US08151347B2
A cluster of computer system nodes share direct read/write access to storage devices via a storage area network using a cluster filesystem. At least one trusted metadata server assigns a mandatory access control label as an extended attribute of each filesystem object regardless of whether required by a client node accessing the filesystem object. The mandatory access control label indicates the sensitivity and integrity of the filesystem object and is used by the trusted metadata server(s) to control access to the filesystem object by all client nodes.
US08151338B2
A method and system for continuously serving the authentication requests of networked computers is disclosed. The authentication requests of computers are served and the services for the computers are reserved for a predefined time interval. The authentication service for a computer is reserved by an authentication server, which receives authentication requests of the computer.
US08151335B2
A proxy authentication method and apparatus is described for use in user authentication, e.g. for payment transactions.The authentication is carried out before the transaction between a electronic, e.g. digital identification device and a person terminal. Verification information is entered at the personal terminal to authenticate the user and if this is successful a verification flag is set in the digital identification device.The status of this flag, or an encrypted version thereof can be used by a transaction terminal of evidence that the user has been authenticated without having to transmit any secret identification information to the transaction terminal.
US08151314B2
A system comprises a server operable to deliver an Internet Protocol Television stream to a set-top box, and operable to retrieve an image from a first traffic camera. Upon receipt of a request from the set-top box, the image is sent to a wireless device.
US08151312B2
A point-reading device for obtaining network audio/video files includes an image reading unit for obtaining image codes including information codes representing audio/video target files. A digital processing unit connected with the image reading unit receives the image codes sent from the image reading unit and decodes the image codes to obtain the information codes representing the audio/video target files. A memory for storing data, connected with the digital processing unit stores an information table that identifies the corresponding relationships between the information codes representing the audio/video target files and attribute information used for obtaining the audio/video target files. A network module establishes a connection between the digital processing unit and a network server. An operation system supporting network protocol is provided in the digital processing unit. The digital processing unit obtains the attribute information corresponding to the information codes according to the information table, and controls the network module to obtain the network audio/video target files stored at network servers according to the attribute information. The digital processing unit has an embedded operation system which supports the network protocol.
US08151311B2
A method of detecting potential video traffic interference at a video head-end of a video distribution network is disclosed and includes detecting, at a video head-end, a signal populating an ultra high frequency (UHF) white space frequency. The method also includes determining that a strength of the signal is equal to or greater than a threshold signal strength. Further, the method includes sending an alert from the video head-end to a network management system. The alert indicates that the UHF white space frequency is populated by a signal having a potential to interfere with video traffic delivered via the video head-end.
US08151304B2
A digital downloading jukebox system including a mechanism for delivering custom services to a recognized user, including services for creating playlists, communicating with others, accessing other features, etc. is provided. In some exemplary embodiments, after a user is recognized, the jukebox system allows users to access a special front-end via the Internet or on an actual jukebox. Then, the user may, for example, create playlists, share songs with friends, send messages to friends, and access other value-added content. Other exemplary embodiments allow users to become certified, charging them for services without requiring constant inputting of coinage or credit card information. Such a system preferably learns about networks of friends, and enables managers to send similar messages to regular customers and/or others known to the system.
US08151302B2
The broadcast station 1 provides the digital contents to be put on the air with the attributive information of the digital contents thereof. The selective information showing the user's taste is set out in the filter unit 12. The filter unit 12 filters the attributive information on the basis of the selective information to select the digital contents which suits the user's taste among the digital contents which were put on the air. According to the broadcast station 1, the user may listen and view the selected digital contents after recording the digital contents in the recording medium, or the user may listen and view the digital contents which suits the user's taste among the digital contents which were put on the air.
US08151294B2
Although personal video recorders (also known as digital video recorders) provide certain conveniences to viewers of programming content, such devices facilitate manipulation or Askipping@ of commercials, frustrating the intent of the advertisers of the commercials. In accordance with the invention, when a user fast-forwards (rewinds) a commercial, alternate commercial(s) may be accessed for display in place of the original commercial, which provides a full impression of the goods and service promoted, otherwise impossible to appreciate at the fast-forward (rewind) speed. The duration of the alternate commercial(s) corresponds to the duration of the original commercial at the fast-forward (rewind) speed controlled by the user. With the invention, the user advantageously realizes the convenience of manipulating programming content, and at the same time can appreciate the full impression of an alternate commercial to the original commercial, albeit in a shorter duration.
US08151293B1
A system for automatically tuning to a channel based on an event includes a tuner to tune to a first channel, an event table to associate an event with a second channel, and event detector to detect the event and to instruct the tuner to tune to the second channel in response to the event.
US08151287B2
The present invention is to provide a pickup feed device to accurately position an optical pickup in place with miniaturization. The pickup device includes a lead screw attached to a movable chassis, a pickup portion, a rack member, a torsion coil spring, a projection portion, and a recess portion. The pickup portion has a case receiving the pickup. The rack member is fixed to the case. The rack portion disposed on a rack one end portion and a case one end portion are engaged with the lead screw. A rack another end portion has the abut portion abutting an inner edge portion of the movable chassis. The torsion coil spring urges the abut portion toward a case another end portion. The projection portion is disposed on the abut portion and the recess portion is disposed on the case another end portion.
US08151277B2
A method and system for dynamic and adaptive deployment of in-process agents to virtual machine based applications which may run on remote hosts is provided. A bootstrap agent is injected into the application, using standardized interfaces provided by virtual machine based systems like SUN MICROSYSTEMS' JAVA system or MICROSOFT's .NET system. The bootstrap agent establishes a network connection to a management server which provides binaries representing in-process agents in bytecode or native code format. The bootstrap agent sends data identifying its runtime environment to the management server, which determines the matching in-process agent binaries for the runtime environment of the connected agent and sends the selected binaries to the bootstrap agent. The bootstrap agent receives the binaries and installs them to its hosting virtual machine, according to their format (bytecode or native code).
US08151276B2
A script analyzer with change guide generates accurate test scripts for evolving applications. Applications often have complex graphical user interfaces for which the permutations and combinations of GUI elements give rise to an enormous field of potential commands and command sequences to be tested. Furthermore, these applications change over time, rendering prior test scripts unworkable. The script analyzer automatically generates new test scripts to reliably test subsequent application versions, while greatly reducing the time, cost, and resource expenditures needed to arrive at subsequent application versions.
US08151266B2
A fast sub-process is provided in an operating system for a digital signal processor (DSP). The fast sub-process executes a sub-process without a kernel first determining whether the sub-process resides in an internal memory, as long as certain conditions have been satisfied. One of the conditions is that a programmer determines that the sub-process has been previously loaded into internal memory and executed. Another condition is that the programmer has ensured that a process calling the sub-process has not called any other sub-process between the last execution and the current execution request. Yet another condition is that the programmer ensures that the system has not called another overlapping sub-process between the last execution and the current execution request.
US08151263B1
Method and systems for real-time cloning of a virtual machine are described. A virtual machine is running and a clone of the virtual machine is created while the virtual machine continues to run. In one embodiment, the creation of the clone further comprises quiesceing the virtual machine, taking a snapshot S1 (excluding main memory) of the state of the virtual machine, and creating a copy S2 of the snapshot S1. The original VM continues execution off the snapshot S1. The cloned VM restores from snapshot S2. In another embodiment, the cloning of the virtual machine further comprises instructing a vmkernel associated with the virtual machine to mark all pages of main memory of the virtual machine as copy-on-write (COW). The unique ID corresponding to the main memory is provided by the vmkernel and an association between the unique ID and the main memory is made upon restoration of the clone.
US08151251B2
A method of dynamically generating profiling data using runtime non-intrusive profiling of application transactions which are contained in containers such as web servers, application servers, portal servers and J2EE/ECM containers, includes the following steps: using common resources of memory and environment for both profiling activity and application transactions; remotely executing project specific profiling administration and configuration; using the executed project specific profiling administration and configuration and completing remote profiling, and generating profiling data by taking assistance selectively from Aspect Oriented Programming, and Application Response Measurement; and, selectively using the profiling data to analyze performance bottlenecks and do auditing as needed by a user. The profiling is done by capturing metrics based on accepted standards, partially using the same memory as for the application transactions, without code-contamination in the containers and can be done layer-wise, tier-wise or at method level. A computer readable medium encoded with the method is included.
US08151245B2
A distributed processing system is described that employs “application-based” specialization. In particular, the distributed processing system is constructed as a collection of computing nodes in which each computing node performs a particular processing role within the operation of the overall distributed processing system. Each of the computing nodes includes an operating system, such as the Linux operating system, and includes a plug-in software module to provide a distributed memory operating system that employs the role-based computing techniques. An administration node maintains a database that defines a plurality of application roles. Each role is associated with a software application, and specifies a set of software components necessary for execution of the software application. The administration node deploys the software components to the application nodes in accordance with the application roles associates with each of the application nodes.
US08151237B2
The present invention is directed to methods for disabling unused IO resources in a platform-based integrated circuit. A slice is received from a vendor. The slice includes an IO circuit unused by a customer. The IO circuit is disabled. For example, when the IO circuit is desired to be tied to a power source, a primary input/output pin of the IO circuit is shorted to a power bus of the IO circuit. When the IO circuit is desired to be tied to a ground source, a primary input/output pin of the IO circuit is shorted to a ground bus of the IO circuit. When the IO circuit is desired to be left floated, a primary input/output pin of the IO circuit is not connected to any bonding pad cell of the slice. Next, the IO circuit is removed from the customer's logic design netlist. The IO circuit is inserted in the vendor's physical design database.
US08151236B2
Roughly described, a method for mask data preparation is described, for use with a preliminary mask layout that includes a starting polygon, the vertices of the starting polygon including I-points (vertices of the starting polygon having an interior angle greater than 90 degrees), including steps of developing a rectilinear partition tree on at least the I-points of the starting polygon, and using the edges of the partition tree to define the partition of the starting polygon into sub-polygons for mask writing.
US08151233B1
Methods, computer programs, and systems for designing an electronic component are presented. One method calculates a first Simultaneous Switching Noise (SSN) on Input/Output (IO) pins using a first configuration of the electronic component. A setting or a placement of a chosen IO pin is changed to obtain a second configuration of the electronic component, and a second SSN on IO pins is obtained based on the results of the first SSN and based on new SSN calculations related to the changed setting or placement. The second SSN on an IO pin, other than the chosen IO pin, is calculated by subtracting from the first SSN on the IO pin the SSN caused by the chosen IO pin calculated in the first SSN, and by adding an incremental SSN caused by the chosen IO pin on the pin in the second configuration. The method further includes the operation of creating a design for the electronic component with either the first or the second configuration based on the results of the first and the second SSN.
US08151232B2
A method for routing a chip, involving forming a plurality of nets configured to connect components of the chip, wherein each of the plurality of nets is included in a netlist, assigning at least one repeater to each of the plurality of nets in the netlist, wherein the repeaters are assigned prior to performing physical routing of the plurality of nets, inserting the at least one repeater in a corresponding net, wherein the insertion of the at least one repeater divides the corresponding net into at least two subnets, and performing the physical routing of the plurality of nets by connecting each of the subnets.
US08151215B2
A favorites GUI for a TV includes a carousel-type display of icons representing user-defined favorites that is overlaid on the current background video of the TV, with the center-most icon being the “current” icon and being enlarged relative to the other icons. Live video appears in icons representing TV channels. Other icons can represent, e.g., favorite photo/music files, favorite games from a game console, favorite content from an ambient player, etc.
US08151214B2
A system and method is provided to assist a user in selecting, identifying, and handling email messages. A selection color module may provide for the display of color coding and selection highlighting. The selection color module may provide a secondary highlighting color to indicate messages related to a selected message. A category navigation module may provide one or more of the following: an indicator that provides the user with a number of items that are off the screen for a particular category, a command that causes the first entry for a category to be scrolled into view, a label to indicate the number of items in a particular category matching a particular criteria, and/or a control for scrolling between next or previous categories.
US08151205B2
A method, apparatus, and computer program product are provided, which may provide activity coordination information. An apparatus may include a processor configured to cause a map to be displayed in a viewing agent. The processor may be further configured to receive an indication of a selection of a location on the map. The processor may also be configured to determine one or more information atoms having associated location information defining a location within a predefined distance of the selected location. The processor may additionally be configured to cause the one or more determined information atoms to be displayed in the viewing agent. Corresponding methods and computer program products are also provided.
US08151190B2
An analysis device allowing any person to utilize job guidance for setting and assignment operations with high efficiency regardless of a level of skill in an automatic analysis device which has a complicated screen configuration with an increase of functions. A storage unit stores a job guidance file and a correspondence list file indicating correspondences between procedure IDs, codes, buttons, etc. in the job guidance file and screen IDs for device control program software. When an operator selects the procedure ID or the like in a displayed job guidance window, control is performed such that the screen ID corresponding to the selected procedure ID or the like is searched for in the correspondence list file, and the displayed screen is shifted to one corresponding to the searched screen ID for the device control program software.
US08151189B2
In accordance with the teachings described herein, systems and methods are provided for an automated application interface. One or more wizards may be used to receive user input in order to perform one or more software interface operations to manipulate a first set of data between data analysis software and database software. Information associated with the user input may be captured and used to generate one or more template data stores. A user interface may be used to modify at least one template data store to identify a subsequent set of data. The template data stores may be automatically executed in an identified sequence to perform software interface and data analysis operations for the subsequent set of data.
US08151184B2
A method for promoting the accessing efficiency with embedded WEB page is disclosed, the method comprises at least the steps of a). when a browsing request to a HTTP server is sent by a user with a browser, the browsing request is transmitted to the HTTP server via a media, and then divided into a data request and a presentation request; b). the data request is processed by a web page generator to trigger corresponding CGI web page and the presentation request is processed by the web page generator to retrieve the corresponding HTML web pages; c). the web page generator receives the CGI web page and the HTML web page respectively and then converts them into web pages corresponding to the data request and the presentation request; and d). the web pages are transmitted by the HTTP server to the browser via the media and displayed to the user.
US08151179B1
Systems and methods for linking slides used during a presentation with a video recording of the presentation are provided. A presenter can develop slides for a presentation using a presentation tool. The presenter can then use the presentation tool to present the slides during a live talk, a video of which can be simultaneously recorded. The presentation tool can record the times at which each slide in the presentation was displayed, and for how long each slide was displayed. After the presentation concludes, the video recording or a link thereto can be provided to the presentation tool, which then can link the video recording to the slides. Viewers of the linked presentation can view the video and slides of the presentation, with the slides advancing in step with the video. Additionally, advancing or rewinding the slides can advance or rewind the video to the corresponding time point, and vice-versa.
US08151176B2
A parity checking circuit which includes a microprocessor, instruction memory, a parity checker, an address capture device, a data bus connected to the microprocessor, the instruction memory and the parity checker, and an address bus connected to the microprocessor, the instruction memory and the address capture device. The instruction memory sends a parity bit to the parity checker, and the parity checker compare an address it receives from the address bus to the parity bit it receives from the instruction memory. If a parity error is detected, an error signal is sent to the address capture device and the address capture device captures the address for subsequent storage in a storage device, such as flash memory. The circuit also includes registers and a watchdog reset device which facilitates a system level reset at the command of the microprocessor.
US08151173B2
Data latches, multiplexers, an ECC circuit section, and an input/output circuit section are arranged in columns and adjacent to each other, in an extending direction of data lines that are formed in a direction orthogonal to word lines. A layout of a data path system is formed in bit slices. Further, parity bits are equally distributed so as to cause delay times of bits to be uniform.
US08151172B2
Methods and structure described herein provide for reducing the overall delay of an RS encoder/decoder without changing the essential functionality of the RS encoder/decoder. In one embodiment, a cascade module reduces the combinatorial logical delay by reducing the total number of logical devices. In doing so, the cascade module couples encoder/decoder slices into blocks. A first block of the encoder/decoder slices is selectively operable in parallel with a second block of encoder/decoder slices. The number of encoder/decoder blocks is less than the overall number of encoder/decoder slices. The cascade module may also include a switch that selects encoder/decoder slices as needed, thereby providing for the implementation of the RS encoder/decoder with fewer logical devices.
US08151169B2
The method is for hardening a computer based on off-the-shelf components so that it resists bombardment by particles of cosmic origin encountered at high altitude and near the poles. It relates more particularly to a computer comprising a processor/bridge pair, the bridge ensuring auxiliary functions for controlling the data exchanges between the processor and a random-access memory incorporating a Hamming-type error corrector code into the information exchanged and consists in inserting between the processor/bridge pair and the random-access memory an interface device carrying out a two-way transcoding between the Hamming-type error correction code incorporated into the information exchanged by the auxiliary functions for controlling the data exchanges of the processor/bridge pair and a Reed-Solomon-type error correction code adapted to the architecture of the random-access memory.
US08151165B2
Apparatus and methods are provided to correct burst errors from a communication channel. Embodiments may include correcting burst errors in received data using a decoder configured as a Meggitt decoder with an additional selection criterion to correct a burst error having a length larger than the code error correction capability.
US08151155B2
A re-transmit processor for a wireless communication system includes a pointer memory which contains pointers associated with particular packet data in a host memory. The re-transmit processor directs data associated with the pointers to be applied to a media access controller, which optionally contains an encryption function, the output of which is coupled to a block buffer and to an output interface. Upon receipt of a transmission request, the host memory locations associated with the pointers are read and the data directed to the media access controller, which adds a header, a CRC, and optionally encrypts the data, thereafter placing it in the block buffer and the output interface. Upon provision of the packet data to the MAC, the associated pointer is initialized to a FREE or UNUSED value, and upon receipt of an acknowledgement of the packet accompanied by a packet identifier from a receiving station, the packet associated with the packet identifier is removed from the block buffer.
US08151149B2
A semiconductor memory apparatus according to the embodiment includes a test mode controller, a first data alignment unit, a decoder, a test executing unit and a second data alignment unit. The test mode controller is configured to generate test enable signals in response to a test mode setting signal and a read command. The first data alignment unit is configured to parallely align first input data that are input in series, generate first alignment data, and transmit it to the first data driver. The decoder is configured to decode the first alignment data in response to the test enable signal and generate the decoding signal. The test executing unit is configured to execute the preset test mode in response to the decoding signal. The second data alignment unit is configured to parallely align second input data, which are input in series, in response to the test enable signal, generate second alignment data, and transmit it to a second data driver.
US08151147B2
In accordance with at least some embodiments, a system comprises a plurality of partitions, each partition having its own error handler. The system further comprises a plurality of resources assignable to the plurality of partitions. The system further comprises management logic coupled to the plurality of partitions and the plurality of resources. The management logic comprises an error management tool that synchronizes operation of the error handlers in response to an error.
US08151142B2
Apparatus and methods for intercepting and analyzing threads are disclosed. In one embodiment, a thread data recorder is configured to instrument one or more existing functions by modifying computer executable instructions in the functions to intercept threads calling the functions. In one possible implementation, the number of existing functions instrumented can be reduced by instrumenting choke point functions. The instrumented functions can also capture data associated with the threads as the threads execute at the function. This data can be saved to memory and compressed into logs. In one aspect, the data can be saved and/or compressed at a time when processor resources are being used at or below a predetermined level. The captured data can be used to analyze a functioning of a computer system in which the threads were produced.
