sea water.
US07777375B2
Certain exemplary embodiments comprise an electric motor that comprises a stiff shaft. The electric motor can have an output rating that is greater than approximately 200 horsepower. The electric motor can have a ratio of a rotor core length to an outside stator diameter that is greater than approximately 0.7.
US07777367B2
A current controller for a spacecraft comprises ripple regulators and a pulse width modulated regulator. Ripple regulators receive current from associated current sources and pass current to or shunts current away from the bus. The pulse width modulated regulator receives current from another current source and passes a portion of the current to the bus. This regulator varies its set point to float between ripple regulators passing current and the ripple regulators shunting current and adjusts a portion of current that is shunted away from the bus. The current shunted by the regulators form a total shunt current. The variable set point of the pulse width modulated regulator varies as the total shunt current varies. The ripple regulator set points do not vary in this manner. An error generation circuit generates an error that adjusts the ripple regulator and the pulse width modulated regulator to a desired bus voltage level.
US07777353B2
In a semiconductor device, first wires each having a relatively low loop height are formed between a first lead and a plurality of first electrode pads aligned in a first line, and then second wires each having a relatively high loop height are formed between a second lead and a plurality of second electrode pads aligned in a second line, wherein the second line is distanced from the first line in view of the first and second leads. Wire bonding is sequentially performed so as to increase the height difference between the first wire and the second wire, thus avoiding the occurrence of electric short-circuiting between adjacently arranged wires. In wire bonding, a bump forming process, a ball bonding process, and a wedge bonding process are sequentially performed. It is preferable that the second lead be vertically distanced from the first lead in the thickness direction.
US07777352B2
A semiconductor device includes semiconductor device components embedded in plastic package compound, with a buffer layer being arranged on surfaces of the semiconductor device components of the semiconductor device. The buffer layer includes a thermoplastic material.
US07777347B2
A first semiconductor chip, a spacer of plane shape, and a second semiconductor chip are put on a module substrate, sequentially. These semiconductor chips have a relation that every side of the first semiconductor chip is shorter than the first side and the second side of the second semiconductor chip, and longer than the third side and the fourth side of the second semiconductor chip. The border of the spacer is parallel to the third side and the fourth side and is placed inside the border of the first semiconductor chip. Even if the second electrode pad of the second semiconductor chip approaches the border of the first semiconductor chip, since a spacer secures space between the border portion of the first semiconductor chip and the second semiconductor chip, the wire combined with the second electrode pad does not contact the first semiconductor chip.
US07777339B2
Structures and methods for forming the same. A semiconductor chip includes a semiconductor substrate and a transistor on the semiconductor substrate. The chip further includes N interconnect layers on top of the semiconductor substrate and being electrically coupled to the transistor, N being a positive integer. The chip further includes a first dielectric layer on top of the N interconnect layers, and a second dielectric layer on top of the first dielectric layer. The second dielectric layer is in direct physical contact with each interconnect layer of the N interconnect layers. The chip further includes an underfill layer on top of the second dielectric layer. The second dielectric layer is sandwiched between the first dielectric layer and the underfill layer. The chip further includes a laminate substrate on top of the underfill layer. The underfill layer is sandwiched between the second dielectric layer and the laminate substrate.
US07777338B2
A seal ring structure is disclosed for protecting a core circuit region of an integrated circuit chip. The seal ring structure includes a metallization layer, having a bridge sublevel and a plug sublevel. An upper-level bridge is formed on the bridge sublevel at a predetermined location between a peripheral edge of the integrated circuit chip and the core circuit region. A lower-level bridge is formed on the plug sublevel in substantial alignment with the upper-level bridge, wherein the lower-level bridge has a width substantially the same as that of the upper-level bridge.
US07777337B2
A semiconductor device includes a first insulating layer having a through hole; a first interconnection having a first conductive layer, a first barrier layer, and a first main interconnection; and a second interconnection connected to one of the first conductive layer and the first barrier layer. Accordingly, a problem wherein copper in the first main interconnection transfers from a connection portion thereof to the second interconnection due to electromigration, so that a void is formed at the connected portion resulting in the first interconnection being disconnected from the second interconnection, can be prevented.
US07777334B2
A semiconductor device comprising: a semiconductor layer including an element formation region, and first and second spaced apart isolation regions; an element in the element formation region; an interlayer dielectric layer above the semiconductor layer; an electrode pad above the interlayer dielectric layer; a passivation layer above the electrode pad and having an opening which exposes part of the electrode pad; and a bump in the opening and covering part of the element when viewed from a top side, the bump including a first edge when viewed from the top side, the first isolation region being formed in a first region, the first region including a first specific distance outward from a first line directly below the first edge of the bump, the second isolation region being formed in a second region, the second region including a second specific distance inward from the first line.
US07777333B2
A solder bump structure and an under bump metallurgical structure. An upper surface of a semiconductor substrate comprises a first conductive pad (200) disposed thereon. A passivation layer (202) overlies the upper surface. A second conductive pad (212) is disposed in an opening (204) in the passivation layer and in contact with the first conductive pad. The under bump metallurgical structure (300) encapsulates the second conductive pad, covering an upper surface and sidewalls surfaces of the second conductive pad, protecting both the first and the second conductive pads from environmental and processing effects. According to the present invention, the conventional second passivation layer is not required. Methods for forming the various structures are also presented.
US07777330B2
A processor/cache assembly has a processor die coupled to a cache die. The processor die has a plurality of processor units arranged in an array. There is a plurality of processor sets of contact pads on the processor units, one processor set for each processor unit. Similarly, the cache die has a plurality of cache units arranged in an array. There is a plurality of cache sets of contact pads on the cache die, one cache set for each cache unit. Each cache set is in contact with one corresponding processor set.
US07777304B2
A seal ring is continuously formed along a boundary between a semiconductor element region and a scribe grid region, auxiliary parts are intermittently arranged along the seal ring, and the seal ring is constituted by a metal layer.
US07777300B2
One or more embodiments are related to a semiconductor structure, comprising: a semiconductor chip having a final metal layer; a dielectric layer disposed over the final metal layer; and a conductive layer deposed over the dielectric layer, the dielectric layer being between the final metal layer and the conductive layer.
US07777298B2
A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor substrate, and an electrical fuse provided on the semiconductor substrates. The electrical fuse includes a first fuse link and a second fuse link mutually connected in series, a first current inlet/outlet terminal (first terminal) and a second current inlet/outlet terminal (second terminal) respectively provided at an end and the other end of the first fuse link, and a third current inlet/outlet terminal (second terminal) and a fourth current inlet/outlet terminal (third terminal) provided at an end and the other end of the second fuse link.
US07777294B2
On a semiconductor substrate, a well is formed. In the well, one MOS transistor including a gate electrode, a source region, a source field limiting layer and a source/drain region, and another MOS transistor including a gate electrode, a drain electrode, a drain field limiting layer and a source/drain region are formed. The one and another MOS transistors are connected in series through the source/drain region common to the two transistors. Accordingly, a semiconductor device can be provided in which increase in pattern layout area is suppressed when elements including a high-breakdown voltage MOS transistor are to be connected in series.
