US07870606B2

A method and device monitor usage of external storage media. The method and system selectively shadow I/O (input/output) from/to only external storage media. The method selectively shadows only accesses to external storage media connected to a computer. The method detects a data access to an external storage medium and writes a copy of the accessed data to a storage location other than the external storage medium. In one embodiment, the access is a write operation. In one embodiment, the method intercepts an I/O request from the computer to an external storage media drive in which the external storage media is inserted. In the case of the Windows NT or Windows 2000 operating systems, the intercepted I/O requests are preferably IRP_MJ_CREATE, IRP_MJ_WRITE, IRP_MJ_CLOSE and IRP_MJ_FILE_SYSTEM_CONTROL packets. An apparatus comprises a detector and a storage connected to the detector. The detector receives I/O requests to an external storage medium. The storage is one other than the external storage medium. Written in the storage is a copy of the accessed data. In one embodiment, the apparatus further comprises one or more proxy handlers connected to the detector, wherein the proxy handlers handle certain I/O requests, which, in the case of the Windows NT or Windows NT operating system, include IRP_MJ_CREATE, IRP_MJ_WRITE, IRP_MJ_CLOSE and IRP_MJ_FILE_SYSTEM_CONTROL packets.
US07870602B2

A system and method of using a controller and firewall devices. Each of the firewall devices operate in an active mode during normal operation. The method may include the steps of determining when a first and/or second redundant data packet is received from a first/second firewall device, respectively, determining a valid sequence number, and transmitting the first/second redundant data packet to a target device when a sequence number of the first/second redundant data packet matches the valid sequence number and a first/second logical condition is satisfied, respectively. The first/second logical condition is at least one of the second/first firewall device is failed, a sequence number of the second/first redundant data packet varies from the valid sequence number, and the first/second firewall device is a primary firewall device.
US07870601B2

A stand-alone solution by way of a unified attachment node, an integrated solution by way of an intelligent access node, and an overall system solution by way of a unified attachment solution, which are for a multi-access network attachment. The unified attachment solution may include a unified attachment node and an intelligent access node. Stated in other words, there is provided an evolution towards a unified attachment solution for any access in a multi-access environment.
US07870600B2

Client adapter and method simplify security deployment in an EPN, including the shared services electrical power lines of a premises. With direct coupling, piggybacked adapter receives network signals and electrical from EPN-connected first adapter through a shared medium port. An authenticating adapter exchanges security management services and information with supplicant adapter. Two or more adapters may be piggybacked. Piggybacked adapters exchange security management service information without rogue intrusion. Exchanged information, stored, is later used to communicate securely. Defined adjacency (neighborhood) information can be exchanged, and a neighborhood established on an EPN, where one authorized neighbors securely communicate.
US07870597B2

Method and apparatus for managing digital identities through a single interface is described. One aspect of the invention relates to managing digital identities related to a user. An identity policy of an entity is obtained. At least one relevant digital identity is selected from the digital identities. Each relevant digital identity includes information required by the identity policy. A selected digital identity is obtained from the relevant digital identity or identities. A representation of the selected digital identity is provided to the entity that complies with the identity policy.
US07870594B2

A computer implemented method, data processing system, and computer usable program code are provided for applying compliance standards to a set of computers. A set of computer groupings containing the set of computers is identified. Each computer in the set of computers is included in at least one computer group in the set of computer groupings. A set of compliance rules is identified for each of the set of computer groupings. Configuration information for the set of computers is acquired and the configuration information for each of the set of computers is compared to the set of compliance rules for each of the set of computer groupings to which each computer in the set of computers is included. Compliance results are generated for each computer in the set of computers.
US07870583B2

A digital broadcast receiver and broadcast data display method enabling simultaneous display of multi-channel visual images are disclosed. The broadcast data display method includes receiving digital broadcast data on a plurality of channels; simultaneously outputting on a single screen real-time broadcast data of a selected channel and still images of the remaining channels; and periodically updating the still images of the remaining channels. Thereby, up-to-date multi-channel visual images are simultaneously output. Hence, the user can easily perform channel selection and channel switching.
US07870580B2

In accordance with the present invention, a media content management application that allows a user to customize, assemble, distribute, and track one or more versions of media content based on semantic criteria is provided.
US07870578B2

In accordance with the present invention, a media content management application that allows a user to customize, assemble, distribute, and track one or more versions of media content based on semantic criteria is provided.
US07870577B2

In accordance with the present invention, a media content management application that allows a user to create and customize a version of media content based on semantic criteria is provided. Based on semantic criteria, the media content management application may use editing/assembly software packages to construct a version of the media content for an intended audience. In addition, the media content management application allows a user to generate the version of media content suitable for a website and allows a user to receive feedback from the website. Based on the feedback from the website, the media content management application may select one version of the media content from a plurality of content, adjust the placement of the media content prior to broadcasting the media content, and/or customize the media content prior to broadcasting the media content.
US07870576B2

A mechanism for matching Electronic Program Guide (EPG) advertisements to subscribers or groups of subscribers and delivering those advertisements within the EPG. The subscribers are initially characterized in different groups by using commercially available data, such as demographic data. Furthermore, the groups of subscribers may be formed according to their characteristics. These characteristics may be derived from, but are not limited to, demographic data, geographic information or individual subscriber selection data. Subsequent to the formation of the groups, suitable advertisements to be placed in the EPG avails are selected, based on the matching of the advertisement characteristics to the characteristics of the groups, wherein the EPG avails are the advertising opportunities available within the EPG. Different versions of the EPG having targeted advertisements may be created, and the different versions may be placed on a download server for transmission over an access system to the subscriber. At the subscriber end, the different versions of the EPG may be received and the subscriber end, being assigned to a particular group, may receive the EPG which corresponds to that group. The subscriber end generally comprises a suitable subscriber interface, such as, a set-top box (STB) or a cable-ready television having a unique identification.
US07870572B2

An object lens driving apparatus (100) includes a lens holder (4) that holds an object lens (1) facing a recording medium and is so supported that the lens holder (4) is movable toward and away from the surface of the recording medium. A focusing coil (5) is fixed in the interior of the lens holder (4) so that the focusing coil (5) surrounds an optical axis of the object lens (1). By apply current to the focusing coil (5), a driving force is generated, which moves the lens holder (4) toward and away from the surface of the recording medium. By disposing the focusing coil (5) in the interior of the lens holder (4) so that the focusing coil (5) surrounds the optical axis of the object lens (1), a movable part of the object lens driving apparatus (100) can be reduced in size and weight, so that a high sensitivity can be accomplished.
US07870566B2

To integrate a parent application and a child application, the parent application receives events through a user interface. If the events are to be processed by the child application, they are propagated to the child application. The child application generates content data based on the received events, writes the content data into a storage module, and then notifies the parent application. The parent application reads out the content data written in the storage module.
US07870555B2

A method for scheduling execution of a work unit in a data processing system comprises assigning to the work unit an expected execution duration; executing the work unit; determining an actual execution duration of the work unit; determining a difference between the actual execution duration and the expected duration; and conditionally adjusting the expected execution duration assigned to the work unit based on the measured actual execution duration, wherein the conditionally adjusting includes preventing the adjustment of the expected execution duration in case said difference exceeds a predetermined threshold. The method further includes associating to the work unit a parameter having a prescribed value adapted to provide an indication of unconditional adjustment of the expected execution duration: in case said parameter takes the prescribed value, the expected duration assigned with the work unit based on the measured actual execution duration even if the difference in durations exceeds the predetermined threshold.
US07870550B1

Systems and methods for managing a deployment of a software application are disclosed. One system comprises a machine-readable repository of rules describing problems associated with the software application, a monitoring component that collects state metrics from the deployment, and a problem detector that programmatically uses the rules to map combinations of the collected state metrics to problems.
US07870549B2

Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, providing and using composite extension definitions. A composite extension definition has one or more extension definitions, each of which can be either an atomic or a non-atomic extension definition. In one aspect, a program has instructions to create a composite extension definition, to generate composite metadata that represents the composite extension definition, and to store the composite metadata for later use. The program can include instructions to receive input specifying dependency relationships between or among extensions defined by the extension definitions and to include the relationships in the composite metadata. Composite extension definitions can be created by an application developer for use by customers to guide them in implementing and deploying extensions to a computer program application.
US07870548B2

The present invention relates to a method for updating an image file that is performed by a server, when a workable image file pre-stored in a storage unit of said server needs to be updated by a new image file, that duplicates said workable image file to said storage unit as a backup image file, and then restarts said serve by invoking the operating system with said new image file, and if an operating system can not be successfully invoked with said new image file, said server automatically selects said backup image file to invoke the operating system and restore to the status before said update.
US07870543B2

One embodiment relates to a method for dynamic tuning of a user-space process. The method attaches to the user-space process. Load-time and compile-time base addresses of a data section of an object to be tuned are read. An offset to a symbol to be tuned is determined, and an effective address of the symbol is computed. A new value of the symbol is then written. Other embodiments and features are also disclosed.
US07870540B2

A system that facilitates validating an object in a software design tool comprises a component that receives input relating to development of an object. A validating component, prior to compile, automatically determines whether the object is associated with an error upon receipt of the input. An alarm component can generate an alarm upon the validating component determining that the object is associated with an error.
US07870539B2

A knowledge generation machine (KGM) that performs cross-channel dependency resolution is provided. The conventional dependency resolution process often treats irresolvable cross-channel references as an error state, thus ignoring sometimes critical software dependency information. By performing post-processing cross-channel resolution on the dependency model, the KGM can create a robust dependency model that includes dependencies for a software component in multiple segments of information. The dependency model is not restricted to modeling a single segmented space.
US07870533B2

Within-die delay distributions and die-to-die delay distributions of two arbitrary paths in an analysis target circuit are extracted from a delay distribution library, and an effect index indicative of a relative error of an overall path delay distribution of one path and an overall path delay distribution when the two paths are integrated as one path is calculated based on the within-die delay distributions and the die-to-die delay distributions of the two paths. When the effect index is determined to be equal to or above a threshold, the overall path delay distribution of the two paths integrated as one path is calculated. Hence, a path that affects an analysis result alone is selected to execute a statistical Max operation, thereby increasing a speed of delay analysis processing.
US07870531B2

A mask reuse methodology process in which the soft logic is implemented with a generic array type cell structure mask and a custom blocking mask. A system is provided comprising a mask set having a plurality of reusable masks corresponding to a plurality of hard intellectual property (IP) components; a generic array type cell mask; and a custom blocking mask that includes blocking regions that positionally correspond with a set of IP components printed on a die.
US07870530B2

Some embodiments provide a method of designing a configurable integrated circuit (“IC”) with several configurable circuits. The method receives a design having several sets of operations for the configurable circuits to perform in different operational cycles. For at least a first set of operations that has a start operation and an end operation, the method assigns a particular operation in the first set to a first operational cycle based at least partially on the position of the particular operation with respect to the start and end operations.
US07870529B2

Some embodiments provide a method of designing a configurable integrated circuit (“IC”) with several configurable circuits. The method receives a design having several sets of operations for the configurable circuits to perform in different operational cycles. For at least a first set of operations that has a start operation and an end operation, the method assigns a particular operation in the first set to a first operational cycle based at least partially on the position of the particular operation with respect to the start and end operations.
US07870519B2

A method for testing an integrated circuit and analyzing test data. The method includes: defining a set of signal path selection criteria; selecting a subset of signal paths of an integrated circuit design, the selecting signal paths meeting the selection criteria; identifying pattern observation points for each signal path of the subset of signal paths; selecting a set of features associated with the integrated circuit design; applying a set of test patterns to one or more integrated circuit chips; determining failing signal paths of the subset of signal paths for each integrated circuit chip; mapping failing signal paths of the subset of signal paths to the set of features to generate a correspondence between the failing signal paths and the features; and analyzing the correspondence and identifying suspect features of the set of features based on the analyzing.
US07870514B2

A method of designing a pattern of a hole pattern having a configuration, in which grid of interval smaller than a minimum permissible pitch according to a design rule for a semiconductor integrated circuit is provided in a pattern drawing, a hole pattern is arranged on a first lattice point which is an intersection of the grid, and, at the same time, other hole patterns are not arranged on a second lattice point group which is on the periphery of the first lattice point, and is adjacent to the first lattice point is provided. And, the number of hole patterns, which may be arranged in a third lattice point group of a plurality of lattice points which are on the periphery of a second lattice point group and are within a predetermined distance from the first lattice point, is controlled.
US07870513B2

Providing ASIC equivalents of FPGAs is facilitated and made more efficient and economical by using an ASIC architecture including a plurality of so-called hybrid logic elements (“HLEs”), each of which can provide a portion of the full functionality of an FPGA logic element (“LE”). The functionality of each FPGA LE implementing a user's logic design can be mapped to one or more HLEs without re-synthesis of the user's logic. Only as many HLEs as are necessary are used to perform the functions of each LE. The one-for-one equivalence between each LE and either (1) one HLE or (2) a group of HLEs facilitates mapping (without re-synthesis) in either direction between FPGA and ASIC designs.
US07870507B2

A system and method for providing a dynamic user interface for a dense three-dimensional scene with a navigation assistance panel is presented. Clusters of semantically scored documents are placed in a three-dimensional scene and are arranged as a cluster spine. Each cluster spine is projected into a two-dimensional display. Controls operating on the cluster spines in the display are presented in a user interface. Compasses framing the cluster spines within the display are provided. A label to identify one concept in one or more of the cluster spines appearing within at least one of the compasses is generated. A plurality of slots in the display positioned circumferentially around the compasses are defined. Each label is assigned to the slot outside of the compass for the cluster spine having a closest angularity to the slot. A perspective-altered rendition of the two-dimensional display is provided by a navigation assistant panel.
US07870503B1

Displaying ordered items is disclosed. Ordered items are analyzed to determine at least one set of groupable items. The groupable items are combined into a group. Group order associated with the group is determined. The group, along with an indicia of the group order, is displayed. The group can be reordered to modify the order of the items.
US07870500B2

An approach for positioning a floating object in a workspace of an electronic document is disclosed herein. To accomplish this, the workspace is divided into a plurality of available portions in which floating objects may be positioned. For example, these available portions represent geometrical areas within the workspace that do not include obstacles, such as absolutely positioned objects and other floating objects. The available portions are then evaluated against a plurality of undesirable positioning characteristics in order to determine an optimal position for the floating object within the workspace. The optimal position is then determined to be either a location in the workspace that does not result in any of the undesirable characteristics or, alternatively, a location having the most tolerable of the potentially resultant undesired characteristics.
US07870492B2

According to one aspect of the present invention, a method is provided in which it is determined whether a command item associated with a user-interface control object is enabled. If the respective command item is enabled, indicate to a user that the respective command item can be selected to initiate a particular command to which the respective command item is associated. In response to the user's selection of the respective command item, route the particular command to a particular destination for execution, based upon one or more predetermined criteria associated with the particular command.
US07870486B2

The subject application is directed to a system and method for simultaneously commencing output of disparately encoded electronic documents. Selection data representative of multiple electronic documents encoded in multiple disparate formats is first received. For example, the electronic documents are capable of being encoded in MICROSOFT OFFICE WORD, MICROSOFT OFFICE EXCEL, ADOBE ACROBAT formats, and the like. Each of the disparate formats is associated with a corresponding software module and then retrieved in accordance with received selection data. Next, the electronic documents are communicated to corresponding software modules, and the document processing device commences a selected document processing operation on each of the electronic documents by a corresponding software module. Each application-specific module is adapted for processing a document processing request for one or more types of documents that are associated with one specific application.
US07870482B2

A method of automatically consuming and processing web services includes parsing a first document describing a web service to identify a first set of attribute-value pairs describing a function offered by the web service and a second set of attribute-value pairs specifying instructions for processing result data returned by the function for rendering in a user interface element; constructing an invocation request object for invoking the first function based upon the first and second sets of attribute-value pairs; and processing the result data returned by the first function based upon the second set of attribute-value pairs to generate a set of code executable to render a presentation of the result data in the user interface element. The second set of attribute-value pairs includes a first attribute-value pair specifying a data type for the result data and a second attribute-value pair specifying a first instruction for processing the result data.
US07870478B1

Briefly, in accordance with one or more embodiments, a form may be configured with one or more subsections that may be reused, and automatically be converted to a utilizable format to a second application.
US07870474B2

An improved system and method is provided for detecting a web page template. A web page template detector may be provided for performing page-level template detection on a web page. In general, the web page template classifier may be trained using automatically generated training data, and then the web page template classifier may be applied to web pages to identify web page templates. A web page template may be detected by classifying segments of a web page as template structures, by assigning classification scores to the segments of the web page classified as template structures, and then by smoothing the classification scores assigned to the segments of the web page. Generalized isotonic regression may be applied for smoothing scores associated with the nodes of a hierarchy by minimizing an optimization function using dynamic programming.
US07870473B2

An error detection device for an address decoder converting an input address to an associated output address out of a plurality of valid output addresses using a 1-out-of-n decoder, the error detection device including a regenerator for generating a regenerated address on the basis of the output address from the 1-out-of-n decoder, and a comparer for receiving the input address and the regenerated address and to output a signal, on the basis of a comparison of the input address and the regenerated address, which indicates an error in the conversion of the input address to the output address if the input address and the regenerated address do not match, and which indicates an error-free conversion of the input address to the output address if the input address equals the regenerated address.
US07870465B2

In one embodiment, among others, a method for executing a change from one communication channel to another includes receiving a channel-change indication and obtaining data and FEC that corresponds to the data. The data and FEC are related to a new channel, and the data includes a portion of data within a data packet. By utilizing the FEC, the method further includes recreating portions of data of the data packet that were missed due to the channel-change indication occurring in the middle of the transmission of the data packet. As an example, the data packet can be associated with video data arranged in a group of pictures (GOP) structure.
US07870451B2

Scan architectures are commonly used to test digital circuitry in integrated circuits. The present invention describes a method of adapting conventional scan architectures into a low power scan architecture. The low power scan architecture maintains the test time of conventional scan architectures, while requiring significantly less operational power than conventional scan architectures. The low power scan architecture is advantageous to IC/die manufacturers since it allows a larger number of circuits (such as DSP or CPU core circuits) embedded in an IC/die to be tested in parallel without consuming too much power within the IC/die. Since the low power scan architecture reduces test power consumption, it is possible to simultaneously test more die on a wafer than previously possible using conventional scan architectures. This allows wafer test times to be reduced which reduces the manufacturing cost of each die on the wafer.
US07870446B2

According to one embodiment, an information processing apparatus includes an information processing apparatus main body, and a nonvolatile semiconductor memory drive. The semiconductor memory drive includes a control module configured to control execution of data read and write on a nonvolatile semiconductor memory in units of a predetermined number of sectors. In a case where a data size of write data from the information processing apparatus main body is less than a data size of the predetermined number of sectors, the control module reads, from the nonvolatile semiconductor memory, data in a predetermined number of sectors including a sector in which the write data is to be written, and in a case where an error is detected in the read data, the control module stores, in a management table, defective sector information which is indicative of a sector storing the data in which the error is detected.
US07870445B2

A system for measuring performance of a serial communications link includes a system under test including at least one transmitter and at least one receiver coupled together via a serial data communications link, wherein at least one of the transmitter and the receiver has at least one tunable parameter, at least one controller coupled to at least one of a transmitter and a receiver via a joint test action group JTAG interface, and logic configured to perform a bit error ratio test (BERT) at a plurality of receiver phase locations over a defined time period and concluding the BERT for a particular phase location if a BERT error count is greater than 0 at the particular phase location.
US07870442B2

A method in one embodiment includes detecting an identifier of a drive that has written data to a data storage medium; performing a data transfer operation to read the data from the data storage medium; monitoring the data transfer operation for detecting temporary errors; determining whether an error burst has occurred based on the monitoring; and if an error burst has occurred, altering a condition of the data transfer operation, the alteration being selected based on the identifier of the drive that wrote the data to the data storage medium. Additional methods and systems are also disclosed.
US07870441B2

Determining an underlying cause for errors that are detected in the data processing system is performed. An occurrence of at least one error in the data processing system is detected, thereby forming a detected error. Responsive to detecting the detected error, a determination is made as to whether there is at least one previously recorded error in an error history data structure that is the underlying cause for the detected error. The at least one previously recorded error is related to the detected error and the at least one previously recorded error is of a different type from the detected error. Responsive to identifying the at least one previously recorded error, the at least one previously recorded error is reported to a user.
US07870437B2

A data processing apparatus is provided, comprising monitored circuitry for performing activities, trace circuitry for producing a stream of trace elements representative of at least some of these activities, and detection circuitry for detecting the occurrence of a predetermined subset of the activities for which the trace circuitry is producing trace elements. When an activity in that predetermined subset of activities is detected a timing indication is added to the stream of trace elements. Hence, the valuable trace bandwidth- may be preserved, by limiting the trace elements for which a timing indication is added into the trace stream to a predetermined subset of the activities for which trace elements are generated, and the valuable global or relative timing accuracy of those activities represented in the trace stream is retained, without flooding the trace stream with timing indications.
US07870433B2

An approach is provided that rejuvenates a software application to reduce the effects of software aging. An active replica corresponding to a software application is identified. If rejuvenation of the software application is appropriate, a new replica is created and state information is transferred from the active replica to the new replica. In addition, client requests are redirected to the new replica. After the state data has been transferred and requests have been redirected, the active replica is terminated. Once the active replica has been terminated, the new replica becomes the active replica. When rejuvenation is again proper, another new replica is created and the state data is transferred from the new active replica to the new replica and requests are redirected to the new replica. This process repeats whenever rejuvenation of the application is needed.
US07870427B2

Provided are a method, system, and article of manufacture for accessing removable storage management services to obtain replacement instructions indicating whether to replace removable storage. Replacement information indicating whether to replace at least one of a plurality of managed removable storages is obtained by interfacing with a service computer over a network. Read/write error information for the at least one removable storage is gathered and transmitted to the service computer. Replacement instructions indicating whether to replace the at least one removable storage are received from the service computer.
US07870416B2

Systems and methods are described for service availability that provides automated recovery of server service in a timely and application intelligent manner, maintaining application consistency and integrity, while preserving server identity. The systems and methods, referred to herein as a Service Preservation System (SPS), manage complete recovery of server data and preserve continuity of server service, reestablishing user access to server(s) after an event or disaster in which in which primary or other server(s) fail. The failures, disasters, and losses referred to herein can be at many levels and include, but are not limited to, accidental deletion of an item, loss of an entire mailbox, loss of an entire disk drive, loss of an entire server, and/or loss of an entire server site.
US07870413B2

A clocking scheme is provided to synchronize system clock across plural independent SMP (Symmetric Multi-Processing) domains of the multi-processor system. Each of the SMP domains is connected with another through an interconnection board and two or more identical connectors. The clocking scheme includes a clock source, a SPLL (Select Phase-Locked Loop) and a clock buffer on each of the SMP domains to provide a dedicated base clock. A self-clock path is used to send the base clock from the clock source to the SPLL on the same SMP domain, and on the other hand one or more base clock is sent through a distribution-clock path to another SPLL. The distribution-clock path and the self-clock path will have equal lengths, making the base clock pass through the two connectors or the same connector twice to achieve the similar electrical characteristics and balance the skew or propagation delay.
US07870403B2

Various technologies and techniques are disclosed for providing and interacting with a centralized wake service. A server-side wake service is provided that is operable to allow applications to subscribe to the wake service. The wake service receives a wake request directed to a particular computing device from a particular one of the applications. The wake request is forwarded from the wake service to a client-side communication service on the particular computing device if forwarding is determined to be appropriate. When the client-side communication service on the particular computing device receives the wake request while in a reduced power mode, the computing device wakes up and an appropriate response is determined.
US07870391B2

A mobile communication terminal having a function of managing multimedia data is provided, including: a main memory including a multimedia database storing the multimedia data; a signal processor converting the multimedia data stored in the main memory into data of a format suitable to be output to a display of the mobile communication terminal; a back_end chip which processes the multimedia data outputted from the signal processor, stores digest information of multimedia data upon occurrence of an update event of the multimedia data, and provides the stored digest information upon receiving a signal of requesting the digest information to be synchronized; and a front_end chip including a controller which requests the digest information stored in the back_end chip, compares and synchronizes the digest information offered from the back_end chip and digest information stored in advance in the front_end chip.
US07870389B1

Methods and apparatus for generating and transmitting dynamically generated session keys are disclosed. A key distribution center generates a session key between the key distribution center and a first mobility entity (e.g., an access point). Once the session key between the key distribution center and the access point is transmitted to the access point, the access point retrieves a shared session key between the access point and a Mobile Node from the key distribution center, which is then transmitted to the Mobile Node, enabling the Mobile Node to connect to the network. Similarly, either the Mobile Node or its Home Agent retrieves a session key between the key distribution center and the access point from the key distribution center, enabling a shared session key between the Home Agent and the Mobile Node to be obtained from the key distribution center. The Mobile Node (or Home Agent) then transmits the shared session key to the Home Agent (or Mobile Node). Once the shared session key is obtained by both the Home Agent and the Mobile Node, the shared session key is used to authenticate registration messages (e.g., including registration request and reply packets). In this manner, dynamically generated session keys may be used to securely transmit registration messages in a Mobile IP environment.
US07870386B2

The present invention allows the viewer of a document to select certain portions of an encrypted document for decryption and optionally re-encryption while other portions of the document remain encrypted or as originally created. In this decryption process, the user would use a standard word processing editor technique to highlight (or swipe) portions of a document that the user desires to decrypt. The highlighted area would then be ‘tagged’ with a surrounding attribute indicating that the highlighted area is to be decrypted. This process is similar to the existing word processor capability to highlight areas on a document and then assign rich text attributes, such as BOLD, ITALICS, etc., to those areas.
US07870385B2

A method of controlling presentation of content on a media storage device is described. The method is comprised of verifying the presence of a media presentation mechanism and a usage compliance mechanism on a computer system operated by a recipient to whom the media storage device is distributed. The usage compliance mechanism includes a file system filter driver for controlling data reads associated with the computer readable media. The media presentation mechanism is communicatively coupled with the usage compliance mechanism. The present method further includes the file system driver performing a first decryption of the computer readable media. The present method further includes the media presentation mechanism performing a second decrypting of the computer readable media concurrent with presenting the computer readable media to the recipient.
US07870383B2

System, method and program product for updating a current encryption certificate with a new encryption certificate in a computer having a first plurality of communication channels which require an encryption certificate and a second plurality of communication channels which do not require an encryption certificate. The computer stores the current encryption certificate. The first plurality of communication channels are active and use the current encryption certificate for communication. The second plurality of communication channels are also active. The first plurality of communication channels are deactivated without deactivating the second plurality of communication channels, while substituting the new encryption certificate for the current encryption certificate for subsequent use by the first plurality of communication channels. After the substitution, the first plurality of communication channels are reactivated. After the reactivation, the computer communicates with another computer via one of the first plurality of communication channels using the new encryption certificate.
US07870380B2

The disclosed system and method allow secure packet transmission to be provided with a minimum amount of overhead and to employ a cache having copies distributed among a plurality of different locations. SSL/TLS session information for a session with each of the proxy servers is stored in the cache so that it is accessible to at least one other proxy server. Using this arrangement, when a client computer switches from a connection with a first proxy server to a connection with a second proxy server, the second proxy server can retrieve SSL/TLS session information from the cache corresponding to the SSL/TLS communication session between the client device and the first proxy server. The second proxy server can then use the retrieved SSL/TLS session information to accept a session with the client device.
US07870379B2

A system is described that includes a power conversion module, a data port, a controller to receive data from the data port, and a data store containing instructions that when executed by the controller perform operations to control the power conversion module. The operations include executing instructions in a first portion of the data store during booting of the controller, executing instructions in a second portion of the data store after the controller has booted, receiving a signal from the data port indicating the instructions in the second portion are to be modified, receiving from the data port modified instructions to be stored in the second portion, and executing, in response to the signal, the instructions in the first portion to store the modified instructions in the second portion.
US07870375B2

An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for updating a code image for a communication adapter. The apparatus includes a save module, an update module, and a restore module. The save module saves configuration data associated with a connection at a communication adapter. The update module updates a code image on the communication adapter. The restore module restores the configuration data in response to the code image update. Advantageously, the apparatus eliminates the need for conventional host recovery, including relogin and reestablishment of paths and connections, after the code image update.
US07870370B2

Methods, apparatus, and products for determining thermal characteristics of instruction sets comprising one or more computer program instructions executed by a computer processor are disclosed that include tracking, in a performance counter, a number of classes of instructions run during execution of a plurality of instruction sets; identifying, for each instruction set, from the performance counter, a number of each class of instructions run during execution of the instruction set; and ranking the instruction sets in dependence upon the number of each class of instructions run during execution of each instruction set and a profile of thermal characteristics of classes of instructions.
US07870364B2

A reconfigurable processor (RP) structure is provided, and particularly, a multi-mode providing apparatus including an exclusive coarse-grained array unit for each mode and a multi-mode providing method thereof are provided. The multi-mode providing apparatus includes: at least one reconfigurable operation mode execution unit performing a plurality of operations for processing a predetermined operation mode; a common coarse-grained array unit shared temporally by the at least one reconfigurable operation mode execution unit, and performing a main processing operation set to be performed by the common coarse-grained array unit, among the plurality of operations; and a controller determining whether the common coarse-grained array unit is available, and according to the result of the determination controlling the at least one reconfigurable operation mode execution unit so that the common coarse-grained array unit or an exclusive coarse-grained array unit performs the main processing operation, the exclusive coarse-grained array unit included in the at least one reconfigurable operation mode execution unit. Therefore, it is possible to reduce a delay time for data processing while reducing the size of hardware.
US07870363B2

Methods and arrangements for remapping the map between logical space and physical space in non-volatile storage are described. Embodiments include transformations, code, state machines or other logic to divide the non-volatile storage of the computing device into two portions, a fixed portion and a floating portion. The embodiments may also include remapping in system firmware of the computing device the current map from logical space to physical space of the floating portion of the non-volatile storage. The embodiments may also include storing the revised map. The embodiments may also include using the revised map to access the floating portion of the non-volatile storage.
US07870362B2

A semiconductor memory device includes a row decoding block for decoding an inputted address to thereby generate a logical unit cell block address and a decoded word line address; a tag block for converting the logical unit cell block address into a physical unit cell block address; a decoded address latching block for latching the decoded word line address to thereby output the decoded word line address as a word line activation signal in response to the physical unit cell block; and a cell area for outputting a data, which is stored therein, in response to the word line activation signal.
US07870361B1

A network device includes an alignment module to align payloads of received frames on memory boundaries in a buffer memory. The frames may be Ethernet frames which encapsulate IP (Internet Protocol) packets as payloads. The alignment module modifies the frame to shift the IP payload into a position in the memory regions such that the IP payload is aligned with the memory boundaries. The number x of non-data bits can be determined according to x=m*c+p, where m is the bit depth of memory regions, n is the length of a header, p is the non-zero remainder of the ratio n/m, and c is an integer.
US07870360B2

The present invention provides an approach for SAN forecasting in a heterogeneous environment. Specifically, under the present invention capacity data on the heterogeneous environment is gathered. Capacity management techniques will then be used to analyze the SAN utilization, identify growth trends and patterns. Proactively, plans are made to account for these changes. Thereafter, a Capacity Planning Margin (CPM) will be applied to the forecast to reflect actual customer usage. The CPM adjusted forecasts will then be reviewed. Then, the SAN environment can be monitored by comparing actual vs. planned and return to adjust the forecast accordingly.
US07870345B2