US08151137B2
Various embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for data storage. As an example, storage devices are disclosed that include a plurality of memory blocks, an unreliable block identification circuit, and a partial failure indication circuit. Each of the plurality of memory blocks includes a plurality of memory cells that decrease in reliability over time as they are accessed. The unreliable block identification circuit is operable to determine that one or more of the plurality of memory blocks is unreliable, and the partial failure indication circuit is operable to disallow write access to the plurality of memory blocks upon determination that an insufficient number of the plurality of memory blocks remain reliable.
US08151135B2
Systems and methods for reducing problems and disadvantages associated with traditional approaches to data and program storage on an information handling system are provided. A method may include determining if a primary storage resource has a failure. The method may further include, in response to determining that the storage resource does not have a failure: booting from a first operating system stored on the primary storage resource, monitoring data stored to the primary storage resource to identify data to be copied to a persistent storage resource, and copying the identified data to the persistent storage resource. The method may further include, in response to determining that the storage resource has a failure: booting from a second operating system stored on the persistent storage resource, and via the second operating system, providing access to the copied identified data copied to the persistent storage resource.
US08151133B2
A method of calibrating read operations in a memory system is disclosed. The method involves placing a memory controller in a calibration mode, and performing a series of dummy read operations. Each of the read operations performs a read of pre-specified data stored in at least one memory component while using different ones of delayed enable signals. Data read from respective dummy read operations is compared to identify successful read operations while the timing information from successful read operations is compared to identify a suitable delayed enable signal.
US08151129B2
A computer having an active mode and an inactive mode includes a primary processor and a primary memory. A primary display is associated with the primary processor and the primary memory. The primary processor, the primary memory, and the primary display are operated when the computer is in the active mode and are powered down when the computer is in the inactive mode. A secondary processor dissipates less power than the primary processor. A secondary display communicates with the secondary processor. The secondary processor and the secondary display are powered up when the computer is in the inactive mode, and the secondary processor processes at least one of wireless network data and disk drive data when the computer is in each of the active mode and the inactive mode.
US08151114B2
Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, implementing and using techniques for digital rights management. In one aspect, a method is provided. The method includes receiving an electronic document, where the electronic document includes one or more content items, a set of usage rights defining one or more features to be enabled when the document is read by an electronic document reader, and a stored representation. The method further includes generating a representation of invariant content items of the electronic document, comparing the generated representation with the stored representation, and enabling features corresponding to the set of usage rights in the electronic document only if the generated representation and the stored representation are identical, where the features are features performed by the electronic document reader on the electronic document.
US08151108B1
A secure channel is established to enable access to switched video service on a media server using a bridge component between the media server and a switched video network. Multiple tuners can be coupled with the media server. Each of the multiple tuners can have an associated unique certificate and corresponding public key. The secure channel for switched video service can be established for each of the multiple tuners.
US08151107B2
Concurrent login detection system includes: a message receiving unit configured for receiving a log message which is indicative of a user identifier of a user, login/logout state of the user, and a session identifier, from an external server; a corresponding message retrieval unit configured for retrieving a corresponding message of the received log message from a memory wherein the corresponding message is a log message containing the same user identifier and the same session identifier with those contained in said received log message; and a message processor configured for removing said received log message and said retrieved corresponding message from the memory if the corresponding message is retrieved from the message buffer, and for storing said received log message in the memory if said corresponding message is not retrieved from the memory.
US08151098B2
A signal processing apparatus for processing a periodic signal outputted from a signal source has a central processing unit and a task switch timer. The central processing unit performs multiple tasks including a signal processing task in parallel. In the signal processing task, the central processing unit starts to process the periodic signal after performing a synchronization processing to synchronize with the periodic signal, setting the task switch timer to a predetermined time upon completion of the synchronization processing, and enabling an interrupt to the central processing unit upon completion of the synchronization processing. The task switch timer disables the interrupt to the central processing unit immediately before expiring. The task switch timer outputs a task switch signal to the central processing unit when expiring, so that the central processing unit switches to the signal processing task.
US08151097B2
When two threads (strands), for example, are executed in parallel in a processor in a simultaneous multi-thread (SMT) system, entries of a branch reservation station of an instruction control device are separately used in a strand 0 group and a strand 1 group. The data of the strand 0 and the data of the strand 1 are allocated to the respective entries by switching a select circuit. When an entry is released from the branch reservation station, the select circuit switches the strands so that a branch instruction in one strand can be released in order, thereby releasing the entry.
US08151092B2
A dynamic predictive and/or exact caching mechanism is provided in various stages of a microprocessor pipeline so that various control signals can be stored and memorized in the course of program execution. Exact control signal vector caching may be done. Whenever an issue group is formed following instruction decode, register renaming, and dependency checking, an encoded copy of the issue group information can be cached under the tag of the leading instruction. The resulting dependency cache or control vector cache can be accessed right at the beginning of the instruction issue logic stage of the microprocessor pipeline the next time the corresponding group of instructions come up for re-execution. Since the encoded issue group bit pattern may be accessed in a single cycle out of the cache, the resulting microprocessor pipeline with this embodiment can be seen as two parallel pipes, where the shorter pipe is followed if there is a dependency cache or control vector cache hit.
US08151090B2
A systolic data processing apparatus includes a processing element (PE) array and control unit. The PE array comprises a plurality of PEs, each PE executing a thread with respect to different data according to an input instruction and pipelining the instruction at each cycle for executing a program. The control unit inputs a new instruction to a first PE of the PE array at each cycle.
US08151078B2
A method for rearranging a logical volume including arranging a logical volume rearranging program on a particular server and using the logical volume rearranging program to acquire server/storage mapping information from each server and performance information from each storage subsystem. Moreover, the logical volume rearranging program acquires request I/O (Input/Output) performance and a rearranging rule for each application set by a user. Furthermore, the logical volume rearranging program determines a destination by using the logical volume rearranging destination parity group specified by the user according to the aforementioned information, and rearranges the logical volume according to the storage subsystem performance and the request I/O performance of each application.
US08151071B2
Recording control with additional information superposed on data and recording control in response to a type of a recording medium on which data are recorded are disclosed. A recording apparatus for recording data onto a recording medium includes an identification data detection section for detecting identification data for identification of data from the data, a copying count data detection section for detecting copying count data for limiting the number of times of copying the data from the data, and a recording control section for controlling recording of the data onto the recording medium based on the identification data detected by the identification data detection section and the copying count data detected by the copying count data detection section. Another recording apparatus for recording data onto a recording medium includes a discrimination section for discriminating a type of the recording medium, and a control section for selecting a recording control method for recording the data onto the recording medium in response to the discrimination section and controlling recording of the data onto the recording medium in accordance with the selected recording control method.
US08151070B2
When detecting the completion of remote copying of a primary volume to a secondary volume, a host compute splits a copy pair into the primary volume and the secondary volume and has the secondary volume store a snapshot of the primary volume. A backup server recognizes the secondary volume.
US08151065B2
The present invention provides a memory control device and a semiconductor processing apparatus which can be flexibly made adapted to a plurality of kinds of semiconductor memories. An SDRAM controller has: a register unit to which a command to be issued and a minimum interval (wait time) between issue of the command and issue of the next command are written by a CPU; and a command issuing unit that stops issue of the next command until the minimum interval written in the register elapses since issue of the command written in the register. Therefore, by changing software for the CPU, the SDRAM controller can be flexibly adapted to a plurality of kinds of SDRAMs.
US08151063B2
The present invention relates to information processing apparatuses. A content to be checked out is stored in an automatic-checking-out-destination storage section 113 from musical-piece-file storage sections 108-1 and 108-2 for each external-unit/-medium ID which identifies a PD 5. A GUI section 101 determines through a transfer processing section 103 and a PD plug-in 111 whether the PD 5 has been connected. When it is determined that the PD 5 has been connected, a musical-piece file is checked out from the musical-piece-file storage sections 108 to the PD 5 through a musical-piece management section 104, a file search section 106, and a data base 107 according to the information of the content to be checked out stored in the automatic-checking-out-destination storage section 113. The present invention can be applied to music reproduction software.
US08151060B2
In a semiconductor memory computer equipped with a flash memory, use of backed-up data is enabled. The semiconductor memory computer includes an address conversion table for detecting physical addresses of at least two pages storing data by designating a logical address from one of logical addresses to be designated by a reading request. The semiconductor memory computer includes a page status register for detecting one page status allocated to each page, and page statuses to be detected include the at least following four statuses: (1) a latest data storage status, (2) a not latest data storage status, (3) an invalid data storage status, and (4) an unwritten status. By using the address conversion table and the page status register, at least two data s (latest data and past data) can be read for one designated logical address from a host computer.
US08151058B2
A vector computer system includes a vector processor configured to issue a vector store instruction which includes a plurality of store requests; a cache memory of a write back system provided between the vector processor and a main memory; and a write allocate determining section configured to generate an allocation control signal which specifies whether the cache memory operates based on a write allocate system or a non-write allocate system. When the vector processor issues the vector store instruction, the write allocate determining section generates the allocation control signal to each of the plurality of store requests based on a write pattern as a pattern of target addresses of the plurality of store requests. The cache memory executes each store request based on one of the write allocate system and the non-write allocate system which is specified based on the allocation control signal.
US08151056B2
A apparatus is provided for updating data within a business planning tool. The apparatus comprises a computer memory (22) arranged to store operational data in a plurality of line items (50), each line item (50) being arranged to represent operational data in data cells (52) occupying space in a plurality of dimensions (X, Y), and each line item (50) having data cells in a first dimension (Y) configured to represent the operational data in a at least one hierarchy level, and having data cells in a second dimension (X) arranged to represent the respective operational data over at least one time period. A processor (24) is arranged to partition each line item (50) into data blocks (60) comprising one or more data cells (52) by identifying and grouping data cells (52) which belong to a single hierarchy level within the first dimension (Y) and a single time period within the second dimension (X), to create a dependency graph having a node for each data block (60) and which represents the inter-dependency of the data blocks (60) and in which there are no internal dependencies within a data block; and to update the data blocks (60) based on the dependency graph when at least one data cell is changed. In this way, an efficient updating apparatus is achieved.
US08151055B2
A data processing apparatus includes a data processor, and a data store for storing a plurality of identifiers identifying a cache way in which a corresponding value from a set associative cache is stored. The plurality of identifiers corresponding to a plurality of values stored in consecutive addresses such that a data store stores identifiers for values stored in a region of said memory. Included is a current pointer store for pointing to a most recently accessed storage location in said data store and circuitry to determine an offset of an address of said cache access request to an immediately preceding cache access request. Lookup circuitry determines if said pointer is pointing to an address within said region and said data processor identifies said cache way from said stored identifier pointed to by said current pointer if it has a valid indicator associated therewith.
US08151052B2
The memory card includes a memory controller covered by a main body, a first non-volatile memory, a memory interface configured to transfer a signal between the memory controller and the first non-volatile memory, and a cover coupled to the main body and removeably covering the first memory and the memory interface. Here, the memory interface includes a connection detector configured to generate a connection detector signal when sensing that a package including a second non-volatile memory is added.
US08151051B2
A first interconnect card is configured, wherein a first controller is included in the first interconnect card. A second interconnect card coupled to the first interconnect card is configured, wherein a second controller is included in the second interconnect card. In response to a failure of the first controller included in the first interconnect card, the first interconnect card is controlled via the second controller included in the second interconnect card. In response to a failure of the second controller included in the second interconnect card, the second interconnect card is controlled via the first controller included in the first interconnect card.
US08151047B2
A storage system comprises a first storage apparatus having a volume for a host computer, a second storage apparatus connected to the first storage apparatus, and having a volume having a pair relationship with a first volume in the first storage apparatus, and a management apparatus connected to the first storage apparatus and the second storage apparatus. The management apparatus includes a user interface for setting an attribute of a function related to the volume of the first storage apparatus and an attribute of a function related to the volume of the second storage apparatus. The management apparatus compares the attribute of the function related to the first volume and the attribute of the function related to the second volume, and outputs the result of the comparison to the user interface.
US08151039B2
A system and method for controlling flash memory is provided for a flash memory controller to use a control interface to read the state register of at least a flash memory with received data for operation to detect whether the flash memory has already finished the operation on the received data without using an RB signal, and when the operation on the received data is to read, the controller can execute the state data switch so that the IO of flash memory can output correct flash memory data for read, or when the operation on the received data is to write, the controller can execute another data operation to save time and accelerate the data operation speed of the flash memory.
US08151034B2
A portion of a nonvolatile memory array that is likely to contain, partially programmed data may be identified from a high sensitivity read, by applying stricter than usual ECC requirements, or using pointers to programmed sectors. The last programmed data may be treated as likely to be partially programmed data. Data in the identified portion may be copied to another location, or left where it is with an indicator to prohibit further programming to the same cells. To avoid compromising previously stored data during subsequent programming, previously stored data may be backed up. Backing up may be done selectively, for example, only for nonsequential data, or only when the previously stored data contains an earlier version of data being programmed. If a backup copy already exists, another backup copy is not created. Sequential commands are treated as a single command if received within a predetermined time period.
US08151030B2
The present invention provides a method of increasing DDR memory bandwidth in DDR SDRAM modules. DDR memory has an inherent feature called the Variable Early Read command, where the read command is issued one CAS latency before the termination of an ongoing data burst By using the Variable Early Read command the effect of the CAS latency is minimized in terms of the effect on bandwidth. The enhanced bandwidth technology achieved with this invention optimizes the remaining two access latencies (tRP and tRCD) for optimal bandwidth. These optimizations in the SPD allow for much better bandwidth in real world applications.
US08151027B2
A method, processor, and system are disclosed. In one embodiment method includes a first processor core among several processor cores entering into a system management mode. At least one of the other additional processor cores apart from the first processor core remain operational and do not enter the system management mode. Then, once in the system management mode, the first processor core responds to an inter-processor interrupt.
US08151024B2
Reconfigurable virtual backplane systems and methods are provided. One virtual backplane system includes a bus, and first and second line cards coupled to the bus. Each line card includes a processor including a memory storing an array of configuration tables. Each configuration table stores a listing of processes to be transmitted to or received from the communication bus, wherein a first configuration table is selected from the first line card upon the occurrence of a first event and a second configuration table is selected from the second line card upon the occurrence of a second event. One method includes connecting first and second buses in first and second systems, respectively, to form a bus for a new system. The method further includes detecting the connection of the first and second buses, and reconfiguring the first and second systems to operate as the new system in response to detecting the connection.
US08151011B2
Determining whether there exists an input-output (I/O) fabric conflict (mismatch) between a blade I/O fabric daughter card of a blade compute module and an I/O interface module of a blade compute module system, and if a conflicts does exit then taking action to correct this I/O fabric mismatch. An I/O fabric router may be coupled between the blade I/O fabric daughter cards and the system I/O interface modules. If a matching I/O interface fabric exists then the I/O fabric router will couple the blade I/O fabric daughter card to the matching I/O interface fabric. If there is no matching I/O interface fabric then the blade I/O fabric daughter card may be decoupled from the blade compute module system so that the associated blade compute module may otherwise function, and an alert may be sent regarding the I/O fabric conflict (absence of an I/O fabric match) for the I/O fabric daughter card of the blade compute module.
US08151007B2
A computer of an information processing apparatus repeatedly accepts an operation to designate at least one of a plurality of command elements making up of a command, executes at least any one of a first memory writing processing to write a first command element having a specific attribute out of the command elements corresponding to the accepted operation in a first memory and a second memory writing processing to write a second command element having an attribute different from the attribute in a second memory, determines whether or not a command element array stored over the first memory and the second memory satisfies an execution allowable condition every execution of the writing processing, and processes information according to the command element array when the satisfaction is determined.
US08150995B2
Methods of tuning a receive window. A receiving device and a sending device may be in communication over a network. The receiving device may advertise a receive window to the sending device. The size of the receive window may be adjusted over time based on one or more connection parameters, application parameters and/or operating system parameters.
US08150986B2
The present invention discloses a data processing method for application layer based on a living network control protocol. The data processing method for application layer which is based on a predetermined protocol composed of at least a lower layer and an application layer includes the steps of: receiving a predetermined primitive from an upper application software; generating a communication cycle identifier (CycleID) according to the primitive; generating a service description according to the primitive and the communication cycle identifier (CycleID); composing an application layer protocol data unit (APDU) including the primitive; and transmitting the APDU to the lower layer.
US08150980B2
A communication apparatus determines an opposing communication apparatus with which to perform an automatic setting process of automatically setting a communication parameter required for connecting to a network, and acquires the communication parameter from the opposing communication apparatus. The opposing communication apparatus is determined based on at least one of information on an authentication method and information on an encryption protocol of respective communication apparatuses, included in a signal transmitted from each of a plurality of communication apparatuses.
US08150979B1
A computer-implemented method is described including determining a value of an attribute related to a user of a first system connected to a network, generating a network location identifier based at least in par on the determined value, making the generated network location identifier available to the user, and upon detecting that the user has selected the generated network location identifier, providing the generated network location identifier to a second system on the network residing at a location corresponding, at least in part, to the generated network location identifier.
US08150976B1
This disclosure relates to a secure network device for multi-homed devices. An example network device includes a state table, an association establishment module, and an inspection module. The state table is configured to store information for communication associations between devices. The association establishment module is configured to process a request to establish a communication association between a first device and a second device and to store state information for the communication association in the state table. The first device and the second device each comprise a multi-homed device associated with a plurality of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, and the state information includes the IP addresses associated with the first device and the IP addresses associated with the second device. The inspection module is configured to secure the communication association between the first device and the second device by using the state information that is stored in the state table.
US08150975B2
A method and system for establishing an interactive media session based on IP Multimedia Subsystem, including: a terminal adapted to initiate an interactive media session request and receive a media session response; a serving-CSCF adapted to trigger the request to the application server according to a triggering rule and route the message; a proxy-CSCF adapted to forward the request and the response between the terminal and the serving-CSCF; an application server adapted to process the service request; a media control entity adapted to control resource allocation of the media carrier entity; and a media carrier entity adapted to allocate address ports for RTSP connection and RTP connection with the terminal. The present invention can be applied to a NGN network where the carrier and control are separated to improve the media delivery efficiency.
US08150972B2
A system, method and computer-readable media for providing a reservation mask for compute resources such as a cluster or a grid. The method aspect comprises identifying a need type and a group of available resources, creating a reservation mask over the identified group of resources and if a request from a consumer matches the need type, then constraining the creation of a reservation for the consumer to only use resources within the reservation mask.
US08150971B2
In one embodiment, a mechanism for migration of client-side virtual machine system resources is disclosed. In one embodiment, a method includes receiving notification that a virtual machine (VM) is to be live migrated from a first server to a second server, connecting one or more client resources associated with the VM to the second server during the live migration of the VM while maintaining a simultaneous active VM connection of the one or more client resources to the first server, and disconnecting the active VM connection of the one or more client resources to the first server when the live migration of the VM is complete.
US08150960B2
Handling events. A method may be practiced, for example, in a networked computer system including an event handling computer connected to one or more event generating computers. The method includes an act of generating an event at an event generating computer. The event is rendered into a rendered event in an application independent format by combining static context information with dynamic event information. The rendered event is transmitted to the event handling computer.