US07777291B2
The present invention provides for nanostructures grown on a conducting or insulating substrate, and a method of making the same. The nanostructures grown according to the claimed method are suitable for interconnects and/or as heat dissipators in electronic devices.
US07777289B2
An integrated circuit includes at least one photodiode of the floating substrate type which is associated with a read transistor. The photodiode is formed from a buried layer lying beneath the floating substrate and an upper layer lying on the floating substrate. The upper layer incorporates the source and drain regions of the read transistor. The source and drain regions are produced on either side of the gate of the read transistor. An isolating trench is located alongside the source region and extends from the upper surface of the upper layer down to below the buried layer, so as to isolate the source region from said buried layer.
US07777282B2
A microelectronic device includes a tunneling pocket within an asymmetrical semiconductive body including source- and drain wells. The tunneling pocket is formed by a self-aligned process by removing a dummy gate electrode from a gate spacer and by implanting the tunneling pocket into the semiconductive body or into an epitaxial film that is part of the semiconductive body.
US07777280B2
There have been provided a semiconductor device capable of preventing defects associated with etching, such as an increase in leak current, deterioration in film-coating properties and deterioration in transistor properties, and a method for manufacturing the semiconductor device. A CMOS transistor includes, on the same semiconductor substrate, an NMOS transistor having a gate electrode and a PMOS transistor having a gate electrode, wherein the former gate electrode includes a gate insulating film, a polycrystal silicon layer, a metal layer and another polycrystal silicon layer, and the latter gate electrode includes a gate insulating film, a metal layer and a polycrystal silicon layer.
US07777276B2
A drive strength tunable FinFET, a method of drive strength tuning a FinFET, a drive strength ratio tuned FinFET circuit and a method of drive strength tuning a FinFET, wherein the FinFET has either at least one perpendicular and at least one angled fin or has at least one double-gated fin and one split-gated fin.
US07777272B2
A non-volatile memory device which can be highly-integrated without a decrease in reliability, and a method of fabricating the same, are provided. In the non-volatile memory device, a first doped layer of a first conductivity type is disposed on a substrate. A semiconductor pillar of a second conductivity type opposite to the first conductivity type extends upward from the first doped layer. A first control gate electrode substantially surrounds a first sidewall of the semiconductor pillar. A second control gate electrode substantially surrounds a second sidewall of the semiconductor pillar and is separated from the first control gate electrode. A second doped layer of the first conductivity type is disposed on the semiconductor pillar.
US07777267B2
The manufacturing method of a nonvolatile memory and its structure is achieved by building a gate dielectric layer on a base. The gate dielectric contains at least two layers of different material layers. At least one hetero element is planted on the top of the gate dielectric layer so as to increase the electronic trap density. Then rebuild a new top material after removing the upmost layer of material. Finally, build a gate electrode layer on the gate dielectric layer and form source/drain electrodes at the bases of both sides of the gate dielectric layer. In this invention, with the planting of the hetero element, it will form traps in the gate dielectric layer that can catch electrons more easily. Thus, the electrons won't combine together with the increase of operation time. The storage time can be effectively extended and the problem of the combination of bites can be solved.
US07777261B2
Magnetic multilayer structures, such as magnetic or magnetoresistive tunnel junctions (MTJs) and spin valves, having a magnetic biasing layer formed next to and magnetically coupled to the free ferromagnetic layer to achieve a desired stability against fluctuations caused by, e.g., thermal fluctuations and astray fields. Stable MTJ cells with low aspect ratios can be fabricated using CMOS processing for, e.g., high-density MRAM memory devices and other devices, using the magnetic biasing layer. Such multilayer structures can be programmed using spin transfer induced switching by driving a write current perpendicular to the layers.
US07777259B2
Provided is a multi-well CMOS image sensor and a method of fabricating the same. The multi-well CMOS image sensor may include a plurality of photodiodes vertically formed in a region of a substrate, an n+ wall that vertically connects an outer circumference of the photodiodes, and a floating diffusion region that is connected to the photodiodes on a side of the n+ wall to receive charges from the photodiodes, wherein a p-type region is formed between the floating diffusion region and the n+ wall, and the plurality of photodiodes have a multi-potential well structure.
US07777255B2
A bipolar transistor has a base with an epitaxial base layer and a raised base connection region which in a lateral direction in parallel relationship with the substrate surface encloses the emitter which is surrounded by a spacer of insulating material. The epitaxial base layer is raised in a heightwise direction perpendicularly to the substrate surface. An emitter of a T-shaped cross-sectional profile is separated laterally from the outer base portion by a spacer of insulating material. Its vertical bar of the T-shape adjoins with its lower end the inner base portion. The lateral extent of the spacer increases from its interface with respect to the base layer with increasing height above the base layer, wherein a first interface formed by the emitter and the spacer meets a second interface formed by the emitter and the inner base portion at a first angle which is either a right angle or an obtuse angle, and a third interface formed by the spacer and the outer base portion meets the second interface at a second obtuse angle which is larger than the first angle.
US07777253B2
A HEMT-type field-effect semiconductor device has a main semiconductor region comprising two layers of dissimilar materials such that a two-dimensional electron gas layer is generated along the heterojunction between the two layers. A source and a drain electrode are placed in spaced positions on the main semiconductor region. Between these electrodes, with spacings therefrom, an insulator is provided with is made from a material capable of developing a stress to reduce carrier concentration in neighboring part of the two-dimensional electron gas layer, creating a discontinuity in this layer. A gate electrode overlies the insulator via a piezoelectric layer which is made from a material capable of developing, in response to a voltage applied to the gate electrode, a stress for canceling out the stress developed by the insulator. Thus the device is physically held off by the action of the insulator while no voltage is being impressed to the gate electrode and, upon voltage application thereto, piezoelectrically turns on by the action of the piezoelectric layer. The turn-on resistance of the device is relatively low as the insulator occupies only part of the source-drain spacing.
US07777250B2
Lattice-mismatched materials having configurations that trap defects within sidewall-containing structures.
US07777245B2
The invention relates to a high-output nitride light emitting device. The light emitting device includes a first conductivity type nitride semiconductor layer, an active layer and a second conductivity type nitride semiconductor layer deposited in their order on a substrate. The light emitting device also includes first and second insulation layers formed in different upper surface portions of the nitride semiconductor light emitting device, and first and second bonding pads formed respectively on the first and second insulation layers. The light emitting device further includes first and second extension electrodes extended from the first and second bonding pads and coupled respectively to the first and second conductivity semiconductor layers. The electrode arrangement according to the present invention prevents direct coupling between the bonding pads and the light emitting device, thus allowing a symmetrical structure that can achieve more uniform current spreading using only the extension electrodes.