Embodiments relate to systems and methods for managing stalled storage devices of a storage system. In one embodiment, a method for managing access to storage devices includes determining that a first storage device, which stores a first resource, is stalled and transitioning the first storage device to a stalled state. The method also includes receiving an access request for at least a portion of the first resource while the first storage device is in the stalled state and attempting to provide access to a representation of the portion of the first resource from at least a second storage device that is not in a stalled state. In another embodiment, a method of managing access requests by a thread for a resource stored on a storage device includes initializing a thread access level for an access request by a thread for the resource. The method also includes determining whether the storage device, which has a device access level, is accessible based at least in part on the thread access level and the device access level and selecting a thread operation based at least in part on the determination of whether the storage device is accessible. The thread operation may be selected from attempting the thread access request if the device is accessible and determining whether to restart the thread access request if the device is not accessible.
US07870342B2

A memory storage system includes a line cache including a plurality of pages. A first central processing unit (CPU) accesses data stored in the pages of the line cache. A first memory device stores data that is loaded into the line cache when a miss occurs. After an initial miss, the line cache prevents additional misses as long as the first CPU is addressing sequential memory locations of the first memory device. When the miss occurs, n pages of the line cache are loaded with data from sequential locations in the first memory device, wherein n is greater than one. When the CPU requests data from an mth page of the n pages in the line cache, wherein m is greater than one and less than or equal to n, the line cache loads p additional pages with data from sequential locations in the first memory device.
US07870335B2

A data storage system and associated method implement a HASTE with a policy engine that continuously collects qualitative information about a network load to the data storage system in order to dynamically characterize the load, and continuously correlates a command profile to a data storage device of the data storage system in relation to the characterization.
US07870331B2

A memory system comprises first memory that includes memory cells that are selectively refreshed at a refresh rate. A test module tests operation of the memory cells at the refresh rate and that identifies T of the memory cells that are inoperable when refreshed at the refresh rate, where T is an integer greater than zero. Content addressable memory (CAM) includes D CAM memory cells where D is an integer greater than or equal to one. An adaptive refresh module selectively adjusts a refresh rate of the first memory based on T and D.
US07870330B2

A memory utilizes a data refresh algorithm to preserve data integrity over disturbances caused by memory programming or erase operations. The memory device maintains a counter for each memory block or sector. When a memory block or sector is erased or programmed, the associated counter is set to a first value while other counters are incremented or decremented. Whenever a counter reaches a threshold value, the associated block or sector is refreshed. The threshold value is set to ensure that each block or sector is refreshed before data integrity is adversely affected by disturbances caused by repeated programming and erase operations.
US07870327B1

Systems and processes may include a first memory and a second memory. A driver and/or an application may be stored in the first memory. Flash memory type data of the first memory may be stored in the second memory. The driver may control the first memory at least partially based on the flash memory type data. The first memory may be exchanged for a third memory. The driver may be stored on the third memory. The flash memory type data for the third memory may be stored on the second memory.
US07870319B2

A mobile telephone handset is provided with a connector (8) and circuitry (18, 19) which permits universal serial bus (USB) and single-ended (SE) modes of data transmission with another device such as a personal computer, another mobile telephone handset or keyboard.
US07870315B2

A method and apparatus for managing data to be stored in a memory of a portable device, and a user interface method using the same. The method includes generating a virtual device for the portable device in a storage unit of a data management apparatus; storing information on at least one content file, which is used to transmit the at least one content file to the virtual device, in the virtual device; and if the portable device is connected to the data management apparatus, synchronizing the portable device with the virtual device by transmitting the at least one content file to the portable device with reference to the information stored in the virtual device.
US07870313B2

On-chip resources of a serial buffer are accessed using priority packets of a Lite-weight protocol. A priority packet path is provided on the serial buffer to support priority packets. Normal data packets are processed on a normal data packet path, which operates in parallel with the priority packet path. The system resources of the serial buffer can be accessed in response to the priority packets, without blocking the flow of normal data packets. Thus, normal data packets may flow through the serial buffer with the maximum bandwidth supported by the serial interface. The Lite-weight protocol also supports read accesses to queues of the serial buffer (which reside on the normal data packet path). The Lite-weight protocol also supports doorbell commands for status/error reporting.
US07870312B2

The present invention provides methods and systems to automatically manage hardware and software capabilities of replaceable electronic modules as the modules are replaced or reassigned to different tasks. Each such module stores configuration information in a persistent memory. This configuration information enables the module to use only selected hardware and to execute only selected software. A replaceable electronic module manager stores copies of each module's configure information in a separate persistent memory. When a module is replaced, a copy of the configuration information is fetched from the module manager's persistent memory and sent to a replacement module, thereby making the replacement module functionally equivalent (from a point of view of which hardware can be used by the module or which software can be executed by the module) to the replaced module. In addition, when a module is assigned to a different task, appropriate configuration information can be sent to the module, so the module can appropriately perform the assigned task, such as use selected hardware or execute selected software.
US07870295B2

Provided are a method for parsing a bit stream including multiple data formats, and an apparatus and computer program including a set of parsers and parser-selection and invocation capabilities for handling parsing of multiple data formats. A first parser is selected and invoked to handle a first formatted component of the bit stream, and this selected parser selects and invokes a next parser which is capable of handling a differently formatted next component of the bit stream. This is differentiated from systems which rely on a single generic parser or a single high-level parser selection process, and is especially advantageous when parsing messages to enable message processing in systems in which a message can include multiple different, nested data formats.
US07870282B2

A computer-readable medium has a computer program stored thereon. The computer program senses the presence of a physical medium loaded on a media-sharing network and senses the presence of metadata and content on the physical medium. The computer program wraps the metadata and the content in a container. The container includes the location of the metadata and the location of the content. The computer program assembles the container such that it is recognized as a virtual physical medium on the media sharing network and such that it enables playback of the content by control commands compatible with a media sharing protocol.
US07870267B2

Mechanisms for creating global sessions across different protocols and multiple converged protocol applications are provided. By creating a global session, state information for each of the individual protocol sessions may be communicated across protocols and utilized in performing operations across converged protocol applications. An edge server is used at the edge of a data network to correlate client interactions over different protocols and to associate them with a global session. The edge server acts as a session reference counter for individual client sessions that are part of a larger global session. The global session is created after the creation of the first protocol session and exists across the creation of future sessions on other protocols and other converged applications. Logical names and global session tokens are utilized to manage the various global sessions handled by the edge server.
US07870265B2

In an embodiment, a system for managing communications sessions is provided. The system embodiment includes a connection to a packet network that receives incoming calls. A stateful tier manages communications sessions established for the at least one incoming call. A stateless tier comprising one or more applications provides service(s) to the communications sessions in the stateful tier. One or more servers allocate and/or manage resources corresponding to the communications sessions established for the incoming calls in the stateful tier. The servers maintain the applications in the stateless tier for providing services to the communications sessions in the stateful tier.
US07870258B2

To connect a client application to a server ‘server’ on a cluster ‘cluster’ having a plurality of servers instantiated thereon, ‘cluster’ and ‘server’ are received from the client application, a first request message is sent to ‘cluster’ requesting first connection information for connecting to ‘server’, a first reply message containing the requested first connection information is received from ‘cluster’, and the client application is connected to ‘server’ on ‘cluster’ based on the received first connection information. Thereafter, the connection to ‘server’ fails, and a second request message is sent to ‘cluster’ requesting second connection information for connecting to ‘server’, a second reply message containing the requested second connection information is received from ‘cluster’, and the client application is again connected to ‘server’ on ‘cluster’ based on the received second connection information.
US07870254B2

A web site is provisioned with a proxy that receives a page request intended for the server and records a first time. The page request is then forwarded to the server for response. The response stream generated by the server is intercepted at the proxy at a second time. As the stream is forwarded to the requesting client, the proxy inserts a page script that, upon execution at the client, calculates a page render time. This time is determined by calculating the difference between a third time (the time at which the page script begins execution at the client) and a fourth time (a time at which the page rendering is complete). Upon completion of the page rendering, the script opens a connection back to the server and returns a packet that includes the page render time. This packet is received at a fifth time. A transaction record is then built by the proxy using the timestamp data.
US07870251B2

Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a network element device, wherein the device monitors and reports any changes to the availability status its internal resources. As such, the network element device supports the real-time capacity management of a networked managements system, wherein no polling information is required to be transmitted from a either a management system or a network system management device to the network element device.
US07870249B2

A system for remotely monitoring an individual. The system includes a server system for generating a script program from a set of queries. The script program is executable by a remote apparatus that displays information and/or a set of queries to the individual through a user interface. Responses to the queries that are entered through the user interface together with individual identification information are sent from the remote apparatus to the server system across a communication network. The server system also includes an automated answering service for providing a series of questions from a stored set of questions for an individual at the remote apparatus to respond to, storing responses to each provided question in the series of questions and providing a service based on the individual's response to the questions.
US07870245B2

Software (42) which when run on a processor (40) of a networked resource server (14′, 18′, 20′) reads delivery context aware related data from a contact log of said server and processes said data to produce processed acquired data relating to delivery context aware requests for resources made of the server, and which software causes said processed acquired data to be transmitted out of a network port (58) of the server proactively, without an input trigger signal from outside of the server.
US07870239B1

This invention is a system and method for managing data in a secure manner in a data storage environment that is in communication with a network including an internet-based network. The system includes logic for securely managing internet client's access to data volumes stored on a data storage system, and may also include logic operating with a file server for providing dynamic access of data available to such clients in a secure fashion.
US07870238B2

Techniques are described for managing and configuring network devices from a plurality of vendors with a single network configuration tool. This vendor-independent network configuration tool may extract configuration information stored to devices from disparate vendors, and parse tags from extracted configuration information. Each tag defines a configuration property. The tool may further analyze the tags to determine relationships and present configuration information based primarily on the determined relationship and only secondarily on the devices. The tool may also perform analysis on the tags to detect one or more errors or configuration inconsistencies, as well as, update or change tags, which causes the tool to push any changes to the appropriate device. Furthermore, the tool by automatically share information related to the above described steps with other vendor-independent network configuration tools to more quickly propagate efficient extraction and updating techniques.
US07870234B2

A cluster system is treated as a set of resource groups, each resource group including a highly available application and the resources upon which it depends. A resource group may have between 2 and M data processing systems, where M is small relative to the cluster size N of the total cluster. Configuration and status information for the resource group is fully replicated only on those data processing systems which are members of the resource group. A configuration object/database record for the resource group has an associated owner list identifying the data processing systems which are members of the resource group and which may therefore manage the application. A data processing system may belong to more than one resource group, however, and configuration and status information for the data processing system is replicated to each data processing system which could be affected by failure of the subject data processing system—that is, any data processing system which belongs to at least one resource group also containing the subject data processing system. The partial replication scheme of the present invention allows resource groups to run in parallel, reduces the cost of data replication and access, is highly scalable and applicable to very large clusters, and provides better performance after a catastrophe such as a network partition.
US07870227B2

Systems and methods for associating a geographic location with an Internet protocol (IP address) are disclosed. Generally, an IP address to location module determines whether a geographic location is associated with a common IP address in a majority of IP address to location data sets. The IP address to location module then stores an association between a geographic location and the IP address in a master IP address to location data set based on whether a geographic location is associated with a common IP address in a majority of IP address to location data sets.
US07870217B2

An IP Storage processor and processing engines for use in the IP storage processor is disclosed. The IP Storage processor uses an architecture that may provide capabilities to transport and process Internet Protocol (IP) packets from Layer 2 through transport protocol layer and may also perform packet inspection through Layer 7. The engines may perform pass-through packet classification, policy processing and/or security processing enabling packet streaming through the architecture at nearly the full line rate. A scheduler schedules packets to packet processors for processing. An internal memory or local session database cache may store a transport protocol session information database and/or store a storage information session database, for a certain number of active sessions. The session information that is not in the internal memory is stored and retrieved to/from an additional memory. An application running on an initiator or target can in certain instantiations register a region of memory, which is made available to its peer(s) for access directly without substantial host intervention through RDMA data transfer.
US07870214B2

A system and method of proxy domain name registration permits a would-be domain name registrant anonymity. A registrar affords customers the opportunity to use the proxy registration. If the customer seeking registration of a domain name requests, the registrar obtains contact information needed for registration from a proxy entity established for this purpose. The registrar completes the registration of the domain name with the appropriate registry (i.e. “.com, .net” etc.). The contact information published in WHOIS is that of proxy entity. Contractually the customer is afforded control over the domain name. Emails intended for the customer are received by the proxy entity who may filter them if the customer requests. Emails sent by the customer are sent to the proxy entity who in turn sends them to the indicated addressee.
US07870212B2

An indication of a creation of an electronic message is received. An activity report is generated in response to, at least in part, the indication, wherein at least a portion of the activity report is based, at least in part, upon a determined activity level of a computing system. The activity report is associated with the electronic message.
US07870211B2

The claimed subject matter provides for systems, devices, and methods for dynamic transitioning between messaging conversation classes including 1:1, 1:Many, and Many:Many (N:M) conversation protocols. These messaging topologies can be transitioned based at least in part on the number of conversants, a predetermined threshold value, and both determinations and inference related to the conversation topology, message, and conversants. The claimed subject matter can provide for effective seamless messaging conversations in unified messaging environment by reducing the overhead associated with changing numbers of conversants.
US07870209B2

One embodiment of the present method and apparatus for user-moderation of an online chat room in which a plurality of users are exchanging messages includes providing the chat room and controlling a manner in which the users send and receive the messages in the chat room in accordance with user feedback relating to the messages. In one embodiment, the user feedback is received in the form of user chat profiles, which describe the respective users' participation in the chat room, and flags, which users may be given in response to messages that are deemed inappropriate for the chat room.
US07870202B2

A method for effecting the execution of an application function on an application server from a client device with a smart card. The method includes transmitting a first text message pertaining to a request to execute the application function to the proxy server. The method also includes sending a token request message to the user at a text message confirmation address that is different from the text message origination address, generating a token in the smart card, and transmitting the token to the proxy server. If the token is valid, the method includes executing the application function at the application server as specified by the first text message, whereby the first application function is ascertained based at least on the text message destination address.
US07870199B2

The invention provides a framework that allows a number of software application agents to be stacked on top of an instant messenger application. Each of the software application agents establishes a connection with a third-party Web service on the Internet or a local application in the user's computer. The user can share one or more third-party services or applications with other user(s) in an instant messaging session through the application agents.
US07870195B1

A data storage system in which a several processors communicate with each other includes a shared memory that is accessible to each of the processors. The shared memory has a message section having a message list made up of an ordered sequence of message slots in which processors leave message for each other. Each message slot includes a static-information repository for static information specifying all intended recipients of a message carried by the message slot as well as a dynamic-information repository for dynamic information specifying which of the intended recipients have already encountered the message slot.
US07870193B2

A collaboration system is provided in combination with a system administration monitoring system. The monitoring software for the system may recognize an error or other event in a component that is being monitored. The monitoring software then sends a message to all administrators that may be associated with the error or event. When an administrator receives an alert, the administrator may choose to join a collaborative resolution session. When a plurality of administrators joins a collaborative resolution session, each administrator is presented with a user interface at his or her console. The user interface may present one or more shared system administration elements, such as system administration portals, and one or more collaboration elements, such as instant messaging elements or the like. Participating administrators may then communicate using the collaboration elements to attempt to resolve an error or other event. Users may share additional system administration elements.
US07870189B2

A multi-purpose input device (2500) for providing conventional positional tracking, and one or more read capabilities for automatically connecting a user PC (302) to remote node. In one embodiment, a user reads optically encoded indicia (1606) of a product by passing the input device (2500) thereover. A software interface (2505) processes the read information, assembles a message packet, and appends routing information thereto to connect the user PC (302) to an ARS (308) disposed on a common network (306). The ARS (308) performs a matching operation with the received product information to obtain an associated network address of a vendor server (314) having the desired product information. The ARS (308) returns the vendor server address to the user PC (302) whereby the vendor advertiser server (312) is automatically accessed by the user PC (302). The respective product information is then returned from the vendor server (312) to the user PC (302) for presentation to the user.
US07870186B2

A contents receiving device may automatically receive contents, and a recording medium may store a contents receiving program. The contents receiving device may refer to an agent table, receive contents having the greatest weight of the agent having the least preference deviation as a top priority from a contents providing server or a P2P network, and store the contents in a contents storage unit. Therefore, the contents receiving device and a device for operating the contents receiving program may automatically download contents satisfying the user's preference. Further, the devices may allow easy finding of user preferences on the contents and similarities on contents preference with respective agents.
US07870185B2

Aspects of the present invention relate to systems, methods and devices for imaging device event notification administration and subscription. Some aspects relate to selective imaging device event notification based on user credentials and/or job execution timing. Some aspects may limit notification subscription to authorized credential holders. Some aspects relate to event notification message formats and destinations.
US07870182B2

An integrated circuit having a digital signal processing (DSP) circuit is disclosed. The DSP circuit includes: a plurality of multiplexers receiving a first set, second set, and third set of input data bits, where the plurality of multiplexers are coupled to a first opcode register; a bitwise adder coupled to the plurality of multiplexers for generating a sum set of bits and a carry set of bits from bitwise adding together the first, second, and third set of input data bits; and a second adder coupled to the bitwise adder for adding together the sum set of bits and carry set of bits to produce a summation set of bits and a plurality of carry-out bits, where the second adder is coupled to a second opcode register.
US07870180B2

A method (1500) and apparatus (700, 2300, 2400) for aggregating two or more input signals with a versatile reconfigurable signal aggregator. The aggregator (700, 2300, 2400) is reconfigured by adjusting a control signal λ, and can emulate a range of union type signal aggregators, a range of intersection type signal aggregators, and a continuum of functions between the two, including a signal averager. The versatility of the aggregator (700, 2300, 2400) allows systems in which the aggregator (700, 2300, 2400) is incorporated to be highly adaptable, and thereby fosters improved machine learning.
US07870176B2

A reconfigurable architecture for and method of performing a fast orthogonal transform of vectors in multiple stages, the size of a vector being N, wherein N can vary and the number of stages is a function of N, the architecture comprising: a computational unit configured and arranged so as to include one or more butterfly units; a block including one or more multipliers coupled to the output of the computational unit, configured and arranged so as to perform all of the butterfly computations for at least one stage of the transform; a storage unit configured and arranged so as to store the intermediate results of the butterfly computations and predetermined coefficients for use by the computational unit for performing each butterfly computation, the storage unit including memory and multiplexing architecture; the storage unit including memory and multiplexing architecture; a multiplexer unit configured and arranged so as to time multiplex all of the butterfly computations of the transform using said computation unit for the one stage so that only one computation unit is required for the stage; and a controller configured and arranged so as to provide coefficients to the computational unit, and control the sizes of memory and multiplexing architecture in the storage unit; wherein the multipliers' coefficients, the coefficients of the computational unit, the sizes of memories, and multiplexing architecture, for each stage are modified as a function of the value of N. The architecture can be implemented as an integrated chip, and used in communication devices.
US07870175B2

Random numbers can be generated in a statistically independent manner and with identical probability if the bits generated by a controlled bit generator are stored by a storage in a plurality of memory regions, wherein the bits are each stored in such memory regions associated with a difference of the bits of the values 1 and 0 generated up to the time of storage, and if all the bits stored within a memory region are subjected to algorithmic post-processing as soon as a predetermined number of bits within a memory region is exceeded. The fact that the bits are not stored and processed sequentially, i.e. in the order of generation, allows using a sequence of bits within which the individual bits are statistically independent of one another for the algorithmic post-processing. Thus, a way of performing algorithmic post-processing of the bits without reducing the entropy is provided.
US07870168B2

The disclosure describes a system and method for locating a number in a source document by presenting and manipulating data on private and public companies. A central database of financial information is established. A target entity is entered within the central database by a user, and financial information of the target entity from the central database is displayed. Once a number within the display of financial information is selected, the system and method determines which document is the source document containing the numbers, searches through the source document for the number, identifies the location of the number in the source document and highlights and displays the number as it appears in the source document to the user.
US07870167B2

Novel techniques for implementing applications, such as event processors (“EPs”), designed in CQL are provided. Event processors, created as a network of CQL operators, can be implemented in SQL. Implementing an event processor in SQL allows the leveraging of significant industry knowledge and experience in research and development of SQL engines. A user can interact with an EP-generator application to design an event processor in CQL. The EP-generator application can implement the event processor by translating the CQL into SQL statements. Event-processing systems can execute the SQL implementation of the event processor in a first computing environment, such as an SQL database. In this manner, systems described herein can execute event processors defined as a network of CQL operators with high performance and scalability.
US07870166B2

Methods and Apparatus related to generating representations of information. The information may include menu information for merchants such as restaurants. Referring to menus, methods may include receiving potential information for a first menu, and receiving indications of associations of the information with the first menu and/or any number of additional menus. Information and/or associations may later be updated by a desired set of users.
US07870157B2

Software for providing a management interface comprises a descriptor file comprising at least one type for at least one resource and further comprising at least one attribute for each type. A management component associated with one of the resources describes at least one of the types. The management component is operable to provide a management interface exposing at least one of the attributes associated with each of the one or more types describing the resource.
US07870151B2

A computer-implemented technique for fuzzy matching. This works quickly yet accurately to determine if a given computer-readable record is represented, by exact match or pretty close match, in a large collection of computer-readable records. Further tools may be provided to assess the character of the match.
US07870143B2

An improved XML query system represents an XML document as a stream of discrete events with each event representing a portion of the document as the document is being parsed. Expression-based event matching such as XPath can be performed against the event stream using a stack or tree to keep only the relevant contexts such as XPath context in memory. Observers can be used to listen for matching events. Matching events can then be routed for processing by appropriate objects or components and returned to the event stream if necessary.
US07870123B2

The invention relates to a method of determining the performance of an optimizer program arranged to generate a plan. The method generally comprises the steps of executing the optimizer utilising at least one test case to derive a pre-variation plan; executing the pre-variation plan to generate a first output; varying a strategy of the optimizer program; executing the varied optimizer program utilising the at least one test case to derive a post-variation plan; and executing the post-variation plan to generate a second output. The outputs are then grouped according to at least one element of the plans to assess the performance of the optimizer.
US07870121B2

Techniques are provided for determining whether an XML table index may be used when executing an XML query. An XML table index is defined with a row pattern expression and one or more column pattern expressions. In one technique, an index expression is generated for each row pattern expression-column pattern expression combination. An expression included in the XML query (“query expression”) is compared against one or more of the index expressions. In another technique, even if a query expression does not exactly match a row pattern expression, it is determined whether the query expression is equivalent to the row pattern expression. In another technique, even if a query expression does not exactly match and a row pattern expression, it is determined whether the query expression is “contained by” the row pattern expression.
US07870118B2

A search engine and system for data, such as Internet web pages, including a query analyser for processing a query to assign respective weights to terms of the query and to generate a query vector including the weights, and an index network responsive to the query vector to output at least one index to data in response to the query. The index network is a self-generating neural network built using training examples derived from a feature extractor. The feature extractor is used during both the search and training phase. A clusterer is used to group search results.
US07870117B1

Information retrieval systems face challenging problems with delivering highly relevant and highly inclusive search results in response to a user's query. Contextual personalized information retrieval uses a set of integrated methodologies that can combine automatic concept extraction/matching from text, a powerful fuzzy search engine, and a collaborative user preference learning engine to provide accurate and personalized search results. The system can include constructing a search query to execute a search of a database. The system can parse an input query from a user conducting the search of the database into sub-strings, and can match the sub-strings to concepts in a semantic concept network of a knowledge base. The system can further map the matched concepts to criteria and criteria values that specify a set of constraints on and scoring parameters for the matched concepts.
US07870112B2

Methods and apparatus for enabling an object associated with an XML node class to be used for both a document object model (DOM) application programming interface (API) that supports an in-memory representation of XML nodes and a DOM API that supports a database-backed representation of XML nodes are disclosed. According to one aspect of the present invention, a method for creating an object that represents an XML node in a Java space includes determining whether the object is to represent a pure node. An object of a first class is created to represent a database-backed node when the object is not determined to represent the pure node, and the object of the first class is created to represent a pure node when the object is determined to represent the pure node. The object includes the same set of fields whether the object represents a pure node or a database-backed node.
US07870111B2

Disclosed is a method, system, and program for locking management. A command is received that specifies an operation identifier. It is determined whether the command is associated with a transaction using the operation identifier. If it is determined that the command is associated with a transaction, operating at a transaction level of locking.Further disclosed is a method, system, and program for lock management. Under control of a lock manager, lock request queuing is performed, heartbeat functions are performed, and state information is maintained.
US07870110B2

A method for generating a transaction-bound sequence of records in a database table is disclosed. In response to a transaction attempting to insert a record to a database table within a relational database, an identification (ID) of the transaction and the name of the associated database table are initially obtained. A determination is then made whether or not the obtained transaction ID and the associated database table name are found in the transaction-bound tracking table. If they are not found in the transaction-bound tracking table, a new entry is generated in the transaction-bound tracking table for the obtained transaction ID and database table name, and a value in a last_order_number column associated with the entry is set to 1; otherwise, a value in the last_order_number column associated with the entry is incremented by 1. The value in the last_order_number column associated with the entry is subsequently copied to the corresponding order tracking field associated with the record entry in the database table.
US07870091B2

Systems and methods are provided for reconciling data. In one implementation, the systems and methods may receive first data corresponding to an expected state of at least one of a plurality of objects and create second data corresponding to an actual state of the at least one of the plurality of objects. In addition, the systems and methods may compare the first data to the second data to determine if the actual state corresponds to the expected state. In accordance with another implementation, systems and methods are provided for determining and applying rules to data. Such systems and methods may receive data comprising a root element and at least one leaf element, the root element having attributes and the attributes comprising characteristics, select a condition table based upon the characteristics, select a first ruleset based upon the selected condition table, and apply rules defined by the selected first ruleset to the data.
US07870086B2

The oscillatory dynamics of inferior olive (IO) neurons found in the olivo-cerebellar network of the brain are reproduced and applied to various control applications. An IO neuron model is provided which produces quasi-sinusoidal oscillations with a characteristic amplitude and frequency. Action potentials occur at the peaks of the oscillations and have precise timing properties. Stimuli applied to the IO neuron model show no changes in oscillation amplitude and frequency but do produce a shift of the oscillation phase, and hence a time shift of the corresponding action potentials. The resulting phase is defined by the strength of the stimulus and does not depend on when the stimulus is applied, thus providing a self-referential phase reset (SPR) effect. The oscillations of multiple IO neurons, or their models, coupled together tend to become organized in space and time in the form of oscillatory phase clusters. The phases of the IO oscillators can be quickly set to a desired phase pattern irrespective of the history of phase evolution. A circuit for implementing the IO neuron model and a control system based on the circuit are described.
US07870082B2

Methods, systems, and computer program products are provided for the online convex optimization problem, in which the decision maker has knowledge of the all past states and resulting cost functions for his previous choices and attempts to make a new choice that results in minimum regret. The method does not rely upon the structure of the cost function or the characterization of the states and takes advantage of the similarity between successive states to enable the method to converge to a reasonably optimal result.
US07870075B1

A system and method of managing external content that is used within a software product or software development process is disclosed. In some approaches, the system and method manages and tracks the use of external content, as well an approval process for determining whether the external content is to be used or incorporated. The system and method manages and tracks compliance with terms and restrictions of the external content.
US07870074B2

Interruption and degradation of service within a virtual universe leads to an unsatisfactory experience for users of the virtual universe. Dissatisfaction with service of a virtual universe may lead users to see alternate universes providing higher levels of service. Functionality can be implemented to identify alternate virtual universes that meet a user's service requirements and dynamically move the user's avatar from one virtual universe to another.
US07870072B1

A user may log into a system containing data pertaining to a jointly owned funding account of which he is a co-owner. The user may view information directed to the jointly owned funding account, such as his bills and bills associated with other co-owners. The user may pay bills or schedule payments of bills from the funding account. A co-owner of the funding account may set up an account with a biller and enable other co-owners of the funding account to use this information, thereby providing the other co-owners with the same or similar functionality when they log into the system using their own login information. The information that the co-owner may set up with a biller may be ported over to the information maintained by the system that is directed to the other co-owners.
US07870067B2

A donation system that would encourage registered individuals to make small contributions to a charity or political campaign (or cause of their choice) as well as facilitate the process of doing so. The system provides a central location for all donation activity and works as a “contribution bundler” to empower those otherwise disempowered in the political marketplace. The system also acts as a “Civic Marketplace” that gives citizens a central location to turn to for civic information. The system provides safety features for registered users.
US07870064B2

The present method and software provides a display for a trader in tradable instruments that shows the market price and market depth. The display dynamically updates with data received from an electronic exchange and centers on the market price. Upon the trader moving a cursor over a trade entering portion of the screen to make a trade, the price is held stationary and no longer centers on the market price so as to permit the trader to select a price and quantity for trading. The displayed data is still being updated in the stationary screen, however. The trade is made by the trader selecting a price and quantity on the display. Movement of the cursor away from the trade selecting area results in the display again automatically centering on the market price in the dynamic display mode.
US07870063B1

Implied prices and their quantities are computed. Markets are characterized by exhaustively computing one or more combinations of other related markets. Each combination when summed in a particular way results in the market under consideration. In a described embodiment, the number of market combinations found is an exhaustive list of market combinations such that the market under consideration can be fully and completely characterized, such that each combination provides implied market information about the market under consideration. Implied market information can include implied prices and their quantities, which are computed for each combination and used accordingly in displays or used by automated or semi-automated trading tools.
US07870060B2

Networks, systems and methods that match orders for bundled financial instruments are disclosed. In one example, the bundled financial instrument includes packaged underlying financial instruments that together provide an economic equivalent exposure to a long-term investment vehicle. The bundled financial instrument may include any set of contracts considered a linear combination of a plurality of standardized contracts associated with an obligation to exchange an asset at a set price on a future date. An open position for the bundled financial instrument is a function of the prices for each of the standardized contracts of the bundle and remains open from execution of the order to the earlier of a maturity of the bundled financial instrument, a conversion of the bundled financial instrument into constituent parts of the linear combination of a plurality of standardized contracts, or in the case where the bundled instrument is fractional size contract, when multiple bundles are converted to a single position of a corresponding full-sized instrument.
US07870052B1

A computer system, which may comprise a processor, a memory and a database, may implement a loss surface determining software module that forecasts a portfolio's loss surface. Daily loss histories may be collected from actual data or may be generated using a factor model. A model may generate a sequence of iid high frequency loss innovations that can be temporally aggregated with a Fourier transform. For each portfolio, the loss surface may be forecasted and 95% and 99% value-at-risk and expected shortfall forecasts may be derived for various time horizons.
US07870051B1

A method of constructing a portfolio includes receiving target allocations for different types of assets, receiving a list of investments available for inclusion in the portfolio, and selecting investments from the list of investments based on a measure of the risk-adjusted excess return of selected investments and the target allocations.
US07870049B1

To protect a person with a property interest in real property against a loss of market value thereof, a base market value of the real property is determined at a current time when the property interest in the real property arises or thereafter, and a number of types of events that cause the real property to lose market value as compared with the base market value are defined. A number of the defined types of events are selected, and a real estate market value policy is issued to the person at about the current time. The policy promises to compensate the person for any loss experienced by the person if the real property loses market value as compared with the base market value based on any of the selected types of events.
US07870047B2

A system (and method, and method for deploying computing infrastructure) for identifying a customer at risk of revenue change (e.g., revenue loss or revenue gain) including computing a risk score based on a plurality of risk factors associated with the customer.
US07870032B2

A method of and system for conducting electronic commerce segments an enterprise is segmented into a single firm side system, and multiple customer facing and street side systems. The firm side system maintains a single system of record for the enterprise. The customer facing systems provide an interface between the enterprise and the customer. The street side systems are in communication with the customer facing systems. The street side systems provide an interface between the enterprise and various markets.
US07870022B2