US08150959B1
The subject invention facilitates alert notification in an industrial environment. The systems and methods enable subscribing devices, such as hosts, to receive events and/or alarms associated with industrial controllers. In addition, a subscribed component can unsubscribe, refresh notification related information, and/or acknowledge a notification. The foregoing can be achieved through a set of objects (e.g., notify objects) that implement a notification and dynamic subscription process. A host system can instantiate an associated notify object, subscribe to an event, and be notified about the event. The invention enables multiple hosts to subscribe to the same event, allows each host to select events of interest, and enables the events to be queued if the events occur faster than can be sent. In one aspect of the invention, the systems and methods can be utilized with an event and alarm infrastructure that is applicable on a Control and Information Protocol (CIP).
US08150957B1
A system and method for directing network connections. The invention enables a network device to direct subsequent connections from a client to a server for accessing resources. A process extracts a persistence key from a received message, and employs the persistence key to identify the appropriate server. An interface is provided, enabling a user program to direct the process of extracting the persistence key. The invention also provides a way for multiple clients to persist to a common server.
US08150954B2
Methods and systems of processing multi-media editing projects are described. In one embodiment, a request for one or more multi-media files is generated on a user computer that comprises part of a network where multi-media files are maintained in a network-accessible location. The file or files are intended for use in a multi-media editing project. The request is intercepted and software executing on the user computer ascertains whether one or more of the requested multi-media files are located on the user computer. If the file or files are located on the user computer, they are retrieved and used. If a file or files are not locally available, the file or files are retrieved from the network-accessible location. In one embodiment, a multi-media file locator object is configured to intercept network-bound requests for multi-media files and determine whether requested files are locally maintained on a user computer. A list associated with the file locator object can reference local file directories on the user computer where multi-media files are stored, or have been stored in the past. Whenever a user retrieves a multi-media file from the network and saves it locally, if the directory in which the file is stored is not referenced on the list, the file locator object can update the list to include the new directory. If the file locator object attempts to locally find a multi-media file but cannot, the user can be prompted to point to a directory where they have stored the file. The list is then updated to reflect this new directory, and the directory is checked on subsequent searches for multi-media files. Accordingly, when a request for a multi-media file is received, only those local directories that are or have been associated with multi-media files can be checked.
US08150952B2
The present invention enables to establish sensing environment and application environment respectively by managing the corresponding relationship between the objects and the application programs in object management servers. The application program execution system includes movable objects, detection units that detect the objects, application programs, control units that control the execution of the context-aware application program, corresponding relationship between the objects and the application programs, and notification units that notify the control units of detection information that the detection units have detected, according to the corresponding relationship. Thus, the appropriate application programs are executed. The present invention enables to establish and change the application program execution system flexibly. Development of the application programs is also flexible.
US08150947B2
Techniques are provided for performing software installation on a headless device. A first device is used to interactively obtain answers in connection with installation processing performed on the first device regarding the software installation for the headless device. The answers are communicated to the headless device. The answers are used in connection with executing installation software on the headless device to perform the software installation on the headless device.
US08150932B2
A system of providing location and routing information to a target mobile terminal while still maintaining a specified level of privacy. A target mobile terminal includes a profile having an inaccuracy level contained therein. When a querying terminal desires routing information to the target terminal, a portion of a route to the target terminal is provided, with the portion of the provided route being based upon the level of inaccuracy in the target terminal profile.
US08150926B2
The present invention extends to methods, systems, data structures, and computer program products for organizing electronic mail messages into conversations. Electronic mail conversation items store attribute values representing attributes of corresponding electronic mail conversations and included electronic mail messages. Attributes of an electronic mail conversation can be changed by changing stored attribute values. Receiving an electronic mail message can cause an existing electronic mail conversation to be updated or a new electronic mail conversation to be created. When it is indicated that an operation is to be performed on an electronic mail conversation, a corresponding related operation can be performed on all electronic mail messages included in the electronic mail conversation. Attribute values of an electronic mail conversation can be presented along with portions of included electronic mail messages at a user-interface.
US08150925B2
A system for providing alert notifications to multiple persons or to a plurality of related geographic locations. The system stores a database of information including a plurality of communications identifiers and additional information for subscribers having those identifiers, including geographic locations and/or school/organization membership information. The system responds to commands identifying alerts to be delivered to affected geographic areas or schools/organizations, by retrieving communications identifiers in the threatened geographic location or associated with the named school/organization, establishing a communications connection using each retrieved communication identifier, and delivering the alert. Alerts may be initiated by authorized personnel via telephone or Internet interaction with the system, or may be generated automatically from data feeds such as the EMWIN system of the National Weather Service. Alerts may be delivered via telephone, pager (voice or text), e-mail, Internet, or other media.
US08150920B2
A system for directing the rendering content includes a plurality of participants and a conferencing server. The participants include a source and at least one destination that are each capable of storing content. The source is capable of operating in a fixed network environment, and at least one of the destinations comprises a mobile terminal operating in a cellular network environment. The conferencing server is capable of establishing a conference session between the participants, where one of the participants is a host of the conference session and the other participants are members of the conference session. The conferencing server is capable of receiving control events from the host, and thereafter transferring the control events to the members. The members are then capable of rendering the content stored by the respective members in accordance with the control events.
US08150917B2
A method, system, and architecture for providing a conference system that effectively achieves high availability conferencing is provided. The conference system architecture provides a conference system that comprises a set of stateless conference servers and a shared conference store to provide highly available conferencing to its users. The conference servers serve (host) conferences (meetings) that allow users to conduct distributed conferences. Each conference server generally performs conference provisioning operations and conference control operations. The shared conference store provides for the storage of conference state information, thus allowing the conference servers in the conference server pool to be stateless by maintaining conference state information on the shared conference store. A stateless conference server may also locally maintain, for example, in cache memory, some of the conference state information that is maintained on the shared conference store.
US08150916B2
A server controls client apparatuses to transmit the same information to the client apparatuses without imposing workload on each client apparatus. The server is free from any interruption of the transmission of information signal unintended by the server. The server receives information designating at least one client apparatus as a destination of the information signal through a keyboard of the server, and transmits audio contents stored in a content storage hard disk to each of the client apparatuses, designated in the received designate information, through a controller and a communication unit. At least one client apparatus concurrently plays the audio content.
US08150913B2
An information management and distribution system is disclosed. The information management and distribution system facilitates the controlled exchange of contact information over a network. The system can support one or more of creation and design, rolodex, exchange, and update features. In one embodiment, the information management and distribution system can include a networked server system accessible by remote user devices via the network, and at least one database maintained by the networked server system and storing content information and exchange settings of registered users.
US08150909B2
A digital plaque that can display one of several stored certificates that can also retrieve updates to a displayed certificate when needed. The digital plaque is used to display a certificate and associated information. Typically the certificate displayed is one of an award, a recognition, a score card, a picture, a transcript, a document, a sales deed, a ticket, a poster, a document cover, a book cover, a patent application, a granted patent and a graduation record. A collection of such certificates is stored in memory and displayed when selected by a user. Status information and supporting documents associated with the selected certificate can be retrieved from a remote server and portions of the retrieved information can be displayed.
US08150906B2
This invention relates to an information delivery system, an information delivery method, an information processing apparatus, and an information processing method used advantageously to deliver content stream data easily, reliably and inexpensively to the general users. A personal computer 12 prepares a content file and an order form file using software provided by a center system 4, and transmits the prepared files to the center system 4 over the Internet 1. Given the order form file from a customer device 2, the center system 4 encodes a content file accordingly to generate content stream data and causes a moving picture delivery server 25 to deliver the generated stream data to user terminals 3. This invention can be applied, among others, to systems for delivering content data over the Internet.
US08150904B2
A partition analyzer may be configured to designate a data partition within a database of a grid network, and to perform a mapping of the data partition to a task of an application, the application to be at least partially executed within the grid network. A provisioning manager may be configured to determine a task instance of the task, and to determine the data partition, based on the mapping, where the data partition may be stored at an initial node of the grid network. A processing node of the grid network having processing resources required to execute the task instance and a data node of the grid network having memory resources required to store the data partition may be determined. The task instance may be deployed to the processing node, and the data partition may be re-located from the initial node to the data node, based on the comparison.
US08150899B2
Provided is a method for finding a minimal signed digit with variable multi-bit coding. The method includes the steps of: scanning and grouping given multi-bit and checking the type of each group; deciding whether each group is to be performed by any one of a coding for positive number and a coding of negative number depending on the type of each group; converting the value of each group into a corresponding value of different number system and finding a signed digit based on the converted value; if the type of each group indicates the coding for negative number, performing bitwise inverting on the value of each group; and converting multi-bit subjected to the bitwise inverting into a corresponding value of different number system, and finding a signed digit based on the converted value.
US08150893B2
Methods and apparatus are provided for incremental update of an XML tree defined from a recursive XML view of a relational database. A method comprises the steps of detecting at least one change to the relational database; providing one or more queries to the relational database to map the change to the relational database into changes to the XML tree, wherein at least one component of a definition of the one or more queries is executed a plurality of times in traversing a path through the XML tree; and applying the mapped change to the XML tree. A bud-cut method and a reduction approach are presented.
US08150891B2
A tree data structure for storing strings of searchable data divided into substrings has at least one first type node that has a substring associated with it and at least one second type node that does not having a substring associated with it. A second type node is directly linked to a first type node by a fail transition. A first type node is directly linked to a second type node by a match transition. An IP address lookup system has memory for storing a tree data structure and a controller for storing and loading an incoming IP address. The system has a finite state machine having three stages including a first stage for loading the IP address and performing a length calculation, a second stage for searching the data structure to find a match, and a third stage for determine the next-hop address index.
US08150890B2
A method of managing a plurality of files according to their respective instances of a property of the files, a data processing device that uses the method, and a computer readable storage medium bearing code for implementing the method. The files of at least one of the instances are managed according to a management protocol respective to that/those instance(s). Preferably, all the other files are managed according to a common default management protocol. Different protocols trade off performance vs. ruggedness, trade off average performance vs. latency, or include different defragmentation policies.
US08150877B1
Described are techniques for performing data storage system management of a data storage system. An active element manager component is provided that performs data storage system management operations. User relevant information is received at said active element manager component from an external environment. The user relevant information includes information about an entity for purchase or license using said external environment which is relevant to a first user identifier. For an active element management session having said first user identifier, the user relevant information is displayed via a user interface. The user interface provides for display a first portion of said user relevant information. Upon selection of the first portion, the active element manager component connects to a target location in said external environment that is associated with the entity and provides context information to said external environment.
US08150873B2
A method and apparatus to find maximal frequent itemsets over data streams. A prefix tree manages itemsets and appearance frequencies of the itemsets, and each of nodes of the prefix tree has information about an appearance frequency, a maximum lifetime, and a mark indicating whether the corresponding itemset is a maximal frequent itemset. The method includes: receiving transaction Tk generated at a current point in time; updating the information owned by each node corresponding to the itemset of the transaction Tk among the nodes of the prefix tree; adding each node that is not managed in the prefix tree among nodes corresponding to the itemset of the transaction Tk, to the prefix tree and setting the information on the added nodes; and finding maximal frequent itemsets by visiting each node of the prefix tree that has the mark indicating the maximal frequent itemset and checking whether the corresponding itemset is frequent.
US08150871B2
In a computer program product, system and method for retrieving operational data, a front-end unit generates a query for operational data. In an embodiment, in response to the generation of the query, an operational information provider is sent to a back-end unit to retrieve real-time operational data from the back-end unit using a retrieval method specified in the operational information provider. The retrieved operational data, including the real-time operational data is received by the front-end unit from the back-end unit.
US08150864B2
A provider of content may provide access to portions of content from a source, but not the source content in its entirety. In some embodiments, one or more access rules or criteria may be implemented that enable users to access portions of the source content up to an allowed limit or threshold (e.g., number or percentage of pages), after which access is prevented to the remaining content that has not previously been accessed. In other embodiments, one or more access rules or criteria may be implemented that enable users to access portions of content of only a certain type (e.g., index, bibliography, introduction, certain chapters, etc.). Unauthorized portions are suppressed or access to them is denied. The content source may be a textual work, an audio work, or a video work of any form. For example, the content may be in electronic form, such as images of pages of content.
US08150856B2
Bit string searching apparatus using a coupled node tree with a root node and a node pair stored in adjacent areas that is formed by a branch node and a leaf node, branch nodes, or leaf nodes; the branch node including a discrimination bit position in the search key and information indicating a position of a primary node that is one node of a node pair; the leaf node including an index key formed by a bit string; from the root node of an arbitrary subtree of the coupled node tree, linking is repeated based on the search key's bit value at the discrimination bit position and information indicating a position of a primary node until a leaf node is reached; an index key stored in the leaf node is obtained as a search result key of the subtree by means of the search key.
US08150851B2
Data processing apparatus comprising: a chunk store partitioned into a plurality of chunk sections, at least one section storing specimen data chunks, the processing apparatus being operable to: process input data into one or more input data chunks; identify a chunk section already containing a specimen data chunk corresponding to at least one input data chunk; and store the at least one input data chunk in another chunk section as a specimen data chunk if the identified chunk section has a predetermined characteristic.
US08150847B2
System and method to transform results of client requests using client uploaded presentation formats
Method and apparatus to facilitate access to a network-based publication system. In an embodiment, a user or third party affiliate of a network-based publication system uploads a style sheet or other presentation format file to a database in the network-based publication system. Thereafter, the user or third party affiliate sends a request to the network-based publication system, and the publication system uses one or more of the uploaded style sheets to format the response to be transmitted back to the third party affiliate.
US08150846B2
Content searching and configuration of search results are described. In an implementation, a method includes in response to a search query, selecting a keyword based on heuristic data which describes a plurality of previously performed searched. A search is performed utilizing the search query and the selected keyword to locate content.
US08150838B2
A computer program is provided. The computer program product includes a computer useable medium having a computer readable program. The computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to receive a query. Further, the computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to generate a common metadata based query object that includes metadata for the query and data associated with the query. In addition, the computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to extract the metadata from the common metadata based query object. Finally, the computer readable program when executed open a computer causes the computer to generate an application specific query based on the metadata and an application to which the query is intended.
US08150823B2
The present invention provides a search apparatus, method and program using a public search engine, which is capable of acquiring necessary information without allowing confidential information to be inferred. Input of a desired search word comprising characters is received, and characters are extracted from the search word. Multiple character strings comprising the extracted characters are generated. A word is selected as a noise word, and characters are selected from the noise word. A noise character string comprising the extracted characters is generated. A query is generated by combining the character strings and noise character strings, and is transmitted to the search engine. A search is performed by use of the search word over a search result transmitted from the search engine in reply to the query, and the search result is displayed.
US08150818B2
A method, computer readable medium, and system for storing a structured document in its native format in a database are provided. The method, computer readable medium, and system include receiving the structured document, generating a hierarchical node tree comprising a plurality of nodes, where the node tree represents the structured document, and storing the plurality of nodes in at least one record in the database.
US08150816B2
In an information management system, policies are optimized before they are associated to a device in order to increase evaluation speed or reduce space requirements, or both. Optimization techniques may include common subexpression elimination, constant folding, constant propagation, comparison optimization, dead code or subexpression removal, map or lookup table generation, policy rewriting, redundant policy elimination, heuristic-based policy ordering, or policy-format transformation, and combinations of these.
US08150810B1
Method and apparatus for file sharing between continuous and scheduled backups is described. One example relates to backing up source data stored by a computer system. A first portion of the source data is backed up at points in time in response to a backup schedule to produce a plurality of partial backups. A second portion of the source data is backed up continuously in response to changes of the second portion to maintain a replica of the second portion. The replica of the second portion is linked to the plurality of partial backups to produce a respective plurality of full backups of the source data.
US08150808B2
Information from multiple databases is retrieved and stored on a database storage system. Multiple point-in-time copies are obtained for each database. A point-in-time copy retrieves data changed in the database since the retrieval of a previous point-in-time copy. A virtual database (VDB) is created by creating a set of files in the data storage system. Each file in the set of files created for a VDB is linked to the database blocks on the database storage system associated with a point-in-time copy of the source database. The set of files associated with the VDB are mounted on a database server allowing the database server to read from and write to the set of files. Workflows based on VDBs allow various usage scenarios based on databases to be implemented efficiently, for example, testing and development, backup and recovery, and data warehouse building.
US08150803B2
Some embodiments provide a system for processing relationship data that expresses relationship between various entities. In some embodiments, the entities are entities associated directly with an enterprise. The entities in some embodiments described below also include entities associated indirectly with the enterprise through other entities. In some embodiments, the system consolidates disparate relationship data sets that relate to the same set of entities. For instance, in some embodiments, the system includes several data storages that store relationship data. For at least two entities, at least two different data storages store two different relationship data sets that differently express the relationship between the two entities. The system includes a hierarchy manager that receives the two different relationship data sets and consolidates the two different relationship data sets into one relationship data set that best expresses the relationship between the two entities.
US08150802B2
A distributed system includes full and partial replicas of a set of data items that may be inserted, modified, or deleted by any replica. Replicas may occasionally synchronize with other arbitrarily chosen replicas to learn about updates. A replica's knowledge includes one or more knowledge fragments, where each fragment indicates a set of items. A type of knowledge fragment, called a star knowledge fragment, contains versions associated with all items in the system. Star knowledge fragments are compact because the set of items stored at a replica need not be explicitly listed. Once all replicas know of all updates in the system, partial and full replicas will have the same compact star knowledge fragment.
US08150800B2
An advanced clock synchronization technique is adapted for use with a replication service in a data backup and recovery storage environment. The storage environment includes a plurality of source storage systems and target storage systems, wherein the source storage systems are illustratively embodied as source replication nodes. The advanced clock synchronization technique establishes a software-only, loosely-accurate global clock based on a timestamp and an associated error boundary. Notably, the timestamp and its error boundary are used as global clock information to enable synchronization (i.e., ordering of storage requests) among the source replication nodes and/or the target storage systems, thereby ensuring consistent replication of the storage requests on the target storage systems.
US08150795B2
Methods for clustering of multi-dimensional data allow unsupervised grouping of multi-dimensional data points into clusters having like characteristics. The methods may be usefully applied to extracellular action potentials (neuronal spikes) measured from the brain, whereby spike data may be grouped in accordance with dimensions such as spike period, spike shape, etc., to assist in identification and location of individual neurons and/or regions of the brain.
US08150792B1
A system and method applies events to a set of rules, and such rules can produce still other events that can be provided to the same or different set of rules. Rules may have attributes, and all rules or only those with attributes corresponding to an object may be stored for use with a device that has been added to, or is part of, the device.
US08150788B2
Method for forecasting instable policy enforcement, is described, wherein a behavior dynamic Bayesian network (DBN) model and a policy finite state transducers extended with tautness functions and identities (TFFST) model is analytically composed to derive predictions of the consequences of enforcing a given policy, in particular to detect flip-flop configuration changes in a system. The method comprises the steps of—translating (1) the Bayesian network that holds the Behavior Model (BM) into a finite state transducers extended with tautness functions and identities (TFFST); —computing (2) the union of the Bayesian network (BM) and Policy Model (PM) finite state transducers extended with tautness functions and identities (TFFSTs); —composing (3) the finite state transducers extended with tautness functions and identities (TFFST) produced in the previous step with itself; and—detecting (4, 5, 6, 7) repetitions of events in the input and the output of every possible path; —if at least one repetition is found, detecting a possible instability (9).