US07777241B2
A semiconductor sensor, solar cell or emitter or a precursor therefore having a substrate and textured semiconductor layer deposited onto the substrate. The layer can be textured as grown on the substrate or textured by replicating a textured substrate surface. The substrate or first layer is then a template for growing and texturing other semiconductor layers from the device. The textured layers are replicated to the surface from the substrate to enhance light extraction or light absorption. Multiple quantum wells, comprising several barrier and quantum well layers, are deposited as alternating textured layers. The texturing in the region of the quantum well layers greatly enhances internal quantum efficiency if the semiconductor is polar and the quantum wells are grown along the polar direction. This is the case in nitride semiconductors grown along the polar [0001] or [000-1] directions.
US07777236B2
With a light-emitting diode arrangement (1) having a light-emitting diode chip (2) arranged on a base (3), and colour conversion material (7) surrounding the light-emitting diode chip (2), which material is constituted to convert at least a part of the light emitted by the light-emitting diode chip (2) into light of another wavelength, the colour conversion material (7) is surrounded to the side by a reflector (8), the lateral distance (x) of the light-emitting diode chip (2) to the reflector (8) amounting to at most 0.5 mm.
US07777235B2
A light emitting diode with improved light collimation comprises a substrate-supported LED die disposed within a transparent dome. A portion of the dome laterally circumscribe the die comprises light reflecting material to reflect emitted light back to the die. A portion of the dome centrally overlying the die is substantially free of light reflecting material to permit exit of light within a desired radiation pattern. The LED die may be packaged for high temperature operation by disposing them on a ceramic-coated metal base which can be coupled to a heat sink. The packaged LED can be made by the low temperature co-fired ceramic-on-metal technique (LTCC-M).
US07777229B2
A method for fabricating a back-illuminated semiconductor imaging device and resulting imaging device is disclosed, which includes the steps providing a substrate having a front surface and a back surface; growing an epitaxial layer substantially overlying the front surface of the substrate; forming at least one barrier layer substantially within the epitaxial layer; fabricating at least one imaging structure overlying and extending into the epitaxial layer, the imaging structure at least one charge transfer region, the at least one barrier layer substantially underlying the at least one charge transfer region, wherein light incident on the back surface of the substrate generates charge carriers which are diverted away from the at least one charge transfer region by the at least one barrier layer. At least a portion of the epitaxial layer is grown using an epitaxial lateral overgrowth technique. The barrier layer can be a high energy implant formed substantially within the epitaxial layer, an optical shield made of an optically opaque material surrounded by oxide on all sides, or a combination of both. The imaging structure can be a CCD or CMOS imaging structure.
US07777228B2
An array substrate for a liquid crystal display device comprises a gate line on a substrate having a pixel region; a gate insulating layer on the gate line; a data line crossing the gate line to define the pixel region and formed on the gate insulating layer; a thin film transistor in the pixel region and connected to the gate line and the data line; a passivation layer on the thin film transistor and the data line and having a groove extending along boundary portion of the pixel region and exposing the gate insulating layer; and a pixel electrode in the pixel region and connected to the thin film transistor.
US07777227B2
A non-volatile semiconductor storage device includes a substrate, a first insulating layer formed on the substrate, a semiconductor layer formed of polysilicon on the first insulating layer, a pair of conductor regions formed on the first insulating layer to pass through the semiconductor layer and to sandwich a part of the semiconductor layer, and formed of a metal or a silicide, a tunnel layer formed on the part of the semiconductor layer sandwiched between the pair of conductor regions, a charge storage layer formed on the tunnel layer, a second insulating layer formed on the charge storage layer, and a control gate formed on the second insulating layer.
US07777221B2
An organic semiconducting copolymer according to example embodiments may be represented by Formula 1 below: An organic electronic device may include the above organic semiconducting copolymer. The organic semiconducting copolymer according to example embodiments may provide improved solubility, processability, and thin film properties. Consequently, the organic semiconducting copolymer may be used in a variety of electronic devices. A suitable electronic device may be an organic thin film transistor. When an active layer of an organic thin film transistor includes the organic semiconducting copolymer, higher charge mobility and lower breaking leakage current may be achieved.
US07777220B2
An organic thin film transistor array panel includes a substrate, a gate line formed on the substrate and including a gate electrode. A gate insulating layer is formed on the gate electrode and a data line is formed on the gate insulating layer, intersecting the gate line, and including a drain electrode. A source electrode is formed on the gate insulating layer and is spaced apart from the drain electrode, enclosed by the drain electrode. A bank insulating layer includes a first opening exposing the drain electrode and the source electrode and a second opening which exposes at least a portion of the source electrode. An organic semiconductor is formed in the first opening and contacts the drain electrode and the source electrode. A pixel electrode contacts the source electrode through the second opening.
US07777219B2
A dual panel type organic electroluminescent display device includes first and second substrates and a plurality of pixel regions and a plurality of power supply terminals at upper and lower sides of the plurality of pixel regions thereon, and further includes a plurality of dummy pixel regions each having substantially the same structure as each pixel region in the plurality of power supply terminals.
US07777217B2
In a method for making an inclusion-free uniformly semi-insulating GaN crystal, an epitaxial nitride layer is deposited on a substrate. A 3D nucleation GaN layer is grown on the epitaxial nitride layer by HVPE under a substantially 3D growth mode, wherein a surface of the nucleation layer is substantially covered with pits and the aspect ratio of the pits is essentially the same. A GaN transitional layer is grown on the nucleation layer by HVPE under a condition that changes the growth mode from the substantially 3D growth mode to a substantially 2D growth mode. After growing the transitional layer, a surface of the transitional layer is substantially pit-free. A bulk GaN layer is grown on the transitional layer by HVPE. After growing the bulk layer, a surface of the bulk layer is smooth and substantially pit-free. The GaN is doped with a transition metal during at least one of the foregoing GaN growth steps.
US07777216B2
A method of fabricating a semiconductor device having high output power and excellent long-term reliability by preventing thermal adverse influence exerted at the time of window structure formation is provided. The method comprises a 1st step of forming predetermined semiconductor layers 2 to 9 containing at least an active layer 4b consisting of a quantum well active layer on a semiconductor substrate 1; a 2nd step of forming a first dielectric film 10 on a first portion of the surface of the semiconductor layers 2 to 9; a 3rd step of forming a second dielectric film 12 made of the same material as that of the first dielectric film 10 and having a density lower than that of the first dielectric film 10 on a second portion of the surface of the semiconductor layers 2 to 9; and a 4th step of heat-treating a multilayer body containing the semiconductor layers 2 to 9, the first dielectric film 10, and the second dielectric film 12 to disorder the quantum well layer below the second dielectric film 12.
US07777213B2
Provided are a phase change layer and a method of forming the phase change layer and a phase change memory device including the phase change layer, and methods of manufacturing and operating the phase change memory device. The phase change layer may be formed of a quaternary compound including an amount of indium (In) ranging from about 15 at. % to about 20 at. %. The phase change layer may be InaGebSbcTed, wherein an amount of germanium (Ge) ranges from about 10 at. %≦b≦about 15 at. %, an amount of antimony (Sb) ranges from about 20 at. %≦c≦about 25 at. %, and an amount of tellurium (Te) ranges from about 40 at. %≦d≦about 55 at. %.