A system, method and computer-readable medium are disclosed for advertising and completing a transaction using a credit card or a debit card. The method includes receiving situation information at a device, based on the situation information, transmitting an advertisement to the device, associating an advertisement with an identification card such as a debit card, credit card, student ID card, biometric data, or club card, and receiving an indication of a purchase associated with the advertisement and completed using the card. The disclosure enables a user to receive an advertisement on a device such as a mobile device and then make a purchase decision based on that advertisement in a normal fashion or transparent to the user and sales clerk, without the use of coupons, special codes or any other additional and annoying requirements for making the purchase. The user only needs to use an appropriate identification card. The merchant for the clerk at a point of sale handles the transaction in a standard fashion. The user can then receive a confirmation of a discount for the transaction on the consumer mobile device and later receive a rebate on an identification card statement.
US07870020B2

An interactive marketing technique may include distributing a marketing item to electronic devices. The users of the electronic devices may share the marketing item with other electronic devices to progressively attain credit that leads to an ability to use the marketing item. Also, sharing of the marketing item may progressively display larger portions of an image content component of the marketing item on a display of the electronic device.
US07870007B1

A system and method of determining interactions between medicines which includes a pharmacy kiosk. One embodiment of the pharmacy kiosk includes a display, an input device, and a computer for displaying a prompt to enter medicine identification information for a medicine, for recording the medicine identification information, for obtaining interaction information between the medicine and other medicines, and for displaying the interaction information. The computer may additionally record operator identification information, obtain prescriptions of the operator for the other medicines using the operator identification information, obtain interaction information between the medicine and the other medicines, and display the interaction information.
US07870006B2

A method for managing clinical study (CS) information for a clinical research entity using a server system coupled to a centralized database and at least one client system is provided. The centralized database has a plurality of templates stored therein. The method includes receiving at the server system CS information relating to at least one patient involved in a clinical study wherein the CS information is entered through a user selected template displayed on the client system, storing CS information received at the server system in the centralized database, tracking CS information stored in the centralized database, updating the centralized database periodically with newly received CS information to maintain CS information, and providing CS information in response to an inquiry.
US07870001B2

An online communications system for converting language. The language conversion is achieved by first storing words and phrases corresponding to a language key and a unique key value in a table at both the transmitting and receiving ends of the communication. The computer located at the transmit end receives and converts the word or phrase into the unique key value and transmits the unique key value to the computer at the receiving end. The computer at the receiving end receives and converts the unique key value into the corresponding word or phrase.
US07870000B2

The present disclosure relates to prompting for a spoken response that provides input for multiple elements. A single spoken utterance including content for multiple elements can be received, where each element is mapped to a data field. The spoken utterance can be speech-to-text converted to derive values for each of the multiple elements. An utterance level confidence score can be determined, which can fall below an associated certainty threshold. Element-level confidence scores for each of the derived elements can then be ascertained. A first set of the multiple elements can have element-level confidence scores above an associated certainty threshold and a second set can have scores below. Values can be stored in data fields mapped to the first set. A prompt for input for the second set can be played.
US07869997B2

A system and method of recognizing speech comprises an audio receiving element and a computer server. The audio receiving element and the computer server perform the process steps of the method. The method involves training a stored set of phonemes by converting them into n-dimensional space, where n is a relatively large number. Once the stored phonemes are converted, they are transformed using single value decomposition to conform the data generally into a hypersphere. The received phonemes from the audio-receiving element are also converted into n-dimensional space and transformed using single value decomposition to conform the data into a hypersphere. The method compares the transformed received phoneme to each transformed stored phoneme by comparing a first distance from a center of the hypersphere to a point associated with the transformed received phoneme and a second distance from the center of the hypersphere to a point associated with the respective transformed stored phoneme.
US07869984B2

The invention provides a method and system to simulate a process of discrete tasks having a plurality of available resources associated therewith. The system may comprise a model database to store a plurality of models, each model including a plurality of task and resource parameters; a model portion in communication with the model database and configured to receive commands from a user, to retrieve one of the plurality of models and corresponding task and resource parameters in response to a user command, to receive input data corresponding to attributes of one or more task and resource parameters from a business database system, and to generate a simulation model based on the selected business database system and the input data; and a model server to perform a simulation of the process by processing the simulation model and to generate an output data file containing output data representative of the simulation.
US07869982B2

A method of defining a composite tape course to form at least a portion of a composite part ply comprises approximating a contoured surface with a reference plane. The method further includes selecting a three-dimensional reference surface to approximate the contoured surface and defining a first function to correlate a first point from the contoured surface to a first intermediate point on the reference surface. The method includes selecting the reference plane to approximate the reference surface, defining a second function to correlate the first intermediate point to a reference point in the reference plane, and mapping a ply boundary from the contoured surface to a reference ply boundary in the reference plane. A tape boundary may be mapped from the contoured surface to a reference tape boundary in the reference plane. A tape edge may be defined based at least in part on a reference intersection of the reference ply boundary and the reference tape boundary in order to form at least a portion of the composite part ply using the defined tape edge.
US07869981B2

An automated system and method is provided for configuring an object (e.g., a room). In accordance with a preferred embodiment, configuration is facilitated through the use of layering functionality and frame-based inferences to evaluate stored knowledge of object attributes. The frame-based inferences may be supplemented by a rules-based inference system. In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention, a graphics-based user interface may be used to permit interactive configuration using two-dimensional and three-dimensional models of the object, and incorporating engineering specifications, as well as functional and physical attributes.
US07869970B2

A probe straightness measuring method includes: placing a measurement jig having a measurement reference surface with a known profile error on a stage surface of an XY stage so that the measurement reference surface is slanted in a moving direction of the XY stage; measuring a displaced position of the measurement piece by a displacement detector of the probe each time the XY stage is moved for a predetermined distance while controlling a driving actuator so that the measurement piece of a probe touches the measurement reference surface at a constant pressure; and calculating a straightness error of a measurement-piece moving mechanism on a basis of a measured position of the measurement piece obtained in the measuring, a nominal position of the measurement piece obtained by a calculation and a slant angle of the measurement reference surface.
US07869969B2

A defect review apparatus for reviewing a specimen by moving the specimen to pre-calculated coordinate includes: a function to measure a deviation amount between the pre-calculated coordinates and coordinates of an actual position of the specimen; a function to optimize a coordinate correcting expression to minimize the measured deviation amount; and a function to determine that the deviation amounts have converged. When the deviation amounts have converged, the measurement for the coordinate-correcting-expression optimization is terminated, minimizing a reduction in throughput. field of view (FOV) necessary for the specimen to be within the FOV is set according to a convergence value of the calculated deviation amount.
US07869968B2

A diagnostic system designed such that an aggregate of parameter combinations is stored, which is an aggregate of combinations of parameters consisting of a first parameter for determining the output of the high-frequency power source, a second parameter for determining the flow rate of the carrier gas in the aerosol, and a third parameter for determining the distance between the plasma torch and the interface, and which forms a specific array such that the measurement points corresponding to the respective combinations are lined up in order along the direction of length of an envelope that forms the end on the high-sensitivity side of a graph drawn as an aggregate of all measurement points on a sensitivity-oxide ion ratio graph, and a diagnostic measurement is performed with a specific diagnostic sample using the parameter value of each combination of the above-mentioned parameter combinations that form the aggregate such that the device properties can be confirmed from the position on the envelope on the sensitivity-oxide ion ratio graph of the actual measurement points corresponding to each combination.
US07869966B2

The present invention relates to a tool for analyzing by priority a defect having a high possibility of causing an electrical failure when inspecting a particle and a pattern defect in a piece of work which constitutes an electronic device such as a semiconductor integrated circuit, and relates to a system therefor. On the basis of the result of comparison between defect information which is the result of inspection by an inspection tool and layout data stored in an auxiliary storage device, or on the basis of the result of reinspection by comparison between a defect and a wiring pattern as a background by an inspection processing operation unit, an object to be reviewed is selected using review conditions stored in the auxiliary storage device.
US07869965B2

A system that facilitates estimating power consumption in a computer system by inferring the power consumption from instrumentation signals. During operation, the system monitors instrumentation signals within the computer system, wherein the instrumentation signals do not include corresponding current and voltage signals that can be used to directly compute power consumption. The system then estimates the power consumption for the computer system by inferring the power consumption from the instrumentation signals and from an inferential power model generated during a training phase.
US07869954B2

Methods and apparatus that use microseismic event data, stress data, seismic data, and rock properties to predict the hydrocarbon production success of a well location are disclosed. An example method generates a hydrocarbon production function based on information associated with at least a first well location, obtains information associated with a second well location, and calculates the hydrocarbon production function using the information associated with the second well location to predict the hydrocarbon production of the second well location.
US07869942B2

A travel plan presenting apparatus includes: a travel history accumulation unit (109) which accumulates, in association with a date and time, pieces of travel history information regarding a travel of the mobile object from a departure place to an arrival place; a travel pattern extracting unit (112) which extracts at least one travel pattern from the pieces of travel history information and generates travel patterns in each of which an order of arrival places other than the final arrival place included in a corresponding one of the extracted travel patterns; a travel plan calculating unit (113) which calculates estimated arrival times at each of the arrival places in the travel patterns extracted and generated by the travel pattern extracting unit (112); and a display processing unit (114) which generates display information for displaying the estimated arrival time for each travel pattern.
US07869936B2

A method of route determination for mobile elements in a network comprising a plurality of paths each having a predetermined path capacity. The method comprises the steps of registering centrally a plurality of route requests from a corresponding plurality of mobile elements each of said requests defining a journey between an origin and a destination and registering centrally for each route request a journey start time. Routing instructions are centrally determined so as to optimise use of path capacity across all synchronous journeys requests in said network with reference to said registered information, and issued to corresponding mobile elements. The mobile elements adapt their route to comply with the routing instruction. There may be provided further steps of monitoring and rerouting the mobile element whenever new journeys requests can impact its remaining trip.
US07869934B2

A method provides traffic condition data in the context of a traffic condition recognition by a motor vehicle, in particular traffic condition data for detecting the position of traffic, preferably for detecting traffic jams. In a first step the type of road along which the vehicle is traveling is determined by use of a position recognition device and a digital road map. In a second step, the category of road along which the vehicle is traveling is determined by use of the position recognition device and the digital road map. A third step utilizes assignments, in particular a table, which assigns at least one lower speed threshold, one upper speed threshold and preferably also a normal speed to both the relevant road type and the relevant road category of the road along which the vehicle is traveling. Finally, in a fourth step, at least the lower speed threshold and the upper speed threshold are used to determine the traffic condition.
US07869932B2

Systems and methods are described for controlling engine operation of an engine that may be shut-down during engine idle stop conditions. The engine may include a high pressure direct injection fuel system. In one embodiment, a method stops the engine when a temperature of a fuel rail is below a threshold during a selected engine idle stop condition. On the other hand, when the temperature of the fuel rail is above the threshold, engine operation is maintained during the selected engine idle stop condition.
US07869928B2

The present invention is concerned with the estimation of health parameters p(k) representing symptoms of a slowly degrading system, in particular industrial gas turbines. According to the invention, an estimation of a true health or independent parameter vector at time step k uses the estimation of the true health or parameter vector at a previous time step k−1 as a starting value for the production of a predicted health parameter vector at time step k. Based on the latter and a set of measured values of input variables of an extended model of the system, a prediction of output variables of the model is produced. This predicted model output is compared with measured values of the output variables to yield an error. From this error, a health parameter estimator in turn produces a health parameter estimate as a revision of the predicted health parameters. Preferably, the estimation of a true health or independent parameter vector at time step k includes a generalized process noise representing stochastic uncertainty and/or a-priori knowledge of an evolution of the health parameters.
US07869925B2

A rotatable selector mechanism for a motor vehicle transmission has a selector knob rotatable in a housing to select an operating mode of the transmission among a number of selector positions indicated by a label (P, R, N, D, M). The selector mechanism further includes a detent plate which cooperates with a detent pin for maintaining the selector knob in each of positions. The detent plate is connected to position sensors for generating selector signals to a transmission control unit which supplies control signals to an actuator for operate the transmission according to the operating mode selected. The detent plate is also associated to the selector knob and to a drive correction means by means of clutch devices respectively to engage the detent plate to one of the selector knob and the drive correction means. The clutch devices and the drive corrections means are controlled by the transmission control unit to move the detent plate from a selector position selected by the driver to another selector position representative of the operating mode of the transmission by means of the drive correction means without moving the selector knob. The selector knob further includes an illuminated pointer constituted by one of several LEDs controlled by the transmission control unit so as to change the LED illuminated in front of the label according to the position of the detent plate when the latter has been moved by the drive correction means in order to indicate the operating mode of the transmission.
US07869913B2

A vehicle power supply apparatus has first and second engine-driven electrical generators and first and second storage batteries, the first generator supplying a stable voltage to the first battery and a first set of loads, and the second generator supplying the second battery and a second set of loads, which can tolerate supply voltage variations. Operation of the second generator and charging/discharging of the second battery are controlled to maintain the total engine torque applied to the generators at a level whereby fuel consumption is reduced, while the supply voltage of the variation-tolerant loads is allowed to vary substantially.
US07869911B2

A battery supplies electric power to electric equipments of the vehicle. An alternator generates the electric power and charges the battery when an engine of the vehicle is operated. An economical running control section is operable to perform an economical running in which the engine is automatically stopped when the vehicle is in a predetermined engine stopping condition and the engine is automatically restarted when the vehicle is in a predetermined engine restarting condition. A calculate section is operable to calculate an available current value which is available to supply to the electric equipments from the battery. A feed limiting section is operable to limit to supply the electric power to the electric equipments from the battery. The economical running control section controls the economical running based on a total value of necessary current values which are necessary for the respective electric equipments and the available current value. The feed limiting section limits to supply the electric power to the electric equipments from the battery based on the total value of the necessary current values and the sum of the available current value and a generated current value of the alternator.
US07869909B2

A rail stress monitoring system is disclosed. This system includes a sensor module that further includes a sensing device that is adapted to be mountable directly on a length of rail. The sensing device further includes a generally flat metal shim and at least one, and typically two or more, sensors mounted on one side of the shim. The sensors are typically strain gauges, which are mounted on the shim in a specific, predetermined configuration. At least one data acquisition module is in electrical communication with the sensing device and a data processing module receives and processes information gathered by data acquisition module.
US07869907B2

There is provided an information processing system having a first terminal, a second terminal, and a wireless communication device which wirelessly connects the first terminal and the second terminal with each other for communication, where the first terminal and the second terminal respectively have a file system, the information processing system including a GUI providing unit that provides a display screen of the second terminal with a GUI of the file system, an operation reception unit that receives a user operation carried out on a GUI screen provided by the GUI providing unit, an operation determination unit that determines whether the user operation received by the operation reception unit is an operation relating to the first terminal or not, and an activation unit that, upon the operation determination unit determining that the user operation is an operation relating to the first terminal, controls the wireless communication device to transmit an instruction to turn on a power supply of the first terminal to the first terminal, and simultaneously carries out a process to wirelessly connect the first terminal and the second terminal with each other via the wireless communication device.
US07869902B2

A system and method for treating a least a portion of an initial seed sample to create one or more treated seed samples is provided. In various embodiments, one or more seed treatment apparatus components are in communication with one or more controllers such that seed samples treated by a seed treater may be treated at least in part based on one or more instruction sets that may be associated with one or more research plans. As a result, the method and system are configured to accurately, consistently, and predictably treat seed samples, and to adapt and change the treatment of seed samples based on changing research plans.
US07869900B2

A method and system for monitoring and controlling the processing of thermoplastics. The system includes a graphical interface and a server attached to the equipment in the cubing process. The interface includes a depiction of the equipment in the cubing process. A touch screen interface allows the user to control the equipment in the cubing process. In addition, information from the equipment is transmitted to the interface and conveyed to the user either through visual displays (e.g. numerical or graphical) or auditory signals (e.g. alarms or status beeps). The server may include software used to monitor the feed rate into the cuber with a modified proportional integral derivative (PID) algorithm in which the prime feedback input is a real-time electrical consumption signal derived from the motor driving the cuber.
US07869899B2

Apparatus and method for fitting a workpiece to geometric design data of a workpiece. Nominal data points are selected from the geometric design data. Command codes are created to generate measured data points. The measurement data points have associated nominal measurement points which are used to fit the workpiece to the geometric design data. The apparatus and method may also be used to determine whether a workpiece is within tolerance and for process control.
US07869896B2

A tangential grinding resistance measuring method includes obtaining an abrasive grain section area which is at a predetermined infeed depth from the highest top surface of abrasive grains on a grinding wheel; calculating the tangent of a half vertex angle of a conical model for cutting edges of the abrasive grains which model takes the abrasive grain section area as its bottom surface and the predetermined depth as its height; setting grinding parameters; and calculating a tangential grinding resistance from the grinding parameters and the tangent.
US07869894B2

By directly using relative biases, contained in the relative bias date matrix, and by appropriately weighting the components thereof, sampling rate limitations in an APC control scheme may be efficiently compensated for. In particular embodiments, an age-based weighting factor is established that scales measurement data uncertainty according to the delay with which the corresponding measurement data for a specific control thread are obtained.
US07869890B2

A parallel operation keyboard (POK) which enables a user to provide multiple inputs simultaneously in managing a process control plant. A lock is provided to disable such simultaneous inputs. In an embodiment, multiple groups of keys are provided, with each group of keys being operable independently to modify the parameter value of a corresponding control loop. A network management station (NMS) and a server are designed to provide a suitable interface. In one implementation, each group of keys contains four keys respectively specifying increasing the parameter value, decreasing the parameter value, manual mode (in which the present level of the variable is controlled by the increase/decrease keys) and normal mode (in which the set point, i.e., the desired value, for the variable is controlled).
US07869880B2

Methods and devices for treating anaphylaxis, anaphylactic shock, bronchial constriction, and/or asthma include providing an electrical impulse to a selected region of the vagus nerve of a patient suffering from anaphylaxis to block and/or modulate nerve signals that would regulate the function of, for example, myocardial tissue, vasodilation/constriction and/or pulmonary tissue.
US07869875B2

A cardiac rhythm management system provides both a safe maximum pacing rate limit and a physiological maximum pacing rate limit. In one embodiment, a normal maximum tracking rate (MTR) and a hysteresis MTR are provided. The hysteresis MTR is set higher than the normal MTR and functions as a maximum pacing rate. When an atrial rate exceeds the hysteresis MTR limit, the maximum pacing rate limit is set to the normal MTR. Once the atrial rate falls below a predetermined threshold, the maximum pacing rate limit is set to the hysteresis MTR. This provides for a more rapid and natural maximum pacing rate limit for a patient, while still protecting the patient from being paced at abnormally high rates.
US07869864B2

Disclosed herein methods, devices, and systems for detecting and diagnosing a heart disease or disorder in a subject from a prime electrocardiogram which comprises calculating at least one distribution function of the prime electrocardiogram and determining whether the distribution function is indicative of the presence of absence of the heart disease or disorder.
US07869861B2

A method of registering an article having a surface to previously created scan data of the article includes the steps of providing a flexible substrate having multiple tracking points attached to the substrate, applying the substrate to the article to be registered, creating a model of the surface of the article from a location of each tracking point; and registering the model with the previously created scan data. A method of creating a model of a surface having a shape and an article to enable the creation of a model of a surface are also disclosed.
US07869857B2

A combination Magnetic Resonance imaging apparatus and patient table, which apparatus has a magnet structure, defining a cavity for accommodating a part of the body under examination, which is supported by a base block, the patient table and the apparatus having a base block and a supporting structure respectively, that are slidable in at least one, or more directions. The patient table and the Magnetic Resonance imaging apparatus have a mechanism for removable connection therebetween and guide thereof along predetermined relative displacement paths.
US07869855B2

A medical apparatus includes a substrate member and an applicator member. Substrate member includes a medical device and an adhesive layer for adhering to body tissue. Applicator member is releasably attached to the substrate member and is adapted for grasping by a clinician to facilitate application of the substrate member to body tissue.
US07869850B2

A sensor for pulse oximetry or other applications utilizing spectrophotometry may be adapted to reduce motion artifacts by fixing the optical distance between an emitter and detector. A flexible sensor is provided with a stiffening member to hold the emitter and detector of the sensor in a relatively fixed position when applied to a patient. Further, an annular or partially annular sensor is adapted to hold an emitter and detector of the sensor in a relatively fixed position when applied to a patient. A clip-style sensor is provided with a spacer that controls the distance between the emitter and detector.
US07869848B2

The noninvasive measurement system provides a technique for manipulating wave data. In particular, wave data reflected from a biological entity is received, and the reflected wave data is correlated to a substance in the biological entity. The wave data may comprise light waves, and the biological entity may comprise a human being or blood. Additionally, a substance may comprise, for example, a molecule or ionic substance. The molecule may be, for example, a glucose molecule.Furthermore, the wave data is used to form a matrix of pixels with the received wave data. The matrix of pixels may be modified by techniques of masking, stretching, or removing hot spots.Then, the pixels may be integrated to obtain an integration value that is correlated to a glucose level. The correlation process may use a lookup table, which may be calibrated to a particular biological entity. Moreover, an amplitude and phase angle may be calculated for the reflected wave data and used to identify a glucose level in the biological entity. Additionally, the reflected wave data may be used to determine glaucoma pressure.The glucose level may be displayed on a monitor attached to the computer. The computer may be a portable, self-contained unit that comprises a data processing system and a wave reflection capture system. On the other hand, the computer may be attached to a network of other computers, wherein the reflected wave data is received by the computer and forwarded to another computer in the network for processing.
US07869847B2

The application discloses a sliding cover assembly which includes a fixing piece and a sliding piece. The fixing piece defines at least one combination sliding slot there through. The combination sliding slot includes at least two sliding slots that form an angle and communicate with each other. The sliding piece includes at least one sliding block protruding thereon. The sliding block is slidably assembled with the combination sliding slot to make the sliding piece slide relative to the combination sliding slot in two directions. The invention also discloses a portable electronic device using the sliding cover assembly.
US07869845B2

A mobile terminal having a first body, a second body slidably attached to the first body, the second body being movable between an open and a closed position, and an input device at an exterior surface of the mobile phone that is exposed when the second body is in the closed position. The input device being located on the first body and having a roller member and at least one button adjacent the roller member.
US07869839B2

A mobile phone is provided. The mobile phone includes a first case, a frame defining a space for elements of the mobile phone, the frame together with the first case dividing the space into a plurality of chambers, and a seal interposed between the frame and the first case for independently sealing more than one of the plurality of chambers.
US07869838B2

Power reduction in links, such as transmitters and receivers, based upon global decisions such as the data transmission frequencies, communications media, and traffic types associated with links, is disclosed. In particular, embodiments take advantage of high-level decisions by reconfiguring internal circuits of transmitters and receivers of links to reduce power consumption. At the global level, a decision determines the links that are active, the data frequency at which the links operate, and the media through which the links transmit the data. At the local level, the links receive the decisions and reconfigure circuitry automatically to minimize power based upon the decisions. In some embodiments, the links may receive the decisions in the form of power modes. In further embodiments, the links may receive settings such as on/off settings, data frequency settings, and traffic/media settings, the combination of which indicates power modes.
US07869837B2

A system and method for implementing a “lossless” transition from an idle state to an active or awake state in a mobile station. When a mobile station informs a serving base transceiver station that it is switching to an idle state, a virtual handover is executed, with the mobile station receiving a new Care of Address (CoA). The CoA is taken from an address space that is solely reserved for idle mobile station in a particular access network. The CoA is used to store data packets that are to be transmitted to the mobile station. Once the mobile station reenters an active state, the buffered packets can be forwarded to the mobile station without packet loss.
US07869832B2

System and method for informing a user of functions or characters associated with keys on a mobile communications device includes a keyboard operable to input Dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) codes and a display screen operable to display information. The display screen is also operable to display a virtual representation of at least a portion of the keyboard. The virtual representation includes help information on one or more virtually represented keys of the keyboard. This help information informs a user of an associated telephone function or character of one or more keys that are virtually represented on the display.
US07869824B2

A remote control system includes a mobile phone, a mobile communication network, a plurality of remote systems, and a server. The mobile phone has an antenna, a mobile communication modem, a processing unit, a system memory, a battery, a keypad, a speaker, and a display The mobile communication network comprises a wireless communication network. The remote systems communicate electronic signals with the mobile phone via the mobile communication network. And, the server is connected to the mobile communication network. The mobile phone controls the behavior of the remote system and communicates electronic signals for data, audio, and video with the processing unit having control software programs. The mobile phone decodes the electronic signals and plays on the display and the speaker. The remote mobile phone downloads and installs the control software programs from the server through the mobile communication network.
US07869821B2

SIP type signal protocol for a mobile communication network (N), comprising an invitation signal message (MI) “INVITE”, intended to set-up a “Push to Talk” type communication session between a calling communication client (A) and one or several called communication clients (B, C), and containing the logical address of the calling communication client and an address of the called communication client(s).The signal protocol is innovative in that the invitation signal message (MI) also contains a visiting card associated with a user of the calling communication client (A).
US07869815B2

In a location system, gateways maintain privacy settings of mobile terminals. On receiving a location request from a client terminal, each gateway determines which of the gateways maintains the privacy settings of a target mobile terminal specified in the request, and transmits the location request to a gateway if the latter maintains the privacy settings of the specified target mobile terminal. The gateway performs a first privacy check on a location request received either from the client terminal or from other gateway using the privacy settings of the target mobile terminal, transmits the request to a positioning system to obtain a measurement result indicating the location of the target mobile terminal if the request conforms to the privacy settings, and performs a second privacy check on the measurement result using the privacy settings. A result of the second privacy check is then communicated to the client terminal.
US07869814B2

An extension to the Location Information Service (LIS) architecture uses a centralized, user-selected, Privacy Profile Register (PPR) and Presence Register (PR) element, the User Privacy and Presence Register (UPPR) (also known as the Home Register (HR)). This centralized model provides access to value added services that allow the user to be located anywhere in the world by people and services of his choosing. It also provides network elements using this location information with security that the location being provided has certification.
US07869811B2

For enhancing the quality of a relative positioning, a filter is adjusted depending on information on a movement of a satellite signal receiver. A position of the satellite signal receiver is determined relative to a reference station using the filter, wherein measurements on satellite signals received by the satellite signal receiver and measurements on satellite signals provided for the reference station are used as input to the filter. The measurements for the reference station may be received in messages which are assembled and provided for transmission and which may include in addition an indication of a current movement of the reference station.
US07869810B2

Two or more receivers in a plurality of receivers are selected and the signal data from each receiver obtained. A cross-correlation of signal data is computed for each receiver paring in the selected receivers. The results of each cross-correlation are then combined and mapped into a graphical indicator function. The graphical indicator function generates a visual representation of location information using the results of each cross-correlation computation. The visual representation is then displayed to a user. Additional location information may also be simultaneously displayed with the visual representation or upon command.
US07869802B2

A satellite-borne transponder for two or more uplink service areas, includes uplink antennae, a low noise amplifier and a converter for each uplink antenna, input filters, amplification chains, each amplification chain including a channel amplifier, a high power amplifier, and an output filter, and a downlink antenna for an associated downlink service area. The transponder associates uplink antennae to an uplink service area, the number of antennae being determined by a preset Figure of Merit for each uplink service area. The transponder also includes at least one input multiplexer including a passband filter for each reception chains, each reception chain including an uplink antenna, a low noise amplifier, and a converter linked to the multiplexer.
US07869796B2

Disclosed are a method and an apparatus for managing multimedia messages. If receiving a request to set a retrieval reminder for a specific multimedia message from an MS, an MMS relay/server sets a reminder time for the specific multimedia message to a reminder time included in the request to set the retrieval reminder. If a current time corresponds to the reminder time, the MMS relay/server notifies the MS of retrieving the specific multimedia message. If receiving a request to extend an expiry time of the specific multimedia message from the MS, the MMS relay/server sets the expiry time of the specific multimedia message to an expiry time included in the request to extend the expiry time.
US07869794B1

A system is provided for managing timely delivery of electronic messages, such as short message service (SMS) messages sent by the short message peer to peer (SMPP) protocol. In particular, the system determines an expected delay for the delivery of electronic messages, so that a sender can avoid sending messages when they will take an excessive amount of time to deliver. In one embodiment, a sender of electronic messages, such as a news service provider, sends a session initiation protocol (SIP) “subscribe” message to a delay manager. The delay manager determines when the expected delay of message delivery at a bulk message gateway falls below a threshold delay. When the expected delay falls below the threshold, the delay manager informs the sender, and the sender may create and send an electronic message.
US07869784B2

A radio frequency (RF) circuit (100) as disclosed herein is fabricated on a substrate (204, 304) using integrated passive device (IPD) process technology. The RF circuit (100) includes an RF inductor (200, 300) and an integrated inductive RF coupler (202, 302) located proximate to the RF inductor (200, 300). The inductive RF coupler (202, 302), its output and grounding contact pads, and its transmission lines are fabricated on the same substrate (204, 304) using the same IPD process technology. The inductive RF coupler (202, 302) includes a coupling section (212, 306) that is either located inside or outside a spiral of the RF inductor (200, 300). The inductive RF coupler (202, 302) and the RF inductor (200, 300) are cooperatively configured to function as the windings of an RF transformer, thus achieving the desired coupling. The inductive RF coupler (202, 302) provides efficient and reproducible RF coupling without increasing the die footprint of the RF circuit (100).
US07869779B2

A method and system for processing channels in a FM communication system are provided. The FM communication system using the method or program may include adjusting a tuning frequency of a FM receiver for scanning and detecting an FM channel based on one or more of knowledge of location of said FM receiver, received signal strength indicator (RSSI), and/or carrier error of a related FM signal. Frequency offsets and channel spacing of the detected FM channels may be derived based on a self measurement routine. The aforementioned information may be preprogrammed, updated from a previous scan, or from external inputs to configure the receiver for subsequent selective tuning.
US07869778B2

A technique to share a local oscillator signal between two radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). The local oscillator signal generated internally by one RFIC is ported to the other RFIC for use in transmit or receive operation. The local oscillator signal that is ported may be an RF local oscillator signal. Each RFIC may include a bi-directional port circuit that can be operated to make the RFIC a master, slave or may be totally disabled to disable the porting feature. This is particularly useful in RFICs that are used to communicate using MIMO radio algorithms which rely for optimum performance on phase and frequency coherency among a plurality of transmitters and a plurality of receivers.
US07869770B2

A single-die multi-band switch includes a plurality of transmitter ports and a plurality of receiver ports, any one of which is selected to be connected to an antenna port. At least some of these switching topologies use a branched or cascaded switching system in order to reduce signal insertion loss. It is preferred that the individual switching elements be field effect transistors. The switching topologies employed include series-connected groups of transistors and interdigitated FETs.
US07869768B1

A technique is directed to controlling speaker volume of a speaker of a portable communications device (e.g., a cellular telephone, a cordless hand phone, a combination of a cellular phone and a hands-free ear piece, etc.). The technique involves receiving an environmental signal from an environmental microphone of the portable communications device. The technique further involves identifying a level of environmental noise based on the environmental signal, and adjusting the speaker volume of the speaker of the portable communications device (e.g., ringer volume, voice output volume, etc.) based on the identified level of environmental noise. Such operation enables a user to accommodate a variety of settings without burdening the user with ongoing manual volume control of the portable communications device.
US07869764B2

An electronic circuit for a high-frequency switch for opening an antenna resonance circuit of an RFID system, wherein the high-frequency switch can be opened and closed by d.c. voltages, in which circuit a rectifier circuit generates the blocking voltage for opening the high-frequency switch from the high-frequency supply voltage, the rectifier circuit is designed such that it generates a blocking voltage whose value corresponds at least to the peak-to-peak value of the high-frequency voltage to be switched, the blocking voltage is conducted via the same electric connecting line via which the high-frequency supply voltage and a closing voltage are also conducted to the antenna of the RFID system, and a resistor is connected in parallel with each of the PIN diodes, which are series-connected with respect to direct current.
US07869762B2