US08150781B2
Embodiments provide methods, apparatus, systems, and computer-readable media associated with using historic analytic data to identify shipping options for a user to use when shipping a package. Historic analytic data may be received and maintained by a package shipment facilitation system. The analytics may then be used to generate business rules which may be applied to parameters for a package that is to be shipped. Through application of the business rules, one or more preferred shipping options may be identified. Business rules may be received after being manually-generated by a user, or may be automatically generated based at least in part on the maintained historic analytics. After a shipping option is chosen for the package, a shipping label may be printed for the package, and the package may be entered into a carrier's system for processing.
US08150780B2
An automated system having a memory storing a plurality of potential reclaims in a queue, and a processor that automatically selects which of the plurality of potential reclaims to apply to a movement cycle of a unit of railroad transport equipment, by processing mutually exclusive combinations of potential reclaims, and so as to maximize the total value of the applied reclaim(s).
US08150772B2
A method for authenticating a financial transaction at a point of sale (POS) includes storing an application program in a first secure element of a mobile phone. The application is configured to generate instruction codes to effect the financial transaction upon verification of a user's identity. The user's credentials are stored in a second SE of the phone, which is operable to verify the user's identity from a biometric trait of the user input to the phone and to generate data authenticating the financial transaction in response to the verification of the user's identity. At the POS, the user invokes the application and then inputs a biometric trait to the phone. The second SE verifies the user's identity, and upon verification, generates data authenticating the transaction. The financial transaction data, including the instruction codes and the authenticating data, are then transmitted from the phone to the POS.
US08150760B2
A system and methods for processing and charting security exchange trading and market information shows security traders if current transactions originated as buy orders or sell orders, and simultaneously indicates traded quantity. Security exchange trading information is received that includes the price, volume and time of each trade. In addition, security exchange market information is received from buyers, specifying bide prices and quantities, and from sellers, specifying asking prices and quantities. The security exchange trading and market information is processed simultaneously and displayed as a continuously updated real-time chart depicting the exchange auction process whereby buyers and sellers agree to trade at specified prices, including details of individual transactions. The chart is formed by plotting each trade at the price traded, and for each plot point shows a distinctive icon indication whether the transaction was initiated by a buyer or seller.
US08150759B2
The invention pertains to a system, and method, for auctioning articles, or products of various types, via a public data transmission network, such as the Internet. The bidders participate by submitting a bid via their bidder terminal, to the auction platform, which is integrated into the data transmission system, and permits bi-directional transmission between the terminals and the auction platform. The system functions as a virtual auction house.
US08150758B2
The present invention provides a unitary note investment instrument and method of use that has two performance components. An investor invests in the issuer the principal amount of the investment. The first component is a base portfolio. The second component is keyed to a passive commodity index, having long and short positions. The instrument's commodity index exposure is established as the product of a leverage factor of at least 100% and the amount of the base portfolio exposure. The return to the investor comprises the change in value of both the base portfolio exposure and the commodity index exposure over a predetermined period of time multiplied by a payout factor.
US08150755B2
A computer system is provided for selecting an asset allocation for an investment portfolio intended to produce a target payout starting at a target date. The computer system is programmed to receive inputs that may relate to the target payout, the target date and a nominal rate of contributions to the investment portfolio. The computer system calculates a plurality of simulated investment outcomes based on assumed investment return rates and assumed inflation rates. The assumed investment return rates and assumed inflation rates are randomly selected in multi-year clusters from historical data. The computer system selects the asset allocation based on relative performance of the assumed asset allocations in the simulated investment outcomes.
US08150747B2
A tax return preparation kit is provided that contains a disposable tax return preparation device for receiving taxpayer input of tax related data for use in preparing an electronic tax return. The disposable tax return preparation device is adapted to prepare an electronic tax return based on the tax related data. A communications cable is also provided for communicatively coupling the disposable tax return preparation device to a telecommunications system, for transmitting the electronic tax return to a remote tax return preparation system also coupled to the telecommunications system. The remote tax return preparation system is adapted to receive the tax return prepared by the disposable tax return preparation device, confirm the tax return, and electronically file the tax return with a tax authority.
US08150744B2
A system and method of revenue assurance for a service activity are presented. Multiple data feeds are received by a revenue assurance analytic system, where each data feed contains the same logical component of the service activity. The multiple data feeds are processed to detect revenue assurance issues in the service activity based on one or more common linking keys between disparate records related to the logical component.
US08150741B2
Various embodiments are disclosed herein that relate to the dynamic calculation and presentation of efficient travel routes for in-person shoppers. For example, an adaptive shopping server system is configured to generate, for display on a shopping client device, an efficient travel route to a location of one or more user-requested merchandise items, the efficient travel route being advantageously distinct relative to other potential travel routes in consideration of a route efficiency selection criterion received from the shopping client device.
US08150739B1
Methods and systems for providing specialty product information to consumers.
US08150735B2
According to one described embodiment, a method is provided in which transaction information is determined. The transaction information is associated with (i) a buyer who has arranged to purchase a product from a central controller at a first price established between the buyer and the central controller and (ii) a merchant that offers the product for sale at a second price, different from the first price, without offering the product for sale to buyers at the first price. Information is transmitted that facilitates the acquisition of the product by the buyer, in exchange for payment provided by the buyer to the central controller. An amount based on the second price is provided to the merchant.
US08150734B2
Computer-readable media and a computer system for correcting bid estimates that are calculated from stored data encompassing an incumbent customer's participation in a keyword auction are provided. Initially, input criteria is received, which includes customer-history data and a candidate position, within a ranking of incumbent customers competing to display an advertisement, that is attractive to the incumbent customer. A corrected rank model of the competing incumbent customers' ranking is generated, which effectively discounts the stored data related to the incumbent content provider. The corrected rank model is utilized to predict an adjusted average position of the incumbent content provider, within the ranking of the competing incumbent customers, without physically extracting stored data associated therewith. A corrected price model that ignores the influence of the incumbent customer's participation in the advertising auction is then constructed. This corrected price model and the candidate position facilitate predicting the corrected bid estimate.
US08150728B1
A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system includes a CRM Client, CRM Engine, and Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). The CRM Client, CRM Engine, and RDBMS integrate a suite of services that allow users to plan, manage, and execute promotional or marketing campaigns, build customer segments, score customers, and analyze customer behavior, product purchases, and response to promotional campaigns. The services include an automated Analytic Data Set Creation service, which simplifies and automates the process of creating analytic data sets useful for modeling and analysis out of operational data stored in the relational database, and a Response Modeling service, which automatically creates promotion response models to score individual customers based on that model in order to predict which customers are most likely to respond to a future promotional campaign.
US08150716B1
The invention provides a web site with content designed to elicit responses from users that contain keyword dense content for a chosen word or words. Users submit responses to the website and the website displays the responses on a web page. The accumulation of targeted and keyword specific material in natural language as recorded and displayed on the web site attracts search engine spiders and achieve a higher ranking in response to key word searches matching the keyword dense content.
US08150712B2
Computerized methods and systems for permitting clinicians and other healthcare providers to designate performance locations for clinical orders having one or more phases associated therewith, and for presenting order catalog content that is flexed based upon the designated performance location for the clinical order are provided. Further provided are computerized methods and systems for permitting clinicians and other healthcare providers to designate a performance location for each phase of a multi-phase clinical order, and for presenting order catalog content for each phase that is flexed based upon the designated performance location for the phase. User interfaces for presenting content associated with clinical orders based upon designated performance locations are also provided.
US08150704B2
The present invention provides an efficient and simple method of preparing a product quote for a customer operating a technical installation.The product quote is based on a data set acquired during the operation of the installation, a product chosen for use with the installation and a customer benefit related to the chosen product and the data set.
US08150698B2
Methods, apparatus, and computer program products are described for invoking tapered prompts in a multimodal application implemented with a multimodal browser and a multimodal application operating on a multimodal device supporting multiple modes of user interaction with the multimodal application, the modes of user interaction including a voice mode and one or more non-voice modes. Embodiments include identifying, by a multimodal browser, a prompt element in a multimodal application; identifying, by the multimodal browser, one or more attributes associated with the prompt element; and playing a speech prompt according to the one or more attributes associated with the prompt element.
US08150695B1
A method is provided for presenting a written work. A character identity is recognized within a written work. Presentation information for the written work, such as a graphical scheme or an electronic voice, is determined based on the character identity. The presentation information is provided to a user computing device. The user computing device renders the written work or a portion thereof using the presentation information.
US08150692B2
Techniques for recognizing a personality trait associated with a user. Input from the user is analyzed to determine a number of words, including a number of compound words. The personality trait associated with the user is determined based, at least in part, on the number of compound words exceeding a threshold.
US08150688B2
A voice recognizing apparatus includes a microphone 12 which inputs an input voice including speech voice uttered by a user speaker and interference voice uttered by an interference speaker other than the user speaker, superimposition amount determining unit 14 which determines a noise superimposition amount for the input voice on the basis of a speech voice and an interference voice separately input as the input voice, a noise superimposing unit 16 which superimposes noise according to the noise superimposition amount onto the input voice and outputs the resultant voice as noise-superimposed voice; and a voice recognizing unit 18 which recognizes the noise-superimposed voice.
US08150682B2
An enhancement system extracts pitch from a processed speech signal. The system estimates the pitch of voiced speech by deriving filter coefficients of an adaptive filter and using the obtained filter coefficients to derive pitch. The pitch estimation may be enhanced by using various techniques to condition the input speech signal, such as spectral modification of the background noise and the speech signal, and/or reduction of the tonal noise from the speech signal.
US08150681B2
A speech enhancement system improves the perceptual quality of an aural signal. A receiver detects and receives an unvoiced signal, a fully voiced signal, or a mixed voice remote signal. A coherence processor identifies the similarities or differences between a local signal and the remote signal. A cancellation processor or controller dampens reflected signals that may be part of the local signal.
US08150666B2
The present disclosure describes methods and systems for combining Models of goods and services. At least some embodiments include a method that includes retrieving a first Model representing an object, a User controlling access to the first Model; retrieving a second Model representing a product offered by a Product Provider; combining, at the request of the User, the first and second Models, wherein the combining is performed as a first service, by a Service Provider, and wherein the first service comprises computing a simulated physical interaction between the object and the product; generating a representation of the simulated physical interaction; and presenting the representation to the User.
US08150652B2
Disclosed is a method and system which efficiently and accurately identifies an acoustic wedge by as simple as pressing a button to execute a command for a phased array inspection system, once the wedge is engaged with the system. It is based on the approach to use the time of flight that ultrasonic signals travel in the wedge to measure and calculate critical parameters, such as the wedge acoustic velocity, the wedge or incident angle and the height of the first element of the associated phased array probe above the base of the wedge.
US08150650B2
The invention is related to methods and apparatus that use a visual sensor and dead reckoning sensors to process Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). These techniques can be used in robot navigation. Advantageously, such visual techniques can be used to autonomously generate and update a map. Unlike with laser rangefinders, the visual techniques are economically practical in a wide range of applications and can be used in relatively dynamic environments, such as environments in which people move. One embodiment further advantageously uses multiple particles to maintain multiple hypotheses with respect to localization and mapping. Further advantageously, one embodiment maintains the particles in a relatively computationally-efficient manner, thereby permitting the SLAM processes to be performed in software using relatively inexpensive microprocessor-based computer systems.
US08150644B2
A method determines a transient response of a sample. The method includes providing a measured magnitude of the Fourier transform of a complex electric field temporal profile of a pulse sequence comprising a first pulse indicative of the transient response of the sample and a second pulse. The method further includes providing an estimated phase term of the Fourier transform of the complex electric field temporal profile of the pulse sequence. The method further includes multiplying the measured magnitude and the estimated phase term to generate an estimated Fourier transform of the complex electric field temporal profile of the pulse sequence. The method further includes calculating an inverse Fourier transform of the estimated Fourier transform, wherein the inverse Fourier transform is a function of time. The method further includes calculating an estimated complex electric field temporal profile of the pulse sequence by applying at least one constraint to the inverse Fourier transform.
US08150640B2
The method for state estimation based on the measured data of data-acquisition system in electric power system relates to the field of power system analysis technique, characterized in that the method comprises: distributing the said measured data into an operating power system to form a calculation model, defining the injection power of the link nodes as 0 and taking the maximum active power output, maximum reactive power output of the generator as the constraints, constructing a mathematic model for estimation, resolving the optimum solution of the voltage amplitude and voltage phase angle for every node, and calculating the estimated values of the voltage, the active power and the reactive power by using the optimum solution of the state variables, if the difference between the measured value and the estimated value was less than a parameter α that is predetermined under different voltage levels, the estimated value is qualified. The estimation criterion provided by the present invention is unlikely affected by bad data with a strong capability of robust, improving the correctness of the estimation.
US08150636B2
The invention provides a method and a measurement system for characterization of luminescence properties, the method comprises irradiating the luminescent material with a pulse of excitation light, providing a triggering signal correlated to the pulse of excitation light; detecting with a photodetector such as a photomultiplier tube (PMT) a plurality of photons emitted from the luminescent material as result of the pulse of excitation light, the photodetector providing an output signal upon the event of detection of a photon; determining for each detected photon a photon arrival time and providing an output suitable for inputting to an analysing module wherein an output comprises zero, one, or more photon arrival time for each excitation, receiving said outputs in an analysing module; and determining in the analysing module, characteristics properties of the luminescent material by performing a statistical analysis based on Bayesian inference.
US08150635B2
A method for determining nucleotide sequence encompasses: injecting a solution containing a sample DNA into a chip cartridge provided with a detecting electrode, to which a probe DNA is immobilized; introducing an intercalator solution in the chip cartridge; obtaining a current-voltage characteristic curve by measuring a current in the solution due to an electrochemical reaction of the intercalator through the detecting electrode; obtaining a baseline by linearly approximating the current-voltage characteristic curve; obtaining a net current value by subtracting, from a peak current value of the current-voltage characteristic curve, a baseline current value obtained from the baseline at a peak voltage value defining the peak current value; and identifying a nucleotide sequence in the sample DNA, using the net current value.
US08150633B2
Systems and methods for estimating a physical characteristic of a seafood product are provided. In one system, the estimate is based on a slope defined by a ratio of changes in peak resonant amplitude and frequency of an electromagnetic resonant circuit in loaded and unloaded states. In another system, a first probe of a plurality of probes is driven with a test signal when the plurality of probes is loaded by a seafood product and the estimate is based on received test signals at one or more of the other probes. In another system, the estimate is based on the loading effect of a seafood product on an electromagnetic resonant circuit, which is also used to read an ID from an RFID associated with the seafood product. The systems and methods may be used for individual specimens, or to determine an average estimate for multiple specimens at one time.
US08150624B2
Systems and methods are provided for tracking a moving person. The system comprises a controller configured to receive acceleration data that characterizes an acceleration of the moving person in three dimensions. The controller comprises a step rate component that determines a step rate for the person based on a vertical component of the acceleration data. The controller also comprises a body offset component that determines a body offset angle based on a spectral analysis of the acceleration data and the step rate. The controller further comprises a velocity component that determines a reference velocity vector based on the body offset angle and the step rate.
US08150622B2
A method and apparatus for providing a traffic information service to a vehicle. Traffic information is broadcast through an external network to the vehicle, wherein the traffic information is based on a first map. Data within the broadcasted traffic information and based on a the first map is compared to a second map provided in a vehicle navigation unit, wherein the second map is different than the first map. A traffic information service is provided to the vehicle navigation unit, wherein the vehicle navigation unit is configured for displaying the traffic information with the second map.
US08150617B2
A system is provided for providing location-specific images to a mobile device for display. The system generally comprises three components: a mobile device having a screen, a position identification system (e.g., a GPS receiver) that determines the position of the mobile device, and a database containing location-specific images taken at various locations. Each location-specific image is associated with geographic coordinates of the location at which the image was taken. Based on the position of the mobile device as determined by the position identification system, a location-specific image is selected from the database and displayed on the screen of the mobile device. For example, when a user is using the mobile device as a car navigation system, a location-specific image of the user's destination location can be selected and displayed when the determined position of the mobile device comes within a certain distance from the geographic coordinates of the destination location.
US08150612B2
In a case where a CPU provided in an information distribution center has received, from a navigation apparatus, vehicle information together with a request command for requesting traffic information such as current traffic information, the CPU sets a road category that serves as a distribution target of the traffic information, based on one of a distance and a required travel time from a vehicle position to a destination. The CPU then extracts the traffic information that corresponds to the set road category and distributes it to the navigation apparatus.
US08150610B2
A road traffic monitoring system includes: a first input for receiving position estimations of mobile terminals; a second input for receiving input specifications chosen depending on the type of service for which such monitoring is performed; and an output for generating road traffic maps, each road traffic map being associated with a set of territory elements and including, for each one of the territory elements, at least one mobility index of mobile terminals travelling within such territory element. Preferably, input specifications are chosen among at least two of the following parameters, territory element, territory element observation time slot, and maximum allowable error on the estimation of at least one mobility index.
US08150602B2
A system for measuring in-cylinder parameters utilizing an image charge measured in an engine cylinder by an in-cylinder pressure sensor due to chemi and or thermal ionization in Engine. The in-cylinder pressure sensor includes a sensing element, which is a metal sensor probe with a selective coating (e.g., metal, oxides of metal, native oxides, semiconductor, oxides of semiconductors, ceramics, glass, dielectric, etc., in the form of a coating on the metallic probe, tube, etc) in order to function in harsh, corrosive and/or elevated temperature environments. The output of the sensor can be connected to a signal-conditioning unit, which includes a low noise differential charge amplifier with an auto offset correction circuit to measure fast varying signals. The signal out from the conditioning unit can be acquired utilizing a high-speed microcontroller-based data acquisition system with suitable software to analyze and estimate parameters such as, for example, in cylinder pressure and knocking.
US08150600B2
An internal combustion engine control device has a cylinder pressure sensor for sensing pressure in a combustion chamber and a fuel pressure sensor for sensing fuel pressure fluctuating in connection with fuel injection from an injector. The control device calculates a combustion characteristic of a cylinder (for example, an ignition delay or a combustion rate) based on both of a cylinder pressure sensing value and a fuel pressure sensing value. The control device corrects an EGR quantity, supercharging pressure, and injection start timing in accordance with the calculated combustion characteristic. Thus, the control device performs cooperative control of the injection start timing (an injection mode), the supercharging pressure and the EGR quantity (intake air conditions) in accordance with the combustion characteristic of the cylinder.
US08150593B2
A vehicle control apparatus (1) provided with an automatic cruise apparatus (30) that automatically moves a vehicle, and a pre-crash brake apparatus (40) that automatically applies a brake to the vehicle when an obstacle is detected, includes cruising output value setting means (15) for making a cruising output value, which should be achieved using the automatic cruise apparatus (1), smaller than a regular cruising output value used in normal times, when the obstacle is detected.
US08150589B2
A dynamic model that is configured to produce a lockup clutch command as a function of a plurality of torque converter operating parameters is continually solved and the lockup clutch command is asserted to control engagement of the lockup clutch. A profile of one of the plurality of torque converter operating parameters is selected and is configured, when inserted into the model in place of an actual value thereof, to result in an intersection of rotational speeds of the pump and the turbine over time. Deceleration of the pump is monitored after asserting the lockup clutch command and a maximum deceleration of the pump is determined therefrom. The selected profile is temporarily held constant if the monitored deceleration of the pump rises at least a threshold value above the maximum deceleration of the pump.
US08150583B2
In a method and apparatus for collision avoidance or collision mitigation for a vehicle, an existing driving space between the vehicle and a potential collision object is detected. A first warning function and/or an information function is activated when a first threshold value is reached. A system intervention with autonomous partial braking combined with at least one further safety measure is activated when a second threshold value is reached.