US07777209B2
An inspection system and a method for measuring physical characteristics of a component using the inspection system is provided, wherein the inspection system includes a light source, a sensing device, a reflecting device, and a retention mount, at least one of which is movably associated with the inspection system. The method includes associating a component with the inspection system, operating the inspection system to cause the light source to emit a collimated light beam propagating along a source optical path, reflecting the collimated light beam via the reflecting device to cause a reflected collimated light beam to be incident upon the component to produce a component silhouette which is incident upon the sensing device, generating image data responsive to the component silhouette and processing the image data to generate resultant data comprising at least one of a plurality of physical characteristics of the component.
US07777207B2
An image projection system for presenting an image to a viewer comprises an electromagnetic radiation source configured to generate radiation having multiple spectral characteristics, and multiple independently operable optical switches configured to selectively transmit, reflect, and/or block radiation from the radiation source to the viewer. The viewed image is made up of pixels defined by the selective operation of the optical switches with the radiation source.
US07777197B2
Methods and apparatus for electron beam treatment of a substrate are provided. An electron beam apparatus that includes a vacuum chamber, at least one thermocouple assembly in communication with the vacuum chamber, a heating device in communication with the vacuum chamber, and combinations thereof are provided. In one embodiment, the vacuum chamber comprises an electron source wherein the electron source comprises a cathode connected to a high voltage source, an anode connected to a low voltage source, and a substrate support. In another embodiment, the vacuum chamber comprises a grid located between the anode and the substrate support. In one embodiment the heating device comprises a first parallel light array and a second light array positioned such that the first parallel light array and the second light array intersect. In one embodiment the thermocouple assembly comprises a temperature sensor made of aluminum nitride.
US07777188B2
The disclosed system and apparatus for a sensor support structure generally includes a substantially reflective support strut having discontinuous protrusions on the support surface presented to the field of view of the sensor. These discontinuous protrusions may be suitably configured such that ambient thermal radiation is generally reflected away from the support strut and divergent from acceptance in the sensor's optical train.
US07777187B2
An apparatus for investigating a sample comprising: a source of beam radiation; a detector for detecting a beam of radiation reflected by the sample and an optical subsystem for manipulating the beam between source and detector wherein the optical subsystem comprises a first optical element arranged in use to angularly deflect the source beam within a given solid angle and a second optical element arranged to focus the beam from the first optical element onto a substantially flat image plane and wherein radiation reflected by the sample passes back through the first and second optical elements to the detector.
US07777185B2
A confocal scanning transmission electron microscope which includes an electron illumination device providing an incident electron beam propagating in a direction defining a propagation axis, and a precision specimen scanning stage positioned along the propagation axis and movable in at least one direction transverse to the propagation axis. The precision specimen scanning stage is configured for positioning a specimen relative to the incident electron beam. A projector lens receives a transmitted electron beam transmitted through at least part of the specimen and focuses this transmitted beam onto an image plane, where the transmitted beam results from the specimen being illuminated by the incident electron beam. A detection system is placed approximately in the image plane.
US07777180B2
The invention includes an ion mobility spectrometer having a liquid filled drift chamber. The chamber has an ionization region partitioned from and an ion separation region by a reversible ion-migration block. An electrical field within the chamber allows ions to migrate toward the electrode collector. Passage of ions from the ionization region is triggered by reversing the block allowing ions to migrate into the ion separation region. The invention includes a method of ion mobility analysis in liquid phase. Ions are mobilized to migrate through a drift liquid and are detected at an end of a drift chamber. The invention also includes a method of generating ions in a sample. A sample containing molecules in a first solvent is introduced into a second solvent through a charged capillary where the electrically charged sample is electro-disperses to ionize the molecules.
US07777178B2
A plasma generating apparatus and method using a neutral beam, capable of readily generating plasma at the same gas flow rate by changing the structure of an ion gun, without a separate ignition device, are provided. The apparatus includes a plasma generating part formed of a quartz cup, a radio frequency (RF) applying antenna disposed at the periphery of the plasma generating part, a cooling water supply part disposed at the periphery of the plasma generating part, and an igniter in direct communication with the plasma generating part, wherein a gas for generating plasma is supplied into the igniter, and the igniter has a higher local pressure than the plasma generating part at the same gas flow rate. The ion gun is also cheaper to manufacture since it does not require a separate power supply.
US07777176B2
The chemical composition and method of the invention enable characterization of microscopic defects in membranes such as pinholes, cracks or fissures. The present invention, however, can be used to characterize defects on different types of porous and non-porous membranes used for diverse applications in various industries. It uses brightly fluorescing silica or silsesquioxane spheres prepared with pre-determined definitive and uniform sizes (15 nm-50 microns). The spheres' uniform, controlled size allows them to be used to characterize defects or holes in membranes based on a size exclusion mechanism. The spheres used are engineered to glow brightly when exposed to ultraviolet light in order to allow visual or highly sensitive fluorescence spectroscopy or microscopy to characterize the passage of the particles through defects or holes in a membrane and even identify where the defect is located.
US07777175B2
A touch-sensitive momentary-contact switch includes an infrared-radiation-emitting transmitter, an infrared-radiation-receiving receiver and at least one visible-light-emitting signal element. The transmitter, receiver and signal element radiate into a single light-guiding element. Due to optical beam guidance, a separation of a transmission channel and a reception channel in the light-guiding element is effected in such a way that at a top-side area of the light-guiding element remote from the transmitter and the receiver, a superimposition of a region that can be irradiated by the transmitter and a region that can be detected by the receiver is produced only on a small portion of the area. An operating device for a domestic appliance including at least one touch-sensitive momentary-contact switch, is also provided.
US07777168B2
A pixel is formed in a semiconductor substrate of a first doping type, a first layer of the second doping type covering the substrate, a second layer of the first doping type covering the first layer. A MOS-type transistor is formed in the second layer and has a drain area and a source area of the second doping type. The pixel includes a first area of the second doping type, more heavily doped than the first layer, crossing the second layer and extending into the first layer and connected to the drain area. The pixel further includes a second area of the first doping type, more heavily doped than the second layer and bordering the source area.
US07777167B2
A radiation imaging apparatus including: a plurality of conversion elements being arranged in one-dimensional or two-dimensional array on a substrate, and converting an incident radiation into an electric signal; and a light source for calibration emitting a light to the conversion elements. During a light output adjustment period for driving the light source, a driving level of the light source is adjusted based on a control signal produced by comparing an output signal from a conversion element with a predetermined initial output signal.