A pinging electronic device, a pingable electronic device and a network for the devices are disclosed. The ping electronic devices comprising a ping function and a transmitter wherein the ping function is adapted to generate and the transmitter is adapted to transmit over an ad hoc wireless network at least one associated ping control message to at least one pingable electronic device paired to the pinging electronic device for actuation of at least one indicator element of the at least one pingable electronic device.
US07869761B2

Disclosed herein is a radio frequency (RF) repeater comprising an analog signal processing unit and a digital signal processing unit, wherein the analog signal processing unit includes a filtering unit; an amplification unit on receiving side; a frequency conversion unit on receiving side; a frequency conversion unit on transmitting side; and an amplification unit on transmitting side, and the digital signal processing unit includes a receiving signal detection unit; the automatic gain control unit; a feedback signal detection unit; a feedback signal combining unit; a feedback signal elimination unit; an automatic delay control unit; and the control unit.According to the RF repeater and repeating method, installation cost is reduced, limitations in output magnitude and installation are overcome, and ensuring high output power characteristics.
US07869759B2

System and method for communicating data in a multibeam satellite system having feeder beams associated with a plurality of gateways and a plurality of service beams associated with a plurality of user subscriber terminals utilizing frequency re-use by service beams between a satellite and a plurality of subscriber terminals, wherein the service beams are transmitted to and from the satellite by re-using at least one common frequency channel of the service beam, such that the beam allocation is asymmetric among available frequency channels. The result is a potential for reduction of transponder resources.
US07869753B2

A fixing device includes a flexible endless fixing member that travels in a prescribed direction and applies heat and melts a toner image, a pressure applying member that pressure contacts the fixing member and forms a nip for conveying a recording medium, and a resistance heat element secured inside an inner circumferential surface of the fixing member, which applies heat to the fixing member. The resistance heat element is arranged not to pressure contact the inner circumferential surface of the fixing member.
US07869752B2

A cleaning device including a cleaning member that moves in a predetermined direction and is in contact with a cleaning target that moves in a predetermined direction and which is directly or indirectly heated by a heater, to remove toner particles on a surface of the cleaning target. A contact surface of the cleaning member with the cleaning target includes a plurality of regions of different toner-releasing ability.
US07869748B2

Exemplary embodiments provide a direct imaging system and methods for direct marking an image using the system. The disclosed direct imaging system can eliminate the use of at least one of a charge, and/or exposure subsystems in an electrostatographic machine and related processes. Specifically, the direct imaging system can include a direct marking substrate (e.g., a printing substrate) and a development roll member closely spaced from the direct marking substrate. In one embodiment, the development roll member can include a plurality of actuator cells with each actuator cell controllably addressable to eject one or more toner particles adhered thereto. The ejected toner particles can transit the space between the donor roll member and the direct marking substrate, and thereby marking onto the direct marking substrate forming an image.
US07869731B2

An image forming apparatus includes: a photoconductive drum on which an electrostatic latent image is formed. A developer develops the electrostatic latent image to form a toner image on the photoconductive drum. A transfer-fixer transfers the toner image from the photoconductive drum to a recording sheet and fixes the toner image on the recording sheet. A waste toner particle collector collects toner particles remaining in the developing section into a collection container. A toner amount detector detects the amount of toner particles collected in the collection container. A notifying portion notifies a user when the amount of toner detected reaches a predetermined observing amount. A collection amount setting portion enables a reduced collection amount to be set for the collection of waste toner particles in the developing section in accordance with an increase in the detected toner amount after the detected toner amount reaches the observing amount.
US07869726B2

An image forming apparatus performs prints image data. A dividing section divides the image data of a print job into a plurality of sub data areas m(i) (i=1 to n). A duty computing section computes a print duty for each of the plurality of sub data areas (m(1)-m(n)) based on the number of printed dots in the print job and a total number of printable dots in a printable area. A first power supply applies a first voltage to a developing roller. A second power supply applies a second voltage to the developer supplying roller. The voltage difference between the first and second voltages is determined in accordance with the print duty.
US07869723B2

An image forming apparatus includes an image forming unit and a correction unit. The image forming unit superimposes toner images of a plurality of colors, one over the other, on a recording medium to form a composite color toner image thereon. The correction unit corrects an image condition of the toner images of the plurality of colors when the composite color toner image is formed on a transparent portion of the recording medium so as to be visible from a side opposite a side on which the composite color toner image is formed.
US07869722B2

A toner dam maintenance process and system model the amount of toner mass at a toner cleaner blade, and apply a corrective procedure, such as insertion of a paperless copy into the print job mid-job or immediately prior to cycle out, to replenish the toner mass at the cleaner blade to maintain lubrication and reduce cleaning failure. The modeling includes contributing factors toward toner dam input and output, including untransferred toner, cycle-in/cycle-out bands, untransferred background, and leakage of toner from the cleaner blade. One or several threshold can be reached to cause one or more different corrective actions to take place. The action may be adding or skipping a pitch to insert a corrective maintenance pattern without transfer.
US07869715B2

A variable dispersion compensating unit compensates an optical signal, and changes the compensation amount according to a control signal that has a given frequency. After demodulation of the compensated optical signal, error conditions of the signal are monitored and an error signal is output. A band pass filter filters the error signal for a component having a frequency equal to or less than the given frequency. Based on the component and on the control signal, a synchronous detecting circuit generates a compensation amount modification signal. The compensation amount modification signal is superposed on the control signal.
US07869703B2

An optical apparatus includes an image shake correction optical element driven in a movable range including an optical origin position, a detector detecting a position of the optical element, a locking mechanism limiting movement of the optical element within a lock range including the optical origin position and is narrower than the movable range. The apparatus further includes a memory storing a first distance between a first reference position in the movable range and the optical origin position and a second distance between a second reference position in the lock range and the optical origin position. A controller controls a position of the optical element based on a control origin position, and performs correction of at least one of the first distance, the second distance and the control origin position.
US07869700B2

A method and system for encoding and recording data in a multi-stream format when the data is initially captured. The multiple streams of data can be combined to provide a high quality, or high resolution, representation, while a reduced subset of the streams can provide a lower quality, or lower resolution, representation. Data storage requirements can be reduced, by deleting one or more of the streams, when there is no longer a need for retention of the data at the higher quality.
US07869698B2

An apparatus is provided in which a recording area is effectively utilized even when information-deleted portions and/or information-moved portions are provided on an information recording medium. The apparatus includes a space extent management section which recognizes and manages space extents, an optimization processing section which creates a coupled extent by coupling a information-deleted portion and a space extent in a condition that the above extents are adjacent to each other and optimizes the coupled extent as one space extent to be used for recording, and an extent arrangement processing section which arranges and manages the space extents according to a preset rule.
US07869697B2

From a time point at which a storage capacity reaches a certain remaining capacity with respect to a limit value of 4 GB per one file depending on a file system, a subtraction time-managing portion (100A) changes photographing elapsed time display (174) which is displayed on a display picture of a liquid crystal display portion (17) to subtraction time display (178) in which residual time until 4 GB is reached is continuously subtracted in the inside of a portable image pickup device (1). Hence, a photographer can be visually informed of timing at which the photographing blank time period will occur. As a result, the photographer can be previously given the opportunity for the judgment about whether the photographing should be continuously performed or the current photographing should be ended to start new photographing.
US07869690B2

The present invention facilitates reading in advance information on addresses where data of each reproduction path to be reproduced is stored. Clip AV stream 1 to Clip AV stream 3 of angles forming a multiangle are managed by PlayList#1 to PlayList#3 for the different angles. Each of PlayList#1 to PlayList#3 is divided by angle change points. Each of the divided reproducing sections corresponds to a PlayItem. Correspondences between source packet numbers and presentation time stamps of the angle change points are recorded in an EP_map. The present invention is applicable to DVD recording and reproducing apparatus, for example.
US07869686B2

The invention consists in an amplifying optical fiber comprising a core containing a dopant and a cladding, wherein said core comprises a monomode core intended to propagate an optical signal, quantum dots of a semiconductor material being disposed in or near said monomode core, and a multimode core surrounding the monomode core, intended to receive a pumping signal.
US07869677B2

The present disclosure relates to a telecommunications cable having a layer constructed to resist post-extrusion shrinkage. The layer includes a plurality of discrete shrinkage-reduction members embedded within a base material. The shrinkage-reduction members can be made of a liquid crystal polymer. The disclosure also relates to a method for manufacturing telecommunications cables having layers adapted to resist post-extrusion shrinkage.
US07869672B2

An optical assembly is formed with a silicon substrate having a first surface and a second surface confronting the first surface. A reflective coating is formed over the first surface. Multiple diffraction gratings are formed integrally within the second surface of the silicon substrate. An optical absorber is formed over the second surface between the diffraction gratings.
US07869671B2

A three-dimensional optical waveguide is formed by laminating planar substrates such as a plurality of lens substrates and, an isolator substrate and a wavelength division multiplexing filter, the optical substrates at least include a waveguide substrate having a waveguide and a reflecting surface. In the three-dimensional optical waveguide, the planar substrates are positioned by markers integrally formed on at least two of the planar substrates. Light directed into the waveguide is reflected by a reflecting surface and passes through the lens substrates and the isolator substrate.
US07869666B2

An image processing system and method, in which a plurality of image processing operations are dynamically controlled based on dynamically changing tag data associated with pixels being processed.
US07869659B2

An image-comparing apparatus is provided for comparing a code stream obtained by encoding a retrieved image with a specific image for determining whether the code stream is substantially identical to the specific image. The apparatus includes image-characteristic amount extracting unit for analyzing the code stream to extract an image-characteristic amount of the retrieved image. The apparatus further includes encoding-parameter extracting unit for extracting an encoding parameter from the code stream and encoded-data generating unit for encoding the specific image to some extent, on the basis of the encoding parameter, in order to generate encoded specific-image data. A comparing unit compares the image-characteristic amount of the retrieved image with the encoded specific-image data is also provided to determine whether the code stream is substantially identical to the specific image.
US07869654B2

Objects of the present invention are to facilitate filling out by hand an electronic paper and to realize digitization of contents with which the electronic paper is filled out by hand with a simple structure. A read image is obtained by optically reading a reading-object of the electronic paper. Based on the document information written on the electronic paper and writing-conditions during document writing, which are represented by the document information, a display image of the document in accordance with the read image information is formed. A written image is separated and extracted by converting a density only of pixels among the respective pixels of the read image, whose densities vary in accordance with the document writing and which correspond to a portion, to which ink of a pen for the handwriting is not adhered.
US07869652B2

In flicker correction of a moving picture consisting of a plurality of frames, moving averages of accumulative histograms are calculated for each frame on image data. Then, gamma tables for correcting the image data of a frame in the plurality of frames are made such that the accumulative histograms after corrected with the gamma tables match with the moving averages of the accumulative histograms. Then, the image data of the frame in the plurality of frames is corrected with the gamma tables. In some cased, each frame is divided into areas, and the flicker correction is performed for each area if necessary.
US07869630B2

A template representative of an image of a human face is provided. At least one of the template and image data is rotated to adjust a relative angle between an original orientation of the template and an original orientation of the image data, so as to exclude an angle range including 180 degrees. It is examined a matching between a part of the image data and the template to identify a region in the image data containing an image of a human face. The image data is corrected in accordance with a condition of the image of the human face.
US07869629B2

An apparatus and method for detecting a head image of an input image. In the head image detection apparatus, a training DB stores therein a positive head image and a negative head image into which a plurality of images are classified. A sub-window processor extracts a feature population while sliding a sub-window of a predetermined size with respect to the input image. A head candidate region classifier classifies head candidate regions based on the extracted feature population from the sub-window processor by referring to samples stored in the training DB. A head candidate region determiner determines a head candidate region as a head region by checking continuity of contours of the classified head candidate regions.
US07869621B1

This is a method and apparatus to create and interpret images in a temporal or spatial domain, which will be helpful with any moving objects. The images are captured and stored in a database. The video images can be viewed in a panoramic fashion or dissected into individual frames or pictures to make the searching of particular objects or events easier.
US07869619B2

This invention is directed to a system and method for creating characterization information from a first display device that can be transmitted and used by a second display device. Computer readable instructions embodied in a computer readable medium calibrate a first display device, create an ICC color profile from said calibration information, storing the ICC color profile and sending the ICC color profile to a second display device for it to use. The calibration or characterization information can also be associated with an image file and sent to a second location for display.
US07869614B2

The present invention provides a fixing device for receiving and attaching operating elements to the faceplate of hearing devices or hearing aids, whereas the operating elements comprising connectors for the electrical connection to further electric or electronic components of the hearing device or hearing aid, further comprising a bush having a slot continuously extending from one end to the other end of said bush. Such a bush may on one hand be shifted from the outside onto a defined area of the operating element and on the other hand be inserted into an opening of the faceplate with an opening diameter dimensioned according the outer diameter of the bush. The clamping effect thus acts both onto the bush and the operating element, thereby fixing reliable both the bush and the operating element within the faceplate. The bush or the operating element respectively may thus easily non-destructively be removed from the faceplate by pulling it out of the opening in the faceplate.
US07869612B1

A system and method provides optimization of the strength and orientation of the inductive field of a hearing aid compatible (“HAC”) device, relative to a telecoil in a user's hearing aid. One aspect provides control of the drive level of a transmitting telecoil contained in the HAC device. Other aspects provide steering of the inductive field of the device by using a telecoil array and controlling the amplitude or phase of the signals transmitted by each telecoil in the array to create a composite field. Another aspect provides a plurality of transmitting telecoils arranged such that each telecoil has a different orientation, and a plurality of switches for controlling which transmitting telecoil is active. The user may then select the telecoil having a preferred orientation. Another aspect allows a transmitting telecoil to be physically oriented to an optimal position by embedding the telecoil in a substantially spherical element.
US07869609B2

A method and apparatus are provided for mixing a plurality of signals within a predetermined dynamic range without clipping. In the method and apparatus, first and second signal samples are added together to obtain a first intermediate result. Then the first signal sample is multiplied with the second signal sample to obtain a second intermediate result. In one embodiment, the second intermediate result is subtracted from the first intermediate result to obtain a third intermediate result, and the third intermediate result is discarded if the third intermediate result is less than zero. In another embodiment, the second intermediate result is added to the first intermediate result to obtain the third intermediate result, and the third intermediate result is discarded if the third intermediate result is greater than zero. An output signal sample is provided based on the third intermediate result.
US07869606B2

For modifying or adapting at least one basic hearing aid setting such as volume, low/high frequency balance etc., it is suggested that at particular time intervals at least one current user-selected setting entered on the hearing aid is registered and combined or linked with the existing basic setting in or on the hearing aid by means of a predefined algorithm in order to arrive at a new basic setting and to store same in or on the hearing aid. The current user setting is acquired for instance in sound-specific fashion, i.e. with reference to a specific registered sound category or at least one hearing-related ambient parameter, and is linked with the corresponding, associated sound-specific basic setting in order to arrive at the new sound-specific basic setting.
US07869597B2

A method for processing a communication data item. The communication data item is divided into at least two unencrypted packets to be encrypted. Each encrypted packet is generated from a corresponding unencrypted packet. Each unencrypted packet has a packet header and plaintext data. The packet header has an identifier field that includes a packet identifier. The packet identifier is identical for all unencrypted packets. Generating an encrypted packet for each unencrypted packet includes: determining a vector identifier from the identical packet identifier, wherein the vector identifier is associated with the identical packet identifier; ascertaining an initial vector from the vector identifier; and forming an encrypted packet header by inserting the vector identifier into a first portion of the packet header and encrypting a second portion of the packet header through use of the initial vector. The encrypted packets are subsequently decrypted and combined to reconstruct the communication data item.
US07869583B2

A method of automatically organizing a meeting can include selecting a customer profile associated with a customer, identifying a representative according to the customer profile, and determining an availability for the representative based upon context information for the representative. The method further can include scheduling a meeting between the customer and the representative based upon the availability of the representative, and storing the meeting. A measure of availability for the representative can be determined according to the context information and a rating for the customer can be determined. A determination that the representative is not available can be overridden according to the measure of availability for the representative and the rating for the customer.
US07869566B2

An integrated, multi-sensor, Level 1 screening device is described, which system provides a next-generation Explosives Detection System (EDS) that enables high throughput, while drastically reducing false alarms. In exemplary embodiments, the present system comprises a non-rotational, Computed Tomography (CT) system and a non-translational, X-ray diffraction (XRD) system, both in an inline configuration.
US07869565B2

A method of determining a parameter of interest of reservoir rock formation is described using the steps of measuring an x-ray attenuation or absorption distribution of a sample of said rock formation, identifying the mineral phase part of said distribution, and subdividing the mineral phase part of said distribution to derive classification or rock type information of said sample.
US07869558B2

Timing circuitry may use control circuitry to control calibration circuitry to calibrate a counter so that an adder and a calibration period counter are not required. Concatenation circuitry may be used to concatenate a portion of the counter value and the calibration value to provide a calibrated value to the counter. The results from match circuitry may be used to provide status and control information to a calibration history bit and to an enable circuit. The counter may be an up counter or a down counter.
US07869557B2

The object of this invention is to provide a method for mitigating a stress corrosion cracking of reactor structural material which makes it possible to suppress the rise in the main steam line dose rate without secondary effects such as a rise in the concentration of radioactive cobalt-60, etc. in the reactor water. Hydrogen and a reductive nitrogen compound containing nitrogen having a negative oxidation number (for example, hydrazine) are injected into the core water of boiling water nuclear power plant. By injecting the reductive nitrogen compound containing nitrogen having a negative oxidation number into the core water, the stress corrosion cracking of structural material of reactor can be mitigated without side reactions such as a rise in the concentration of cobalt-60, etc.
US07869548B2

In an ultra-wideband receiver for receiving discontinuous pulse signals and for demodulating the receive signals, an amplifier amplifies signals received, and a demodulator demodulates the amplified signals. A controller controls the demodulator and the amplifier based on the signals demodulated by the demodulator. The controller sends a signal to the amplifier to activate the amplifier only when the signals are received in order to decrease the power consumption in the amplifier. Further, the demodulator demodulates the amplified signals by generating a plurality of single pulses as template pulses, multiplies the amplified signals with the plurality of signal pulses, and integrates the multiplied signals to obtain demodulated data.
US07869546B2

A symbol sequence contained in a received signal comprising a cyclic convolution of a Walsh code multiplexed signal and a channel impulse response of a multipath channel is detected using Walsh Hadamard domain equalization techniques. The method comprises converting the received signal and the channel impulse response of the multipath channel from the time domain to the WHT domain, and determining the symbol sequence based on equalizing the received signal in the WHT domain using WHT spectra of the channel impulse response to remove inter-symbol interference from the received signal due to cross-correlation between Walsh codes.
US07869543B2

A system is provided for processing a communication signal including a baseband amplitude component and a baseband phase component. The system includes an amplitude predictor configured for closed-loop pre-distortion of a baseband amplitude component, an amplitude lookup table configured for open-loop pre-distortion of the baseband amplitude component, and an amplitude interpolator configured to build up the amplitude lookup table during a closed-loop calibration period. The system also includes a phase predictor configured for closed-loop pre-distortion of a baseband phase component, a phase lookup table configured for open-loop pre-distortion of the baseband phase component, and a phase interpolator configured to build up the phase lookup table during a closed-loop calibration period.
US07869535B2

Embodiments of the present invention include a method and apparatus for modifying a transmit diversity signal by control of at least a relative parameter, for example, phase difference, in a first signal relative to at least one second signal using various switching modules or techniques. In some embodiments of the invention, the relative difference may be controlled by switching paths, or producing various degrees of relative difference by switching, activating or controlling multiple elements with various resolutions of the relative parameter, or by connecting elements by timing of switches.
US07869534B2

An approach is provided for clock-pulse synchronization between an amplitude-modulated or phase-modulated received signal and a transmitted signal by estimating the timing offset between the received signal and the transmitted signal by maximum-likelihood estimation, wherein the maximum-likelihood estimation is realized through a pre-filtering dependent upon the transmission characteristic, a subsequent nonlinear signal-processing function and an averaging filtering. The received signal is an offset quadrature-phase-modulated received signal, and the nonlinear signal-processing function maintains the alternating components in the spectrum of the pre-filtered offset quadrature-phase-modulated received signal.
US07869531B2

A wireless communication apparatus (a) generates a transmission symbol; (b) assigns, to the transmission symbol, a given number of units each formed of a symbol and a subcarrier in a frame which is formed of M (M is a positive integer) symbols and N (N is a positive integer) subcarriers and includes M×N units, and the given number being not more than M×N, to obtain the given number of identical transmission symbols; (c) multiplies the identical transmission symbols by a code sequence including a plurality of different elements; and (d) transmits the identical transmission symbols multiplied by the code sequence.
US07869528B2

An assembly and method for processing of multi-carrier signals is provided. A plurality of carrier signals are combined into a combined multi-carrier signal represented in a first domain. The combined multi-carrier signal is converted from the first domain to a second domain. The converted multi-carrier signal is distributed into a plurality of signals represented in the second domain.
US07869527B2

A self-interference canceller (SIC) is incorporated into a transceiver to reduce or eliminate modem jamming when a transmitter in the transceiver transmits at high power levels. The SIC is configured to receive at a first input a transmitter noise reference signal including a self-interfering signal component generated by the transmitter, to receive at a second input a corrupted signal including the self-interfering signal component and a desired signal component generated by the transmitter, and to output a correction signal that resembles the self-interfering signal component. The correction signal is subtracted from the corrupted signal to generate a processed signal that is input to the modem. The SIC may be disabled when the output power of the transmitter is at a level below a predetermined threshold. The invention may be applied to a multi-radio access technology (RAT) transceiver.
US07869526B2

The present invention provides a single-stage tunable Ultra-Wideband (UWB) pulse generator, by creating and differentiating a variable edge rate signal. Edge rate variability is introduced by first applying a step recovery diode (SRD) to compress the edges of the source and then applying a simple RC network to adjust the edge rate. Next, the resulting signal is differentiated using microstrip transmission lines. The tunable generator resulting from this approach demonstrates a Gaussian and monocycle pulses with good symmetry and low distortion over the tunable range.
US07869525B2

A dynamic bus inversion (DBI) method and system are described. In various embodiments, a transmitter transmits data over a multi-bit high-speed bus to a receiver. In an embodiment, the transmitter determines whether to invert the bus based on the number of data bits that will be transitioning to a new value. If it is determined that the bus is to be inverted, the transmitter encodes a DBI signal on a shared line of the bus. In an embodiment, the shared line is used for different purposes at different times, obviating the need for a dedicated line or pin for the encoded DBI signal. The receiver receives and decodes the DBI signal and, in response, appropriately decodes the received data.
US07869520B2

A video encoding method includes selecting one combination, for each block of an input video signal, from a plurality of combinations. Each combination includes a predictive parameter and at least one reference picture number determined in advance for the reference picture. A prediction picture signal is generated in accordance with the reference picture number and predictive parameter of the selected combination. A predictive error signal is generated representing an error between the input video signal and the prediction picture signal. Encoding the predictive error signal, information of the motion vector, and index information indicating the selected combination is included.
US07869518B2

A fast motion estimation apparatus and method in which motion estimation is carried out on a current block of a current frame of video image data with reference to a corresponding matching block of a previous frame are provided. The fast motion estimation apparatus includes: a determination unit which determines whether an SAD between pixel values of a current block of a current frame and a corresponding matching block of a previous frame is greater than a predefined threshold; an initial search unit which performs an initial search when the SAD is greater than the predetermined threshold to find which search point of a current search pattern is the minimal SAD point and to determine whether the minimal SAD point matches the center of the current search pattern; and a repetitive search unit which performs an iteration search when the minimal SAD point differs from the center of the current search pattern to reset the minimal SAD point to be a center of the current search pattern and to set a number of search points and the size of a search pattern based on from current search pattern to a center of the search window of the previous frame.
US07869510B2

A video encoding apparatus includes selecting one combination, for each block of an input video signal, from a plurality of combinations. Each combination includes a predictive parameter and at least one reference picture number determined in advance for the reference picture. A prediction picture signal is generated in accordance with the reference picture number and predictive parameter of the selected combination. A predictive error signal is generated representing an error between the input video signal and the prediction picture signal. Encoding the predictive error signal, information of the motion vector, and index information indicating the selected combination is included.
US07869508B2

A video encoding method includes selecting one combination, for each block of an input video signal, from a plurality of combinations. Each combination includes a predictive parameter and at least one reference picture number determined in advance for the reference picture. A prediction picture signal is generated in accordance with the reference picture number and predictive parameter of the selected combination. A predictive error signal is generated representing an error between the input video signal and the prediction picture signal. Encoding the predictive error signal, information of the motion vector, and index information indicating the selected combination is included.
US07869507B2

A video encoding method includes selecting one combination, for each block of an input video signal, from a plurality of combinations. Each combination includes a predictive parameter and at least one reference picture number determined in advance for the reference picture. A prediction picture signal is generated in accordance with the reference picture number and predictive parameter of the selected combination. A predictive error signal is generated representing an error between the input video signal and the prediction picture signal. Encoding the predictive error signal, information of the motion vector, and index information indicating the selected combination is included.
US07869505B2

An embodiment of the present invention provides a system and method for adaptive video decoding. A method for adaptive video decoding includes determining whether a resource constrained mode is to be initiated, and responsive to a determination that the resource constrained mode is to be initiated, initiating the resource constrained mode, including foregoing the decoding of portions of received video input. For example, adaptive video decoding may include foregoing the decompression and reconstruction of selected video frames during intervals of high demand for memory and/or bus bandwidth resources.
US07869503B2

A rate control system is disclosed for video coding applications. The rate controller assigns a quantization parameter for video data in a picture in response to complexity indicators indicative of spatial complexity, motion complexity and/or bits per pel of the picture. A virtual buffer based quantizer parameter is proposed based on a virtual buffer fullness analysis and a target rate estimate, which is derived from the complexity indicators. A second quantizer parameter is proposed from a linear regression analysis of quantizer parameters used to code previously coded pictures of similar type (e.g., I pictures, P pictures or B pictures). A coding policy decision unit defines a final quantizer parameter from a comparison of the two proposed quantizer parameters.
US07869500B2

A digital video signal encoder and method for detecting and encoding noise is disclosed. In a frame in a video signal, the variance of at least four macroblock luminance blocks is calculated. The Log2 of the minimum of these variances is determined. A running sum of the Log2 calculations is calculated and compared to a noise threshold to determine whether or not the frame contains noise. In one embodiment, a frame is determined to contain noise if the running sum is greater than a noise threshold and encodes the remaining portion of the frame as noise. In another embodiment, a current frame is determined to contain noise and is encoded as noise if the previous frame contained noise. The present invention may encode noise by overriding the original bit rate quantiser scale and/or removing at least one high frequency from a noise block using a DCT filter.
US07869491B2

A data transceiver and method thereof are disclosed. The data transceiver generates a gated control signal according to a valid signal and a clock signal. The packets are outputted according to the gated control signal.
US07869486B2

A tracking apparatus and method are provided which can reduce the effects of multipath interference which occurs when a receiving end of a mobile communication system tracks a received signal. The tracking apparatus includes an interference remover for removing an interference component contained in an early energy signal and a late energy signal which are used for tracking.
US07869485B2

An apparatus for detecting lock status of a spread spectrum signal, having a first accumulator, a first calculation unit, a second calculation unit, a second accumulator, a multiplier and a comparator. The first accumulator accumulates an in-phase integration result and a quadrature integration result over a time period. The first calculation unit determines a first evaluation value based on the accumulated in-phase integration result and the accumulated quadrature integration result. The second calculation unit processes the in-phase integration result and the quadrature integration result. The second accumulator accumulates the output of the second calculation unit over the time period. The multiplier determines a second evaluation value by multiplying the accumulated result from the second accumulator with a predetermined value. The comparator compares the first and second evaluation results wherein the comparison result is an indicator of the lock status.
US07869483B2

A surface emitting laser which oscillates at a wavelength λ of a blue band, including a photonic crystal layer including a photonic crystal structure, an active layer provided on one surface of the photonic crystal layer, and an electrode provided on the other surface of the photonic crystal layer for injecting electric current into the active layer. The photonic crystal structure has a thickness of 100 nm or more. A laser beam is emitted toward a direction opposite to a side of the photonic crystal layer on which the electrode is provided.
US07869481B2

A high power solid-state non-regenerative optical amplification system (100) for amplifying a pulsed optical beam, includes a first optical amplification crystal (C1) and a second optical amplification crystal (C2) for amplifying the optical beam; optical pumping elements for longitudinal pumping amplification crystals (C1, C2); reflective optical elements (M′1, M′2, . . . , M′17) suitable for reflecting the optical beam so that the optical beam makes a total number of N sequential passes through the amplification crystals (C1, C2), wherein N is an integer and N>4. The reflective optical elements (M′1, M′2, . . . , M′17) are placed in a configuration suitable for alternatively interleaving the sequential optical beam passes through the 1st crystal (C1) and through the 2nd crystal (C2). A solid-state laser including the amplification system, and a method for amplifying a pulsed optical beam in a two-crystal multi-pass non-regenerative amplification system are also disclosed.
US07869469B1

A Raman shifter is provided with improved optical efficiency and robustness, particularly for high power applications. In one embodiment, a source system (100) includes a source pump laser (102) and a seed laser (104). Beams from the pump laser (102) and seed laser (104) combine for transmission into a Raman cell (112). Folding optics define a multi-pass pathway through the Raman cell (112). Such folding optics may include an internal reflectance element. An entry window into the Raman cell, an exit window from the Raman cell, and the internal reflectance elements include surfaces disposed at a Brewster angle relative to the incident beam. The Raman cell medium is circulated in a direction transverse to the beam pathways through the cell. In this manner, improved optical efficiency and robustness is achieved as well as improved performance over a significant wavelength band.
US07869460B2

A cable modem termination system receives a bandwidth request message, and collects information on the basis of the bandwidth request message. Then, time bandwidth size information is generated on the basis of the bandwidth request message and the collected information, and a bandwidth allocation message is generated on the basis of the collected information and the time bandwidth size information. Accordingly, a cable modem termination system can effectively receive data transmitted from a cable modem.
US07869457B2

A data communication bus and method of operation thereof, including a plurality of nodes connected to a respective plurality of media segments. A typical node includes an output port coupled to a media segment that it exclusively controls. And an input port coupled to a media segment that is exclusively controlled by another node of the bus. Each media segment typically includes a plurality of high speed data channels such as electrical transmission lines.
US07869456B2

A system and method is presented that uses hardware at a central node to determine if bandwidth being provided to a remote node in accordance with an unsolicited grant service (UGS) flow requires adjustment. In one embodiment, the hardware performs this function by comparing information in two consecutively-received UGS extended headers from the same remote device. If the information in the current and previous UGS extended headers differ, then an indication is provided to software of the central node that the bandwidth being provided to the remote node requires adjustment.
US07869454B2

Disclosed is a method for transmitting a channel signal in a base station of a mobile communication system which scrambles a common channel signal using a primary scrambling code for identifying the base station. The method comprises determining an identifier (ID) of a secondary scrambling code, upon receipt of a dedicated channel assignment request from a mobile station; transmitting the determined ID of the secondary scrambling code to the mobile station and awaiting a response; upon receipt of a response message from the mobile station, generating a primary scrambling code and a secondary scrambling code using an ID of the primary scrambling code and said ID of the secondary scrambling code; and scrambling a common channel signal using the primary scrambling code, scrambling a dedicated channel signal using the secondary scrambling code, and transmitting the scrambled channel signals.
US07869448B2

To provide a media gateway device that can eliminate partition loss of internal resources of an MGW and effectively utilize the internal resources of the MGW. When starting or restarting service of an MGW, a call control management part of the MGW sends a service registration request signal to MGCs. The MGCs that receive the service registration request signal send back a service registration request response signal as a response. The call control management part registers an MGC from which a response was normally received as an object for implementation of call processing. Upon reception of a service registration request response signal from at least one MGC, the call control management part enters an in-service state. The call control management part periodically performs resending of service registration request signals only to MGCs from which a response can not be normally received.
US07869446B2