US08150574B2
Preliminary guidance data is determined for the vehicle during an evaluation time window. A vision module collects vision data from a vision module during the evaluation time window. Vision guidance data is determined from the collected vision data. A vision quality estimator estimates vision quality data for at least one of the vision data and the vision guidance data during the evaluation time window. The vision quality data is based on a regression path and density grid points. An adjuster adjusts the preliminary guidance data to a revised guidance data based on the vision guidance data such that the revised guidance data is registered with or generally coextensive with the vision guidance data, if the vision quality data exceeds a minimum threshold.
US08150567B2
A control device (D) for a spacecraft of a group of spacecraft intended to travel in a chosen formation comprises i) a set of at least three send/receive antennas (A1-A3) installed on at least three differently oriented faces of its spacecraft and adapted to send/receive radio-frequency signals, ii) first measuring means (M1) responsible for determining the power of the signals received by each of the antennas (A1-A3) and for delivering sets of powers each associated with one of the other spacecraft of the group, iii) storage means (BD) responsible for storing sets of cartographic data each representative of the normalized powers of the signals received by each of the antennas (A1-A3) as a function of chosen send directions, and iv) processor means (MT) responsible for comparing each set of powers delivered by the first measuring means (M1) to the stored sets of cartographic data in order to estimate each send direction of the signals sent by the other spacecraft of the group with respect to a system of axes fixed with respect to their spacecraft.
US08150563B2
An anti-theft system, especially in the form of an access and/or starting system for a vehicle has a vehicle-mounted receiver for receiving a request signal containing the instruction to find out whether objects that are associated with the vehicle, e.g. lost identifiers, are located in specific areas of the vehicle. The anti-theft system further has a vehicle-mounted control and evaluation unit for verifying whether the objects are in the specific areas of the vehicle and outputting information on whether an object that is associated with the vehicle has been found. The anti-theft system finally has a vehicle-mounted transmitter for transmitting a result signal containing the information on whether objects have been found. Such an anti-theft system allows an identifier, for example, which is associated with a user, to start a search from a distance in order to verify whether certain objects are located near or inside the vehicle.
US08150556B2
The present invention relates to the coordinated control method of torsional stress relay in large thermal power plants' generators (300 MW and above), which will be adopted when shaft torsional oscillations occur. This invention also publishes a method of realizing selective trip the generators and the trip criterions which are implemented by the torsional stress relay and coordinated control master station (Tmaster). Tmaster will real-time monitor the operating status of the generators and TSR, TMaster will also real-time generate a trip priority level sequencing by analyzing the unit output.When generators occur subsynchronous resonance and shaft torsional oscillation, this method can ensure that TSR will trip some generators of the power plant according to the real-time generated trip strategy to inhibit the shaft torsional oscillation and safeguard the units. This method can also avoid the tremendous economic loss caused by tripping all the generators, and that will reduce the hazard to the transmission grid.
US08150555B2
A fluid pressure control apparatus for controlling a solenoid valve to increase and decrease a fluid pressure by varying a valve opening degree includes a controller to control the fluid pressure by varying a command current for driving the solenoid valve. The controller calculates a hysteresis correction quantity to reduce a hysteresis effect of a hysteresis characteristic of the fluid pressure outputted from the solenoid valve with respect to the command current varied in an increasing direction and a decreasing direction, and varies the command current to control the fluid pressure to a target pressure in accordance with the hysteresis correction quantity. The controller calculates the hysteresis correction quantity in accordance with a turn-to-turn variation quantity determined from a current difference between a first command current value at a first changeover of a varying direction of the command current from one of the increasing and decreasing directions to the other and a second command current value at a second changeover of the varying direction of the command current before the first changeover.
US08150546B2
An article transporting apparatus, according to one preferred embodiment, includes: a plurality of movable bodies for transporting articles, the movable bodies being movable between a plurality of article transfer locations; and an operation controlling section for controlling the plurality of movable bodies so that the movable bodies effect article transporting operations in accordance with an article transport request information; wherein the operation controlling section selects a movable body from the group of movable bodies for an article transporting operation, based on an operation condition configured to cause each of the movable bodies to have a different past operation history such that a timing for replacing a replaceable part for one movable body is different from replacement timings for other movable bodies.
US08150540B2
A converter controller and a method of controlling converters. In one embodiment, the converter controller includes: (1) a converter efficiency database configured to store data pertaining to efficiencies of converters, (2) a power requirement assessor configured to compare ratings of online ones of the converters to an output power requirement of a given output power bus and (3) a controller mode selector coupled to the power requirement assessor and configured to retrieve online and standby converter efficiencies from the converter efficiency database, assess efficiencies of alternative converter combinations appropriate for the output power requirement and place one of the alternative converter combinations online.
US08150537B2
A transcranial electrical stimulation device 1 having a wearing equipment 2 detachably worn onto a patient's head and at least a pair of electrodes 4 attached to the wearing equipment 2, the device for electrically stimulating a motor area of a patient's cerebral cortex by outputting current from the electrode 4 connected to a current generator. An engagement part 6 capable of engaging the wearing equipment 2 to a scalp with a thread-like body 8 is provided to the wearing equipment 2, and the electrode 4 is attached to the wearing equipment 2 protrudably to the head side of the electrode 4, and tip of the electrode 4 is capable of subcutaneously piercing through the head. It is unnecessary to bore a patient's skull outer layer with a drill, and a mounting of the electrode can be performed in a short time. The electrodes can be accurately positioned at predetermined positions of a patient's head, and the motor area of a cerebral cortex can be effectively stimulated.
US08150533B2
A lead employing a connection between a conductor and an electric element is provided. The connection includes a conductive pad electrically connected to at least one conductor and the electric element electrically connected to the conductive pad. The conductive pad can further include an elongated element to connect the pad to the electric element. The method for connecting a conductor to an electric element is also provided. The method includes forming a groove in the insulator of a lead body to expose the conductor. Placing a conductive pad within the groove and electrically connecting a conductive pad to the conductor. An electric element is then placed over the conductive pad and the electric element is electrically connected to the conductive pad.
US08150529B2
An implantable medical device includes a first, short-range telemetry circuit; a second, long-range telemetry circuit; a first power system that powers the first telemetry circuit; and a second power system that powers the second telemetry circuit. The second power system includes an internal charging system and a rechargeable battery coupled to the internal charging system. The internal charging system may be configured for electromagnetic-inductive or RF-transmission coupling with an external charging system. A controller monitors the energy level of the rechargeable battery and provides an signal indicative of the level.
US08150528B2
A stimulation electrode is described for a hearing impaired patient. An intra-fluid electrode branch is immersed in cochlear fluid within an interior volume of a patient cochlea and has electrode contacts for delivering a cochlear stimulation signal to adjacent neural tissue. An intra-modiolus electrode branch penetrates through the cochlea and has one or more electrode contacts for delivering a modiolus stimulation signal to cochlear nerve tissue within the modiolus of the patient.
US08150526B2
Apparatus is provided, including an external device, including a mount, which is placed in front of an eye of a subject. A laser is coupled to the mount and configured to emit toward the eye radiation that is outside of 380-750 nm. A partially-transparent mirror is coupled to the mount. An intraocular device is implanted entirely in the subject's eye, and includes a plurality of stimulating electrodes, and an energy receiver, which receives the radiation from the laser and generates a voltage drop in response thereto. A plurality of photosensors detect photons and generate a signal in response thereto. Driving circuitry is coupled to the energy receiver and to the photosensors, and receives the signals from the photosensors and utilizes the voltage drop to drive the electrodes to apply currents to the retina in response to the signals from the photosensors. Other embodiments are also described.
US08150525B2
A device for the treatment of hyperhydrosis by application of electric current to a treatment area of the skin is described. The device comprises: a) a garment comprising a first electrode adapted for contacting said treatment area; b) a second electrode adapted for contacting the treatment area or skin proximal to the treatment area; and c) a power delivery unit in electrical communication with said first and second electrodes. The power delivery unit provides a customized dose of electricity to the treatment area. In one embodiment, the garment is a glove.
US08150522B2
Developing a measure of critical systems-like behavior in an epilepsy patient in order to map epileptic networks, either passively or evoking responses through subthreshold stimulation, and to apply “therapeutic” stimulations to the patient that cause smaller, but more frequent dissipations of “energy,” a transcription product, subclinical electrophysiological activity or seizures in order to raise the clinical seizure initiation threshold, through releasing accumulated interictal energy in a seizure onset zone or elsewhere in the epileptic network, thereby preventing occurrence of larger more debilitating seizures.
US08150521B2
Methods, devices, and systems for controlling an implantable pulse generator for activation of a nerve or receptor are provided. In particular, the method, devices, and systems embodying features of the present invention control the energy output of a battery in an implantable pulse generator for stimulation of the baroreflex system of the patient.
US08150516B2
When a medical procedure is performed on a patient in whom an implantable medical device is implanted, the medical procedure may have undesired effects on the medical device, such as triggering a response that initiates therapy by the device that is unnecessary and potentially dangerous to the patient. Systems and methods may facilitate performing of such medical procedures on such patients by temporarily reprogramming the medical device, monitoring for one or more detectable characteristics associated with the medical procedure to be performed, and restoring normal programming of the device based on detection and/or lack of detection of the detectable characteristic(s).
US08150511B2
Embodiments of the invention present methods and systems for determining an optimal defibrillation shock waveform for application to the heart of a patient to stop a rhythm abnormality such as ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia. Such methods and systems may include measuring and/or collecting information for a cardiac waveform of a patient, produced as a result of either an electrical stimulus applied to a heart of the patient, which may be a pacing shock/stimulus and/or a defibrillation shock waveform, or as the result of intrinsic cardiac activation, determining a characteristic of the cardiac waveform, comparing the determined characteristic of the cardiac waveform to a plurality of values for the characteristic with optional reference to the defibrillator system impedance, wherein each value of the characteristic is associated with a predetermined value for a parameter of an optimal defibrillation shock waveform, and selecting the predetermined value for the parameter of the optimal defibrillation shock waveform based on the comparison.
US08150510B2
A method for accurately determining timing points for T-wave shocks is particularly useful in a system for determining a cardiac shock strength in an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD. The method involves acquiring at least one first signal, acquiring at least a second signal, comparing the signals, and selecting a timing point with the T-wave of the signal. The first and second signals may be two different aspects of a single electrogram, first and second electrograms, or a combination thereof. Comparison preferably involves signal alignment and qualitative analysis.
US08150503B2
A patient management system is described that includes an implantable device for collecting one or more physiological parameter values and associated timestamps indicating the time at which the value is collected. The system is then configured to determine the periodic variation, if any, of a particular physiological parameter and use that periodicity in assessing changes in the parameter values over time.
US08150502B2
Embodiments of the invention provide methods of obtaining continuous cardiac information from a mammal. First, attach a self-contained, wearable, portable continuous cardiac monitor to the mammal to create a chamber containing electrodes used to detect cardiac signals from the mammal. Next, continuously detect without analyzing the cardiac signals from the mammal for at least 24 hours. Next, store information related to substantially all detected cardiac signals in the cardiac monitor.
US08150501B2
A method for measuring skin erythema and determining the efficacy of skin care treatment products utilizing digital images.
US08150494B2
A method and apparatus for registering physical space to image space is disclosed. The system allows for determining fiducial markers as pixels or voxels in image data. The system can correlate and register the determined fiducial points with fiducial markers in physical space.
US08150492B2
The invention relates to a correction method for correction of noise resulting from gradient artifacts in ECG signal data records recorded in a magnetic resonance device by an ECG measuring apparatus. A first correction data record is determined with a reference point of the ECG measuring apparatus located at a first position in the magnetic resonance device. An ECG signal data record is measured with the reference point of the ECG measuring apparatus located at a second position in the magnetic resonance device. A modified correction data record is specified as a function of the first correction data record and the first and second position of the reference point. The ECG signal data record is corrected based on the modified correction data record.
US08150483B2
A sliding mechanism (40) includes a base plate (42), a first sliding plate (44), as second sliding plate (46), and a elastic element (48). The first sliding plate (44) is slidably mounted on the first sliding plate (44) and located adjacent to one side of the base plate (42). The second sliding plate (46) is slidably mounted on the second sliding plate (46) and located adjacent to an opposite side of the base plate (42). The elastic element (48) provides force for driving the first sliding plate (44) and the second sliding plate (46) to slide relative to the base plate (42) and in opposite directions.
US08150476B2
A battery interface assembly for a communication device (100), such as a portable radio, is provided to ensure a reliable interconnection between battery contacts (230) and radio contacts (108). Communication device (100) includes a casting (110) having a cavity (112) with two apertures formed therein (114, 228). The two apertures (114, 228) open into the cavity (112) to provide a point of contact for mating radio contacts (108) to the battery contacts (230). The battery contacts (230) are wiping contacts which mate with the radio contacts (108) as the battery is slid into the casting (110). A compression seal (126) is provided to the radio contacts (108) while a radial seal (120) is provided about the battery contacts (230) to ensure reliable electrical and physical connection under a variety of environments.
US08150469B2
An array antenna forming unit (22) combines at least two transmission/reception devices (40) to thereby sequentially form one array antenna. Every time an array antenna is formed, an array antenna transmission/reception control unit (25) sends a radio signal having a predetermined directivity pattern from the array antenna to each of some or all of other antenna elements (42) not forming the array antenna. An array antenna communication performance measurement unit (26) measures a reception level in each of some or all of the antenna elements (42) with respect to a transmission from each array antenna, and calculates respective array antenna communication performance values, based on the measured reception levels. An array antenna determining unit (23) determines a combination of at least two transmission/reception devices (40) forming an array antenna having a predetermined performance condition, based on the array antenna communication performance values.
US08150468B2
A method and system for configuring a multi-mode base station is disclosed so that a network system may specify a radio access mode for the base station. In the present invention, a configuration control unit inside the base station reports resource capabilities of the base station to a configuration decision unit. The configuration decision unit determines a mode for the base station according to network planning and the reported resource capabilities, generates a configuration file for the base station according to the determined mode, and delivers the configuration file to the base station. The configuration control unit configures relevant resources of the base station according to the received configuration file. The base station sends a configuration request during initial startup to implement automatic configuration. At daily startup, the base station reports resource capabilities and the existing configuration file to the configuration decision unit to check whether the current configurations are valid.
US08150467B2
Devices and methods which supplement a duplex frequency by providing one or more simplex frequencies and distributing a data load among them are provided. In one aspect, the system includes a server containing a scheduler in communication with a communications device. The server initially communicates with the communications device using a duplex channel, determines when it is no longer optimal to use the single duplex channel, and distributes data among the duplex channel and one or more simplex channels. Before distributing the data, the server sends a schedule to the communications device via the duplex channel, so the communications device knows which bits of data are coming through which channels at which times. A descheduler within the communications device receives the schedule and alerts the communications device to start receiving data on other simplex channels. The descheduler then puts the bits of data in order as they stream in across the duplex and simplex channels.
US08150466B2
An apparatus for detachably installing a smart card, such as a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card, in a portable terminal is provided. The apparatus includes an opening on the portable terminal, a sliding member slidably coupled to the terminal to move in and out of the opening, and a cover on an end portion of the sliding member to open and close the opening as the sliding member slides. The SIM card is placed on the sliding member to move in and out of the opening through a sliding movement of the sliding member. The apparatus prevent damage to the SIM card when it is detachably installed in the portable terminal through the sliding movement of the sliding member.
US08150461B1
A method and system for using a wireless enabled portable computer system as a wireless modem. The portable computer system may be a personal digital assistant (PDA) having an internal wireless modem. The internal wireless modem, e.g., GSM radio, contains a communication port (port2) that communicates with a processor of the portable computer system. The portable computer system also contains another communication port (port1) that is externally available for connection to a second computer system. A software bridge is provided that copies commands and/or data from the port1 over to the port2 and vice-versa. The software bridge allows the second computer system to directly use the internal wireless modem of the portable computer system when the portable computer system is connected to the second computer. The connection to the second computer system can be made by a wired connection (e.g., serial interface, RS232) or by a wireless connection, e.g., Bluetooth or infra-red communication. The port1 and the port2 can be serial communication ports which may be UART compliant. The PDA thus extends wireless functionality to a second computer system (e.g., a notebook) using conventional connection mechanisms for communicating with the second computer system.
US08150449B2
A wireless communication device for effecting wireless communication using a short-range wireless communication method having a ranging function, which carries out wireless connection establishment/disconnection control using ranging information. For example, the wireless communication device determines the range to another wireless communication device within wireless communication range, and if it finds a wireless communication device present within a predetermined range establishes a wireless connection with that wireless communication device, and disconnects the connection if the wireless communication device with which the device is in wireless connection passes beyond a predetermined range.
US08150446B2
A method and apparatus for controlling thermal energy generation in a User Equipment (UE) operating in a radio telecommunication network. The thermal energy generation is directly proportional to a transmit power level in the UE, and a Node B allocates transmit power levels to a plurality of UEs through scheduling grants. Upon request by the UE, the Node B allocates a dedicated scheduling grant to the UE authorizing a higher transmit power. If the UE subsequently overheats, it sends a power reduction request to the Node B. Upon approval, all or part of the dedicated grant is removed, and the UE transmits at a lower power level to reduce thermal generation. The Node B retains control of the grant and may reallocate it to a common scheduling grant or may allocate another dedicated grant to a different UE.
US08150441B2
A feedback signal is received from a feedback communication device. The feedback signal provides feedback information for a signal at a feedback rate. A modifying communication device modifies the signal by adjusting a nominal value of a transmit diversity parameter in accordance with the feedback information at a nominal value adjustment rate. The signal is perturbed according to the adjusted nominal value at a perturbation rate.
US08150435B2
The present disclosure relates to a method of transmitting channel quality data for channels in a wireless communication system, and to a corresponding receiver and transmitter. In one embodiment, the method includes determining a plurality of channel quality indicators for a corresponding plurality of frequency intervals and transmitting information about channel quality indicators in the form of differentially encoded slope data.
US08150433B2
An improvement in a method of transmit beamforming between a transmitter (16) and a receiver (18) for a time varying lading channel comprises the step of performing transmit beamforming using less than complete knowledge of the previous fading blocks to design a codebook (26a) of a current fading block with each time frame. One embodiment comprises a successive beamforming algorithm and a second embodiment comprises a vector quantization beamforming algorithm. A fading parameter α is determined at least in the transmitter or receiver by monitoring a mobile Doppler frequency.
US08150423B2
A paging group network includes multiple paging groups formed by areas covered by base stations (BSs). The paging group network further includes an anchor paging controller (PC) and a relay PC. The anchor paging controller initiates a page to a mobile station (MS), addresses the paging group in which the MS is located, and stores status information about the MS in a corresponding location register (LR). The relay PC manages the paging groups. A method for updating MS locations is also provided. Thereby, the present invention optimizes the paging and location updating processes, and reduces the complexity of managing the idle mode.
US08150415B2
Disclosed is a method for determining a location of a UE by means of AGPS information. The method includes generating by an SLC a pseudo UE ID according to a request for location information of the UE, the pseudo UE ID being used for maintaining security in communication with an SPC, requesting AGPS information for the UE, the location information of which has been requested, to the SPC by means of the pseudo UE ID, and receiving the AGPS information, transferring the received AGPS information to the UE, and receiving GPS signal measurement values using the AGPS information from the UE, requesting a location calculation of the UE for the GPS signal measurement values to the SPC by means of the pseudo UE ID, and receiving calculated location values, and providing the location information of the UE by means of the received location values of the UE.