US07777163B2
An induction heating cooking apparatus includes a top plate on which a cooking pot is placed, a coil, an inverter board, a supporting bed, a board holder and elastic bodies. The coil induction-heats the cooking pot. The inverter board is mounted with components for driving the heating coil. The supporting bed is disposed above the inverter board and supports the heating coil. The supporting bed is provided with a push-up boss, and is pushed upward to the top plate via the push-up boss. The board holder is provided with three or more number of support bosses, and holds the inverter board. Each of the elastic bodies intervenes between the supporting bed and one of the support bosses. The supporting bed is provided with first slide restricting sections, while each support boss with a second slide restricting section. The first and the second slide restricting sections, which make contact to each other, restrict a sliding distance of the supporting bed so as it is smaller than the minimum value of a gap between the bottom plane of supporting bed and the top surface of the component.
US07777153B2
A method of connecting two components includes providing an assembly including a first component and a second component, optically sensing a connection region between the first component and the second component to produce an image, defining a substantially elliptical path in a three-dimensional space based on the image, and initiating relative movement between the assembly and welding means such that the welding means is positioned, by relative movement, along the substantially elliptical path to produce a weld between the first component and the second component.
US07777152B2
An RF blocking filter isolates a two-phase AC power supply from at least 2 kV p-p of power of an HF frequency that is reactively coupled to a resistive heating element, while conducting several kW of 60 Hz AC power from the two-phase AC power supply to the resistive heating element without overheating, the two-phase AC power supply having a pair of terminals and the resistive heating element having a pair of terminals. The filter includes a pair of cylindrical non-conductive envelopes each having an interior diameter between about one and two inches and respective pluralities of fused iron powder toroids of magnetic permeability on the order of about 10 stacked coaxially within respective ones of the pair of cylindrical envelopes, the exterior diameter of the toroids being about the same as the interior diameter of each of the envelopes. A pair of wire conductors of diameter between 3 mm and 3.5 mm are helically wound around corresponding ones of the pair of envelopes to form respective inductor windings in the range of about 16 to 24 turns for each the envelope, each of the conductors having an input end and an output end. The input end of each one of the conductors is coupled to a corresponding one of the pair of terminals of the two-phase AC power supply, and the output end of each one of the conductors is coupled to a corresponding one of the pair of terminals of the resistive heating element.
US07777151B2
A handheld air plasma spray is designed. Plasma is generated by a magnetized arc torch running at 60 Hz and is in non-equilibrium state; thus, the plasma effluent has relatively low temperature (touchable) and yet contains high energy electrons (>5 eV) capable to dissociate oxygen molecules to atomic oxygen. The emission spectroscopy of the torch indicates that the plasma effluent carries an abundance of atomic oxygen, which can effectively kill all kind microbes. Moreover, the experimental results show that this plasma can rapidly clot blood. This invention is for sterilization and blood coagulation applications.
US07777145B2
A switch for controlling delivery of electrical current to a light. The switch may include a frame, a controller connected to the frame, and a toggle connected to the frame to pivot through a range of motion having a first extreme and a second extreme, opposite the first extreme. The toggle may toggle between a first position proximate the first extreme and a second position proximate the second extreme. The switch may further include a sensor connected to the frame and positioned to detect the toggle in the second position, and a tactile switch connected to the frame and positioned to be actuated by the toggle pivoting past the first position toward the first extreme. The switch may also include a controller connected to the sensor and tactile switch to receive inputs therefrom and to execute logic to control the delivery in accordance with the inputs.
US07777135B2
The invention relates to a cable and apparatus and a method for forming the same. The cable comprises a series of conductors, said conductors arranged in sets of two or more, each set having the conductors twisted with respect to each other and passing along the length of the cable encapsulated in a material which forms the body of the cable such that the conductors are integral with the cable body. The material also acts to maintain the spacing of the respective sets. In one embodiment the rigidity of the cable varies dependent on whether or not the cable is twisted. The apparatus provides for the efficient manufacture and storage of the cable.
US07777127B2
The present invention relates to a flexible solar cell (10). The flexible solar cell includes a Al—Mg alloy substrate (11) having a first surface (110) and an opposing second surface (111). A first electrode layer (12), a semiconductor layer (13), and a second electrode layer (14), are sequentially formed on the first surface of the Al—Mg alloy substrate.
US07777103B2
A soybean cultivar designated 6900358 is disclosed. The invention relates to the seeds of soybean cultivar 6900358, to the plants of soybean 6900358, to plant parts of soybean cultivar 6900358 and to methods for producing a soybean plant produced by crossing soybean cultivar 6900358 with itself or with another soybean variety. The invention also relates to methods for producing a soybean plant containing in its genetic material one or more transgenes and to the transgenic soybean plants and plant parts produced by those methods. This invention also relates to soybean cultivars or breeding cultivars and plant parts derived from soybean variety 6900358, to methods for producing other soybean cultivars, lines or plant parts derived from soybean cultivar 6900358 and to the soybean plants, varieties, and their parts derived from use of those methods. The invention further relates to hybrid soybean seeds, plants and plant parts produced by crossing the cultivar 6900358 with another soybean cultivar.
US07777098B2
The present invention relates to a process for production of unsaturated ω-3-fatty acids and to a process for production of triglycerides with an elevated content of unsaturated fatty acids, especially of ω-3-fatty acids having more than three double bonds. The invention relates to the production of a transgenic organism, preferably of a transgenic plant or of a transgenic microorganism, with an elevated content of unsaturated ω-3-fatty acids, oils or lipids having ω-3-double bonds as the result of the expression of an ω-3-desaturase from fungi of the family Pythiaceae such as the genus Phytophtora, for example of the genus and species Phytophtora infestans.
US07777092B2
A skin plate product is provided, which can be better tailored with respect to controlling the properties of the first and second surfaces by cutting holes in an adhesive matrix with a laser and subsequently filling these holes with a second material. Preferably at least one zone of the second material extends from the top surface to the bottom surface of the adhesive, with an exposed part of the second material at the top surface having a different pattern than an exposed part of the second material at the bottom surface. The zones are formed as bodies of frustums of cones having their basis at the same surface.
US07777081B2
A process for effectively producing a 4-(4-alkylcyclohexyl)benzaldehyde, 4-(cyclohexyl)benzaldehyde, a 4-(trans-4-alkylcyclohexyl)benzaldehyde and a (trans-4-alkylcyclohexyl)benzene useful for electronic material applications such as liquid crystals and for pharmaceutical and agrochemical applications, etc., are disclosed. The present invention provides (1) a process for producing a 4-(4-alkylcyclohexyl)benzaldehyde or 4-(cyclohexyl)benzaldehyde by formylating a (4-alkylcyclohexyl)benzene or cyclohexylbenzene with carbon monoxide, (2) a process for producing a 4-(trans-4-alkylcyclohexyl)benzaldehyde by formylating a (4-alkylcyclohexyl)benzene having a cis/trans molar ratio of 0.3 or less with carbon monoxide, and (3) a process for producing a (trans-4-alkylcyclohexyl)benzene by isomerizing a mixture of the cis and trans isomers of a (4-alkylcyclohexyl)benzene, all of the processes being performed in the presence of HF and BF3.