Method and apparatus including registering a first spoke router with a hub router, forwarding an Internet Protocol version Four (IPv4) data packet from the first spoke router to a second spoke router over an Internet Protocol version Six (IPv6) multipoint tunnel via the hub router, transmitting a binding information associated with the first spoke router from the hub router to the second spoke router, and establishing a direct communication path by the second spoke router with the first spoke router based on the received binding information are provided.
US07869444B2

A data acquisition network includes an assembly of nodes including at least one wireless network of nodes in which two neighboring nodes transmit data between each other by radio waves. The assembly of nodes also includes at least one other network of nodes in which two neighboring nodes transmit data between each other by a cable. The data is also conveyed by radio waves. The at least one other network forms a cabled network of nodes.
US07869442B1

IP applications may be hosted on processors other than the processor on which their associated routing entity is hosted by causing the routing context to be extended to the new processor and causing IP termination to occur at the new processor. Applications may define policies specifying packet attributes and actions to be taken on matching packets, so that packets matching the policy may be directed to a processor hosting the application rather than a processor hosting the routing entity. A steering policy manager may be implemented to receive policies from the applications, verify the policy format and uniqueness vis-à-vis previously implemented policies, and implement the policies by passing the policies to one or more steering policy agents. Filters may be programmed into the data plane or the control plane to cause IP termination to occur on the processor hosting the application.
US07869439B1

Packet switch operating methods and packet switches compare a quantity of virtual interfaces associated with a virtual switch to a threshold. If the quantity of virtual interfaces is not greater than the threshold, and the packet switch is configured to learn forwarding fields of packets forwarded by the virtual switch, the methods and switches configure the packet switch to not learn forwarding fields of packets subsequently forwarded by the virtual switch. Other methods and packet switches compare a quantity of virtual interfaces associated with a virtual switch to a threshold. If the quantity of virtual interfaces associated with the virtual switch is not greater than the threshold and the packet switch is configured to learn forwarding fields of packets forwarded by the virtual switch, the methods and packet switches configure the packet switch to not learn forwarding fields of packets subsequently forwarded by the virtual switch.
US07869429B2

A packet relaying apparatus comprises a payload type discrimination unit for discriminating the type of payload in each received packet, a payload reconstruction unit for dividing the payload in predetermined block size units and for reconstructing the payload in the predetermined block size units, and a controller for overall controlling the apparatus.
US07869424B2

Integrated communications systems having a scalable or upgradable TDM switch fabric (i.e., e.g., TDM-controlling switch/MUX) are disclosed. At a first point in time a system is first sold, installed and utilized with a first TDM capacity, using a first TDM switch/MUX controlling a first set of TDM streams operating at a first frequency. A first set of line and other cards (e.g., DSP resources) are provided to provide or receive the first set of TDM streams. At a second point in time the system is upgraded by installation of a second TDM switch/MUX; the second TDM switch MUX controls the first set of TDM streams operating at the first frequency and also controls a second set of TDM streams operating at second frequency, which is a frequency different and preferably higher as compared to the first frequency. With at least some of the first cards coupled to the TDM bus, the second TDM switch/MUX couples TDM streams to and from the first cards using the first streams at the first frequency, while concurrently coupling TDM streams to and from the second cards using the second streams at the second frequency. The first switch/MUX preferably operates concurrently with the second switch/MUX to couple streams to and from the TDM bus (e.g., from an HDLC or multi-protocol framing engine, etc.), while the first switch/MUX does not operate to control the TDM bus, as this function is carried out by the second switch/MUX.
US07869418B2

A communication apparatus includes a receiving device configured to receive one physical frame in which a plurality of MAC frames are aggregated. This physical frame includes one acknowledgement request frame for the plurality of MAC frames. The apparatus includes an acknowledgement frame forming device configured to form an acknowledgement frame representing reception statuses of the plurality of MAC frames in response to the acknowledgement request frame. The apparatus also includes a transmitting device configured to transmit the acknowledgement frame. This acknowledgement frame includes a compressed acknowledgement frame representing an acknowledgement bitmap having a size equal to a maximum number of MSDUs (MAC Service Data Units) when one MPDU (MAC Protocol Data Unit) corresponds to one MSDU.
US07869415B2

A method of mapping symbols of a physical control format indicator channel (PCFICH) is described. A start position of a resource element to map the symbols for the PCFICH is determined by flooring a value, obtained by multiplying the number of resource blocks by a variable proportional to a symbol index for the PCFICH and then dividing the multiplied result by 2, wherein the resource blocks are transmitted in downlink. The symbols are mapped in the start position. Therefore, a problem of wasting resource elements or not being able to implement mapping can be solved by applying a simple mapping rule while mapping symbols of the PCFICH.
US07869411B2

A network device and a method of handling a frame in a network device defining a common header for each rule in a rules table of a search engine, wherein the common header comprises a source port specifying a corresponding rule to be applied to a port or ports, and a frame format specifying a format applied to the corresponding rule. A port receives a frame, with the frame having multiple field values. A pre-parser parses the received frame to obtain the field values and corresponding slices. A search engine receives the slices and determines matches between the slices and the common header of each rule in the rules table. A policy table performs indexing based on the determined matches to obtain an action entry. An action resolution takes an action based on the obtained action entry.
US07869407B2

A broadband wireless network includes intelligent base stations and mobile units. The network includes control means to manage connectivity of the mobile units to the intelligent base stations. Software is provided to control connection of the mobile unit to an intelligent base station having preferred signal characteristics. When a mobile unit connects to an intelligent base station, the software broadcasts corrected routing information to all intelligent base stations on the network allowing persistent wireless connectivity.
US07869406B2

Disclosed herein is a handover method for a mobile communication terminal in a mobile communication network in which an asynchronous network and a synchronous network coexist. In the present invention, as a mobile communication terminal, which is making a call through an asynchronous mobile communication system, moves into the area of a synchronous mobile communication system, and thus a handover event occurs, the establishment of a call with a synchronous mobile communication system is performed by the automatic call termination or origination of the mobile communication terminal while a connection between the asynchronous modem unit of the mobile communication terminal and the asynchronous mobile communication system is maintained, and then the connection with the asynchronous mobile communication system is released. Accordingly, a call interruption can be prevented at the time of handover between heterogeneous networks.
US07869402B2

A method of transmitting data via a control channel in a wireless communication system is disclosed. More specifically, the method includes transmitting a message including information on which control channel resources are used or unused, and transmitting data via the unused control channel which is allocated to at least one user, wherein the data is an added portion related to at least one sub-packet transmitted on a data channel.
US07869400B2

This invention relates to cognitive radio based wireless communications of dynamic spectrum access networks, and more particularly to a method of addressing inter-systems (cells) coexistence and spectrum sharing. The described method of spectrum sharing, called On-Demand Spectrum Contention, integrates Dynamic Frequency Selection and Transmission Power Control with iterative on-demand spectrum contentions and provides fairness, adaptability, and efficiency of spectrum access for dynamic spectrum access systems using active inter-system coordination.
US07869399B2

A wireless multi-cell communication system and method of controlling the distribution of multimedia broadcast services (MBMS). The system includes at least one network, e.g., a Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN), which distributes the MBMS to one or more wireless receive/transmit units (WTRUs). In one embodiment, the MBMS are activated and deactivated based on whether periodic cell updates are provided for a particular cell. In another embodiment, MBMS transmission is terminated when receipt of the MBMS are confirmed. In yet another embodiment, the MBMS are segmented to reduce the resources used by the network and/or the WTRUs during MBMS distribution.
US07869397B2

A medium access contention protocol that is highly beneficial in wireless networks and particularly in wireless networks that employ a fixed minimum burst size such as OFDM wireless networks. In one embodiment, a MAC protocol is a demand-assigned protocol that maximizes utilization of the bus medium (the allocated frequency spectrum.) Each data communication device (DCD) in the network communicates with a central access point (AP). Multiple DCDs may request access from the AP in the same request access (RA) burst. Each of the multiple DCDs transmits its access request to the AP within a frequency domain channel in the RA burst that is orthogonal to the frequency domain channels used by the other DCDs requesting access. Each DCD includes channel training information in the access request burst to allow the AP and/or DCD to adapt to rapid variations in channel characteristics.
US07869382B2

In one embodiment of the invention, a method for network management assisted discovery, includes performing a discovery of network devices in a network; and sending gathered information associated with a first device that supports a first discovery protocol to a second device that supports a second discovery protocol. In another embodiment of the invention, an apparatus for network management assisted discovery, includes a management computer configured to perform a discovery of network devices in a network, and to send gathered information associated with a first device that supports a first discovery protocol to a second device that supports a second discovery protocol.
US07869381B1

Some aspects of the technology relate to the generation for test purposes of test packet ingredients by a microprocessor, ongoing with the generation for test purposes of test packets incorporating the test packet ingredients by a high-speed FPGA. Some aspects of the technology relate to the generation of outgoing test packets incorporating the test packet ingredients, at a programmable logic device such as an FPGA. These aspects are implemented as an apparatus, a method, computer readable medium, and a data structure.
US07869376B2

This document describes tools that communicate an operational state of a transport service. The transport service provides connectivity between two or more networks, enabling the networks to exchange packets. The tools detect an operational state of a transport service. After doing so, the tools may convey the operational state of the transport service to at least one of the networks through a user-to-network interface port of a network interface device, send a message to a network interface device requesting that the network interface device convey the operational state to a network connected to the network interface device, or configure a network interface device to communicate the operational state.
US07869375B2

A method for predicting a fault in a wireless communication path between at least one transmitter and a receiver. The method comprises detecting an initial value of a characteristic of a reception signal or an initial value of a characteristic of a wireless communication path, calculating a running average of the same characteristic for preset period of time, comparing the initial value with the calculated running average; and displaying an indication based upon an analysis of the comparing. The indication is transmitted to a remote site for response. The characteristic can be signal strength, noise and a S/N ratio.
US07869372B2

There are disclosed methods and systems for verifying a connection between a subscriber station and a network wherein a gateway resides intermediate the subscriber station and the network. A method may include receiving instructions from a remote verification host. In response to the instructions, a tester may be introduced into the connection. The tester may receive an IP address of the subscriber station. The tester may use the IP address to perform at least one connectivity test between the gateway and the network. The tester may generate an output reporting a result of the at least one connectivity test.
US07869365B2

A network device and a computer program element are introduced for controlling data packet flows in a network device by manipulating data packets according to an actual manipulation rate. Amongst data packets received by a network device such as a router, data packets are identified that are marked with a pattern according to a congestion notification scheme. A pattern rate of data packets comprising such a pattern is determined, and the actual manipulation rate is determined subject to the pattern rate.
US07869364B2

The current invention is related to a system and a method for session overload protocol (SIP) server overload detection and control. The current invention proceeds by receiving SIP messages at the SIP server from a communications network; processing the received SIP messages; detecting an overload based on a trigger condition as a result of receiving and processing SIP messages; and transitioning the SIP server to an overload state and applying appropriate control actions to mitigate the detected overload.
US07869363B2

A method and apparatus are provided for prioritizing message flows in a state machine execution environment. A state machine is disclosed that employs a flow graph that provides a flow control mechanism The flow control mechanism defines a plurality of states and one or more transitions between the plurality of states, wherein one or more tokens circulate within the flow graph and execute functions during the one or more transitions between the states The disclosed state machine parses one of the tokens to extract one or more predefined information elements; and assigns a priority to the token based on the extracted information elements and a state occupancy of the token, wherein the assigned priority controls an order in which the token is processed.
US07869352B1

A network router includes a set of interface cards to receive packets from a network, and a set of accounting modules to calculate flow statistics for the packets. The router further includes a control unit to adaptively update routing information in response to the calculated flow statistics, and to route the packets in accordance with the routing information. The control unit identifies potentially malicious packet flows for the received packets based on the flow statistics, and applies an intercept filter to intercept the packets of the identified packet flows. The control unit analyzes the intercepted packets in real-time to determine the presence of a network event, and updates the routing information based on the determination, e.g., by terminating routing for packets associated with malicious packet flows. In this manner, the router may adaptively respond to network events, such as network security violations.
US07869348B2

For a survivable portion of a network, a backup port for a first router of the survivable network, to reach a destination node in the event of a single link failure, may be determined by (a) accepting a routing path graph having the destination node, wherein the routing path graph includes one or more links terminated by one or more primary ports of the first router, and (b) for each router of at least a part of the routing path graph, (1) assuming that a link terminated by a primary port of the current router is removed, defining (A) a first part of the routing path graph including the destination node, and (B) a second part of the routing path graph separated from the first part wherein the second part defines a sub-graph, and (2) determining the backup port for the first router by examining the sub-graph with respect to the first part of the routing path graph.
US07869340B2

A visible light characteristic changing layer formed from photosensitive or heat-sensitive material is formed in a location which can be viewed from a part of a label surface of an optical disk. The optical disk is set on a turntable of an optical disk unit while the label surface of the optical disk is directed downward. The optical disk and an optical pickup are moved mutually along the plane of the optical disk. In synchronism with the relative movement, the power of a laser beam output from the optical pickup is modulated in accordance with image data, such as characters or graphic images to be printed, and the laser beam is emitted onto the visible light characteristic changing layer. As a result of the visible light characteristic changing layer being exposed to the laser beam, a visible-light reflectivity of the visible light characteristic changing layer is changed, thereby forming a image corresponding to the image data on the label surface.
US07869338B2

A position detection device, a position detection method, a position detection control device, a position detection control method, a position detection control program, an access authentication device, an access authentication method, an access authentication control device, an access authentication control method, an access authentication control program, an information storage device, and an optical disk are provided, all of which make it possible to prevent illegal copying of the information recorded in a recording medium.An information recording/playback device detects the position on an optical disk of an RFID tag provided to the optical disk, and writes the detected position on the optical disk of the RFID tag into the RFID tag as the position information.
US07869327B2

A waveform shaping portion receives a digital reproduced signal generated from an analog reproduced signal reproduced from an information recording medium and shapes the waveform of the digital reproduced signal. A maximum likelihood decoding portion applies maximum likelihood decoding to the digital reproduced signal in the shaped waveform and generates a binarized signal indicating the result of the maximum likelihood decoding. A phase detection portion extracts, during the maximum likelihood decoding, a phase error using state transition patterns having only a single zero cross point among differential metrics at a plurality of merging points at which a set of paths branched from a given state merges. A synchronization detection portion generates a reproduction clock signal using the phase error that has been detected and brings the digital reproduced signal into synchronization with the reproduction clock signal that has been generated. This configuration makes it possible to generate a reproduction clock signal in a stable manner.
US07869325B2

While reproducing information on an optical disc, an optical disc apparatus varies a focus balance value in both positive and negative directions from a currently set value thereof by ±a which will not affect reproduction operation, measures jitter levels c and d of a reproduced signal when the focus balance value is varied in the positive and negative directions, and calculates a difference e=c−d between the measured jitter levels. If this difference e exceeds a threshold value f, the optical disc apparatus varies the focus balance value by a specified amount g in a direction in which the difference e approaches 0, thereby updating the current focus balance value.
US07869324B2

A method for identifying a type of an optical disk includes the steps of: turning on a laser diode of an optical pickup and focusing light emitted from the laser diode on the optical disk; moving the optical pickup to obtain a plurality of servo signals; reading a specific servo signal from the servo signals; and determining the type of the optical disk according to the count of enabled times of the specific servo signal and a corresponding enabled time period.
US07869320B2

In a method and device for performing tilt control, a focus and a tilt controlling output is generated, and a focusing and tilt state of an optical recording/reproducing beam is controlled by determining a radial tilt value based on a differentiation of focus control values obtained at different radii of said optical disk (1). The combination of, e.g., a 3D actuator with the dz/dr tilt measurement provides the advantage that focus and tilt adjustment can be performed in the same element. Thereby, influences or measurement variations caused by environmental conditions and/or circuit characteristics can be minimized to reduce compensations requirements. Furthermore, a 3D actuator (11) with a split coil arrangement may be used to provide a three-dimensional focus adjustment. Thereby, the 3D actuator (11) can be used for feed-forward tilt compensation without offset or gain errors and without any additional sensor.
US07869309B2

An apparatus comprises a waveguide, an optical transducer for coupling electromagnetic radiation from the waveguide to a point adjacent to an air bearing surface to heat a portion of a storage medium, and a first wire positioned adjacent to the air bearing surface, wherein current in the wire produces a magnetic field in the heated portion of the storage medium.
US07869308B2

The invention concerns a mechanical or electromechanical dive watch including hour (4) and minute (6) hands, a pressure sensor (42), a depth indicator hand (14) and a depth variation indicator hand (22), the depth indicator hand (14) providing a diver with an indication of the instantaneous value of the depth at which he is situated when diving, the depth variation indicator hand (22) being at that moment locked at zero, the depth indicator hand (14) being locked in turn when the diver reaches a required decompression stop and the depth variation indicator hand (22) being released to indicate to the diver any variations in his depth relative to the decompression stop depth, the depth variation indicator hand (22) then being returned to zero and locked while the depth indicator hand (14) is released and again indicates the exact dive depth when the diver resumes his ascent towards the surface.
US07869305B2

The present invention comprises systems and methods for preventing collisions between aircraft and ground vehicles. In one embodiment, a system includes a proximity detection unit and a transducer proximate to a selected structural portion of an aircraft, the proximity detection unit being operable to emit ranging signals through the transducer and to receive reflected signals through the transducer to determine the position of an object within a ranging area adjacent to the structural portion. The system further includes an alarm device coupled to the proximity detection unit that is responsive to a signal generated by the proximity detection unit. In another embodiment, a method includes determining a distance between the ground service vehicle and a selected structural portion of the aircraft when the vehicle is positioned in a ranging area about the aircraft. The method further includes generating a proximity alarm based upon the distance.
US07869303B2

A method for identifying a position of a source of noise in a marine seismic record includes defining, for at least one shot record, a set of possible noise source positions. A difference between travel time of noise from each possible noise source position to each of a plurality receiver position for the at least one shot record is determined. Signals from at least a subset of the receiver positions are time-aligned with respect to the difference between travel times for each possible noise source position. The time-aligned signals are then stacked. The noise source position is determined from the stacked, time-aligned signals. This result can then be used to construct a model of the noise at the receiver position.
US07869298B2

A system for determining a relative amount of usage of a data retaining device are disclosed. A charge storing device is coupled to a data retaining device in a manner that a use of the data retaining device triggers a charging of the charge storing device. In a period that the data retaining device idles, charges in the charge storing device decay due to natural means. As such, a potential of the charge storing device may be used to indicate an amount of usage of the data retaining device. A comparison of the potentials of two charge storing devices coupled one-to-one to two data retaining devices may be used as a basis to determine a relative amount of usage of each of the two data retaining devices comparing to the other.
US07869292B2

A dynamic type semiconductor memory device includes a sense amplifier connected with a bit line pair to amplify and sense a voltage difference on the bit line pair; a precharge circuit configured to precharge the bit line pair to a power supply voltage on a lower side in response to a first control signal; a memory cell capacitance having one end which is connected with the bit line pair through a first switch circuit which is controlled in response to a signal on a word line; and a reference cell capacitance having one end which is connected with the bit line pair through a second switch circuit which is controlled in response to a signal on a reference word line. The other end of the memory cell capacitance and the other end of the reference cell capacitance are electrically separated.
US07869291B2

A precharge voltage supply circuit and a semiconductor device using the same are disclosed. The semiconductor device includes a first comparator for comparing a precharge voltage with a first reference voltage having a first voltage level and outputting a first compare signal as a result of the comparison, a second comparator for comparing the precharge voltage with a second reference voltage having a second voltage level and outputting a second compare signal as a result of the comparison, a decoder configured to receive and decode the first compare signal and the second compare signal and output a plurality of control signals as a result of the decoding, and a precharge voltage supply circuit configured to receive the plurality of control signals and supply the precharge voltage.
US07869277B1

Systems and processes may use a first memory, a second memory, and a memory controller. The second memory is at least as large as a block of the first memory. Data is received and stored in the second memory for further writing to the second memory.
US07869272B2

A memory device is provided. The memory device includes a memory layer and a fixed-magnetization layer. The memory layer retains information based on a magnetization state of a magnetic material. The fixed-magnetization layer is formed on the memory layer through an intermediate layer made of an insulating material. The information is recorded on the memory layer with a change in a magnetization direction of the memory layer caused by injecting a spin-polarized electron in a stacked direction. A level of effective demagnetizing field, which is received by the memory layer, is smaller than a saturation-magnetization level of magnetization of the memory layer.
US07869271B2

A method of testing PRAM devices is disclosed. The method simultaneously writes input data to a plurality of memory banks by writing set data to a first group of memory banks and writing reset data to a second group of memory banks, performs a write operation test by comparing data read from the plurality of memory banks with corresponding input data, and determines a fail cell in relation to the test results.
US07869268B2

An integrated circuit includes a non-volatile memory having memory cells each having a memory point and a selection transistor having a control terminal connected to a word line, a row decoder for supplying word line selection signals, and at least one generator for supplying memory cells with an erase or programming voltage or current. Word line drivers are interposed between the row decoder and the word lines, and are arranged for applying to a word line selected by the row decoder control pulses, the profile of which corresponds to a profile of an erase or programming voltage or current pulse. Application is for particularly but not exclusively to phase change memories.
US07869266B2

A multi-state low-current-switching magnetic memory element (magnetic memory element) comprising a free layer, two stacks, and a magnetic tunneling junction is disclosed. The stacks and magnetic tunneling junction are disposed upon surfaces of the free layer, with the magnetic tunneling junction located between the stacks. The stacks pin magnetic domains within the free layer, creating a free layer domain wall. A current passed from stack to stack pushes the domain wall, repositioning the domain wall within the free layer. The position of the domain wall relative to the magnetic tunnel junction corresponds to a unique resistance value, and passing current from a stack to the magnetic tunnel junction reads the magnetic memory element's resistance. Thus, unique memory states may be achieved by moving the domain wall.
US07869264B2

An information storage device includes a record head and a data recording medium. The record head includes a magnetic substance having magnetic domain walls and records data in the data recording medium. In a method of operating the information storage device, a first high frequency current or a high frequency magnetic field is supplied to the magnetic substance while magnetic domain walls of the magnetic substance are moved.
US07869250B2

In a semiconductor integrated circuit device having a volatile memory high-speed operation is enabled and the density of the memory can be enhanced. The volatile memory includes a word line, a complementary bit line having bit lines, a plurality of common source lines, and a memory cell that is coupled with the word line and the complementary bit lines. The memory cell includes transistors. The gate electrodes of the transistors are coupled with the word line, and the drain electrode of one of the transistors is coupled with one of the bit lines. The drain electrode of the other transistor is coupled with the other bit line. The respective source electrodes of the transistors are coupled with any one of the common source lines, or brought in a floating state, thereby storing storage information in the memory cell.
US07869246B2

A bit line decoder includes control devices that selectively communicate with bit lines and that are arranged in a multi-level configuration having a plurality of levels. Each of the levels includes a plurality of the control devices connected to each other in series forming one or more junctions. Each of the one or more junctions in one of the levels is directly connected to a respective one of the bit lines. A control module selects from the bit lines a first bit line and a second bit line associated with a memory cell when determining a state of the memory cell and generates first control signals that deselect one or more of the control devices at each of the levels. When the one or more control devices at each of the levels are deselected, a first group of the bit lines including the first bit line is charged to a first potential and a second group of the bit lines including the second bit line is charged to a second potential. An isolation circuit to isolate a first one of the levels from a second one of the levels includes a plurality of isolation devices having first ends that communicate with the control devices of the first one of the levels and second ends that communicate with the control devices of the second one of the levels.
US07869243B2

A memory module with a module board is disclosed, on the front side of which a plurality of first memory devices are arranged in rows. A plurality of second memory devices are arranged in rows on the back side. The first and second memory devices have a single chip each. Further, a first register device for providing first control signals to first rows of first memory devices and to first rows of second memory devices is provided. A second register device serves to provide first control signals to second rows of first memory devices and to second rows of second memory devices.
US07869242B2

Improved methods and structures are provided for impedance-controlled low-loss lines in CMOS integrated circuits. The present invention offers a reduction in signal delay. Moreover, the present invention further provides a reduction in skew and crosstalk. Embodiments of the present invention also provide the fabrication of improved transmission lines for silicon-based integrated circuits using conventional CMOS fabrication techniques. One method of the present invention provides transmission lines in an integrated circuit. Another method includes forming transmission lines in a memory device. The present invention includes a transmission line circuit, a differential line circuit, a twisted pair circuit as well as systems incorporating these different circuits all formed according to the methods provided in this application.
US07869237B1

A phase-shifted PWM dc-to-dc converter includes a pair of switched half-bridges defining taps. The primary of an output transformer is coupled across the taps to receive AC, and produces transformed AC which is rectified and filtered to produce the output dc. Zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) is maintained over the full range from zero load current to maximum load current by the use of an auxiliary circuit including an “inverting” second transformer having primary and secondary windings serially coupled with capacitors. The primary-capacitor serial circuit is connected between a first half-bridge tap and reference potential, and the secondary-capacitor serial circuit is connected by an inductance between second half-bridge tap and a reference potential.
US07869234B2

A three-phase AC/DC active power converter provides an H-bridge that is controlled by a DSP (digital signal processing) controller that places the H-bridge in a voltage-boost mode of operation when voltage of a DC-link capacitor maintained by the H-bridge is near than the voltage input from a three-phase power source. The voltage difference between the boosted DC-link voltage and the three-phase power source voltage provides a voltage potential thereby giving the control loops a possible gain value. The gain value provides loop stability to thereby prevent an inrush of electrical current into the power converter upon startup. The converter also allows harmonic distortion to be modified through wave shaping of the normally pure sinus conduction signal.
US07869232B2

An electric power converter apparatus having a function of converting a power source voltage into an AC voltage having an arbitrary frequency and maintaining an output voltage constant even on the power source variation, in which the electric power converter apparatus decreases the output voltage when the output voltage drops to equal to or less than a predetermined value, afterward, increases the output voltage in response to a predetermined rate of change when the power source voltage rises.
US07869230B2

The present invention discloses a resonance circuit for use in an H-bridge DC-DC converter, the resonance circuit comprising: an H-bridge converter, capable of converting unstable DC power into stable DC power; a first resonance circuit, disposed on a buck side of the H-bridge converter for reducing the turn-off loss of a first active switching element; and a second resonance circuit, disposed on a boost side of the H-bridge converter for reducing the turn-on loss of a second active switching element. The H-bridge converter comprises: a first active switching element and a second active switching element; a coupled inductor with dual windings capable of storing energy; and a first passive switching element and a second passive switching element. The first resonance circuit comprises: a first inductor, a second inductor, a first auxiliary inductor, a first passive switching element, a second passive switching element and a first auxiliary capacitor, wherein the second inductor comprises a primary winding and an auxiliary winding. The second resonance circuit comprises: a second auxiliary inductor, a third active switching element, a first auxiliary inductor, a first passive switching element, a fourth passive switching element, a third capacitor, a fourth capacitor and a second auxiliary capacitor.
US07869227B2

A method of supplying a power to elements in a power supply apparatus including a primary side and a second side. Particularly, a method of supplying a driving power to an element at the primary side of the power supply apparatus from a primary coil of a transformer. A power factor improvement section improves a power factor of a received alternating current (AC) power. A transformer then receives the AC power having the improved power factor from a primary coil and generates an induced power at a secondary coil. The transformer then provides the AC power to drive a predetermined element located at the primary side of the power supply apparatus from the primary coil.
US07869221B2

An apparatus for constructing, repairing and operating modular electronic systems utilizes peripheral half-capacitors (i.e., conductive plates on the outside of the modules) to communicate non-conductively between abutting modules. Such systems provide lower cost, improved testability/reparability and greater density than conventional modular packaging techniques, such as printed circuit boards and multi-chip modules. The non-conductive interconnection technique of the invention can be applied to all levels in the packaging hierarchy, from bare semiconductor dies to complete functional sub-units. Numerous exemplary systems and applications are described.
US07869211B2

An electronic module. The electronic module includes a chassis, a plurality of capacitors, and a heat sink. The chassis includes a first end and a second end. The first end is opposite the second end. The chassis also includes a first side, a second side, a third side, and a fourth side. The second side is opposite the first side. The third side is connected to at least one of the first and second sides. The fourth side is connected to at least one of the first and second sides, and is opposite the third side. The chassis is fabricated from a material which stops component debris from passing through the sides of the chassis. The capacitors are positioned within the chassis. The heat sink is positioned between the capacitors and the second end.
US07869205B2

A data processing device including a first housing, a second housing, and a bracket is provided. The bracket is disposed between the first housing and the second housing. The bracket has a body and a plurality of supporting ends. The body has a bearing surface and a supporting surface. The bearing surface faces the first housing, and does not contact the first housing. The supporting surface faces the second housing, and does not contact the second housing. The supporting ends are disposed around the body and contact the first housing to support the body. A first distance between the supporting surface relatively away from the supporting ends and the second housing is larger than a second distance between the supporting surface relatively close to the supporting ends and the second housing.
US07869201B2

A modular system comprises an appliance conducting a useful cycle of operation, a consumer electronic device removably mounted to the appliance and having a display, and an adapter mounting the consumer electronic device to the appliance for movement between a first orientation, where the display is visible to a user, and a second orientation, where the display is concealed from the user.
US07869199B2

A battery cover assembly comprises a housing, a battery cover, a first magnetic element and second magnetic element. The magnetic pole of the first magnetic is opposite to the magnetic pole of the second magnetic element such that the first magnetic element and the second magnetic element are magnetically attracted to each other to attach the battery cover to the housing to cover the receiving space of the housing.
US07869196B2

An electronic apparatus to which a portable apparatus is attachable, the electronic apparatus including: a main body portion; a front face portion; and a flexible board connecting the main body portion and the front face portion, and the front face portion is arranged to be capable of being displaced with respect to the main body portion; and a recess portion is defined at the front face portion to be capable of partially accommodating a distorted portion of the flexible board to be distorted when the flexible board is displaced.
US07869194B2

At least one embodiment of the invention provides that, for a closing apparatus for a part rack withdrawable via V-shaped rod assemblies, the closing apparatus includes at least one pin formed on rod assemblies or as part of them, each pin engaging in a slot in an actuating element. Owing to the use of the slots, the actuating element can be formed as a rigid body, with the result that no frictional forces need to be overcome when inserting a circuit breaker into a withdrawable-part rack with the closing apparatus according to at least one embodiment of the invention. With the closing apparatus according to at least one embodiment of the invention, a locking element can have a particularly simple design: it can be guided in the actuating element.
US07869192B2

An electrical switching apparatus mounting apparatus includes a base with a planar portion having a first side and an opposite second side. A number of first adjustable members are coupled to the opposite second side. Each of the first adjustable members includes a first end and an opposite second end. A number of second adjustable members are coupled transverse to the first adjustable members and include a first end and an opposite second end. At least one of the first end and the opposite second end of at least one of the first adjustable members and the second adjustable members is adjustable generally toward or generally away from the base. At least one of the first end and the opposite second end of the at least one of the first adjustable members and the second adjustable members is coupled to a number of walls of a switchgear enclosure.
US07869187B2

An acoustic bandgap structure can include a stack of at least three ferroelectric layers with a top side and bottom side of each of the ferroelectric layers contacting an electrode layer, where the ferroelectric layers and the electrode layers form a substantially periodic structure in the direction normal to the ferroelectric and electrode layers and where an acoustic characteristic impedance and thickness of each layer are selected to realize an acoustic bandgap over a desired frequency band for the purpose of improving the device Q.
US07869180B2