US08150403B2
A method (300) for allocating mobile station resources. The method can include receiving a message (120) over a wireless communications network (110) from an authorized user requesting reservation of communication resources on the mobile station (105), and automatically reserving the mobile station communication resources in accordance with the request. Receiving the message over the wireless communications network can include receiving the message on a slave mobile station. The message can be received from a master mobile station (115). In one arrangement the message can include a mobile station calendar entry. The calendar entry can be received in response to initiating a call on the mobile station. The call can be, for example, a selective dynamic group (SDG) call.
US08150388B2
The present invention is related to a method for testing a navigation receiver comprised in a communication device, whereby the communication device further comprises a device for mobile wireless communication. The method comprises the steps of: connecting the communication device to a test equipment device, sending navigation assistance data information comprising test configuration data from the test equipment device via the device for mobile wireless communication to the navigation receiver over an assistance data communication port in order to initiate a test procedure, sending test navigation ranging signals from the test equipment device to the navigation receiver, processing the test navigation ranging signals in the navigation receiver, sending a message concerning the test procedure in response from the navigation receiver to the device for wireless mobile communication, feeding back the message to the test equipment device.
US08150381B2
A wireless distribution network provides content delivery and data collection to and from portable devices. The network connects a server controlling access to content storage by home nodes, service center nodes and a plurality of wireless nodes. The wireless nodes are disposed at a plurality of locations, such as gas stations (vehicle service stations). The plurality of wireless nodes are connected to the server via the network. Each wireless node is capable of transferring information wirelessly between the node and one of a plurality of portable devices. Each node is capable of detecting and identifying each of the plurality of portable devices. Each node transfers information between the node and the plurality of portable devices based upon the detection and identification of the portable devices. The node also transfers the information between the node and the first computer based upon the detection and identification of the portable devices.
US08150380B2
A handheld device is configured to communicate with a base unit in an audience response system having a multiplicity of handheld devices that are like in kind and perform a same function. The handheld device includes a transceiver, a user interface configured to receive a user response, a unique address identifying the handheld device, and signal generating logic configured to generate a radio frequency signal encoding the user response and the unique address. The handheld device further includes transmission logic configured to instruct the transceiver to repeatedly transmit the radio frequency signal upon receipt of the user response, without receiving a signal from the base unit to initiate transmission, until a termination event occurs. The termination event consists of one of a receipt of an acknowledgment signal from the base unit and an expiration of a predetermined period of time.
US08150377B2
The present invention provides a system and method of modifying policy settings in a network having a plurality of subscriber devices. An embodiment includes a plurality of base stations, each capable of wirelessly transmitting across a geographic region and a server. A cell-phone, capable of roaming between regions, is operable to establish a wireless link with the base stations and through the base stations, with the server. The network contains a communication policy determining from which other communication devices a subscriber device can receive voice calls. The communication policy is updated, by the server, based on requests from the subscriber devices. Once a request is received from a subscriber device, the determination whether to update the communication policy can be based on a record of rejections respective to the caller requested to be blocked. Alternatively, the communication policy can be updated according to a trust policy maintained on the server respective to the subscriber device making the request; the trust policy represents the procedure to follow when a request is received from that subscriber device.
US08150375B2
Methods and apparatus for automatically recording Push-To-Talk (PTT) voice communications for replay
In one illustrative example, a mobile station includes a wireless transceiver which operates with a wireless communication network; a processor; memory coupled to the processor; and a user interface which includes a Push-To-Talk (PTT) switch for transmitting a PTT voice communication through the wireless transceiver, a PTT replay switch for replaying a PTT voice communication previously received through the wireless transceiver which is stored in the memory, and a speaker for outputting audible voice signals. The wireless transceiver is operative to receive a PTT key message; receive voice data of a PTT voice communication following the PTT key message; and receive a PTT dekey message following the voice data. The processor is operative to cause the voice data of the PTT voice communication to be recorded in the memory based on receiving the PTT key message, and cause the recording of voice data of the PTT voice communication to be terminated based on receiving the PTT dekey message. Subsequently, in response to detecting a user actuation of the PTT replay switch, the processor causes the voice data of the PTT voice communication to be retrieved from the memory and audible voice signals corresponding to the voice data to be output from the speaker.
US08150374B2
The present invention is generally directed toward a mobile device that can be used in a secure access system. More specifically, the mobile device can have credential data loaded thereon remotely updated, enabled, disabled, revoked, or otherwise altered with a message sent from, for example, a control panel and/or controller in the system.
US08150372B2
Described is a method for writing data onto a storage device from a wireless access point (“AP”), providing the data to a master mobile unit (“MMU”), authenticating an identity of the MMU at the AP and transmitting the data from the MMU to at least one other mobile unit (“MU”). Also described is a device having a connector coupling a storage device to the device, the storage device including data received from a network device and a transceiver communicating with the network device to authenticate the device, wherein when the device is authenticated, the transceiver further transmits the data to at least a first mobile unit (“MU”).
US08150354B2
A method of determining relative phase data of a signal received at multiple antennas, the signal being a phase-modulated data signal having a plurality of periods of constant frequency, the method comprising: within each period of constant frequency, sampling the signal received by a first one of the multiple antennas and sampling the signal received by at least one different one of the multiple antennas; determining from the received samples a data symbol value represented by the received signal for each of the periods of constant frequency; and using the determined data symbol value information to eliminate phase variations between the samples received by the different antennas within each constant frequency period arising from the modulation of the data signal to generate relative phase data for said different antennas.
US08150351B2
A broadband tuner includes a tracking filter with calibration to compensate for component errors and drift. The filters use off-die inductors that are preferably within a system-in-package (SIP) with other critical tuner components, which produces a highly integrated tuner front end with high Q filters within a single package. High voltage varactors with a large tuning range can be used for variable capacitors. The integration of the tuner into a SIP allows the tuner design to be optimized for cost and performance while keeping the critical RF layout requirements within the tuner. A configurable tuner front end enables modes for low noise, high linearity, good input return loss (S11) across the entire RF band, and applying a test tone in the calibration mode. The switchable mode enables the tuner to be effective during weak terrestrial reception, strong terrestrial reception, and connection to a cable plant.
US08150349B2
An apparatus and method for audio conversion is provided to upgrade the resolution of transmission frequency of an FM (frequency modulation) transmitter and reduce the size of the FM transmitter by applying frequency coarse tune and fine tune. The apparatus comprises a digital FM modulator, a digital frequency synthesizer, a signal converter, and an analog frequency converter. The digital FM modulator modulates a digital audio input signal into a first digital audio signal. The digital frequency synthesizer converts the first digital audio signal into a second digital audio signal, whose frequency is determined according to a first frequency conversion parameter. The signal converter converts the second digital audio signal into an analog audio signal. The analog frequency converter generates an audio transmission signal with a predetermined frequency according to a second clock signal and the analog audio signal while the second clock signal is generated according to a first clock signal.
US08150346B2
In one embodiment, the present invention includes a method for receiving an incoming radio frequency (RF) signal in a receiver, estimating a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of a constant modulus (CM) signal in the incoming RF signal based on a calculated magnitude of the incoming RF signal, and indicating presence of a modulated signal in the incoming RF signal if the estimated SNR is greater than a threshold.
US08150343B2
A power amplifier (PA) provides dynamic stability and gain control for linear and non-linear operation. The PA operates with a baseband processor and a transmitter, in which the PA receives a signal from the transmitter for power amplification prior to transmission of the signal. The PA is configured to select between the linear mode of operation and the non-linear mode of operation, in which device scaling within the PA is achieved by changing a device sizing of at least one stage of the PA. Further to changing the device size, the PA changes biasing resistance and impedance of a matching network in response to the changing of the device size to control power output and stability for the PA.
US08150342B2
An internal operation of RF IC is adjusted so that the level of an RF transmitter signal is substantially stopped from rising, or made to descend in course of ramp-up of the RF transmitter signal. This adjustment is enabled by ramp-up adjustment data Last 4 symbols contained in preamble data precedent to real transmission data transmitted after completion of ramp-up. The ramp-up adjustment data and real transmission data are supplied from a baseband LSI. The RF transmitter signal contains phase and amplitude modulation components according to the EDGE system. RF IC includes phase and amplitude modulation control loops PM LP and AM LP. Ramp-up of RF power amplifiers PA1 and PA2 is performed by controlling the gain of the first variable amplifier MVGA included in the AM LP according to ramp information. Thus, unwanted radiation's level is reduced during ramp-up of the RF transmitter signal of the RF power amplifiers.
US08150337B2
There is provided a wireless communication device forming an autonomous distributed wireless network by intermittently transmitting and receiving a predetermined communication management signal, which includes a reception portion to receive the communication management signal, an evaluation portion to evaluate a communication state of the wireless communication device in the wireless network based on a history of receiving the communication management signal by the reception portion, and a notification portion to provide a notification corresponding to an evaluation result of the communication state by the evaluation portion.
US08150334B2
A method and server for establishing a push to talk type service such as push to talk over cellular (PoC). The server receives a message from Client A indicating one or more media types that Client A will accept in defined circumstances in a push to talk type session. When the server receives a message from Client B inviting Client A to establish a push to talk type session for one or more proposed media types, the server determines whether the media type(s) proposed by Client B are acceptable to Client A. If at least one proposed media type is acceptable, the server forwards the invitation to Client A with a list of the acceptable media types. Thereafter the session is established.
US08150331B2
A method for adapting the signal transmission between two electronic devices (1, 2) that are connected to each other via a physical interface and that each have a transmitter (8a, 8b) and a receiver (7a, 7b), wherein analog signals are transmitted from the transmitter (8a, 8b) of one device (1, 2) along a transmission path (9a, 9b) to the receiver (7a, 7b) of the other device (1, 2). Known scattering parameters (10a, 10b, 10c, 11d) for describing the electromagnetic wave propagation in the transmission path (9a, 9b) between the receiver (7a, 7b) of the first device (1, 2) and the transmitter (8a, 8b) of the second device (1, 2) are retrieved by the first device (1, 2), transmitted to the second device (1, 2), and parameters of the transmitter (8a, 8b) in the second device (1, 2) are adapted with reference to a high-frequency description of the transmission path (9a, 9b) as a function of all of the scattering parameters (10a to 10d, 11a to 11d) known to the two devices. Furthermore, an arrangement with a computer system and a peripheral device is described that is designed to carry out a corresponding method.
US08150321B2
A near field RF communicator has: an antenna operable to generate an RF signal to enable inductive coupling via the magnetic field of the RF signal between the antenna and another near field RF communicator or RF transponder in near field range; and a signal generator operable to generate a multi-level digital sine wave drive signal to drive the antenna to generate the RF signal, wherein the signal generator comprises a selector operable to select one or more digital sequences to provide one or more digital signals from which the digital sine wave drive signal is generated.
US08150313B2
A device (D) is dedicated to transmitting and/or receiving signals representative of data in a communication satellite (SAT) having a fixed frequency bandwidth. This device (D) comprises transmission and/or reception means (MER) responsible for sending and/or receiving signals in multiple beams, and control means (MC) responsible for defining a chosen number of cells of chosen dimensions and positions, and configuring the transmission and/or reception means (MER) so as to define beams each associated with at least one of the defined cells, with a chosen carrier frequency based on the requirements of each of the cells and taking into account the frequency bandwidth available on the satellite (SAT).
US08150307B2
An image forming apparatus having a high toner containing efficiency of a waste toner-collecting container is provided. Piled toner is broken by an vibrating imparting operation and at the same time, a toner feeding member such as a feeding screw disposed inside the toner-collecting container is rotated by changing a reciprocating operation by the vibrating impartment to a rotational operation in a direction. As a result, the piled toner which cannot be completely broken by the vibrating imparting operation is broken and fed, so that driving noise is reduced and the toner containing efficiency is improved.
US08150302B2
A pattern forming unit forms a color-misalignment detection pattern on an image carrier. A light-intensity detecting unit detects the color-misalignment detection pattern formed on the image carrier by irradiating the image carrier with a light and detecting light intensity of a reflected light from the image carrier. A color-misalignment-amount detecting unit detects an amount of a color misalignment of an image based on the light intensity of the reflected light detected by the light-intensity detecting unit. A spot of the light on the image carrier is elongated in a main-scanning direction.
US08150297B2
The present invention provides a toner container system, such as a toner cartridge, having a first reservoir for containing toner and a second reservoir for receiving toner from the first reservoir and transferring the toner to an image forming apparatus, and a toner transfer mechanism disposed between the first and second reservoirs, the transfer mechanism including a generally cylindrically shaped rotatable roller member having a plurality of equally spaced recesses disposed around the circumference thereof and being rotatable in angular increments wherein the recesses are alternately open to the first reservoir in a first position for each recess and open to the second reservoir in a second position for each recess, whereby toner is transferred from the first reservoir to the second reservoir upon rotation of the roller member, a Geneva drive mechanism including a drive gear operatively connected to the roller member for advancing the roller member in one angular increment for each complete rotation of the drive gear; and a locking mechanism operatively interconnecting the drive gear and rotatable member, whereby the drive gear is intermittently locked after each incremental angular advancement of the roller member to prevent actuation of the toner transfer mechanism while the rotatable member rotates through a recess at the second position thereof.
US08150295B2
A charging member is provided in which a minute gap between an image support body and the charging member is set widely but even so the charging member does not abnormally discharge easily, the charging member includes a conductive support body 903, an electrical resistance adjustment layer 902 disposed on the conductive support body 903 and a surface layer 901 disposed on the electrical resistance adjustment layer 902 in which the surface layer contains at least (a) polyol resin grafted with fluorine or silicon, (b) polyether polyol resin, (c) organic anion salt that contains fluorine and alkali metal or alkali earth metal and (d) polyisocyanate.
US08150294B2
An image forming apparatus includes: a main body having an opening; a photoconductor unit including a photoconductor and removably mountable to the main body through the opening by moving the photoconductor unit in a first direction; an exposure member; and a moving mechanism configured to move the exposure member to and away from the photoconductor. The moving mechanism includes: a fixed shaft having an axial line thereof fixed relative to the main body; a first arm including one end portion thereof which is supported rotatably around the axial line of the fixed shaft; a movable shaft having an axial line thereof which is movable relative to the main body; and a second arm including: one end portion supporting the exposure member; and another end portion connected to the first arm via the movable shaft, and the second arm being swingable around the axial line of the movable shaft.
US08150290B2
A method and apparatus for saving power in an image production device is disclosed. The method may include determining if the image production device has been inactive for a predetermined period of time, wherein if it is determined that the image production device has been inactive for a predetermined period of time, decreasing a fuser fan's output by a predetermined amount, decreasing a fuser lamp setting by a predetermined amount, the fuser system being heated to operate at a temperature that is at a first predetermined level, setting a timer, determining if the fuser system's temperature is at a second predetermined level, wherein if it is determined that the fuser system's temperature is not at the second predetermined level, determining if the timer expired, wherein if it is determined that the timer expired, decreasing a fuser lamp setting by the predetermined amount and resetting the timer.
US08150289B2
An image forming apparatus includes an imaging section and a thermal fixing device. The fixing device fuses a toner image formed by the imaging section onto the recording sheet passing through a fixing nip. The fixing device includes a fixing member, a pressure member, a heater, a temperature sensor, and a temperature controller. The fixing member is rotatable, and the pressure member is pressed against the fixing member to form the fixing nip therebetween. The heater heats at least a portion of the fixing member. The temperature sensor senses a temperature of the fixing member. The temperature controller controls the temperature of the fixing member in at least one of an on-off mode and a PID mode. The temperature controller initially operates in the on-off mode upon entering recovery, and switches to the PID mode when a threshold time has elapsed after entering recovery.
US08150283B2
Method and system for minimizing non-uniformities in output images using halftone correction patches
Disclosed herein are a method and a printing apparatus implementing the method to minimize cross-process direction non-uniformities of color images in printed documents. When printing images on a photoreceptor, halftone test patches are generated for each color. A first halftone cell orientation (of dots) of the test patches and their corresponding color image data is determined. The halftone cells of test patches may be provided or rotated to a second orientation (or angle or degrees) for printing in an inter-document zone of the photoreceptor, while the first orientation of the color image data in the document image area of the photoreceptor remains the same. Errors or non-uniformities (e.g., with TRC correction) caused by sensor misreading of test patches at specific orientations in the cross-process direction are substantially eliminated, thereby providing output images without streaks or visible errors.
US08150279B2
An image forming apparatus includes an image forming unit for forming an image using a consumable supply; a cover attached to the image forming unit; an energy accumulation unit for accumulating energy when the cover is closed; an energy initializing unit for initializing a level of the energy accumulated in the energy accumulation unit when the cover is opened; an energy detection unit for detecting whether the level of the energy accumulated in the energy accumulation unit is initialized; and a state correction unit for correcting a state of the image forming unit according to a detection result of the energy detection unit.
US08150270B2
Modulator driver for driving an electro-optical modulator in a high-speed optical communications system. In accordance with aspects of the present invention, a modulator driver is presented comprising an input differential limiting amplifier which is coupled to a distributed differential current-switch configuration, where one set of outputs of the distributed differential current-switch configuration are grounded and the other set of outputs are connected to an artificial transmission line structure generating forward traveling and reverse traveling signals, with the reverse traveling signal termination bias inductively coupled to a separately adjustable positive bias voltage, whereby the circuit architecture reduces the number of components and transitions in the high-speed signal path and is compatible with compact, monolithic fabrication requiring a minimal amount of external components for operation. Other methods and apparatus are presented.
US08150269B2
The invention relates to A method for a lighting device, in particular for a display device such as a LCD-TV, projector etc., generating radiation including at least visible light for illumination with at least one light-emitting element (1) being a LED (1) or an OLED, emitting radiation comprising an average light intensity for illumination purpose, a controller (2) coupled to the light-emitting element (1) modulating said radiation for a data transfer simultaneously to the illumination purpose, wherein the controller (2) is configured in such a way, that simultaneously data signals are transmitted via the generated radiation of said light-emitting element (1) and said modulation is not visible by an observer, wherein the data signals are transmitted to a detecting unit (3).
US08150263B2
An optical code division multiplexing signal generator provided with an optical pulse light source, a first encoder to an Nth encoder, a first optical modulator to an Nth optical modulator, and a first optical circulator to an Nth optical circulator. The first optical circulator inputs an input optical pulse train to a first encoder, and inputs a first encoded optical pulse train output by Bragg reflection from the first encoder to the first optical modulator. The kth optical circulator inputs an input (k−1)th optical pulse train which has passed through the (k−1)th encoder to a kth encoder, and inputs a kth encoded optical pulse train output by Bragg reflection from the kth encoder to the kth optical modulator. Herein k takes all integers from 2 to N, and N is a positive integer of 2 or more.
US08150259B2
A passive optical network system includes: a plurality of optical signal splitter receiving optical signals from a plurality of optical network units (ONUs) to provide a plurality of upstream optical signals having different wavelengths; a hybrid optical filter multiplexing the plurality of upstream optical signals in a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) scheme; and an optical line terminal (OLT) receiving the multiplexed upstream optical signals in a time division multiplexing (TDM) scheme. Therefore, the network system can be easily expanded when the number of subscribers increases, and the optical loss can be minimized.