US07777080B2
The invention relates to carboxylic acid derivates which contain at least one organically polymerisable group and at least one group which contains phosphorous and is reactive or that modulates the properties of the molecule. The invention also relates to a method for production of the inventive molecules and the use thereof in dentistry and for influencing the properties of materials.
US07777076B2
Macrocyclic compounds of formula (I), in which B1 and X1 taken together are alkylene which is unsubstituted or substituted with ═O and having one CH2 moiety unreplaced or replaced with CH═CH, O, NH or N(alkyl), which inhibit the activity of antiapoptotic Bcl-2 family protein members, compositions containing the compounds and methods of treating diseases during which are expressed one or more than one of an anti-apoptotic family protein member are disclosed.
US07777075B2
The invention provides a fluoroethercarboxylic acid which is represented by the general formula (I): Rf1OCHFCF2ORf2COOM (I) wherein Rf1 represents a partially or fully fluorinated alkyl group, which may optionally be interrupted with one or more oxygen atoms, Rf2 represents a partially or fully fluorinated alkylene group, which may optionally be interrupted with one or more oxygen atoms, and M represents a monovalent alkali metal, NH4 or H. The fluoroethercarboxylic acid can be suitably used as a surfactant and is low in bioaccumulation. The invention is also a method of fluoropolymer production and an aqueous fluoropolymer dispersion, using the fluoroethercarboxylic acid as a surfactant.
US07777071B2
The present invention discloses novel dual prodrug compounds of formula (1), methods for their preparation and intermediates in their syntheses, formula (1): wherein A is a single bond, —O—, or —CH2—; m and n vary independently and are an integer from 1 to 15; p and q vary from 0 to an integer from 1 to 4; B is a single bond or —CR3R4; D is formula (2): or formula (3): and X is halogen; R1 to R4 are various substituents selected to optimize the physiochemical and biological properties such as, lipophilicity, bioavailability, and pharmacokinetics of compounds of Formula 1; and R1 and R2 or R3 and R4 may optionally be tethered together to form a 3- to 7-membered alicyclic ring. These compounds are useful for the treatment of various infections, metabolic, cardiovascular and neurological disorders.
US07777057B2
A compound corresponding to general formula (I): in which R1 represents a phenyl or naphthalenyl group optionally substituted with one or more halogen atoms or hydroxyl, cyano, nitro, (C1-C3)alkyl, (C1-C3)alkoxy, trifluoromethyl, trifluoromethoxy, benzyloxy, (C3-C6)cycloalkyl-O— or (C3-C6)cycloalkyl(C1-C3)alkoxy groups; R2 represents either a group of general formula CHR3CONHR4 in which R3 represents a hydrogen atom or a methyl group and R4 represents a hydrogen atom or a (C1-C3)alkyl, (C3-C5)cycloalkyl or (pyridin-4-yl)methyl group; or a 2,2,2-trifluoroethyl group; or an (imidazol-2-yl)methyl group; or a (benzimidazol-2-yl)methyl group; or a phenyl group optionally substituted with one or more halogen atoms or cyano, nitro, (C1-C3)alkyl, (C1-C3)alkoxy, trifluoromethyl or trifluoromethoxy groups; and n represents a number ranging from 1 to 3; in the form of a base, of an addition salt with an acid, of a hydrate or of a solvate. Also disclosed and claimed are the pharmaceutical compositions derived therefrom and their therapeutic use in treating a wide variety of diseases.
US07777056B2
A process for preparation of 4-hydroxy-pyran-2-one derivative of formula (I), wherein R is, and wherein R1 and R2 are methyl and R3 is hydrogen or methyl, comprising the steps of, heating a compound of formula (II), wherein R is as defined before, and R4 is hydrogen, NH4+ or an alkali metal, in a solvent mixture consisting of an aromatic hydrocarbon and a ketone in an inert atmosphere at a temperature of between 60° C. to 92° C. in the absence or presence of orthophosphoric acid or its alkali dihydrogen salts or alkali hydrogen salts of a dibasic acid, followed by optional neutralization of the reaction mixture with an organic base and obtaining compound of formula (I) in high purity and substantially free of impurities through a step of isolation and crystallization. The process leads to formation of derivatives of formula I in high purity with dimmer impurity (III) less than 0.1% and anhydro impurity (IV) below 0.15%.
US07777055B2
This invention relates to novel photochromic and electrochromic monomers and polymers based on 1,2-dithienylcyclopentene derivatives and method of using and synthesizing same. The compounds are reversibly interconvertible between different isomeric forms under suitable photochromic or electrochromic conditions. The electrochromic conversion may be catalytic. The application also relates to ultra-high density homopolymers prepared using ring-opening methathesis polymerization (ROMP) where the central ring of the 1,2-bis(3-thienyl)-cyclopentene is incorporated directly into the polymer backbone. The monomer units may be readily functionalized to enable the synthesis of polymers with diverse structural and electronic properties. The compounds have many potential applications including high-density optical information storage systems, photoregulated molecular switches, reversible holographic systems, ophthalmic lenses, actinometry and molecular sensors, photochromic inks, paints and fibers and optoelectronic systems such as optical waveguides, Bragg reflectors and dielectric mirrors.
US07777052B2
This invention relates to a process for the preparation of 5-amino-1-phenyl-3-cyano-4-trifluoromethyl sulphinyl pyrazoles as defined by Formula-I, wherein: R1=trifluoromethyl or trifluoromethoxy, and R2, R3=individually hydrogen, chlorine or bromine, the process comprising the step of oxidizing a compound of Formula-II, wherein: R1=trifluoromethyl or trifluoromethoxy, and R2, R3=individually hydrogen, chlorine or bromine, in a medium comprising at least one oxidizing agent and trichloro acetic acid, and/or the reactions product (s) of the at least one oxidizing agent and trichloro acetic acid, and at least one melting point depressant. The preferred pyrazole is Fipronil, preferably prepared using hydrogen peroxide and dichloro acetic acid at room temperature.
US07777049B2
The present invention is directed to the novel polymorphic Form A and Form B of Rizatriptan benzoate, processes for the preparation thereof and pharmaceutical compositions comprising these crystalline forms.
US07777036B2
Methods of treating an SCD-mediated disease or condition in a mammal, preferably a human, are disclosed, wherein the methods comprise administering to a mammal in need thereof a compound of formula (I) where y, G, K, L, M, W, V, R2, R3, R4a, R6, R6a, R7, R7a, R8 and R8a are defined herein. Pharmaceutical compositions comprising the compounds of formula (I) are also disclosed.
US07777035B2
Methods are provided for the synthesis of 1-[4-(substituted phenyl)-piperazin-1-yl ] -2- [3-(1H-imidazol-2-yl)-pyrazolo [3,4-b]pyridin-1-yl]-ethanone compounds via construction of the imidazole portion onto the corresponding aldehyde or nitrile compounds.