An apparatus for providing electrostatic discharge protection includes a plurality of conductive circumferential extensions defined by overlapping circular voids between a first conductor surface and a second conductor surface.
US07869176B2

An overvoltage protection circuit for protecting a pass element in a controlled voltage supply circuit electrically connected between a circuit power supply interconnection terminal region suited for electrical connection to a circuit power supply and an output terminal, the pass element being protected from voltage surges that may occur on the circuit power supply interconnection with respect to a voltage reference interconnection. A voltage reference is provided electrically connected in series with a voltage. The voltage divider and the voltage reference are connected in series with one another between the circuit power supply interconnection and the voltage reference interconnection. A threshold switch is electrically connected to a corresponding one of the voltage divider output and one of the voltage divider terminating regions terminating regions, and has an output coupled to the pass element control region.
US07869174B2

Disclosed is a semiconductor integrated circuit device that includes an output circuit with power thereof supplied from one power supply system, an input circuit with an input terminal thereof connected to an output terminal of the output circuit through a signal line and with power thereof supplied from other power supply system different from the one power supply system, and a circuit that restrains a current flowing from the output circuit into the signal line when an ESD stress is applied from the output circuit to a signal transmitting/receiving portion of the input circuit.
US07869172B2

An input processing unit of safe digital controller includes units for determining ground when a voltage V from an input terminal is equal to or lower than a ground determination value; for outputting a first specified value regardless of the voltage V during a first given period immediately after the controller starts; for outputting a value based on the voltage V when the voltage V is equal to or higher than the ground fault determination value and equal to or lower than a disconnection determination value after the first given period, outputting a third specified value during a second given period after the first given period when the voltage V is lower than the ground fault determination value, and outputting the first specified value when a state in which the voltage V is lower than the ground fault determination value is maintained for the second given period or longer; and for outputting a second specified value during the second given period when the voltage V is higher than the disconnection determination value after the first given period, and outputting the first specified value when a state in which the voltage V is higher than the disconnection determination value is maintained for the second given period or longer.
US07869171B2

The present invention is directed to an electrical wiring device that includes a cover assembly is coupled to the housing. The cover assembly includes at least one set of receptacle openings disposed on either side of a central portion of the cover assembly in communication with a portion of the plurality of receptacle terminals. A fault detection circuit is configured to provide a fault detection output in response to detecting a fault condition. A circuit interrupter is coupled between the plurality of line terminals and the plurality of load terminals. A light assembly is coupled to the plurality of line terminals or the plurality of load terminals. The light assembly has a light transmission region disposed in the central portion and occupying a substantial portion of a width of the cover assembly. The light assembly is selectively driven from a de-energizeci state to a light emitting state in response to a predetermined stimulus.
US07869160B1

A perpendicular recording head is provided having a bottom pole, a writer pole disposed above the bottom pole, and a top shield disposed above the writer pole. The bottom pole and the top shield are both magnetically coupled to the writer pole. The writer pole includes a concave facing surface that faces the top shield. The top shield can include a convex surface that faces the writer pole. The top shield can also include a pedestal that protrudes towards the writer pole.
US07869157B2

In a dual-stage actuator magnetic drive having a coarse actuator and a fine actuator, an amplitude level of a command signal for the fine actuator during a decoupling-path control depends on a gain of an applied fine actuator model. The fine actuator model gain depends on the amplitude level of the fine actuator command signal and needs to be calibrated to avoid performance degradation. The gain is calibrated by determining a deviation of the fine actuator model gain from the fine actuator gain during decoupling-path control. This deviation is obtained by comparing gain values of the open-loop transfer functions measured for the decoupling-path control case and the single coarse actuator control case with respect to the feedback loop of the coarse actuator at an excitation signal frequency, when the excitation signal is added to the coarse actuator.
US07869155B1

A servo writer to detect a ramp is disclosed. The servo writer includes a head positioner to position a head of an actuator arm of a head disk assembly relative to a disk and a controller to: control the head positioner to move the head of the actuator arm toward a ramp of the disk; determine a head positioner value generated by the head positioner to move the head; and detect the ramp when the head positioner value exceeds a predetermined threshold.
US07869151B2

A color wheel comprises sectorial color filter segments and a support member. Protrusions are disposed at the support member and engaged with either through-holes or cavities as segment fixing mechanisms formed at the color filter segments, whereby the color filter segments are fixedly positioned with respect to the support member in the radial direction. Consequently, the color filter segments can be surely prevented from getting scattered off when the color wheel spins at high speed.
US07869149B2

An exemplary lens module includes an electromagnetic shutter, an electromagnetic motor and a magnetic field barrier sandwiched between the electromagnetic shutter and the electromagnetic motor. The electromagnetic shutter is configured for generating a first magnetic field. The electromagnetic motor is configured for generating a second magnetic field. The magnetic field barrier is configured for preventing the first magnetic field and the second magnetic field from penetrating therethrough.
US07869139B2

The present invention provides optical systems containing an afocal variator able to impart focus means to the optical system, as well as essentially constant magnification throughout the focal translation. The present application teaches a specific formula or set of spacing requirements for the positioning of the afocal variator that can be used with any afocal variator optical lens system comprised of various lens combinations. Provided that the formula for spacing the afocal variator within the optical system is utilized, the afocal variator acts not only to focus the optical system but maintains substantially constant magnification during the translation of focus.
US07869133B2

Apparatus and methods are disclosed for transforming a laser beam to a polarized shaped beam in, for example, a frequency converted laser system. In one embodiment, an anamorphic optical system includes a first prism and a second prism that can be configured to form a Brewster telescope, the first prism and second prism each having an input surface and an exit surface, and wherein at least one surface of the input or exit surfaces are coated with a polarization selective coating. The optical system can include an adjustment system configured to change the position of one or both of the first prism and the second prism to adjust the transformation of the shape of the laser beam. In some embodiments of the optical system, a configuration of the first prism, the second prism, and the polarization selective coating produce a laser beam having a polarization ratio of about 100:1 or higher.
US07869131B2

Apparatus, methods, and systems provide emitting and negatively-refractive focusing of electromagnetic energy. In some approaches the negatively-refractive focusing includes negatively-refractive focusing from an interior field region with an axial magnification substantially less 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.
US07869129B2

The invention relates to a retractable display device for a motor vehicle comprising a light source (8) for generating a displayable information and a retractable blade (1) for reflecting information towards the vehicle user. Said blade (1) is mounted on a movable support (2) displaceable between a rest position and at least one display position in such a way that said blade (1) is retracted when the movable support (2) is in the rest position and the blade is unfolded when said movable support (2) is in the display position.
US07869118B2

A method of fabricating electro-phoretic display is performed by the steps of: providing a first electrode substrate and a second electrode substrate disposed above the first electrode substrate in an electro-phoretic liquid, wherein the first electrode substrate comprises a substrate and a plurality of pixel electrodes disposed on the substrate; putting at least a charged micro-capsule between the first electrode substrate and the second electrode substrate in the electro-phoretic liquid; making the electricity of a portion of the pixel electrodes is opposite to the electricity of the charged micro-capsules for attracting the charged micro-capsules to above the portion of the pixel electrodes. Since the charged microcapsules are disposed on the pixel electrodes immediately and the micro-capsules corresponded to the same pixel electrode have a plurality of colorful charged particles with the same color, the electric-phoretic display fabricated by this method may not only have high reflectivity and transmittance, but also display a picture with single original color.
US07869108B2

The present invention provides an electromagnetically actuating optical deflecting elements which can be manufactured out of reduced number of components and are capable of being actuated at lower frequencies and at wider deflecting angles without causing mechanical influences of the metal wiring on beams of the optical deflecting element.For that purpose, the electromagnetically actuating optical deflecting element comprises: a movable part having a light reflecting plane and a coil; a base component having a magnetic field generating means; and a pair of beams which axially support said movable part on to the base component, The movable part is actuated by an electromagnetic force generated by an electric current flowing through the coil and the magnetic field generating means. The beams 108 are constituted by one material having functions to perform as conductors for supplying electric current to the coil, to support the movable part, to perform as springs for returning the movable part to a starting position.
US07869107B2

An optical comparator circuit includes a first stage including an optical gate which receives the signals applied to the two inputs and produces at its output an N bit signal with each bit being representative of the logical expression A XOR B for a respective pair of bits of the words A and B, a second stage which comprises an optical gate having at least two inputs, a first input being connected to the output of the first stage by an optical connection having a first time delay, and a second input being connected to the output of the first stage through (N−1) further optical connections, each further connection having a different associated time delay which is longer than the first time delay.
US07869099B2

For an automatic image diagnosis, toned images or residual toner existing on the photoconductive surface of a photoreceptor may be scanned with light energy provided by the raster scanning system. The light energy, which may be reflected from the photoreceptor surface, may be disturbed due to scattering/absorption in toned or damaged surface regions. The light energy may be directed to image sensors to obtain a spatial image map of the photoreceptor surface in conjunction with pixel clock information present for the raster scanning system. The evaluation may be made based on the spatial image map. Diagnostic and maintenance may then be applied to correct the defect and/or adjust a tone level for a latent image formed on the photoreceptor surface.
US07869094B2

Techniques are disclosed for selectively dithering only a subset of a digital image. One or more ranges of digits are selected for dithering. Only those pixels having digits within the selected range(s) in the digital image are dithered. The image is printed after being selectively dithered. Digits may be selected for dithering if they have values within the range(s) of one or more non-monotonic regions of a printer transfer function. Dithering may be performed on the subset of the digital image by applying a nonlinear transformation is applied to the image and adding a dither pattern to the transformed image. The result is quantized, and the inverse of the nonlinear transformation is applied to the quantized image to produce a dithered image. The nonlinear transformation is constructed such that the effects of the dither pattern appear only in that subset of the image having digits in the selected range(s).
US07869091B2

A method and system sense print a calibration feature towards an edge of a medium, scan the feature to determine a parameter and adjust a characteristic of the scanner based on the parameter.
US07869085B2

A luminance signal Ya and a color-difference signal Ua/Va constituting an input image signal is transferred to a frame memory (first memory) in the unit of line synchronously with its horizontal synchronous signal and written therein. A memory TG211 reads out a read-out request RRQ. The cycle of this request RRQ is a time computed based on a single vertical effective period of an output image signal Sc and the number of lines objective for rate conversion of an input image signal Sa. The luminance signal Ya and color-difference signal Ua/Va are transferred in the unit of line from the frame memory to rate conversion units (second memory) through buffers. There occurs no deflection in this transfer cycle and in each transfer cycle, the stable data transmission band can be secured.
US07869081B2

A receiving section receives from a host computer print job data containing print data and print information. An analyzing section analyzes the print job data to determine whether the print information includes START and END commands that specify a range of the print data to be output. A setting section sets the range specified by the START and END commands as a print range. An outputting section prints data in the print range.
US07869076B1

A fax processing system handles faxes that are originally destined for a recipient's phone number. The fax processing system communicates with the fax recipient via a data communications network (for example, the Internet) and can provide more sophisticated fax handling capabilities than conventional fax machines.
US07869073B2

An image forming system comprising an information terminal device and a printing device that is connected to the information terminal device through a network and a local connection and performs a printing process of image data sent from the information terminal device, in which the information terminal device includes a network identifier acquisition unit that obtains through the local connection a network identifier of the printing device on the network at the time of the local connection between the information terminal device and the printing device, and a data communication unit that performs data communications with the printing device through the network according to the network identifier obtained by the network identifier acquisition unit.
US07869071B2

A printer has a security algorithm configured to determine a source of an incoming print job and accept or reject the print job based on the source of the print job.
US07869063B2

A processing mode appropriate to the cause of the error is selected when an error occurs in a printer, thereby avoiding wasting processing time and consumables. The printing apparatus has a normal processing mode control unit for printing based on data sent from a host device; a deletion processing mode control unit for discarding data except for specific commands sent from the host device; an error detection unit for detecting errors; a cause of error determination unit for identifying the cause of the error; a processing mode storage unit for storing the processing modes as well as information pertaining to which processing mode to be executed for a particular cause of error when an error occurs; and a processing mode determination unit for selecting the normal processing mode control unit or deletion processing mode control unit to execute the appropriate processing mode stored in the processing mode storage unit according to the cause of error identified by the cause of error determination unit when the error detection unit detects an error, and to select the normal processing mode control unit to change from the deletion processing mode to the normal processing mode based on a resume command from the host device.
US07869060B2

A jig for measuring an object shape includes a plate having a first surface and a second surface opposed to the first plate and two reference balls fixed to the plate, each ball surface being exposed on both the first and second surfaces. A reference plane is fixed to the plate, the reference plane having a first plane and a second plane that are parallel to each other, the first and second planes being exposed on the first and second surfaces of the plate, respectively. An object-holding portion is fixed to the plate, the object-holding portion having a hole passing through the plate, the object-holding portion being able to hold an object in the hole with the front and back surfaces of the object being exposed on the first and second surfaces of the plate, respectively.
US07869055B2

Process control monitors are disclosed that are produced using at least some of the same process steps used to manufacture a MEMS device. Analysis of the process control monitors can provide information regarding properties of the MEMS device and components or sub-components in the device. This information can be used to identify errors in processing or to optimize the MEMS device. In some embodiments, analysis of the process control monitors may utilize optical measurements.
US07869047B2

An in-line optical sensor assembly that measures optical reflection density on a printed sheet horizontally conveyed and supported by a paper transport section of a printer is provided. The sensor assembly includes a densitometer having frame provided with a pair of tapered blades that engage the moving printed sheet, a light source disposed on said frame that illuminates a portion of said printed sheet at a continuous intensity, and a photo-detector mounted on the frame and positioned to receive light from the light source that is reflected off said printed sheet. The optical sensor assembly also includes a mounting that floatably mounts the densitometer in a position over the printed sheet. The mounting can be formed from an opening in a cover plate of the paper transport section that slidably receives the densitometer such that the pair of tapered blades continuously engages the moving sheet in ski-like fashion due to the weight of the densitometer. The floating mounting arrangement maintains a constant, predetermined distance between the photo-detector of the densitometer and the illuminated portion of the moving printed sheet regardless of vertical movement of the printed sheet within said paper transport section.
US07869046B2

According to an embodiment there is provided a bi-directional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) instrument, including an enclosure having a plurality of sides. A first side has a relatively high reflectivity substantially non-specular interior surface, while each of the remaining sides has a relatively low reflectivity interior surface. A bottom of the enclosure has a relatively low reflectivity interior surface. A viewport is formed in one of the plurality of sides or the bottom, at least one exit port is formed in at least one of the sides, and at least one entrance port is formed in at least of the sides.
US07869043B2

A passive skin detection system includes a main body which houses a collection optics system having an image splitting device, a visible light filter mechanism having a plurality of narrow band filters and an image capture system. The image capture system stores visible light data as a plurality of digital images formed from a plurality of pixels. Each of the plurality of digital images is associated with visible light passed through a respective one of the plurality of narrow band filters. An image processing system, operatively connected to the image capture system, compares relative intensities of each of the plurality of digital images to identify one or more of the plurality of pixels having an absorption bandwidth indicating a presence of skin. The processing system determines whether a person, identified by his skin, is present in any of the images captured by the detection system.
US07869036B2

An analysis apparatus for analyzing a specimen comprises a spectral separator for dispersing spatially an electromagnetic wave introduced from the specimen into spectral components, a sensing element array containing plural sensing elements for sensing the spectral components of the electromagnetic wave dispersed spatially by the spectral separator, and a spectrum calculator for calculating the spectrum from the signal sensed by the sensing elements; the sensing element array having sensitivities different to each of the spectral components of the electromagnetic wave dispersed spatially by the spectral separator, and the spectral separator and the sensing element array being placed so as to receive the spectral components by each of the sensing elements at different incident angles.
US07869034B2

A multi-angle and multi-channel detecting device for detecting one or more than one samples is provided. The device has a light collector and a multi-channel kernel module. The light collector has a plurality of fiber probes arranged perpendicular to and/or inclined to the sample(s) so as to collect light signals. The kernel module is coupled to the light collector for detecting the sample(s).
US07869033B2

The optical analysis of body fluids is a method of determining the relative concentration of certain bio-molecules in blood and urine samples by fluorescent spectroscopy. The relative concentration of these bio-molecules serves as a marker or screening test to assess the presence and stage of cancer in some organ or tissue of the body, and in some cases, the presence of particular types of cancer in the body. The bio-molecules include various species of porphyrin, flavins (including flavin mononucleotide[FMN], flavin adeno dinucleotide [FAD], and riboflavin), bile components (including biliverdin and bilirubin), tyrosine, tryptophan, and NAD(P)H. The fluorescent spectroscopy techniques include determining intensity maxima in the emission spectra at particular excitation wavelengths characteristic of the bio-molecules, determining intensity maxima in the excitation spectra at particular emission wavelengths characteristic of the bio-molecules, and synchronous scanning of the excitation and emission spectra while maintaining particular offsets in the wavelengths.
US07869029B1

An optical system for receiving and collimating light and for transporting and processing light received in each of N wavelength ranges, including near-ultraviolet, visible, near-infrared and mid-infrared wavelengths, to determine a fraction of light received, and associated dark current, in each wavelength range in each of a sequence of time intervals.
US07869028B2

An apparatus for the electromagnetic spectrum or optical analysis of a material. The apparatus comprising a measuring probe having a housing with at least one radiation or light measuring element, a measuring window and with at least one detection element for the analysis. The measuring probe is formed and guided displaceably in the axial direction in such a way that at least part of the housing in which the measuring window is located enters through an opening in which the material to be analyzed is located for the analysis. The at least one measuring window is arranged in at least one subregion of the circumferential wall of the housing. A sealing cap is located between a front end face of the housing and the measuring window arranged in the circumferential wall and consequently covers the opening in a retracted position of the measuring probe.
US07869024B2

A defect inspection apparatus is capable of inspecting an extremely small defect present on the top and edge surfaces of a sample such as a semiconductor substrate or a thin film substrate with high sensitivity and at high speed. The defect inspection apparatus has an illumination optical system, a plurality of detection optical units and a signal processor. One or more of the detection optical units receives either light diffracted from an edge portion of the sample or light diffracted from an edge grip holding the sample. The one or more of the detection optical units shields the diffracted light received by the detection optical unit based on a signal obtained by monitoring an intensity of the diffracted light received by the detection optical unit in order to inspect a sample portion located near the edge portion and a sample portion located near the edge grip.
US07869003B2

A reticle gripper to hold a reticle of a lithographic apparatus is presented. The reticle gripper includes three gripper structures to contact the surface of the reticle. Each of the three gripper structures determines a position with respect to the reticle gripper of one of the points on the surface of the reticle.
US07868996B2

To provide a liquid immersion microscope device enabling nondestructive liquid immersion observation of a substrate without deteriorating quality of the substrate. To attain this, a liquid immersion microscope device of the present invention includes a supporting unit supporting a substrate as an observation target, an objective lens of a liquid immersion type, a first supplying unit supplying ultrapure water as a liquid for observation to a gap between a tip of the objective lens and the substrate, a first draining unit draining the liquid for observation after observation of the substrate, a second supplying unit supplying a liquid for cleaning, which is different from the liquid for observation drained by the first draining unit, to an area, of the substrate, that has been in contact with the liquid for observation, and a second draining unit draining the liquid for cleaning after the substrate is cleaned.
US07868995B2

A motion picture camera is provided. The motion picture camera having a camera housing that has an objective carrier which is arranged in the recording beam path of the motion picture camera and on which a recording optics can be fastened, having a camera frame that is arranged in the camera housing and which carries noise-producing parts of the camera mechanism, forms an image plane for the motion picture film, and is suspended on the camera housing at least two upper connecting elements arranged in the front area of the motion picture camera above and on both sides of the image center of the motion picture camera, and is supported on the camera housing with a lower connecting element arranged in the front area of the motion picture camera below the image center, and having a device for soundproofing.
US07868994B2

A liquid crystal display device includes a first substrate and a second substrate facing each other, column spacers at designated areas of the second substrate, protrusions having a first height on the first substrate corresponding to portions of the column spacers, compensation patterns having a second height on the first substrate corresponding to the edges of the column spacers, the second height being lower than the first height, and a liquid crystal layer filling a gap between the first and second substrates.
US07868991B2

In a wiring figure pattern of a display panel, each wiring is separated into bands of optimal widths by slits of a constant width as a wiring figure pattern so that minimum light irradiation for curing a photocuring sealing material can be carried out without increasing the electric resistance of the wiring. The optimal width means a resistance such that light coming from both sides of the band cures the sealing material on the upper surface of the band without influencing the driving and display of liquid crystal. At a point where the width of wiring becomes two times or more of the optical width between the start point and end point of intersection of the wiring and the sealing material region, the wiring is divided by the slit. A first branch forms the band of the optimal width extending from the branch point to the end point, whereas the second branch extends to the end point and is spaced apart from the first branch by the width of the slit. At a point where the width becomes two times or more of the optimal width, the wiring is divided. Subsequently, branching is repeated until the end point is reached. A continuous triangle is formed in the slit at each branch, thus adjusting the width of the bands to have the optimal width.
US07868990B2

An exemplary liquid crystal panel (20) includes a first substrate (21); a second substrate (23) parallel to the first substrate; a sealant; a liquid crystal layer (27) and a light shielding member (234). The sealant is configured for adhering the two substrates together, the sealant including a first portion (24) and a second portion (25). The liquid crystal layer is sandwiched between the two substrates. The light shielding member corresponds to the second portion of the sealant. The first portion of the sealant is adjacent to the liquid crystal layer. The second portion of the sealant surrounds the first portion of the sealant. The second portion of the sealant has stronger adhesion than the first portion. The liquid crystal panel has improved reliability.
US07868984B2

In a liquid crystal display device, gate lines and common lines are first concurrently formed, and after an interlayer film is formed, a pixel electrode, common electrodes, and source lines are formed at the same time. By this, a electrode pattern can be made simple and manufacturing steps are simplified. Further, wiring lines and electrode disposed in the layer closest to a liquid crystal layer are made the pixel electrode, common electrodes and source lines, and the shapes thereof are made simple.
US07868975B2

A color filter substrate having a substrate, a black matrix layer, a first filter layer and a second filter layer is provided. The black matrix layer is disposed on the substrate, and multiple pixel areas is defined on the substrate by the black matrix layer. Each pixel area includes a first sub-pixel area and a second sub-pixel area. The first and second filter layer are disposed in the pixel area, and the second filter layer covers the first filter layer. A refractive index of the second filter layer is greater than that of the first filter layer, such that light emitting direction of the first sub-pixel area is different from that of the second sub-pixel area. Besides, a fabricating method of the color filter substrate and an LCD panel with the color filter substrate are provided. The LCD panel with 3D image display or dual-view function can be easily manufactured.
US07868973B2

An exemplary LCD device (2) includes a first substrate (21), a second substrate (22), a third substrate (23), a first liquid crystal layer (24), and a second liquid crystal layer (25). The first, second, and third substrates are arranged parallel to one another, and the first substrate is interposed between the second and third substrates. The first liquid crystal layer is interposed between the first substrate and the second substrate. The second liquid crystal layer is interposed between the first substrate and the third substrate. Optical rotations of the liquid crystal molecules of the first liquid crystal layer and the liquid crystal molecules of the second liquid crystal layer are reversed relative to each other, with the liquid crystal molecules of the first and second liquid crystal layers being arranged enantiomorphously at the respective opposite sides of the first substrate.
US07868970B2

In order to provide a larger-sized light guide plate that is thin and lightweight and allows more uniform, less uneven and higher-luminance illuminating light to emit from a light exit surface, a sectional shape of each back surface of the rectangular light exit surface satisfies the following 10th-order function formula. X is a position from the origin in a direction parallel to the one side of the light guide plate, and Y is a position from the origin in a direction perpendicular to the one side. Y=A0+A1×X+A2×X2+A3×X3+A4×X4+A5×X5+A6×X6+A7×X7+A8×X8+A9×X9+A10×X10, −1.3×105≦A0≦2.4×105, −2.0×104≦A1≦9.4×104, −2.6×104≦A2≦5.7×104, −5.5×103≦A3≦2.2×103, −2.1×102≦A4≦1.1×102, −3.7×10≦A5≦2.2×10, −1.4×10≦A6≦3.3×10, −3.6≦A7≦1.5, −7.8×10−2≦A8≦3.3×10−2, −1.2×10−2≦A9≦3.2×10−2, −1.4×10−3≦A10≦4.9×10−4. A planar lighting device includes the light guide plate, and a liquid crystal display apparatus includes the planar lighting device as a backlight unit.
US07868964B2

A liquid crystal display panel manufacturing apparatus is provided with a stage for fixing a substrate having an optical film adhered to at least one of surfaces of the substrate. The stage has a suction hole for attracting the substrate by suction. The stage has an interposition member located around a region provided with the suction hole, and the interposition member has a closed frame-like form in a plan view. A display panel manufacturing apparatus that can stably fix the substrate is provided.
US07868951B2

Since size and mounting method of display panels of a large-sized panel type television differ by manufacturers, different parts are needed for display panels of different manufacturers. The display panel fixing plate is separated into a panel top fixing plate, a panel bottom fixing plate, and a bridge plate. The panel top fixing plate is fixed to the upper side of a flat display panel and the panel bottom fixing plate to the lower side of the flat display panel, and both plates are held with two bridge members. In addition, by making a screw hole vertically oblong that is used for screwing the bridge member to the panel top fixing plate, it is possible use the same panel top fixing plate, the panel bottom fixing plate, and the bridge plate for different inch display panels.
US07868949B2

In order to further develop a circuit arrangement (100; 102; 104; 106) and a method of locking onto and/or processing data, in particular audio, television and/or video data, by means of at least one phase locked loop (40), wherein phase information is detected by means of at least one phase detector (44), in particular following the arrival of at least one rising edge and/or falling edge of at least one analog input signal (50; 50), at least one increment (24) is determined by means of at least one loop filter (30), to which the output signal (56) which is output by the phase detector (44) is fed, and at least one ramp oscillator (46) is fed the increment (24) which is output by the loop filter (30), such that inter alia the circuit arrangement (100; 102; 104; 106).
US07868942B2

A driving device and an image pickup apparatus including the driving device capable of reliably detecting a vibration state of a vibrated member even when a piezoelectric element including as a control circuit an H-bridge circuit which contributes miniaturization of the circuit is employed are provided. In this driving device, a single piezoelectric member including a first driving electrode and a vibration detection electrode on a first side and a second driving electrode and a ground electrode on a second side is attached to an optical low-pass filter serving as the vibrated member so as to vibrate the optical low-pass filter. Furthermore, the vibration detection electrode is used to detect the vibration status of the optical low-pass filter.
US07868941B2

The data transfer apparatus includes a recording unit which records a plurality of image data on a first recording medium, a management unit which manages the plurality of image data by classifying the image data into a plurality of groups, an addition unit which adds one of the plurality of groups as a group of a second recording medium, a determination unit which determines a group corresponding to the group from the plurality of groups, a search unit which searches the plurality of image data for image data classified into the group determined by the determination unit, a display control unit which displays information of image data found by the search unit, and a transfer unit which transfers selected image data to a recording apparatus for recording information data on the second recording medium so as to record the selected image data on the second recording medium.
US07868935B2

An imaging area includes an effective pixel section and an optical black section. Pixel signals read out from the imaging area, onto a plurality of vertical signal lines, are converted by an AD conversion circuit. The converted pixel signals are sequentially input to a signal processing circuit for computing processing. The circuit is provided with a horizontal-stripe noise suppression circuit for averaging of output signals, on a plurality of lines, which are readout from an OB section at an end in the horizontal direction in the imaging area, and for adding and subtracting of the averaged result to effective-pixel signals.
US07868925B2

An image data generator 100 according to the present invention includes a shooting section 103, a color separating section 104, R, G and B imaging sensor sections 105, 106 and 107, an image shot storage section 108, an image shot writing section 109, a spatial frequency calculating section 186, a color channel range distribution calculating section 187, a color channel range distribution information writing section 188, a memory section 110, a shooting information reading section 111, a super-resolution section 240, an output section 114 and a line recognition signal generating section 185. This image data generator can get high-spatial-resolution, high-temporal-resolution image data with the same camera configuration as a conventional color camera and without decreasing the optical efficiency.
US07868923B2

An optical system forms an optical image on an imager, and a read control block selects a read rule for the imager depending on a magnification addressed by a magnification address block. The imager transforms an optical image at an addressed area into electrical signals in compliance with the read rule. The read image signals are stored in n image memories, where n is the number of images necessary for ultra-resolution processing. Ultra-resolution processing is built up of a motion estimation block and a high-resolution image estimation block adapted to estimate image data having a high-resolution image sequence. A selector selects a basic image for motion estimation and an image that is estimated in terms of motion.
US07868921B2

A system setting an image processing parameter in an imaging apparatus and an information processing apparatus, downloads a parameter file from an external apparatus, and sets in the imaging apparatus an image processing parameter included in the parameter file downloaded from the external apparatus. In the information processing apparatus, image data is processed using the image processing parameter included in the parameter file. Thus, the information processing apparatus and the imaging apparatus can perform image processing using an image processing parameter obtained from one downloaded parameter file.
US07868908B2

An image recording apparatus according to this invention includes a frequency divider 22 for generating a reference signal of a frequency higher than that of a dot clock signal, a pulse exposure control circuit 31 for causing a laser beam emitted from a laser diode 27 to irradiate a recording medium when both an image signal and the reference signal are ON, and a switching device 25 for switching between a first recording mode for causing the laser beam emitted from the laser diode 27 to irradiate the recording medium when the image signal is ON, and a second recording mode for causing the laser beam emitted from the laser diode 27 to irradiate the recording medium when both the image signal and reference signal are ON.
US07868905B2

A computing device is disclosed. The computing device includes a housing having an illuminable portion. The computing device also includes a light device disposed inside the housing. The light device is configured to illuminate the illuminable portion.
US07868892B2

An object of the present invention is to improve efficiency of transfer of control information, graphic data, and the like for drawing and display control in a graphic data processor. A graphic data processor includes: a CPU; a first bus coupled to the CPU; a DMAC for controlling a data transfer using the first bus; a bus bridge circuit for transmitting/receiving data to/from the first bus; a three-dimensional graphics module for receiving a command from the CPU via the first bus and performing a three-dimensional graphic process; a second bus coupled to the bus bridge circuit and a plurality of first circuit modules; a third bus coupled to the bus bridge circuit and second circuit modules; and a memory interface circuit coupled to the first and second buses and the three-dimensional graphic module and connectable to an external memory, wherein the bus bridge circuit can control a direct memory access transfer between an external circuit and the second bus.
US07868888B2

Methods and apparatus implementing and using techniques for scaling a character having stems. A character including stems and having an associated output resolution and an associated bit depth can be received. The counters defined by the stems can be grouped into one or more chains of counters. The stems of the character can be aligned based on a stem alignment policy while the chains of counters are balanced based on the output resolution. A pixel map can be created at the output resolution and the output bit depth based on the aligned stems.
US07868878B2

A modular unit is designed for an electronic pen. The modular unit comprises a carrier (70) with a receiver for a writing implement, a printed circuit board (72), a two-dimensional radiation sensor (78) mounted on the printed circuit board, and an imaging unit (82) which defines an image plane. The carrier (70), the printed circuit board (72), and the imaging unit (82) are joined together with the imaging unit (82) facing the radiation sensor (78) to locate the image plane at the radiation sensor (78). The modular unit may comprise an analysis system dedicated to a particular optical analysis application, such as position determination based on images of a position-coding pattern. A radiation source, such as an LED or a laser diode, may be arranged on the printed circuit board or mounted in a holder on the imaging unit. The imaging unit (82) may be implemented as a boresight unit for controlling the spatial origin of radiation transmitted towards the radiation sensor (78). The boresight unit may comprise a radiation-transmitting channel, an imaging lens, and a redirecting mirror in the channel.
US07868877B2