US08150257B1
Systems and methods are described for restoring wavelength services in mesh networks using pre-configured, standby lightpaths. The standby lightpaths are pre-cross-connected lightpaths that provide connectivity between switching nodes having a fiber link of degree-2 or higher. The restoration method overcomes the problem of optical impairments for long haul connections, avoids wavelength power balancing delays, provides wavelength conversion for capacity efficiency, and allows sharing of links across nonsimultaneous failures.
US08150251B2
A photographic apparatus comprises a movable platform, an operation unit, and a controller. The movable platform has an imager that captures an optical image through a taking lens, and is movable relative to the taking lens on an xy plane perpendicular to an optical axis of the taking lens. The operation unit is configured to set a movement quantity of the movable platform on the xy plane. The controller performs a controlled movement of the movable platform in accordance to the movement quantity set by using the operation unit.
US08150243B2
A heating process apparatus includes a process chamber, a heat-processed object support member provided in the process chamber for heating a substrate disposed thereon, a cap for covering the substrate disposed on the heat-processed object support member, a heater for heating the heat-processed object support member, a temperature measuring unit for measuring the temperature of the heat-processed object support member, and a controller for controlling the heater. A first measuring unit measures a temperature of the cap, and the controller controls the heater so as to set the cap temperature to a predetermined temperature. A second measuring unit measures a temperature of the heat-processed object support member, and the controller turns off the heater when the temperature of the heat-processed object support member exceeds an over-heat critical temperature.
US08150242B2
Embodiments of the invention generally contemplate an apparatus and method for monitoring and controlling the temperature of a substrate during processing. One embodiment of the apparatus and method takes advantage of an infrared camera to obtain the temperature profile of multiple regions or the entire surface of the substrate and a system controller to calculate and coordinate in real time an optimized strategy for reducing any possible temperature non-uniformity found on the substrate during processing.
US08150231B2
There is provided an apparatus and a method determining a data arrangement that guarantees seamless reproduction even in a case of occurrence of a jump in a browsable slide show. An allowable jump range between an image data clip and an audio data clip required for data reading in the browsable slide show in which a consecutive reproduction processing of a still image and an audio reproduction processing are performed in parallel is determined so as to determine arrangement conditions of data to be stored in an information recording medium on the basis of the determined allowable jump range. This configuration enables the browsable slide show to be carried out as a seamless reproduction processing without any data discontinuity. Furthermore, it becomes possible to provide a plurality of combinations of readout rates of the audio data and image data.
US08150221B2
The invention provides a fiber collimator array including a fiber array in which a plurality of optical fibers is arrayed and a microlens array in which microlenses are arrayed on positions corresponding to the plurality of optical fibers on a transparent substrate. Each microlens and the transparent substrate are oppositely arranged so that a plurality of projections formed on a bottom face of each microlens intersects with a plurality of projections formed on a surface of the transparent substrate, and each microlens and the transparent substrate are adhered to each other by the adhesive.
US08150201B2
An image processing apparatus includes the following elements. An image input unit receives a long-time exposure image and a short-time exposure image. An image analysis unit detects a brightness-change pixel in which a brightness change has occurred during a photographic period on the basis of analysis of pixel values in the long-time exposure image and the short-time exposure image. A pixel value correction unit corrects a pixel value of the detected brightness-change pixel. In the pixel value correction unit, a combined image generator selectively combines pixel values in the long-time exposure image and pixel values in the short-time exposure image to generate a combined image; an intermediate image generator generates a blurred image of the combined image; and an output image generator determines a pixel value of the detected brightness-change pixel using a pixel value of a corresponding pixel in each of the combined image and the blurred image.
US08150196B2
The present disclosure describes a method and apparatus for filtering noise in a video image, comprising receiving a first video image, a second video image and motion information wherein the first image may be an image to be filtered and the second image may be a filtered image wherein the second image may be temporally related to said first image. The method may further include, for at least one pixel in the first video image, selecting at least one neighbor of the pixel from the first video image and selecting at least one neighbor of the pixel from said second video image, wherein selection of the neighbors from the first video image and the second video image may be based on said motion information; selecting a subset of the neighbors wherein the subset may be less than or equal to a sum of neighbors from the first video image and the second video image; determining a weighted average of the subset of said neighbors and the pixel; and outputting the weighted average as a filtered pixel of the first video image. Of course, many alternatives, variations and modifications are possible without departing from this embodiment.
US08150191B2
A method and system for calculating a blur artifact in a video are disclosed. The video includes a series of frames captured at a predefined interval of time. The frames include one or more pixels. Calculating the blur artifact in the video includes identifying a focused area in a set of frames. Further, edges are detected in each of the frames. Furthermore, the blur artifact is calculated as a ratio of number of blurred pixels and total number edge pixels.
US08150182B2
The present invention is directed to an image information encoding apparatus, used in receiving compressed image information through network media when processing of such compressed image information is performed on storage media. A picture sorting buffer delivers information of picture type of frame Picture_type to a picture type discrimination unit. The picture type discrimination unit transmits command to a motion prediction/compensation unit on the basis of that information. The motion prediction/compensation unit generates predictive picture by using filter coefficients having the number of taps lesser than that of P picture with respect to B picture for which operation quantity and the number of memory accesses are required to more degree as compared to P picture on the basis of that command.
US08150179B2
An image processing apparatus includes an encoder, a decoder, and a display unit. The encoder performs scalable encoding to encode input image data to obtain code data to be stored in a storage unit. The decoder decodes the code data stored in the storage unit to obtain decoded image data. The display unit displays an image based on the decoded image data, and receives an instruction to output the image. The image is output in response to the instruction. The decoder decodes only subcode data which is part of the code data.
US08150176B2
Provided are a method and apparatus for determining a target compression rate for a file, which may be calculated using a predetermined algorithm based on a target file size. There is provided a method for compressing a file, the method including using a processor to perform at least the steps of compressing a target file at an initial compression rate and determining a size of the compressed target file; comparing the size of the target file compressed at the initial compression rate to sizes of a first file and a second file compressed at the initial compression rate; based on the comparisons and a target size for the target file, calculating a target compression rate; and compressing the target file using the target compression rate.
US08150174B2
A method and apparatus for encoding and decoding a multi-view image for a multi-view display apparatus are provided. The method of encoding a multi-view image includes: compressing a multi-view image based on a reference image relative to multiple views; generating enabled stereo pair information in relation to multi-view images; and generating a bitstream by using the compressed multi-view image and the enabled stereo pair information.
US08150170B2
Statistical approaches to large-scale image annotation are described. Generally, the annotation technique includes compiling visual features and textual information from a number of images, hashing the images visual features, and clustering the images based on their hash values. An example system builds statistical language models from the clustered images and annotates the image by applying one of the statistical language models.
US08150167B2
The present invention relates to a method of and apparatus for image analysis and in particular may relate to the detection of cross-fades in film or video sequences. The invention relates in particular to a method of analysing an image of a sequence of images to determine a cross-fade measure based on determined temporal picture information transitions associated with picture elements of the image. In particular, the cross-fade measure may be determined based on the extent to which the temporal picture information transitions are uniform. The method and apparatus of the invention can provide a measure of likelihood of a cross-fade in a single pass. In addition the described method can be accomplished in real-time or close to real-time. In addition the cross-fade detection results are comparable with, or better than, the results achieved by the prior art methods.
US08150159B2
The present invention discloses an identifying method of hand-written Latin letter. The present invention considers many hand-written styles of Latin letter, extract many stable characteristics of Latin letter of different hand-written styles, and classify the Latin letter aggregation each time with one characteristic, so that the whole standard Latin letter aggregation is classified into many small Latin letter aggregations with intersection to be the coarse classification candidate letter aggregations to be identified. When identifying the inputted hand-written Latin letter, obtain the coarse classification candidate letter aggregation that matches with the characteristics of the inputted hand-written Latin letter. Many stable characteristics ensure the identifying rate. The multilayer coarse classification candidate letter aggregations regulate the searching path and increase the identifying speed.
US08150158B2
A sensing apparatus is provided for the determination of at least one of rank or suit of a playing card. The sensing apparatus includes an imaging array capable of sensing at least an area of a playing card that represents rank and or suit. A position sensor is provided for determining card position. A hardware component receives signals from the imaging array and the card position sensor. The hardware component forms a vector set from the output from the imaging array and card position sensor, and compares the vector set to known reference vector sets to determine rank and suit of a card.
US08150153B2
What is disclosed is a novel system and method for performing ray-based compression mapping in a color management system. The present method compresses a color point located at or near a boundary surface of a color gamut to a point beneath the gamut surface in order to eliminate artifacts which are likely to arise from a color marking device trying to reproduce colors which are on a boundary of the device's printable gamut. The present method is directly applicable to a variety of gamut mapping strategies employed in color management systems.
US08150145B2
An apparatus for producing a personalized 3D object is disclosed. The apparatus, or kiosk, comprises a payment detector, a user input device and a display, an image acquisition system, calculators for calculating a 3D image, a manufacturing device and an exit for delivering the personalized 3D object to the user. The manufacturing device includes a loading device for loading blank 3D objects on a platform, which includes vertical storages and a rotatable tray disposed underneath having a slit therein for receiving the blank 3D objects. The rotatable tray is computer controlled to rotated between various operative positions for loading and unloading the 3D objects.
US08150139B2
The invention relates to a method and device for recognizing a coin by using the embossed pattern characteristics thereof. For this purpose, the inventive method comprises in spreading the characteristics of the picture, in reducing said characteristics by reducing said picture and in transforming it by polar transformation, in comparing the transformed picture with a plurality of reference patterns according to a first simplified criterion, in creating a list of the reference patterns, in sorting them according to the similarity thereof with the transformed picture and in comparing the transformed picture with the reference patterns contained in the list according to the sorting thereof upon a second exact criterion.
US08150132B2
Positional relationships are automatically determined with higher accuracy in a predetermined direction between three-dimensional images representing a subject including a periodic structure having periodicity in the predetermined direction, with respect to the periodic structure. A positional correspondence is provisionally determined in a predetermined direction between two three-dimensional images including a periodic structure having periodicity in the predetermined direction, based on a criterion wherein the periodic structure contributes less to the determination. The provisionally determined correspondence is then corrected so that a position in one of the three-dimensional images corresponding to a position of the other three-dimensional image in the predetermined direction can be corrected within a range near the position in the former three-dimensional image in the predetermined direction, according to a criterion wherein the periodic structure contributes more.
US08150124B2
Systems and methods are provided for displaying images captured from a capsule camera system. In order to increase the efficiency of viewing the image sequence, the image sequence is divided into multiple sub-sequences and the multiple sub-sequences are displayed in multiple viewing windows on a display screen concurrently. For images from a panoramic capsule system, the images typically have a very wide aspect ratio and may require different configuration for displaying in multiple viewing windows than that for image sequence having non-wide aspect ratio. The present invention also discloses methods and systems that divide a sequence from panoramic capsule camera into multiple member sequences and form an aggregated video. The aggregated video not only makes viewing more comfortable, but also speeds up viewing time.
US08150117B2
A method of determining wall stress in an abdominal aortic aneurysm is disclosed. The method includes determining, from anatomical image data, respective first stress values at locations on the wall, based on the aorta having substantially uniform stiffness. The primary direction of stress those locations are determined, and the locations of calcified regions (20) are then determined. The distance to the nearest calcified region is then determined for each location not corresponding to a calcified region, and the additional stress caused by the calcified regions is then determined from values stored in a memory.
US08150113B2
A method and a system are disclosed for labeling an anatomical point associated with a lesion in an organ such as a lung. The method includes: a segmentation of a vessel tree anatomical structure starting from an autonomously determined initial image point; labeling the vessel segments of the vessel tree segmentation with segment labels based on a priori anatomical knowledge, thereby creating an individualized anatomical model; receiving a user-specified image point having a location from a user and locating a nearby vessel structure; tracking along the vessel structure in a direction towards a root of a parent vessel tree until a prior labeled vessel segment is encountered in the anatomical model, and assigning the label of the encountered prior labeled vessel segment from the anatomical model as an anatomical location label of the user-specified image point.
US08150111B2
Methods, systems, and computer program products for processing three-dimensional image data to render an image from a viewpoint within or beyond an occluding region of the image data are disclosed. According to one method, a set of three-dimensional image data is accessed. The image data includes image data for a surface of interest and image data for a region occluding the surface of interest from a desired viewpoint. The viewpoint may be within or beyond the occluding region. A plurality of rays is cast from the viewpoint to the surface. Along each ray, an occlusion determination is made independent from a volume rendering transfer function definition to render voxels within the occluding region as transparent or partially transparent. The volume rendering transfer function is applied along a portion of each ray outside of the occluding region to render voxels defining surface of interest as visible. The voxels that define the surface are displayed as visible. The voxels within the occluding region are shown in a transparent or partially transparent manner.
US08150104B2
The approaching object detection unit in a moving object detection apparatus for a moving picture calculates a moving distance of each characteristic point in an image frame obtained at time point t−1, on the basis of an image frame obtained at time point t and an image frame obtained at time point t−1, and on the basis of the image frame obtained at time point t−1 and an image frame obtained at time point t+m, a moving distance of a characteristic point is in the image frame obtained at time point t−1 and has a moving distance to be less than a prescribed value.
US08150101B2
A system for performing object identification combines pose determination, EO/IR sensor data, and novel computer graphics rendering techniques. A first module extracts the orientation and distance of a target in a truth chip given that the target type is known. A second is a module identifies the vehicle within a truth chip given the known distance and elevation angle from camera to target. Image matching is based on synthetic image and truth chip image comparison, where the synthetic image is rotated and moved through a 3-Dimensional space. To limit the search space, it is assumed that the object is positioned on relatively flat ground and that the camera roll angle stays near zero. This leaves three dimensions of motion (distance, heading, and pitch angle) to define the space in which the synthetic target is moved. A graphical user interface (GUI) front end allows the user to manually adjust the orientation of the target within the synthetic images. The system also includes the generation of shadows and allows the user to manipulate the sun angle to approximate the lighting conditions of the test range in the provided video.
US08150091B2
A flat-panel speaker is attached to an exterior surface of a printed circuit board (PCB) housed within a consumer electronic device. Rather than place the flat-panel speaker within a sealed speaker box and then attach the speaker box to the PCB, as is conventional, the present invention attaches the flat-panel speaker to the exterior surface of the PCB without the speaker box. Removing the speaker box allows designers to reduce the dimensions of the device, and to minimize the complexity of the device.
US08150086B2
A voice sound input apparatus, adapted to be inputted a sound and output sound data, includes: a first microphone, related to a first sound hole; a second microphone, related to a second sound hole; a signal processing unit, configured to perform a signal processing; and a wireless transmission unit, configured to transmit the sound data based on an output signal of the signal processing unit, wherein a distance between the first sound hole and the second sound hole is a distance that a phase component of a sound strength ratio is lower than or equal to 0 dB, the sound strength ratio being a ratio between a strength of a sound component contained in differential sound pressure of sounds entered to the first sound hole and the second sound hole and a strength of sound pressure of the sound entered to the first sound hole.
US08150085B2
The invention relates to a reflex loudspeaker construction (1, 2, 3), which comprises a loudspeaker chamber (30) delimited by the reflex loudspeaker construction (1, 2, 3), a reflex channel (5) connected to the loudspeaker chamber (30), which connects the loudspeaker chamber (30) to the external space of the reflex loudspeaker construction (1, 2, 3), and at least one loudspeaker element (7) connected to the reflex loudspeaker construction (1, 2, 3), which forms part of the structure delimiting the loudspeaker chamber (30). According to the invention, the reflex loudspeaker construction (1, 2, 3) comprises at least two components (2, 3), which can be repeatedly detached at least partly from each other, without dismantling, in order to use the loudspeaker chamber (30) as a transportation space.
US08150079B2
An operation section housing and a display section housing are connected by a rotatable hinge having a structure in which the display section housing rotates with the rotatable hinge serving as the central rotational axis. The display section housing has three built-in speakers in predetermined positions of a display. A personal digital assistant detects the angle of the rotatable hinge and identifies the speaker located in the leftmost side and the speaker located in the rightmost side relative to an upright display image displayed on the display. Then, the left audio is output from the left side of the upright display image and the right audio is output from the right side of the upright display image.
US08150070B2
A bass and treble audio tone control circuit configured as an integrated circuit, wherein a capacitor for setting a frequency band can be accommodated in an integrated circuit. A LPF extracts a low sound region component SLO from an initial sound signal SIN. A low sound region adjustment circuit adjusts the gain of SLO and generates signal SLT. An inverting circuit inverts SLO and an adding circuit extracts a high sound region component SHO by adding the inverted SLO and SIN. A high sound region adjustment circuit adjusts the gain of SHO and generates a signal SHT. A synthesizing circuit synthesizes SIN with SHT and SLT, and generates an output sound signal SOUT. The LPF is composed of an RC active filter, and the resistance that establishes the cutoff frequency is composed of an equivalent resistance using a switched capacitor circuit.
US08150064B2
An audio output device and method capable of preventing generation of pop noise by a relatively simple and small-sized circuit configuration and control timing. A D/A converter converts a digital audio signal to an analog audio signal. A non-inverting amplifier amplifies the analog audio signal. A signal output from the non-inverting amplifier is amplified by inverting amplifiers of two stages with a first timing. A signal output from an inverting amplifier is input to a speaker amplifier by a switch. The output signal of the inverting amplifier is output to a speaker with a second timing subsequent to the first timing. The output signal of the inverting amplifier is amplified by the speaker amplifier and output to the speaker. With a third timing subsequent to the second timing, the output of each of the inverting amplifiers is stopped and the output of the speaker amplifier is stopped.
US08150044B2
Methods for personalized listening which can be used with an earpiece are provided. A method includes capturing ambient sound from an Ambient Sound Microphone (ASM) of an earpiece partially or fully occluded in an ear canal, monitoring the ambient sound for a target sound, and adjusting by way of an Ear Canal Receiver (ECR) in the earpiece a delivery of audio to an ear canal based on a detected target sound. A volume of audio content can be adjusted upon the detection of a target sound, and an audible notification can be presented to provide a warning.
US08150038B2
A method of securely storing electronic information includes a step in which target electronically stored information is encrypted with a first encryption key and then partitioned into a first set of encrypted ESI partitions a subset of which is able to reconstruct the unpartitioned encrypted ESI. This first set of encrypted ESI partitions is then encrypted with a first set of user encryption keys to form a first set of user-associated encrypted ESI partitions that are made available to a first set of users. When access to the target electronically stored information is changed, the target electronically stored information is accessed and then re-encrypted with a second encryption key to form a second encrypted ESI. This second encrypted ESI is then partitioned and distributed to a second set of users.
US08150035B2
According to a first aspect there is provided systems and methods for receiving an encrypted signal from a portable communication device, the encrypted signal containing information associated with a command; and decrypting the encrypted signal to enable a set-top box to execute the command. According to a second aspect there is provided systems and methods for encrypting information to generate an encrypted signal, the information associated with a command entered via a control; and communicating the encrypted signal to the set-top box, the encrypted signal for decryption at the set-top box to enable execution of the command to operate the set-top box.
US08150032B2
The present disclosure includes disclosure generally related to digital watermarking and steganographic encoding. One claim recites an apparatus including: electronic memory for buffering data representing video or imagery; and an electronic processor. The electronic processor is programmed for: analyzing the data representing video or imagery, the video or imagery comprising digital watermarking hidden therein through alterations, the digital watermarking comprising content classification information; decoding the content classification information from the digital watermarking; and controlling display or rendering of the video or imagery in response to the content classification information. Other combinations are provided and claimed as well.