US07777034B2
Provided are alkyl ammonium crystalline salts of rosuvastatin that provide for purification of rosuvastatin and its pharmaceutically acceptable salts.
US07777028B2
A method of preparing metal mesoporphyrin halide compounds is described. The metal mesoporphyrin halide compound may be formed by forming a novel mesoporphyrin IX intermediate compound and then converting the mesoporphyrin IX intermediate to the metal mesoporphyrin halide through metal insertion. The novel intermediate compound may be formed by a catalytic hydrogenation of hemin in acid and subsequent recovery.
US07777024B2
The invention relates to a process for preparing a conjugate that includes a pentopyranosyl nucleic acid and a biomolecule. The process includes the steps of providing a pentopyranosyl nucleic acid having at least two pentopyranosyl nucleotide subunits that are covalently linked between carbon 4 and carbon 2 of their respective pentopyranosyl rings. The pentopyranosyl nucleic acid also has an electrophilic reactive group. A biomolecule having a nucleophilic reactive group is also provided. The electrophilic reactive group of the pentopyranosyl nucleic acid and the nucleophilic reactive group of the biomolecule are reacted to form a covalent bond.
US07777022B2
The present invention relates to a first group of novel viral and human associated oligonucleotides, here identified as “Genomic Address Messenger” or “GAM” oligonucleotide, and a second group of novel operon-like viral and human polynucleotides, here identified as “Genomic Record” or “GR” polynucleotide. GAM oligonucleotides selectively inhibit translation of known “target” genes, many of which are known to be involved in various viral diseases. Nucleic acid molecules are provided respectively encoding 1,655 viral and 105,537 human GAM precursor oligonucleotides, and 190 viral and 14,813 human GR polynucleotides, as are vectors and probes both comprising the nucleic acid molecules, and methods and systems for detecting GAM oligonucleotides and GR polynucleotides and specific functions and utilities thereof, for detecting expression of GAM oligonucleotides and GR polynucleotides, and for selectively enhancing and selectively inhibiting translation of the respective target genes thereof.
US07777019B2
Recombinant immunotoxins are fusion proteins composed of the Fv domains of antibodies fused to bacterial or plant toxins. RFB4 (Fv)-PE38 is an immunotoxin that targets CD22 expressed on B cells and B cell malignancies. The present invention provides antibodies and antibody fragments that have improved ability to bind the CD22 antigen of B cells and B cell malignancies compared to RFB4. Immunotoxins made with the antibodies and antibody fragments of the invention have improved cytotoxicity to CD22-expressing cancer cells. Compositions that incorporate these antibodies into chimeric immunotoxin molecules that can be used in medicaments and methods for inhibiting the growth and proliferation of leukemia and lymphoma cells.
US07777017B2
The present invention encompasses monoclonal antibodies that bind to lipoteichoic acid (LTA) of Gram positive bacteria. The antibodies also bind to whole bacteria and enhance phagocytosis and killing of the bacteria in vitro. The invention also provides antibodies having human sequences (chimeric, humanized and human antibodies). The invention also sets forth the variable regions of three antibodies within the invention and presents the striking homology between them.
US07777011B2
Synthetic polypeptides having at least one antigenic site of a prior protein, methods for their use and manufacture, antibodies raised against such polypeptides and diagnostic kits containing these polypeptides or antibodies.
US07777007B2
The present invention is directed to novel polypeptides and to nucleic acid molecules encoding those polypeptides. Also provided herein are vectors and host cells comprising those nucleic acid sequences, chimeric polypeptide molecules comprising the polypeptides of the present invention fused to heterologous polypeptide sequences, antibodies which bind to the polypeptides of the present invention and to methods for producing the polypeptides of the present invention.
US07777003B2
The present invention relates to recombinant acetylcholine receptor polypeptides recognized by CD4 T cells of a myasthenia gravis patient and compositions for the treatment of myasthenia gravis containing the same as an effective ingredient, more precisely, recombinant acetylcholine receptor polypeptides deficient in B cell epitope, recombinant acetylcholine polypeptides in which two or more T cell epitopes are fused, a composition for the treatment of myasthenia gravis containing the above recombinant polypeptides as an effective ingredient and a treatment method for myasthenia gravis using the composition. The composition containing one or more recombinant polypeptides above can be effectively used as a myasthenia gravis specific therapeutic agent or immunomodulator without side effects.
US07777000B2
The disclosure provides methods and compositions useful in the treatment of dermatitis and viral infections. The compositions comprise cationic peptides of the cathelicidin family including LL-37, related homologues, and variants thereof.
US07776997B2
What is disclosed relates to polymers that resist dissolution in organic solvents, are vasodilators, and are tunable explosives. These polymers also form solvent resistant coatings and solvent resistant fibers as well as bonding materials.
US07776990B1
The present disclosure relates to a method of preparing polysilazane and a polysilazane solution which can minimize substitution of an Si—H bond of a starting compound by ammonia. Particularly, a method of synthesizing polysilazane using a solution which undergoes phase separation and a method of preparing a polysilazane solution for a wafer are disclosed. The method of preparing polysilazane using halosilane and liquid anhydrous ammonia includes adding liquid anhydrous ammonia to a solvent in a weight ratio of 0.5:1 to 10:1, followed by stirring to prepare a mixture solution, and allowing pseudo-ammonolysis to be carried out by adding halosilane to the mixture solution separated into two phases.
US07776987B2
A composition is disclosed which is particularly suited for use in extrusion coating. The composition comprises a polymeric material having a rheology such that the slope S of a natural log-natural log plot of loss modulus (or G″) versus storage modulus (or G′) is greater than [0.635*(melt index)+13.2]/[(melt index)+16.6], and wherein the polymeric material has a CDF RI fraction less than 0.23 of a GPC chromatogram which has a molecular weight above 85,000 g/mol, and a CDF LS fraction of more than 0.07 at a conventional GPC molecular weight of 1,750,000 g/mol or greater. The compositions exhibit reduced neck-in when used in extrusion coating and the neck-in is independent of melt strength, thereby facilitating improved extrusion processes.
US07776984B2
Among other things, a process for producing an agglomerated superabsorbent polymer particle and an agglomerated superabsorbent polymer particle are disclosed. The process comprises the steps of: (A) bringing superabsorbent polymer fine particles having at least about 40 wt. %, a particle size of less than about 150 μm into contact with a fluid comprising to more than about 10 wt. % a cross-linkable, uncrosslinked polymer based on polymerized, ethylenically unsaturated, acid group-bearing monomers or salts thereof; and (B) cross-linking the uncrosslinked polymer by heating the superabsorbent polymer fine particles and the fluid to a temperature from about 20 to about 300° C., so that the cross-linkable, uncrosslinked polymer at least partially crosslinks.
US07776969B2
This invention relates to novel ethylenically unsaturated macromers, preformed stabilizers prepared from these novel macromers, polymer polyols prepared from either the novel ethylenically unsaturated macromers or the preformed stabilizers, and to processes for the preparation of these compositions.