A touch panel detection circuit includes current limiting circuitry that has a first portion coupled between a first supply voltage terminal and a first input node and a second portion coupled between a second input node and a second supply voltage terminal. Programmable precharge circuitry connects the first input node to the first supply voltage terminal via a conductive path that is in parallel with the first portion of the current limiting circuitry and precharges the first input node to a predetermined voltage. Comparison circuitry is coupled to the programmable precharge circuitry and to the first input node. The comparison circuitry detects a change in resistance between the first input node and the second input node and provides a signal in response thereto when the comparison circuitry is enabled by the programmable precharge circuitry.
US07868876B2

An untethered device is configured to inductively couple to a source device. The source device includes a driver circuit configured to generate a varying magnetic field and comprising a drive coil circuit. A phase detector is coupled to the driver circuit and configured to detect a phase of an input impedance of the driver circuit in response to the source device inductively coupling with the resonant circuit of the untethered device. A controller is coupled to the phase detector and the driver circuit, and is configured to adjust a frequency of a source voltage applied to the driver circuit in response to an output signal of the phase detector. The controller adjusts the source voltage frequency so that the phase of the input impedance as indicated by the output signal of the phase detector is substantially zero.
US07868865B2

An organic electroluminescence display and a method of operating the organic electroluminescence display are disclosed. A pixel array unit, including a plurality of pixels, is divided into at least two pixel groups adjacent to each other. The first pixel group is selected by a first scan driving unit and the second pixel group is selected by a second scan driving unit. Scanning lines for selecting the first pixel group extend into the first pixel group and scanning lines for selecting the second pixel group extend into the second pixel group. Accordingly, each scanning line is reduced in length and thus impedance of the scanning line is decreased. The reduction of impedance prevents delay or distortion of scan signals.
US07868860B2

The present invention realizes proper driving circuits in a driving-circuit integral type liquid crystal display device which has an increased screen size. The liquid crystal display device includes a liquid crystal display panel and a driving circuit which supplies video signals to video signal lines formed on the liquid crystal display panel. The driving circuit is comprised of a first driving circuit which is formed in a step similar to a step for forming pixels provided to the liquid crystal display panel and a second driving circuit which is connected to the liquid crystal display panel after formation of the liquid crystal display panel. The first driving circuit is constituted of a switching circuit which is capable of distributing an output of the second driving circuit to a plurality of video signal lines.
US07868859B2

Disclosed herein is a self-luminous display device including: pixel circuits; and a drive circuit, wherein each of the pixel circuits includes a light-emitting diode, a drive transistor connected to a drive current path of the light-emitting diode, and a holding capacitor coupled to a control node of the drive transistor, during a period in which at least actual threshold voltage and mobility corrections are performed on the drive transistor before the light-emitting diode can emit light, the drive circuit performs a preliminary threshold voltage correction of the drive transistor, i.e., a dummy Vth correction, with the light-emitting diode in a non-light emitting state, the drive circuit next performs a correction preparation for a constant period by reverse-biasing the light-emitting diode and initializing the voltage held by the holding capacitor, and the drive circuit performs the actual threshold voltage correction and mobility correction after the correction preparation.
US07868851B2

The present invention relates to a plasma display apparatus and driving method thereof. The plasma display apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention comprises a plasma display panel comprising a scan electrode and a sustain electrode, and a driver that controls one or more of sustain pulses supplied to the scan electrode and one or more of sustain pulses supplied to the sustain electrode to be overlapped with each other.
US07868847B2

In one embodiment, a method is provided. The method comprises positioning a plurality of display screens at different positions within a real space, each display screen being associated with a different window into an object space through which a scene comprising objects from the object space can be seen; and displaying scenes from the object space on each of the plurality of display screens, wherein the scene displayed on each screen comprises objects from the object space that can be seen through the window associated with that screen by a hypothetical viewer positioned at a first position relative to the window and for which window the field of view is restricted to be non-overlapping with the field of view for an adjacent window.
US07868840B2

An antenna system includes a reflector having a modified-paraboloid shape; and a multi-beam, multi-band feed array located at a focal point of the reflector so that the antenna system forms a multiple congruent beams that are contiguous. The system has a single reflector with non-frequency selective surface. The reflector is sized to produce a required beam size at K-band frequencies and is oversized at EHF-band frequencies. The synthesized reflector surface is moderately shaped and disproportionately broadens EHF-band and Ka-band beams compared to K-band beams. The synthesized reflector surface forms multiple beams each having a 0.5-degree diameter at K-band, Ka-band, and EHF band. The multi-beam, multi-band feed array includes a number of high-efficiency, multi-mode circular horns that operate in focused mode at K-band and defocused mode at Ka-band and EHF-band by employing “frequency-dependent” design for the horns.
US07868837B2

Provided is a transmitting/receiving isolation antenna that can perform wireless bi-directional communication in the co-channel, co-polarization and co-time by acquiring high isolation from transmitting and receiving antennas having co-time, co-channel and co-polarization and set up adjacently. The isolation antenna includes a first antenna; second and third antennas symmetrically positioned in the same distance from the first antenna; a shielding unit symmetrically positioned between the first and second antennas, and between the first and third antennas; and a signal removing unit for removing a signal transmitted from the first antenna to the second and third antennas.
US07868836B2

An antenna for a mobile terminal includes a substrate, a dipole placed on the substrate, a loop placed on the substrate, and a matching circuit on the substrate. The matching circuit comprises at least one of a variable capacitor or a variable inductor. The radiation center of the loop substantially coincides with the radiation center of the dipole.
US07868821B2

A navigation system with a capability of estimating positions of the platform vehicle and recognized landmarks using satellite information and camera measurements is disclosed. One aspect is to represent a landmark by one or few representative features by executing image recognition and feature extraction to find representative features inside the recognized landmark. Another aspect is to re-identify the recognized landmarks in the landmark database correlating the landmark attributes obtained by image recognition and mathematical feature characteristics obtained by feature extraction with the corresponding data in the landmark database. A further aspect is to enhance navigation accuracy through the Kalman filter architecture with additional imagery measurements of landmarks whose positions are known or previously estimated. According to the aspects noted above: (1) navigation accuracy improves with augmented imagery measurements; (2) a database of recognizable landmark attributes and associated feature characteristics can be created in real-time; (3) by re-visiting the same landmarks, navigation accuracy improves and the landmark database will be re-calibrated and augmented with new landmark data.
US07868820B2

Methods and apparatus which characterize the ionospheric error across a network of GNSS reference stations are presented. The method relies on dual-frequency phase measurements in a geometry-free linear combination. The data are filtered for ambiguities and the characteristic parameters of the ionosphere. In combination with filter results from other combinations of phase measurements (ionosphere free combination), the physically-based model provides rapid and reliable ambiguity resolution.
US07868819B2

Various systems, methods and devices are implemented for processing received signals. Consistent with one such embodiment, a method is implemented for use in a signal-communication receiver having a carrier-tracking loop and a processor for operating adaptive algorithms. The method involves interpreting a received signal using space time adaptive processing (STAP). A convergence speed of the adaptive algorithms is set based on a noise bandwidth of a phase-locked loop (PLL) in the carrier-tracking loop. A carrier-phase de-rotation constraint is implemented into weight parameters of the STAP to preserve spatial and temporal degrees of freedom in the STAP.
US07868817B2

A radar system comprises a transmitter antenna configured to transmit a radio frequency (RF) signal, a first receiver antenna, and a second receiver antenna. Each of the first and second receiver antennas are configured to receive a reflection of the RF signal, wherein the first and second receiver antennas are synchronized and separated by a vertical distance. The radar system also comprises radar processing circuitry configured to control transmission of the RF signal from the transmitter antenna and to determine an elevation of an object reflecting the RF signal based on the phase difference between the reflected RF signal received by the first receiver antenna and the reflected RF signal received by the second receiver antenna; wherein the transmit antenna, first receiver antenna, and second receiver antenna are operable to continuously rotate 360 degrees along an azimuth angle without rotating along an elevation angle.
US07868816B2

A radio detection device includes two or more reception antennas, for detecting a detecting object by a mono-pulse method; the radio detection device including: a variable gain unit for discretely changing respective signal intensity of a difference signal and a sum signal of each reception signal received by the two or more reception antennas; an A/D conversion unit for performing A/D conversion process on the difference signal or the sum signal, the difference signal or the sum signal having the signal intensity changed by the variable gain unit; an angle calculating portion for calculating an angle by the mono-pulse method using the difference signal and the sum signal after the A/D conversion process by the A/D conversion unit; and a control unit for performing a control of individually switching a conversion magnification of the signal intensity by the variable gain unit with respect to the difference signal and the sum signal.
US07868814B1

A data network interconnects ships. At least one ship has sensors which track targets. The data rate over the network is reduced by transmitting hostile target tracks at a greater rate than friendly target tracks, by transmitting hostile target tracks that are closest to friendly assets at a greater rate than hostile tracks at greater distances from friendly assets, andor by predicting the location of a target from old track information previously transmitted over the network, and if the predicted location matches the actual sensed location, transmitting only a track update message, and if the predicted location does not match the actual location, transmitting a complete track update.
US07868808B2

A system and method for performing phase-locked loop is disclosed. The system includes phase frequency detector circuitry, charge pump circuitry having first current mirror circuitry and second current mirror circuitry, loop filter circuitry, and voltage controlled oscillator circuitry. The phase frequency detector circuitry generates an up signal and a down signal based on the phase difference of an input signal and a feedback signal. The charge pump circuitry includes the first current mirror circuitry and the second mirror circuitry and generates a charge pump output signal based on the up and down signals. The loop filter circuitry generates a filtered control signal based on the charge pump output signal. The voltage controlled oscillator circuitry generates the feedback signal with a repeating waveform based on the filtered control signal.
US07868799B1

The present invention is a remote input analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) system. The system may generate low jitter, short duration optical pulses to allow for high performance sampling of an antenna signal at a remote end of the system. The system may utilize phase modulation and IQ demodulation (with a reference optical pulse stream) using separate analog-to-digital converters for I and Q to overcome linearity limitations. Low sampling rate analog-to-digital converters may be utilized by the system by using parallel, low optical pulse repetition rate paths and/or optical demultiplexer switching trees. The system is an optical fiber system.
US07868772B2

A flame detecting method and device are provided to improve the accuracy of flame detection and reduce the possibilities of the false fire alarm. The flame detecting method and device capture a plurality of images of a monitored area; determines whether a moving area image exists in the plurality of images; analyzes at least one of a color model and a flickering frequency of the moving area image to generate a first analyzed result and compares the first analyzed result with a feature of a reference flame image; analyzes at least one of a variation of a location and an area of the moving area image to generate a second analyzed result and compares the second analyzed result with a predetermined threshold; and determines whether the moving area image is a flame image based on results of the comparing steps.
US07868769B2

A system and method of determining a relationship between a first animal (100) and a second animal (110). The system includes a detection means (130) for detecting if the first animal (100) is within a defined proximity (120) of the second animal (110). The system also includes a means to determine, in response to at least one detection, the relationship between the first animal (100) and the second animal (110).
US07868764B2

The present invention relates to a radio-frequency identification tag (10) and a related method of operation, whereby the tag comprises an antenna (12) being adapted to draw a voltage from an externally applied RF field having a first frequency, and further comprises a tunable antenna resonant circuit (16) comprising a default resonance frequency and having tuning means (18) for shifting the resonance frequency to the first frequency, whereby non-volatile storage means (22) for storing frequency related data are provided, that are accessible at a reduced voltage level, which is below a “power-up” voltage level of the tag's operating unit (14).
US07868760B2

A method for accounting for individuals in an emergency at industrial facilities utilizing Ultra-Wideband (UWB) transmitters associated with individuals or objects and UWB monitoring stations. Identification information received from the UWB transmitters by UWB monitoring stations are communicated along with time of arrival information to a computer which calculates the location of the UWB transmitter. The system can be used despite severe multi-path effects and can provide location information in 3 dimensions. The system can optionally include proximity-based RF equipment for access control or otherwise for identification in specific locations. Information from the proximity-based RF equipment is also sent to the computer which also receives information from the UWB monitoring stations.
US07868755B2

To shorten a period of time necessary for performing routine inspections and reduce costs by monitoring a state such as a contact failure of a switching equipment which constitutes a power reception circuit or a branch circuit of a substation through a simple construction. A sensor attached IC tag application high voltage equipment is constructed by detachably mounting a sensor attached IC tag at a position where a sensor of a sensor attached IC tag obtains a physical quantity of a detection target, wherein the sensor attached IC tag is configured to communicate with an externally located IC tag reader.
US07868751B2

A contact-free data communication system includes a data communications device located in a predetermined place and a contact-free identification tag. The data communications device includes a first data controller and a data global positioning system that acquires positional information of the data communications device and a transmitter that transmits an electromagnetic wave for providing power and transmits the positional information of the data communications device to the contact-free identification tag in a surrounding area of the data communications device. The contact-free identification tag includes a receiver that receives positional information transmitted by the data communications device, a power generator that generates driving power out of the electromagnetic wave for providing power that is transmitted by the data communications device, a generator that generates positional relationship information based on the positional information that is received by the receiver, a display that displays positional relationship information that is generated by the generator, a data storage medium that is nonvolatile and a data storage that stores data in the storage medium.
US07868749B2

The method includes: a step of calculating wheel rotation information; a judgment step of judging a decrease in a tire air pressure by comparing a predetermined reference value with a decreased pressure judgment value showing a wheel speed ratio of the front and rear axes; an initialization step of storing the wheel speed ratio between the front and rear axes at the regular internal pressure; and a step of determining whether the distribution of the front and rear driving torque is equidistribution or not.
US07868742B2

An emergency reporting apparatus includes a power supply circuit, a control circuit, and a timer. The power supply circuit generates operating power of the emergency reporting apparatus from a vehicle battery in a vehicle battery mode and from an auxiliary battery in an auxiliary battery mode. The control circuit causes the power supply circuit to switch from the vehicle battery mode to the auxiliary battery mode in response to a trigger event and starts an emergency reporting procedure using the auxiliary battery. The timer measures time elapsed since the power supply circuit switches to the auxiliary battery mode. The control circuit causes the power supply circuit to switch back to the vehicle battery mode, when the elapsed time exceeds a predetermined threshold time period.
US07868740B2

Systems, methods, beds, supports surfaces and machine readable medium for associating beds and support surface of a healthcare facility are disclosed. A surface association system for a healthcare facility may comprise a plurality of beds. The system may further comprise a computing device and a plurality of support surfaces to be placed upon beds of the plurality of beds. The computing device may associate a support surface of the plurality of support surfaces with a bed of the plurality of beds. The computing device may make the association based upon status data received from the plurality of beds and the plurality of support surfaces. The support surface and/or bed to be associated may initiate a surface association request. The computing device, in response to the surface association request, may request performance of one or more actions on the bed and/or support surface to be associated to identify the bed and/or support surface from the beds and support surfaces of the healthcare facility.
US07868739B2

A system and method for improving a function of reading information from a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag. The system includes RFID tags installed on a variety of objects, each RFID tag storing information of its associated object and upon detection of a signal based on an effective frequency range, transmitting the information; writers spaced apart at regular intervals and installed near the RFID tags, the writers writing an instruction of informing whether an area is one where it is possible to read the information from an RFID tag; and a terminal having a read-write tag in which the instruction by the writers is written at a time of entering the area where the RFID tags are installed, a terminal controller for determining a start or stop of the read function based on the instruction of the read-write tag, and an RFID reader for starting to read the information from the electronic tag based on the effective frequency range upon receipt of a start command from the terminal controller.
US07868721B2

An improved field emission system and method is provided that involves field emission structures having electric or magnetic field sources. The magnitudes, polarities, and positions of the magnetic or electric field sources are configured to have desirable correlation properties, which may be in accordance with a code. The correlation properties correspond to a desired spatial force function where spatial forces between field emission structures correspond to relative alignment, separation distance, and the spatial force function.
US07868720B2

A hermetically sealed relay is provided having two circuits therein.
US07868719B2

A tamper-resistant device including a housing having a first surface and a second surface; and one or more covers positioned on the first surface of the housing, wherein the first surface includes at least two angled surfaces for receiving the one or more covers to create a securedly fixed connection, and wherein the one or more covers are securedly fixed to the housing via a snapping device.
US07868715B2

The present invention provides a duplexer using a ladder-type filter, which has a small size and is superior in isolation characteristic, and a communication apparatus using such a duplexer. A series resonator (R1) contained in a first filter element (F1) and a parallel resonator (R4) contained in a second filter element (F2) are disposed so as not to allow the elastic wave propagating paths to be overlapped with each other. By disposing them in this manner, it is possible to prevent an elastic wave, leaked from the series resonator (R1) and most influential to the isolation characteristic, from being received by the parallel resonator (R4). Consequently, it is possible to achieve a small-size duplexer that is superior in isolation characteristic.
US07868707B2

The surface-mount type crystal oscillator includes a container body made of laminated ceramics, having a flat bottom wall layer, a frame wall defining a recess and a step portion formed at an inner wall of the recess, a crystal blank fixed to the step portion, an IC chip fixed to an inner bottom surface of the recess and a pair of inspection terminals provided on outer side surfaces of the container body and used to measure a vibration characteristic of the crystal blank. The bottom wall layer is made up of a first layer making up an outer bottom surface of the container body and a second layer between the first layer and the frame wall, and the inspection terminals are formed so as to extend across an end face of the second layer and the outer side surface of the frame wall.
US07868704B2

A broadband integrated television receiver for receiving a standard antenna or cable input and outputting an analog composite video signal and composite audio signal is disclosed. The receiver employs an up-conversion mixer and a down-conversion mixer in series to produce an IF signal. An IF filter between the mixers performs coarse channel selection. The down-conversion mixer may be an image rejection mixer to provide additional filtering. The received RF television signals are converted to a standard 45.75 MHz IF signal for processing on-chip by additional circuitry.
US07868701B2

A gain switching determination circuit (250) compares/determines a comparative input voltage (Vc) from an inter-stage buffer (230) with a first hysteresis characteristic, and outputs a gain switching signal (SEL) based on the comparison/determination result to first and second transimpedance amplifier core circuits (210, 220), thereby switching the gains of the core circuits. This obviates holding a comparison input voltage with long response time in a level holding circuit for gain switching determination, which allows instantaneous gain switching determination and instantaneous response corresponding to burst data.
US07868697B2

A converting circuit for converting differential signals to a single-ended signal. The converting circuit comprises a cascode amplifier comprising a first transistor and a second transistor, wherein the first transistor comprises a control terminal, a first terminal, and a second terminal, the control terminal to which one of the differential signals is input, the control terminal being electrically-grounded; and, the second transistor comprises a first terminal and a second terminal, the first terminal of the second transistor being connected to the first terminal, the second terminal of the second transistor from which output signal is outputted, a capacitor for adjusting the phase, the capacitor being connected to the second terminal; and a current source being connected to the second terminal.
US07868693B2

An amplifier that receives an input signal and outputs an amplified output signal includes an integration stage, a comparison stage, and a full bridge circuit. The integration stage is be used for receiving a constant common mode voltage, for receiving a first signal representing the input signal of the amplifier, and for generating a ramp signal. The comparison stage coupled to the integration stage is used for generating a pulse width modulation signal according to the ramp signal and according to a hysteretic signal. The full bridge circuit coupled to the comparison stage is used for receiving a power supply and the pulse width modulation signal, and for generating the output of the amplifier.
US07868690B2

A comparator has a differential input stage, a current source coupled to the differential input stage for providing a tail current to one side of the differential input stage, and a differential load coupled to the differential pair and having at least one diode coupled load transistor per differential side. A load current through either one of the at least one diode coupled load transistor on either differential side is mirrored with a current mirror configuration to provide a current be fed to a respective node, each node being coupled to a respective variable biasing current source and a respective other side of the differential input stage, so as to provide a variable positive feedback to the differential input stage.
US07868688B2

A current filter circuit is provided. The current filter circuit comprises a source transistor comprising a drain, a gate, and a source. The source of the source transistor is coupled to a reference voltage terminal, the gate of the source transistor is coupled to the gate of a mirror transistor, and the drain of the source transistor is coupled to a reference current source. The mirror transistor comprises a drain, a gate, and a source. The source of the mirror transistor is coupled to the reference voltage terminal, the gate is coupled to the gate of the source transistor, and the drain is coupled to a load. The current filter circuit comprises a low pass filter for filtering noise. The current filter circuit also comprises an impedance reduction circuit coupled to the drain of the mirror transistor for reducing bandwidth of the current filter circuit.
US07868687B2

A near ideal single frequency and band pass filter comprises an input unit, a filter combination, and an output unit. The input unit accepts an input signal which can be expressed with a mathematical formula f(t). The filter combination comprises a plurality of filters, wherein each filter can generate a control signal and performs the signal filtering process based on the control signal. The control signal can be expressed with a mathematical formula hde(θ). The filter combination processes the input signal based on a set of a plurality of control signals by means of a formula.
US07868681B2

A programmable gain circuit suitable for a programmable gain amplifier is described. In one design, the programmable gain circuit includes multiple attenuation circuits coupled in series. Each attenuation circuit operates in a first mode or a second mode, attenuates an input signal in the first mode, and passes the input signal in the second mode. The multiple attenuation circuits may provide the same or different amounts of attenuation. The multiple attenuation circuits may include binary decoded attenuation circuits and/or thermometer decoded attenuation circuits. In one design, each attenuation circuit includes a divider circuit and at least one switch. The switch(es) select the first mode or the second mode. The divider circuit attenuates an input signal in the first mode and passes the input signal in the second mode. The programmable gain circuit may have a predetermined input impedance and a predetermined output impedance for all gain settings.
US07868679B2

A circuit is provided that includes an input for a clock signal, a random event generator for outputting a random signal, in particular random numbers, a settable delay device that is connected to the input for the clock signal and is connected to the random event generator for the purpose of setting a delay of an edge of the clock signal (clk) by means of the random signal.
US07868672B2

A digital phase-locked loop (DPLL) supporting two-point modulation with adaptive delay matching is described. The DPLL includes highpass and lowpass modulation paths that support wideband and narrowband modulation, respectively, of the frequency and/or phase of an oscillator. The DPLL can adaptively adjust the delay of one modulation path to match the delay of the other modulation path. In one design, the DPLL includes an adaptive delay unit that provides a variable delay for one of the two modulation paths. Within the adaptive delay unit, a delay computation unit determines the variable delay based on a modulating signal applied to the two modulation paths and a phase error signal in the DPLL. An interpolator provides a fractional portion of the variable delay, and a programmable delay unit provides an integer portion of the variable delay.
US07868667B2

An output driving device capable of improving a slew rate is provided. The output driving device includes a push-pull type driving unit configured with a pull-up PMOS transistor and a pull-down NMOS transistor, wherein body biases of the pull-up PMOS transistor and the pull-down NMOS transistor are controlled for control of a slew rate of an output signal of the driving unit.
US07868666B2

An embodiment of an input-buffer circuit may include an input stage with an inverter having an input operable to receive a signal to be translated. The input stage may include a limiting circuit coupled to the input stage for arresting quiescent current. Additional embodiments of an input-buffer circuit formed according to the subject matter disclosed herein may include feedback transistors suited to provide additional current to the input stage and a hysteresis circuit suited to provide hysteresis current to the input stage when an input signal has a high-frequency change rate.
US07868661B2

Disclosed is a line driving circuit which includes two NMOS transistors in series between a supply voltage and a ground voltage. The output of the line driving circuit is applied to an interior circuit through a transmission line, and a repeater is used when the transmission line is long.
US07868654B1

Various techniques are provided for determining interface characteristics of external devices. In one example, a method of configuring a programmable logic device (PLD) with configuration data stored in one or more external memory devices includes reading by the PLD an interface setup command in a bitstream from an external memory device through a configuration port of the PLD while operating the configuration port in accordance with a first set of interface characteristics. The method also includes adjusting by the PLD the configuration port to operate in accordance with a second set of interface characteristics identified by the interface setup command. The method also includes reading by the PLD configuration data in the bitstream from the external memory device through the configuration port while operating the configuration port in accordance with the second set of interface characteristics. The method also includes programming a configuration memory of the PLD with the configuration data.
US07868649B2

A processing unit carries out a predetermined data processing on the data in a storage unit. The storage unit is connected to the processing unit with a plurality of connecting lines. A voltage generating unit is connected to each of the connecting lines via a corresponding termination resistor and that generates a termination voltage to be applied to the connecting lines. An interrupting unit is connected between the connecting lines and the termination resistors, and it applies or does not apply the termination voltage to the connecting lines depending on a data processing state of the processing unit.
US07868642B2

A simple structure socket 10 for connecting a ball grid array integrated circuit device to a test circuit has a base 14, contacts 26 arranged corresponding to the ball grid array, a nest assembly 16 of two comb structures 70 and a lever assembly 18 for spacing opposed tip portions of each contact away from each other to define a gap for receiving a ball. The lever assembly has two rectangular frames 86 each made of a distal cross piece 94, a proximal cross piece and two side pieces connecting the distal and proximal cross pieces. The two rectangular frames are arranged so that the side pieces are intersected at substantially mid portions thereof. This allows that, by depressing the proximal cross pieces toward the base, the distal cross pieces forces the comb structures toward each other.
US07868638B2

An integrated circuit, in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, includes a first device under test (DUT) module coupled to a first ring oscillator module and a second DUT module coupled to a second ring oscillator module. The first DUT module is biased such that interface traps are generated during a first mode. The generated interface traps result in a decrease in a first drive current of the first DUT module. The second device under test module is biased to maintain a reference drive current during the first mode. The operating frequency of the first ring oscillator module, during a second mode, is a function of the first drive current. The operating frequency of the second ring oscillator module, during the second mode, is a function of the reference drive current. The integrated circuit may also include a comparator module for generating an output signal as a function of a difference between the operating frequency of the first and second ring oscillator modules.
US07868636B2

A probe card for testing semiconductor chips on a semiconductor wafer, includes a circuit board receiving electrical signals from outside, a plurality of unit probe modules contacting the semiconductor chips on the wafer to transfer the electrical signals, a space transformer having the plurality of probe modules seated on the upper portion thereof and electrically connected to the circuit board, wherein the respective probe modules are arranged at intervals from each other on the space transformer and the space transformer has vertical apertures penetrating through it up and down, and at least one vertical conductive medium electrically connecting the respective unit probe modules and the circuit board, wherein the vertical conductive medium is arranged in the vertical apertures provided in the space transformer and the respective unit probe modules are arranged at positions spaced from the vertical conductive medium.
US07868628B2

Provided is a material for tactile sensor, which is easy to be formed, and in which the shape, size and orientation of coils dispersed in the medium are sufficiently controlled. The tactile-sensitive material comprises a medium and a plurality of micro coils dispersed in the medium and constituting a LCR resonance circuit, and wherein each of the plurality of micro coils comprises at least one spiral coil portion, and coil axes of the plurality of micro coils are aligned along at least one direction and/or directed in at least one plane. When a tactile stress is applied to the tactile-sensitive material, the C component is varied significantly, which contributes to the improvement in sensitivity of the tactile sensor. Further, by providing a core at the coil center, the sensitivity is more improved.
US07868627B2

A method and a device for measuring dielectric characteristics by generating a microwave signal, dividing the signal into reference and sounding signals, irradiating a body with the microwave signal, receiving the reflected, reference and total signals and in detecting said signals. The irradiation is carried out by a waveguide wave, the wave number of which in the free space filled with dielectric, is selected within a range from 1.0 to 1.07 the propagation number of the waveguide wave.
US07868613B2

First and second MR elements are provided with a plurality of element patterns each having a stacked structure. The stacked structure includes a free layer changing its magnetization direction depending on an external magnetic field, an intermediate layer generating no specific magnetization direction, and a pinned layer having magnetization pinned in a certain direction. The first and the second MR elements have a rotationally symmetrical relationship with each other around a central axis parallel to the directions of anisotropic magnetic fields of the free layer. In the initial condition, the resistance of the first MR element and the resistance of the second MR element are equal to each other. The resistances of the first and the second MR elements exhibit changes in opposite directions in accordance with a magnetic field to be detected. This provides a magnetic sensor permitting higher-precision detection of the magnetic field to be detected.
US07868611B2

A rotary angle detecting device is provided which includes: a main driving gear configured to rotate while being directly or indirectly connected to a detection target rotating about a predetermined axis; a driven gear configured to rotate while meshing with the main driving gear; a magnet provided at the center of the driven gear; a magnetic detection element configured to detect a variation in magnetic field in accordance with a rotation of the magnet; a circuit board having the magnetic detection element; and the circuit board is separated from the gears by a holder member.
US07868610B2

A motion tracking sensor apparatus configured for real-time, three-dimensional angular motion tracking that can determine the absolute orientation, axis of rotation and angular speed of a body rotating about a point, which is fixed relative to the sensor, without contacting the rotating body. The sensor obtains measurements of the three-dimensional magnetic field of a dipole fixed on the body. In one embodiment, a permanent magnet is embedded in the center of the rotating body, and the time-varying magnetic field is measured as the magnet rotates, and then the instantaneous magnet orientation from the field data is determined. The apparatus is particularly suited for use with devices that are based on a sphere rotating in a cradle such as spherical motors or spherical variable transmissions.
US07868605B1

Power regulator circuitry is provided for powering loads such as programmable memory element arrays on integrated circuits. The power regulator circuitry may have control circuitry that generates a first digital control signal to turn on and off a regulated power supply circuit and a second digital control signal to turn on and off a switch-based power supply circuit. The outputs of the regulated power supply circuit and switch-based power supply circuit may be connected to an output terminal for the power regulator circuitry. The first and second digital control signals may be used to ensure that the regulated power supply circuit is turned on before the switch-based power supply circuit is turned off. The switch-based power supply circuitry may contain serially connected transistors. The transistors may be turned off in an order that prevents latchup.
US07868604B2

A digital multilevel memory system includes a charge pump and a voltage regulator for generating regulated high voltages for various memory operations. The charge pump may include a plurality of boost circuits to boost the output of the charge pump during a fast start up. Afterwards, the boost circuits are disabled to allow the charge pump to generate high voltages without boosting. The boost circuits may be successively enabled to boost the voltage. The boost circuits may be loadless. The voltage regulator may operate in an open loop and may include a resistive divider as a reference voltage for regulating the high voltage from the charge pump. The charge pump may include spread spectrum pump clocking to reduce electromagnetic inference for capacitor or inductor on-chip charge pumping.
US07868600B2

An adaptive pulse positioning system for a voltage converter including an adjustable ramp generator, a pulse generator circuit, and a sense and adjust circuit. The adjustable ramp generator has an adjust input and provides a periodic ramp voltage having an adjustable magnitude based on an adjust signal provided to the adjust input. The pulse generator circuit receives the ramp voltage and generates a pulse signal with control pulses for controlling the output voltage of the voltage controller based on the ramp voltage. The sense and adjust circuit senses an output load transient and provides the adjust signal to the adjust input of the ramp generator to adaptively shift the pulse signal in time in response to the output load transient without adding pulses to the pulse signal.
US07868599B2

In a method and system for sensing current in a switching regulator (SWR) operating in a current mode, a power switch is coupled to receive the current from a switching element, the power switch being controlled by a gate signal. An inrush of the current causes an initial transient spike (ITS). A buffer having a buffer input and a buffer output is coupled to receive the gate signal and provide a buffered gate signal. The buffer output is disabled during the ITS. A sense switch (SW) is coupled to receive a portion of the current from the switching element, the SW being turned on by the buffered gate signal after the initial transient spike. A sense resistor (SR) is coupled to receive the portion of the current from the SW. An amplifier converts the portion of the current through the SR to a voltage signal for controlling the SWR.
US07868597B2

A method of operating a synchronous power converter detects when at least one of an upper power switch and a lower power switch of the converter transition to an off state during a dead-time transition interval between the upper power switch and the lower power switch. The method generates a first comparison signal, indicative of a voltage level at a phase node of the converter, in a dead-time adjustment circuit coupled to the converter. The method further detects a body diode conduction level of at least one of the upper and lower power switches in the off state using at least a second comparison signal generated in the dead-time adjustment circuit and adjusts the dead-time transition interval between the upper power switch and the lower power switch using at least one current source from the dead-time adjustment circuit to reduce the dead-time transition interval to a desired dead-time interval.
US07868594B2

A drive is embodied to drive a rotor at a variable rotational frequency; the rotor has a winding that is embodied to produce a rotary field magnetomotive force of a generator, with a rotor rotary field frequency which is variable in relation to the rotor; the frequency converter is electrically connected to the rotor winding; a regulating device comprises a recording element for measuring values of the generator, a calculating unit for a generator simulation, and a transmitter for transmitting a control signal to the frequency converter; and, on the basis of the control signal, an electrical excitation of the rotor winding can be triggered by the frequency converter in such a way that a pre-determined stator rotary field frequency is present in the event of a variable rotational frequency of the rotor and a variable rotor rotary field frequency.
US07868592B2

A method for managing a vehicle's electrical power bus and charging system. A current sensor is utilized to measure a current produced by an alternator. The alternator current is controlled in a feedback system such that the current is equal to the amount required for the vehicle loads or, if the battery is being charged, the amount required for the vehicle loads plus the optimum charging current. Alternatively, the method may measure and control the amount of current delivered to and from the battery such that, in a fuel efficiency mode, no current is delivered to the battery.
US07868586B2

Systems, methods, and devices wirelessly energize passive wireless data communication devices. In one embodiment, remotely powered wireless transmission power sources are actuated by a user. Upon actuation, a selected wireless transmission power source transmits electromagnetic energization energy into a volume of space, thereby energizing passive wireless data communication devices therein. The user may use a hand-held portable automatic data collection device to interrogate the wireless data communication devices and may use the automatic data collection device to remotely actuate the selected wireless transmission power source.
US07868583B2

An apparatus and method for controlling battery discharging in a portable terminal having a detachable external battery are provided. The method includes determining if the external battery has been connected with the portable terminal when the portable terminal is booted, receiving power from the external battery when the external battery is connected with the portable terminal and receiving power from an embedded battery of the portable terminal when the external battery has been completely discharged. Furthermore, in charging the batteries, the embedded battery of the portable terminal is first charged when battery charging current is input in a state that the external battery has been connected with the portable terminal, and the external battery is charged when the embedded battery has been completely charged. Power from the external battery is first used when a portable terminal assembled with the external battery is used, and an embedded battery is first charged in charging batteries. Therefore, the embedded battery capacity of the portable terminal can be maintained as much as possible. Furthermore, although the external battery is separated from the portable terminal during battery charging/discharging, the embedded battery capacity can be maintained as much as possible. As a result, even if only the embedded battery is used, a using time of the embedded battery can be increased. Therefore, it is possible to improve the user's convenience.
US07868581B2

An induction motor controller that may include three phase paths leading from a power input to a power output, a solid-state switching device interposed between the power input and the power output on each of the three phase paths, a voltage sensor coupled to two of the phase paths between the solid-state switching device and the power input, a current sensor on one of the phase paths, a processor communicatively coupled to the voltage sensor, the current sensor, and the solid state switching device; and a memory coupled to the processor. The processor may be configured to calculate a motor parameter based on a signal from the voltage sensor and a signal from the current sensor and store the calculated motor parameter in memory.
US07868579B2

In a micro-step drive and driving method of a stepping motor, the stepping motor generates a drive force for movement on a prescribed path of a moving unit provided in an electrically driven device, a standard point and a target point of an operation are set on the path, the stepping motor is rotated such that the moving unit passes through the standard point, a count value of a stable stop point of the stepping motor that is closest to a count value at the point of time when the moving unit passed through the standard point is specified, the specified count value is set as a start point for controlling a rotation angle of the stepping motor, and the stepping motor is rotated, and stopped at the count value of the selected stable stop point.
US07868574B2

A motor absolute position signal processing apparatus connected to a signal processor and an optical encoder of a motor control system includes first and second switches, a signal integration amplifier, first and second separators and an inverter. The first switch is connected with the optical encoder, the second switch with the optical encoder and the first switch, the signal integration amplifier with the first and second switches, the first separator with the signal integration amplifier and the signal processor, and the second separator with the signal processor. An input end of the inverter is connected with the second separator and an output end with the second switch. The signal processor outputs an enable signal to be processed by the inverter for switching the first or second switch. The signal integration amplifier processes and transmits two sets of differential signals SIN;/SIN and COS;/COS of the optical encoder to the signal processor.
US07868572B2

This seatbelt apparatus includes: a belt reel around which a belt is wound; a motor which rotationally drives the belt reel; a transmitting device which transmits a driving power between the belt reel and the motor; a controller which drives the motor while controlling an electricity to be supplied to the motor; a rotation-detection device which detects a rotation status of the belt reel. The rotation-detection device outputs, in accordance with a rotation of the belt reel, a plurality of outputs including signals indicating a first state in which a current consumption by the rotation-detection device is larger than a predetermined value, and a second state in which the current consumption by the rotation-detection device is smaller than the predetermined value. The controller executes a first motor-driving process in which the motor is driven based on an output from the rotation-detection device until reaching the second state.
US07868571B2

A motor system with reduced common-mode noise includes an AC power, a first transformer unit electrically connected to the AC power and providing a first DC power, and a second transformer unit electrically connected to the AC power and providing a second DC power. The first DC power is supplied to a motor driving section of the motor system, and the second DC power is supplied to a motor controlling section of the motor system. Therefore, a common-mode noise from the transformer winding for the motor driving section can be prevented from coupling to the transformer winding for the motor controlling section. Moreover, a safe stop signal is applied to turn down a PWM IC for power through a photo coupler or a relay. Therefore, the first transformer unit stops supplying current to the motor driving section of the motor system to enhance safe stop function for the motor system.
US07868570B2

A controller of a brushless DC electric machine having a rotor and at least a stator winding powered by a driving voltage is provided. The controller includes a position sensor, an advance angle control circuit, and a driving circuit. The position sensor is moved along a reverse rotating direction of the rotor by a prepositioned angle for outputting a position signal. The advance angle control circuit receives the position signal and a driving voltage reproduction signal reproduced from the driving voltage and outputs a commutation control signal lagging the position signal by a first delay time. The driving circuit receives the commutation control signal for outputting a driving signal for controlling a commutation of the brushless DC electric machine.
US07868568B2

A motor driving device, which drives a DC motor, includes a motor driving unit, a status determination unit, and an initial value renewal unit. The motor driving unit repeatedly performs a change-over, wherein the motor driving unit changes an amount of a current inputted into the DC motor to an initial value at a predetermined timing, and then gradually increases the amount of the current from the initial value, in order to slowly move a driving target, driven by rotational force of the DC motor, in a moving direction. The status determination unit determines whether or not the driving target is in a predetermined status. The initial value renewal unit changes the initial value when the status determination unit determines that the driving target is in the predetermined status.
US07868566B2

A method for operating a linear compressor including a linear drive with a stator and a rotor configured for displacement by a magnetic field of the stator against a spring force, and a compression chamber which is delimited by a displaceable piston coupled to the rotor during the operation of which an alternating current is applied to the stator in order to drive the rotor in an reciprocatingly, the method including the steps of applying, prior to operation, a direct current with a first polarity to the stator in order to displace the rotor from a rest position, measuring a first end position attained by the rotor under the action of the direct current, and controlling, during operation, the intensity of the alternating current with which the stator is excited in a manner wherein the rotor does not reach the first end position or reaches it at a reduced speed.
US07868560B2

An inverter driving circuit for an LCD is switched on/off more stably to improve heating radiation characteristics and drive efficiency. In the driving circuit, a controller supplies a first driving signal. A level shifter provides a second driving signal. A first delay circuit delays a rising section of the first driving signal to provide the first driving signal. A second delay circuit delays a falling section of the second driving signal to provide the second driving signal. Also, a power switching circuit is provided. The inverter driving circuit for the LCD, when a switching device thereof is turned off, has less current flowing in the switching device, thereby generating less heat. In addition, the inverter driving circuit prevents heat generation caused by current flowing reversely in the switching device, thereby enhancing drive efficiency.
US07868551B2

A fluorescent tube in which no luminance gradient in the longitudinal direction occurs even when a one-side high-voltage driving method is used, a method of driving the fluorescent tube, an illuminating device for display device, and a display device having the illuminating device are provided. The fluorescent tube for one-side high-voltage driving is arranged behind a display panel via optical sheets. An internal diameter of the fluorescent tube is arranged to become larger gradually toward an electrode part at a high-voltage driving side, which prevents the occurrence of the luminance gradient in the longitudinal direction when a one-side high-voltage driving method is used.
US07868544B2

Provided is a display apparatus capable of reducing external light reflection to reduce an amount of glare of the outside, in which a translucent protection member is provided to cover an observation surface side of a display member including an organic EL light-emitting portion, in order to protect the display member. The display apparatus includes the display member with an organic EL light-emitting portion having a pair of electrodes and an organic compound layer provided between the pair of electrodes; and a casing for housing the display member, wherein a protection member is provided in the casing with a gap from the display member, and wherein a phase member and a polarizing member are formed on the protection member such that the polarizing member is located closer to a light extraction side than the phase member.
US07868540B2

An organic light emitting diode (OLED) display device, which can use a non-emission surface of an encapsulation substrate to reflect light, can prevent a voltage applied to a cathode from dropping, and has improved mechanical reliability, and a method of manufacturing the same. The OLED display device includes a substrate; a first electrode disposed on the substrate; an organic layer disposed on the first electrode; a second electrode disposed on the organic layer; a conductive material layer disposed on the second electrode; a metal layer disposed on the conductive material layer; an encapsulation substrate disposed on the metal layer; and an encapsulant to combine the substrate with an encapsulation substrate.
US07868536B2

An organic light emitting device including an anode including a lanthanide oxide. The lanthanide oxide is doped with a conductive material including rubidium, titanium, or combinations thereof. The organic light emitting device further includes a cathode, an organic hole transport layer intermediate the anode and cathode, and an electron injection layer intermediate the anode and cathode.
US07868524B2

A multiple-layer component includes at least two metal layers, at least one dielectric layer among the at least two metal layers, and a contact element that includes a porous body that electrically connects the at least two metal layers. The at least one dielectric layer includes dielectric layers made from ceramic material that are sintered.
US07868522B2

A temperature compensated pair of resonators. The temperature compensated pair of resonators comprises a first resonator configured to resonate at a first frequency and having a first frequency temperature coefficient and a second resonator configured to resonate at a second frequency and having a second frequency temperature coefficient. The second frequency is greater than the first frequency; the second frequency temperature coefficient is less than the first frequency temperature coefficient; and the first and the second resonators are fabricated on a common substrate.
US07868518B2

A device for processing workpieces uses ultrasound, with an resonant system comprising an ultrasound generator, an ultrasound sonotrode, and an anvil, wherein a workpiece is processed between the anvil and the ultrasound sonotrode. The ultrasound generator comprises a regulation means which has a regulation member connected upstream of the ultrasound generator to receive a feedback signal from the resonant system and to generate a regulation variable which is supplied to the ultrasound generator. A connecting point is provided between the regulation member and the ultrasound generator, at which the regulation variable of the regulation member is linked to a process variable from the processing procedure.
US07868514B2

An electric motor having a first rotor, a second rotor and a third rotor, a first permanent magnet, a second permanent magnet and a third permanent magnet, a first stator and a second stator, a first electromagnet and a second an electromagnet with one end of the core larger than the other, a shaft, a shaft rotation position sensor and an electric switch.
US07868513B2

A vehicle A.C. generator has a rotor. The rotor has a pair of pole cores and magnet holders. Each pole core has a plurality of claw-like magnet poles. Each magnet holder contains a permanent magnet and placed between the adjacent claw-like magnet poles in order to prevent leakage flux. The rotor has a pair of supporting members in order to stop each magnet holder shifting in the direction of a rotary shaft of the rotor. Each supporting member has projecting parts which correspond to the magnet holders. The supporting members are fixed to one end surface of the pole cores, respectively. Each projecting part fixes the position of the corresponding permanent magnet in the rotor.
US07868511B2

Various devices for generating electrical or mechanical output, comprising a coil, a rotor assembly rotatable about an axis, the rotor comprising alternating magnet portion and flux conducting portions, each of the magnet portions having a first end with a first polarity and a second end with the opposite polarity and oriented along the periphery such that the first end of each magnet portion points toward the first end of the previous magnet portion and the second end of each magnet portion points toward the second end of the next magnet portion, a stator assembly having first and second sets of stator flux conductor extensions, each of the stator flux conductor extensions having a stator surface facing the rotor, wherein rotating the rotor assembly about the axis alternates the rotor assembly between a first and a second position, causing magnetic flux to flow. The stator and the rotor may be reversed in operation. Other variations are presented, including multiple geometries for both the permanent magnets and the flux conductive portions of the invention. A means of coupling the invention to an exterior device or apparatus is also discussed, as are ways to control the output of the device.
US07868503B1

In an embedded magnet motor, radial magnets and first inclined magnets form north poles. The radial magnets and second inclined magnets form south poles. Core sheets each include preformed radial accommodating slots the number of which is expressed by P/2. Some of the preformed radial accommodating slots are short slots and the rest are long slots. The short slots are located at some parts of each radial accommodating slot along the axial direction. Radially inner ends of the short slots restrict the radial magnets from moving radially inward.
US07868495B2

An electric motor core member includes a body having an inner diametric portion including an inner arcuate surface and an outer diametric portion including an outer arcuate surface. The electric motor core member further includes a plurality of wall members provided on the main body. Each of the plurality of wall members projects outwardly from the outer arcuate surface and is arranged in a spaced relationship to define a plurality of conductor isolation channels. Each of the plurality of conductor isolation channels is adapted to receive one of a plurality of conductors with the plurality of wall members providing electrical isolation between adjacent ones of the plurality of conductors.
US07868484B2

A multi-coil automatic transfer switch (ATS) adapted for automatically switching an appropriately rated component to render the ATS operational over a worldwide voltage range is provided. A low voltage contactor includes a low voltage coil magnetically linked with a normally open low voltage main contact. A high voltage contactor is coupled in parallel with the low voltage contactor. The high voltage contactor includes a high voltage coil magnetically linked with a normally open high voltage main contact. A normally closed high voltage auxiliary contact is magnetically linked with the high voltage coil. The normally closed high voltage auxiliary contact has a phase opposite the normally open high voltage main contact. The high voltage contactor opens the normally closed high voltage auxiliary contact to disconnect the low voltage coil.
US07868482B2

An apparatus for converting power includes at least one impedance matching network which receives an electrical signal. The apparatus includes at least one AC to DC converter in communication with the impedance matching network. Also disclosed is a method for powering a load and an apparatus for converting power and additional embodiments of an apparatus for converting power.
US07868470B2

The present invention provides a multichip package wherein a plurality of semiconductor chip packages (100) in each of which first electrode pads (16a) provided in a main surface of a semiconductor chip, and first bonding pads (20a) and first central bonding pads (18a) formed in an upper area of the main surface are respectively electrically connected by first redistribution wiring layers (24) in a one-to-one correspondence relationship, and second electrode pads (17b), and second bonding pads (22b) and second central bonding pads (18b) formed in an upper area of the main surface are respectively electrically connected by second redistribution wiring layers (26) in a one-to-one correspondence relationship, are stacked on one another.
US07868467B2

A semiconductor device includes a first substrate, a plurality of cell transistors and a second substrate. The first substrate has a first surface and a second surface opposite to the first surface. The plurality of cell transistors is formed extending on the first surface of the first substrate in a direction. The second substrate has an upper surface making contact with the second surface of the first substrate. Further, the upper surface of the second substrate has a bent structure to apply tensile stresses to the first substrate in the extending direction of the plurality of cell transistors. Thus, tensile stresses may be applied to the first substrate to improve the mobility of carriers in a channel region of the cell transistors.
US07868458B2

The present invention relates to a semiconductor device with an epitaxially grown titanium silicide layer having a phase of C49 and a method for fabricating the same. This titanium silicide layer has a predetermined interfacial energy that does not transform the phase of the titanium layer, and thus, occurrences of agglomeration of the titanium layer and a grooving phenomenon can be prevented. The semiconductor device includes: a silicon layer; an insulation layer formed on the silicon layer, wherein a partial portion of the insulation layer is opened to form a contact hole exposing a partial portion of the silicon layer; an epitaxially grown titanium silicide layer having a phase of C49 and formed on the exposed silicon substrate disposed within the contact hole; and a metal layer formed on an upper surface of the titanium silicide layer.
US07868449B2

A semiconductor substrate includes a substrate layer and a circuit film formed over the substrate layer. One or more openings are formed in the circuit film and the substrate layer. Conductive plates are formed over the circuit film at the peripheries of the openings. A semiconductor die is attached to the circuit film, below the openings with an adhesive material. A conductive material is disposed in the openings to electrically connect the semiconductor die to the conductive plates.
US07868437B2

A mounting structure for an IC tag where an IC chip for mounting (10) is mounted so as to be electrically connected to antenna patterns (44a), (44b). The assembly process that mounts the IC chip for mounting (10) on the antenna patterns (44a), (44b) is simplified, which makes it possible to reduce the manufacturing cost of IC tags. The IC chip for mounting 10 is formed by winding conductive wires (12a), (12b) so as to encircle an outer surface of an IC chip (20) between two opposite edges of the IC chip (20) in a state where the conductive wires (12a), (12b) mechanically contact electrodes formed on the IC chip (20) and are electrically connected to the electrodes, so that the IC chip for mounting (10) is joined to the antenna patterns (44a), (44b) via the conductive wires (12a), (12b).
US07868422B2

The present invention discloses a semiconductor structure. A buried layer of a first polarity type is constructed on a semiconductor substrate. A first epitaxial layer of a second polarity type is formed on the buried layer. A second epitaxial layer of the second polarity type is formed on the buried layer. An isolation structure of the first polarity type is formed between the first and second epitaxial layers on the buried layer. A first well of the second polarity type is formed on the first epitaxial layer. A second well of the second polarity type is formed on the second epitaxial layer. A third well of the first polarity type is formed between the first and second wells, on the isolation structure. The isolation structure interfaces with the buried layer and the third well, thereby substantially blocking a leakage current path between the first and the second wells.
US07868420B2

A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor substrate and a capacitor which is disposed on a principal surface of the semiconductor substrate. The capacitor includes a lower electrode film disposed on the principal surface of the semiconductor substrate, a dielectric film disposed on the lower electrode and an upper electrode film disposed on the dielectric film. The semiconductor device further includes an interconnection film which includes a portion disposed on the upper electrode film so as to be electrically coupled to the upper electrode film. Directions of residual stresses of the upper electrode film coincide with directions of residual stresses of the portion of the interconnection film. Each of the upper electrode film and the interconnection film may include at least one of platinum and iridium. Also, there is provided a method of manufacturing the semiconductor device.
US07868415B2

An integrated circuit is described. The integrated circuit may have: an active area line formed of a material of a semiconductor substrate with a first longitudinal direction parallel to an upper surface of the semiconductor substrate; wherein the active area line has at least one form-supporting element extending in a second longitudinal direction parallel to the upper surface of the semiconductor substrate; and wherein the second longitudinal direction is arranged with regard to the first longitudinal direction in an angle unequal to 0 degree and unequal to 180 degree.
US07868413B2

It is an object of the present invention to surely protect a predetermined semiconductor element or a predetermined semiconductor element group in an analog block from a noise generated from a digital block. A semiconductor device according to the present invention includes a semiconductor substrate, a digital block to be a region in which a digital circuit is formed and an analog block to be a region in which an analog circuit is formed, arranged by separating an upper surface of the semiconductor substrate and a substrate potential fixing region provided on the semiconductor substrate so as to surround in a planar view the predetermined semiconductor element group in the analog block, and a pad connected to the substrate potential fixing region and receiving a predetermined potential from an external part.
US07868409B2

A semiconductor integrated circuit which is connected to a substrate by solder bumps wherein, when at least one solder bump is connected to a signal line of the semiconductor integrated circuit and the semiconductor integrated circuit is mounted on the substrate, the semiconductor integrated circuit is bonded to the substrate by the solder bump, and the interconnection to the substrate is made by dummy bumps forming wires at the substrate side.
US07868406B2

A waveguide-integrated photodiode for high bandwidths with a semi-insulating monomode supply waveguide monolithically integrated on a substrate, together with an overlying photodiode mesa structure having an electroconducting n-contact layer, an absorption layer, a p+-contact layer and a metallic p-contact, the refraction index of the n-contact layer being greater than the refraction index of the semi-insulating waveguide layer. Lengthening the n-contact layer by a predetermined length L in the direction of the supply waveguide in relation to the overlying layers correspondingly increases at least one factor of the product of quantum efficiency and bandwidth.
US07868401B2

Provided are a multibit electro-mechanical memory device and a method of manufacturing the same. The device may include at least one bit line in a first direction on a substrate; at least one gate line and at least one lower word line in parallel by a given interval and in a second direction intersecting the first direction on the at least one bit line; at least one contact pad adjacent to the at least one gate line on the at least one bit line; and at least one cantilever electrode coupled to the at least one contact pad, configured to float with a void above and beneath the at least one cantilever electrode and configured to curve in a third direction vertical to the first and second directions.
US07868400B2

An apparatus for driving a load that may include, for instance, a semiconductor chip, comprising a first switch, and a fracture sensor. The apparatus may further include, for instance, a circuit disposed outside the semiconductor chip and comprising a second switch coupled in series with the first switch, and configured such that an on/off state of the second switch is set in accordance with a state of the fracture sensor.
US07868399B2

A semiconductor sensing device in which a sensing layer is exposed to a medium being tested in an area below and/or adjacent to a contact. In one embodiment, the device comprises a field effect transistor in which the sensing layer is disposed below a gate contact. The sensing layer is exposed to the medium by one or more perforations that are included in the gate contact and/or one or more layers disposed above the sensing layer. The sensing layer can comprise a dielectric layer, a semiconductor layer, or the like.
US07868388B2

In some aspects, a memory circuit is provided that includes (1) a two-terminal memory element formed on a substrate; and (2) a CMOS transistor formed on the substrate and adapted to program the two-terminal memory element. The two-terminal memory element is formed between a gate layer and a first metal layer of the memory circuit. Numerous other aspects are provided.
US07868382B2

A power actuator of the emitter-switched type is described, the power actuator comprising at least one high voltage bipolar transistor and a low voltage DMOS transistor connected in cascode configuration between a collector terminal of the bipolar transistor and a source terminal of the DMOS transistor and having respective control terminals. Advantageously, the power actuator further comprises at least a Zener diode, inserted between the source terminal of the DMOS transistor and the control transistor of the bipolar transistor.
US07868378B1

An LDMOS transistor includes a gate including a conductive material over an insulator material, a source including a first impurity region and a second impurity region, a third impurity region, and a drain including a fourth impurity region and a fifth impurity region. The first impurity region is of a first type, and the second impurity region is of an opposite second type. The third impurity region extends from the source region under the gate and is of the first type. The fourth impurity region is of the second type, the fifth impurity region is of the second type, and the fourth impurity region impinges the third impurity region.
US07868371B2

In one embodiment, a non-volatile memory device includes an isolation film defining an active region in a semiconductor substrate; a tunnel insulating film located on the active region; a control gate located on the isolation film; an inter-gate dielectric film parallel to the control gate and located between the control gate and the isolation film; an electrode overlapped by the control gate and the inter-gate dielectric film, wherein the electrode extends over the tunnel insulating film on the active region to form a floating gate; and a source region and a drain region formed in the active region on both sides of the floating gate.
US07868367B2

A system and method for sensing image on CMOS. According to an embodiment, the present invention provide a CMOS image sensing pixel. The pixel includes an n-type substrate, which includes a first width and a first thickness. The pixel also includes a p-type epitaxy layer overlying the n-type substrate. The p-type epitaxy layer includes a second width and a second thickness. The second width is associated with one or more characteristics of a colored light. The pixel additionally includes an n-type layer overlying the p-type epitaxy layer. The n-type layer is associated with a third width and a third thickness. Additionally, the pixel includes an pn junction formed between the p-type epitaxy layer and the n-type layer. Moreover, the pixel includes a control circuit being coupled to the CMOS image sensing pixel.
US07868364B2

Embodiments relate to and image sensor. In embodiments, the image sensor may include a semiconductor substrate, a photodiode region, a gate electrode, a dummy gate, and an interlayer dielectric layer. The semiconductor substrate includes a field oxide layer. The photodiode region may be formed on the semiconductor substrate. The gate electrode may be formed on the semiconductor substrate. The dummy gate may be formed on the field oxide layer. The interlayer dielectric layer may be formed on one side of the dummy gate and includes an opening exposing the photodiode region.
US07868352B2

A Break Over Diode (“BOD”) device is a gate-less two terminal high power semiconductor switch in which transitions from a blocking state to a conducting state are triggered by a dV/dt pulse to the anode. The BOD device can be thought of as two cross-coupled PNP and NPN transistors, and includes both anode and cathode shorts which reduce the gain of the NPN and PNP transistors by shunting some current away from their bases directly to their emitters, thereby improving blocking. Moreover, the anode and cathode shorts in conjunction with the device blocking junction form PN diodes which are distributed throughout the bulk of the material and function as anti-parallel diodes to the base-emitter junctions of the PNP and NPN transistors, which enables the BOD device to handle a larger current reversal for a longer period of time. The P base layer may be made thin to decrease the voltage fall time from full blocking to full conduction, and the cathode and anode shorts may be provided in a honeycomb pattern.
US07868346B2

An island submount used for carrying at least one light-emitting element having at least one electrical contact. The island submount includes a substrate, at least one island structure having a top surface and an inclined surface, and a conductive layer. The island structure is located on the substrate and corresponds to the electrical contact. The conductive layer is formed on the surface of the island structure and at least covers the top surface, so as to be electrically connected with the electrical contact. The island submount is capable of enhancing the light extraction efficiency of the light-emitting element, and avoids the energy loss due to re-absorption when the light emerging from below the light-emitting element is reflected back to the light-emitting element.
US07868345B2

A light-emitting apparatus with improved dissipation efficiency of heat transmitted to a specific electrode of a light-emitting device is provided. A light-emitting device mounting substrate used for the light emitting apparatus include a base body (1) which mounts thereon a light-emitting device (3); a first electrically conductive path (L1) formed within the base body (1), one end thereof being electrically connected to a first electrode (3a) of the light-emitting device (3) and the other end thereof being led out to a surface of the base body (1); and a second electrically conductive path (L2) formed in the base body (1), one end thereof being electrically connected to a second electrode (3b) of the light-emitting device (3), and the other end thereof being formed on the surface of the base body (1). The first electrically conductive path (L1) is made smaller in thermal resistance than the second electrically conductive path (L2).
US07868342B2

A semiconductor light emitting device includes a silicon substrate, a p-type semiconductor layer provided on the silicon substrate, a n-type semiconductor layer provided on the silicon substrate, the n-type semiconductor layer adjoining the p-type semiconductor layer, and a light emitting section formed at a p-n homojunction between the p-type semiconductor layer and the n-type semiconductor layer. The p-n homojunction is substantially perpendicular to a major surface of the silicon substrate. The p-n homojunction is corrugated with a period matched with an integer multiple of an emission wavelength at the light emitting section.
US07868321B2

Provided are an organic light emitting device (OLED) and a flat display including the OLED. The OLED includes an organic layer which includes a pixel electrode, an opposite electrode, and at least an emission layer between the pixel electrode and the opposite electrode, wherein the emission layer includes a long wavelength-blue emission layer emitting blue light having a long wavelength and a short wavelength-blue emission layer emitting blue light having a short wavelength. The long wavelength-blue emission layer is positioned in a location to enhance emission of blue light from the emission layer. The OLED can emit blue light with high efficiency and high brightness.
US07868317B2

A semiconductor structure includes a semiconductor substrate having a first lattice constant; a gate dielectric on the semiconductor substrate; a gate electrode on the semiconductor substrate; and a stressor having at least a portion in the semiconductor substrate and adjacent the gate electrode. The stressor has a tilted sidewall on a side adjacent the gate electrode. The stressor includes a first stressor layer having a second lattice constant substantially different from the first lattice constant; and a second stressor layer on the first stressor layer, wherein the second stressor has a third lattice constant substantially different from the first and the second lattice constants.
US07868310B2

Methods and apparatus for providing a resistance variable memory device with agglomeration prevention and thermal stability. According to one embodiment, a resistance variable memory device is provided having at least one tin-chalcogenide layer proximate at least one chalcogenide glass layer. The invention also relates to methods of forming such a memory device.
US07868300B2

Lithography system, sensor and method for measuring properties of a massive amount of charged particle beams of a charged particle beam system, in particular a direct write lithography system, in which the charged particle beams are converted into light beams by using a converter element, using an array of light sensitive detectors such as diodes, CCD or CMOS devices, located in line with said converter element, for detecting said light beams, electronically reading out resulting signals from said detectors after exposure thereof by said light beams, utilizing said signals for determining values for one or more beam properties, thereby using an automated electronic calculator, and electronically adapting the charged particle system so as to correct for out of specification range values for all or a number of said charged particle beams, each for one or more properties, based on said calculated property values.
US07868282B2

An automatic vision display apparatus has a flight object having a floating gas filled therein to fly, flying along a vertical wall surface and including a screen mounted at an opposite side to the vertical wall surface; a propulsion unit mounted at a predetermined position of the flight object and moving the flight object; a control unit mounted to the flight object and controlling the propulsion unit; a projector projecting an image on the screen of the flight object at a distance from the flight object; an adjusting unit adjusting an image projecting direction of the projector; and a main control unit controlling the projector to project the image and controlling the adjusting unit so that the projector tracks a movement of the flight object to project an image. According to the invention, it is possible to project an image while automatically tracking the screen of the flight object being flying. In addition, it is possible to correct a distortion of the projected when the screen of the flight object consists of the three dimensional curved surface.
US07868266B2

Spot welding system including a welding gun with an electrode pair actuated by a servo-motor, a robot carrying the welding gun or objective workpieces and operating to change an relative positions and orientations of the welding gun and an workpieces, and a gun motion controller controlling the servo-motor to actuate the electrode pair. The gun motion controller includes a motion commanding section outputting motion commands to the servo-motor in accordance with a speed set-value designating a closing speed of the electrode pair, and a set-value adjusting section automatically adjusting the speed set-value to an appropriate value. The set-value adjusting section includes a force-data obtaining section obtaining force data representing, in a time-series manner, the pressurizing force generated in the electrode pair when the servo-motor actuates the electrode pair to close, and an appropriate-value computing section determining the appropriate value of the speed set-value based on pre-convergence transient data in the force data.
US07868262B2

An auxiliary switch tray is provided for an electrical switching apparatus, such as a circuit breaker. The circuit breaker includes a housing, an actuating mechanism, and a plurality of auxiliary switches. The housing has a mounting mechanism. The auxiliary switch tray includes a module having first and second sides, and a plurality of mounts disposed on the first side. At least a plurality of the mounts is structured to receive a corresponding one of the auxiliary switches. A base is disposed on the second side of the module and is coupled to the mounting mechanism in order to install the auxiliary switches in a predetermined position with respect to the actuating mechanism of the circuit breaker. The module, the mounts, and the base comprise one single-piece molded member. At least a plurality of the mounts are molded compartments of the single-piece molded member.
US07868255B2

A sealing ring for a frusto-conical connection hole through a divider wall in an accumulator includes a plate which contacts one side of the divider wall and a sheath which extends through the connection hole, the sheath defining an outer surface which expands in frusto-conical fashion from a base at the plate to a free end and an inner surface which can be cylindrical or frusto-conical.