US07776966B2
The present invention provides a thermoplastic resin composition that excels in the slidability and mold release ability at molding of thermoplastic resin by virtue of mixing of a small amount of a polyorganosiloxane-containing graft copolymer excellent in powder characteristics. The present invention can solve the above-mentioned problem by providing thermoplastic resin composition comprising 0.01 to 5% by weight of a polyorganosiloxane-containing graft copolymer (C) and 99.99 to 95% by weight of a thermoplastic resin (D), wherein the polyorganosiloxane-containing graft copolymer (C) is obtainable by polymerizing 40 to 10 parts by weight of a vinyl monomer (B) in the presence of 60 to 90 parts by weight of a polyorganosiloxane (A) with a proviso that a sum of (A) and (B) is 100 parts by weight, a graft ratio of the polyorganosiloxane-containing graft copolymer (C) is less than 1%, and a content of methyl ethyl ketone-insoluble matter in the polyorganosiloxane-containing graft copolymer (C) is 3% by weight or less.
US07776964B2
The thermoplastic ABS resin composition according to the present invention comprises (a) 2 to 25 parts by weight of a graft copolymer particle containing rubbers having a volume average particle diameter range from 0.05 μm to less than 0.18 μm; (b) 2 to 25 parts by weight of a graft copolymer particle containing rubbers having a volume average particle diameter range from 0.18 μm to less than 0.4 μm; (c) 2 to 18 parts by weight of a graft copolymer particle containing rubbers having a volume average particle diameter range from 0.4 μm to less than 4 μm; (d) 10 to 70 parts by weight of a branched vinyl cyanide-vinyl aromatic copolymer; and (e) 1 to 60 parts by weight of a long-chain linear vinyl cyanide-vinyl aromatic copolymer.
US07776963B2
Adhesive formulations having acrylate monomer or methacrylate monomer, or mixtures thereof, and having a reducing agent and an initiator (e.g., peroxide). The formulations may include a chelating agent solution to improve storage stability and other properties. Further, the mole ratio of the initiator to the reducing agent may be adjusted to control weight loss of the adhesives during cure. Polyvinyl acetate or its derivatives may also be employed in the adhesive formulations to reduce weight loss during cure. Moreover, certain embodiments of the formulations include a toughening-agent copolymer having a glass transition temperature (of at least one domain) that is lower than −50° C. (−58° F.). These toughening-agent copolymers may be added to the adhesive formulations to improve impact strength and other properties of the cured adhesives at lower temperatures, e.g., −40° C. (−40° F.), while maintaining performance of the cured adhesives at higher temperatures, e.g., 82° C. (180° F.).
US07776961B2
The present invention provides an oxygen absorber which exhibits a high oxygen-absorbing ability even if a transition metal salt as a catalyst for making oxygen-absorbing ability high is not added thereto and further keeps a high mechanical strength even after the absorber absorbs oxygen. An oxygen absorber containing a cyclized conjugated diene polymer as an active ingredient. About the cyclized conjugated diene polymer, the percent decrease in unsaturated-bond amount is preferably 10% or more and the weight-average molecular weight preferably ranges 1,000 to 1,000,000. The oxygen absorber may further contain a thermoplastic resin. The content of an antioxidant in the oxygen absorber is preferably 500 ppm or lower. The oxygen absorber is in a film, sheet or powder form.
US07776955B2
A polyurethane-graphite oxide composite material or nano composite is described, containing graphite oxide in expanded form present optionally, together with a phyllosilicate in expanded form in a polyurethane matrix, a method for the preparation of this composite material as well as its use as a fire retardant or as a flame-retardant seal for openings and/or bushings in walls, floors and/or ceilings of buildings.
US07776953B2
A room temperature-curable organopolysiloxane composition is provided. The composition comprises (A) 100 parts by weight of a organopolysiloxane represented by the following general formula (1): wherein R is a monovalent hydrocarbon group containing 1 to 5 carbon atoms, R1 is independently a substituted or unsubstituted monovalent hydrocarbon group containing 1 to 10 carbon atoms; n is an integer of at least 10; X is oxygen atom or an alkylene group containing 2 to 5 carbon atoms, and m is independently an integer of 0 or 1; or a mixture of such organopolysiloxane; (B) 50 to 150 parts by weight of a colloidal calcium carbonate having a specific surface area measured by BET method of at least 10 m2/g; (C) 100 to 200 parts by weight of a heavy calcium carbonate having a specific surface area measured by BET method of up to 8 m2/g; (D) 1 to 25 parts by weight of an organosilicon compound having at least 3 hydrolyzable groups bonded to silicon atom in one molecule represented by R2aSi(OR3)4-a wherein R2 is a monovalent hydrocarbon group containing 1 to 12 carbon atoms, R3 is a monovalent hydrocarbon group containing 1 to 5 carbon atoms, and a is 0 or 1; or its partial hydrolysate; and (E) 0.01 to 10 parts by weight of a curing catalyst. The mass ratio of the component (B) to the component (C) is less than 1.
US07776952B2
A polymeric dispersant having an affinity with a supercritical fluid is provided, in which a substituent having an affinity with a supercritical fluid is attached to the terminal end of a block copolymer. The polymeric dispersant can disperse a dispersoid to particulate size by lowering surface tension between the dispersoid and the supercritical fluid to promote diffusion of the supercritical fluid into the dispersoid.
US07776945B2
Disclosed herein is a Polyester Fiber Having Excellent Light-Shielding and Flame Retardant Characteristic. The Polyester Fiber comprises: phosphorus-based flame retardant 0.05˜5% by weight, based on phosphorus atom; and inorganic particles having 0.05˜1 μm average particle size 1-5% by weight, based on fiber weight. Further disclosed is Textile Goods prepared from the Polyester Fiber. The polyester fiber according to the present invention is prepared from polyester polymer having Intrinsic viscosity of 0.55˜0.75 dl/g and the Intrinsic viscosity difference of between the fiber and polymer (IV drop) is within 0.03 dl/g and it exhibits the excellent flame retardant and light shielding characteristic. Therefore, the polyester fiber can be applied to fiber for clothes, light shielding curtain for a car and blackout curtain for a house and theater.
US07776942B2
Polyester compositions are disclosed that include polyester polymers or copolymers having incorporated therein titanium nitride particles and carbon-coated iron particles to improve the reheat properties of the compositions. The compositions may also exhibit reduced yellowness, and improved resistance to the effects of UV light. Processes for making such compositions are also disclosed. The particles may be incorporated in the polyester by melt compounding, or may be added at any stage of the polymerization, such as during the melt-phase of the polymerization. A range of particle sizes may be used, as well as a range of particle size distributions. The polyester compositions are suitable for use in packaging made from processes in which a reheat step is desirable, or decreased yellowness is desired, or increased resistance to the effects of ultraviolet light is desired, or any combination of the foregoing.