US08150031B2
A method and apparatus to compute a Q syndrome for RAID 6 through the use of AES operations is provided. In an embodiment, the result of GF multiplication performed using the AES operations allows RAID-6 support to be provided without the need for a dedicated RAID controller.
US08150028B2
In a particular embodiment, a circuit device includes a first circuit having a first plurality of serial terminals including a first data receive terminal and a first data transmit terminal. The first plurality of serial terminals is communicatively coupled to a particular circuit via isolation circuitry to communicate first serial data. The circuit device further includes a second circuit having a second plurality of serial terminals including a second data receive terminal coupled to the first data transmit terminal and including a second data transmit terminal coupled to the first data receive terminal to communicate second serial data to the particular circuit via the first data receive and transmit terminals.
US08150009B1
A method and apparatus for enabling VoIP service providers to dynamically adjust international calling rates as a function of adjustments made with partner carrier arrangements that VoIP service providers put in place are disclosed. Thus VoIP service providers can pass on savings, if the new calling rate is lower than the old calling rate, to their subscribers in order to enhance the loyalty of existing subscribers. Instead of having subscribers to call into customer service centers to take advantage of these new lower international calling rates, the new calling rates will be updated dynamically and immediately for subscribers without these subscribers having to call in to request their billing rates to match the new calling rates.
US08150008B2
A telecommunications data processing system comprising a terminal (T) adapted to send a telecommunications service request to a telecommunications infrastructure (IT1) associated with a data-storage infrastructure (IT2) for storing data (DE) about the utilization of the telecommunications service. The telecommunications terminal (T) includes means for producing service utilization data (DE), which data relates to the telecommunications terminal (T) and is based on data (DT) contained in an end-of-service and triggering message sent by the data-storage infrastructure (IT2).
US08150005B1
A method and system authenticates an authenticatee and provides an authentication to a recipient. The authenticatee may be either the called party or the calling party. A network platform or customer premise equipment may be utilized to provide information for authentication. Customer premise equipment provides the authentication to the recipient.
US08149993B2
One preferred embodiment of the present invention provides a system and method for evaluating the performance of a network interface sub-system of an inter-messaging network of voice mail systems. This preferred embodiment includes a network query device that connects to the inter-messaging network and requests a test data file to be retrieved from a particular voice mail network interface sub-system in the inter-messaging network. The requests for the test data file are generated according to user command. Accordingly, the performance of a network interface sub-system in the inter-messaging network, as represented by the result of the request attempt, is evaluated according to a defined level of performance, such as a preferred time limit. Other systems and methods are also provided.
US08149980B2
A system and method for effectively supporting a data transmission procedure includes a phase-locked loop with a phase detector that compares a clock signal and input data to generate a phase error signal for adjusting the clock signal that is generated from a voltage-controlled oscillator. The phase detector includes a positive-edge detector circuit that generates an edge detection signal P to indicate whether data transitions are present in the input data. The phase detector also includes a lead/lag indicator circuit that generates a lead/lag indicator signal T to indicate whether the clock signal is early or late with respect to the input data.
US08149979B2
A receiver for a serial link port that is enhanced by a clock-data-recovery loop connected to the forwarded clock signal lane. The receiver includes a phase interpolation means controlled by a phase position logic which gets its update signal from local phase update signals of the clock-data-recovery loop via a digital low pass filter. The receiver also provides a global phase update source selection logic to control which clock-data-recovery loop is distributing phase update information, and which clock-data-recovery loop is receiving phase update information based on the clock analysis block.
US08149977B2
An apparatus recovers synchronous data samples from an asynchronously over-sampled stream of data samples derived from an input signal the spectral characteristic of which is subject to variation. The apparatus comprises an FIR filter having an input for receiving the asynchronously over-sampled stream of data samples and for producing equalised asynchronous samples. A signal sample reconstruction means reconstructs the synchronous data samples from the equalised asynchronous data samples. An automatic gain control loop is responsive to the reconstructed data samples to apply gain control for producing gain controlled reconstructed samples. A timing recovery means is responsive to the gain controlled reconstructed samples to provide timing information to the signal sample reconstruction means. A coefficient adaptation control loop is responsive to equalised reconstructed asynchronous data samples substantially unaffected by the automatic gain control for adapting the FIR filter coefficients to the variations in the spectral characteristics of the input signal.
US08149976B2
The invention performs frequency estimation over both the burst preamble, during which known symbols are transmitted, and also during the burst's data packet, which is subsequent to the preamble and extracted by the local detector. During the preamble, an initial frequency estimate is obtained. This estimate is based on a time average of either phase or correlation samples. Atypical phase or correlation samples, attributable to detector symbol errors during the data packet, are detected and filtered, so as to avoid including the atypical samples in a time-averages used to provide the frequency estimate. In a first embodiment correlation samples are time averaged, and atypical correlation samples are suppressed prior to correlation time averaging. In a second embodiment, phase slope values are time averaged, and atypical values of phase slope are suppressed prior to phase slope time averaging.
US08149970B2
The present invention teaches a compact and highly integrated multiple-channel digital tuner and receiver architecture, suitable for widespread field deployment, wherein each receiver demodulator channel may be remotely, automatically, dynamically, and economically configured for a particular cable, carrier frequency, and signaling baud-rate, from an option universe that includes a plurality of input cables, a plurality of carrier frequencies, and a plurality of available baud-rates. A multiple coax input, multiple channel output, digital tuner is partitioned into a multiple coax input digitizer portion and a multiple channel output front-end portion. The digitizer portion consists of N digitizers and accepts input signals from N coax cables and digitizes them with respective A/D converters. The front-end portion consists of M front-ends and provides M channel outputs suitable for subsequent processing by M respective digital demodulators. In a first clock domain, a fixed predetermined A/D sampling rate is chosen to provide oversampling of the inputs by a common integer multiple of all the symbol rates of interest. A plurality other clock domains operate at selectable sub-multiples of the first domain as required to deliver a constant number of symbol samples at the output of each front-end. At the input to each of the M front-ends is a respective input selector coupled to each of the N streams of digitized input data followed by a digital signal scaler that dynamically scales the selected incoming stream of digitized input data as a function of the signal power of the channel's associated carrier.
US08149968B2
A Signal-to-Interference Ratio of a radio channel is estimated in a receiver of a wireless communications system, wherein pilots with reference information are modulated on some sub-carriers in some symbols. At least one parameter for signals received from said first transmitter is detected, and a number (Nf, Nt) of pilots in first groups that can be coherently combined in a second group is determined, and from these a channel estimate (H) for each first group and a first covariance estimate (R) for each second group are determined. A number (M) of first covariance estimates that can be averaged is defined in dependence of the presence of signals from possible interfering transmitters, and a second covariance estimate is determined as an average of said number of first covariance estimates. From the channel estimates and the second covariance estimate a Signal-to-Interference Ratio for each second group is estimated.
US08149966B2
An packet detection controller accepts an input from an AGC controller which indicates the presence of an increased signal energy and also completion of an AGC process and generates an output to suspend the AGC process. The packet detection controller also receives a plurality of IQ receiver streams and forms a single stream for use by a packet detector, which is controllable by an SNR_MODE indicating whether the signal to noise ratio is above or below a particular threshold, and a PD_RESET signal indicating that no packet detection should occur. The controller also receives a PACKET_DET signal indicating that packet detection is completed. The packet detection controller examines the incoming receiver streams and suspends AGC process if a packet detect is generated, or suspends the packet detector if an AGC process is required.
US08149960B2
A channel impulse response is determined for a channel by receiving a signal from the channel, and by determining a least squares estimate of the channel impulse response. The received signal contains a training sequence and unknown data. The least squares estimate of the channel impulse response is determined by multiplying the received signal by a stored quantity. The stored quantity is based on (i) a stored replica of the training sequence, and (ii) an assumed covariance matrix that is based on a noise variance and an initial channel impulse response that assumes a unit physical channel.
US08149957B2
An apparatus and a method for interference cancellation in a broadband wireless communication system are provided. A receiving apparatus includes an estimator, a channel compensator, and a demodulator. The estimator estimates channels of a desired signal and at least one interference signal, estimates noise, calculates a mean interference power of each interference signal, and calculates a mean noise power. The channel compensator channel-compensates burst data. The demodulator calculates a noise variance value by adding the mean noise power to the at least one mean interference power and creates Log Likelihood Ratio (LLR) by demodulating the channel-compensated data.
US08149955B2
A receiver arrangement includes a single ended multiband feedback amplifier, at least one single ended input, differential output mixer arrangement including a main mixer and a trim mixer, and a mixer feedback loop circuit configured to receive differential output signals generated by the mixer arrangement. The mixer feedback loop circuit generates a feedback signal based on the received differential output signals and provides the feedback signal to the mixer arrangement to minimize DC-offset and second order intermodulation products. The single ended multiband feedback amplifier may include an input stage and a programmable resonance tank circuit connected to the input stage for suppressing downconverted noise from harmonics of the LO-frequency, and a configurable feedback net that shapes the frequency response of a feedback loop including the feedback net based on a band operation of the single ended multiband feedback amplifier.
US08149954B2
A tail estimate signal which includes noise associated with baseline wander is generated. The tail estimate signal is generated by processing an input signal using a detector to obtain one or more decisions. Using the one or more decisions, the tail estimate signal is generated. The tail estimate signal is removed from the input signal.
US08149944B2
An imbalanced amplitude is produced to a pair of weighing factors (U1,1 and U1,2, U2,1 and U2,2) with respect to the transmission streams multiplexed to any of the plurality of transmission antennas. Thus, the increase in PAPR in a preceding MIMO system can be prevented.
US08149937B2
The invention provides a signal receiver. The signal receiver comprises a carrier removal module, a Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) module, and a signal processor. The carrier removal module generates a carrier signal with a frequency of an estimated carrier frequency, generates at least one delta carrier signal with a frequency of the carrier frequency plus a delta frequency, removes the carrier signal from a first signal to obtain a second signal, and removes the delta carrier signal from the first signal to obtain a third signal. The FFT module derives a series of first FFT values from the second signal, and derives a series of second FFT values from the third signal. The signal processor estimates the carrier frequency of the second signal to obtain the estimated carrier frequency, determines the delta frequency for the carrier removal module, estimates a residual Doppler frequency of the second signal according to both the first FFT values and the second FFT values, and adjusts the estimated carrier frequency according to the residual Doppler frequency.
US08149936B2
Disclosed are methods and apparatus for synchronizing tile processing and assignment processing in a communication device. In particular, the methods and apparatus utilize a tile processing scorecard with a number of assertable bits corresponding to a number of tiles to be tile processed. As each tile is tile processed, the scorecard or bit indicators are asserted to indicate that the tile has been processed. Assignment jobs, which involve codewords having information from symbols in multiple tiles are processed after all of the pertinent tiles are tile processed. The scorecard information is accessible for assignment processing to determine which tiles have been processed, thus affording synchronization of tile processing with assignment processing, while maximizing the independence of these two processing operations. Tile processing operations may further use the scorecard information to prioritize or order tile processing in relation to known queued assignment jobs.
US08149932B2
A transport stream (TS) generating apparatus, a transmitting apparatus, a receiving apparatus, a digital broadcast system having the above, and a method thereof are provided. The digital broadcast system includes a transport stream (TS) generating apparatus which generates a multi transport stream (TS) by multiplexing a normal stream and a turbo stream having a variable coding rate, a transmitting apparatus which re-constructs the multi TS by processing the turbo stream, and transmits the re-constructed multi TS, and a receiving apparatus which receives the re-constructed multi TS, and decodes the normal stream and the turbo stream respectively, to recover normal data and turbo data. Accordingly, a multi TS, which includes normal stream and a turbo stream of various coding rates, can be transmitted and received efficiently.
US08149927B2
A method of encoding/decoding a digital signal using linear quantization by sections, and an apparatus for the same are provided. The method of encoding includes: converting a digital input signal, and removing redundant information from the digital signal; allocating a number of bits allocated to each predetermined quantized unit considering the importance of the digital signal; dividing the distribution of signal values into predetermined sections based on the predetermined quantized units, and linear quantizing data converted pin the operation of converting the digital input signal by sections; and generating a bit stream from the linear quantized data and predetermined side information. Therefore, a sound quality is improved compared to a sound quality produced by conventional linear quantizing devices and a complexity of a non-linear quantizing device is reduced.
US08149921B2
In one embodiment, the method includes determining a reference field picture from a reference picture list composed of reference frames using index information for a reference field and index information for a reference frame. The determined reference field picture has a same parity as the current macroblock or a different parity from the current macroblock based on whether the index information for the reference field is an even number or a odd number. The determined reference field picture has a same parity as the current macroblock if the index information for the reference field is an even number. The determined reference field picture has a different parity from the current macroblock if the index information for the reference field is a odd number.
US08149918B2
Provided are a coded block pattern (CBP) estimating method which is performed using an average value and a dispersion value between blocks of CBPs in a moving picture encoder for IP-TVs (Internet Protocol-Televisions), and a block mode decision method, which can determine all block modes with only the first 16×16 block. Accordingly, since an additional operation for mode determination is not necessary, an amount of calculation and thus a calculation time can be remarkably reduced.
US08149917B2
A system and method for calculating data representative of at least one intermediary transition image between a first image and a second image in the encoded domain is disclosed. Cinematic transitions can be created between encoded still images and frames from video sequences. For each corresponding location within the first and second image, a transform coded value is calculated for the at least one intermediary image using the transform encoded data of the first and second images without transform decoding the transform encoded data. The transform coded values can be fully encoded using a compression protocol and transmitted to a device for decoding and display of the cinematic transition.
US08149905B1
A method and apparatus in a multiple sub-carrier digital communication receiver estimates a Doppler frequency bandwidth. The Doppler frequency bandwidth is estimated by comparing a first set of channel estimates to a second set of channel estimates generated by Wiener filter interpolation of the first set of channel estimates. The Wiener interpolation filter coefficients are generated for various Doppler frequency bandwidths. Pre-determined transmit pilot symbols may be used to generate the first set of channel estimates in an OFDM communication system. A set of Wiener filter interpolation errors may be generated at one or more sub-carrier frequencies, for each of the different Doppler frequency bandwidths, and averaged across time and/or frequency. The Doppler frequency estimation method and apparatus may select a Doppler frequency estimate based on the set of Wiener filter interpolation errors.
US08149898B2
To prevent disabling of the path tracking function.A path allocation unit allocates a signal power peak of a delay profile crated by a delay profile creation unit as a path to a finger reception unit. When tracking a path which has been allocated by the path allocation unit, it is judged whether a path tracking region set for each path is overlapped with a mask region. The path is tracked by performing a process not to cause a loss of a path tracking function due to overlap. Demodulation of the path which has been allocated is performed by a finger reception unit. Each of the demodulated signals outputted from the finger reception unit are rake combined to reproduce the transmitted information signal.
US08149897B2
A method and apparatus for computing a convolution between a satellite signal from one of a plurality of satellite positioning systems and a pseudorandom code reference. The method and apparatus is capable of operating in multiple modes of resolution so as to enhance the sensitivity of the convolution processing.
US08149896B2
Techniques for suppressing spurs in a receiver are described. A processor (e.g., within a wireless device) receives digital samples for a desired signal having a spur located within the bandwidth of the desired signal. A spur is an undesired signal that may be generated internally at the receiver or may come from an external interfering source. The processor filters the digital samples to suppress the spur and provides output samples having the spur suppressed. The processor may detect for the spur, e.g., by performing an FFT on the digital samples and examining the spectral response. The processor may filter the digital samples with a notch filter having an adjustable notch frequency and/or an adjustable notch bandwidth. For example, the notch frequency may be set based on the frequency of the spur, and the notch bandwidth may be set based on the amplitude of the spur.
US08149893B2
A method and system, the method including determining a frequency quality measurement value for each of a plurality of frequencies a network coordinator can use in a frequency hopping sequence for communicating with a client, classifying each of the plurality of communication frequencies into one of a plurality of different categories based on a relative ranking of the determined frequency quality measurement value of each of the plurality of frequencies, generating, by the network coordinator, a frequency hopping sequence to be used for communication between the network coordinator and the client, the generated hopping sequence including only select frequencies from the plurality of frequencies in a predetermined number of future time slots that minimize a probability of a predetermined number of consecutive frequency hop failures in the predetermined number of future time slots, and notifying the client of the generated frequency hopping sequence to be used for communication.
US08149891B2
A semiconductor laser element 10 according to the present invention comprises a waveguide 12 of a high mesa type. And then such the waveguide 12 comprises an oblique end face 17 as an emitting facet that is different from a cleaved end face 16. And hence it becomes possible to reduce a reflection factor at the end face by making of such the oblique end face 17, and it becomes possible to design a direction of an emitting beam 21, that is to be emitting from the oblique end face 17, to be independent of that for the cleaved end face 16 as well. Moreover, the emitting beam 21 is designed to be emitting as vertical to the cleaved end face 16. And then therefore in a case where an emitting beam from a semiconductor optical device is designed to be coupled with such as an optical fiber or another waveguide or the like, it is not necessary to device such as that the semiconductor laser element 10 is required to be arranged at a sub mount by being inclined to be oblique or the like.
US08149886B2
A laser amplification arrangement comprising a laser medium for producing an amplified laser emission as output signal from a useful signal to be amplified and a pump source has a switching component for coupling the useful signal into the laser medium. Laser medium and switching component are formed and arranged so that a division of an input signal (ES) into the useful signal and a background signal is effected, the background signal being passed through the laser medium at a time immediately before and/or after the coupling-in of the useful signal to be amplified.
US08149883B2
In a receiving device, time information is separated from received multimedia data, a first difference is calculated between two consecutive pieces of time information, and a second difference is calculated between reception timings of the two consecutive time information. Jitter is calculated from the first difference and the second difference, and a clock for reproducing the multimedia data is adjusted based on the calculated jitter.
US08149882B2
A bus system for the real-time communication of a superordinate unit with one or more subordinate units is used for exchanging address and data information via a bus. For the rapid exchange of messages, further fields are provided between the fields for the address and data information.
US08149874B2
Apparatus and methods allocate I/O bandwidth of an electrical component, such as an IC, by configuring an I/O interface into various types of interfaces. In an embodiment of the present invention, an I/O interface is configured into either a bi-directional contact, unidirectional contact (including either a dedicated transmit or dedicated receive contact) or a maintenance contact used in a maintenance or calibration mode of operation. The I/O interface is periodically reconfigured to optimally allocate I/O bandwidth responsive to system parameters, such as changing data workloads in the electronic components. System parameters include, but are not limited to, 1) number of transmit-receive bus turnarounds; 2) number of transmit and/or receive data packets; 3) user selectable setting 4) number of transmit and/or receive commands; 5) direct requests from one or more electronic components; 6) number of queued transactions in one or more electronic components; 7) transmit burst-length setting, 8) duration or cycle count of bus commands, and control strobes such as address/data strobe, write enable, chip select, data valid, data ready; 9) power and/or temperature of one or more electrical components; 10) information from executable instructions, such as a software application or operating system; 11) multiple statistics over respective periods of time to determine if using a different bandwidth allocation would result in better performance. The importance of a system parameter may be weighted over time in an embodiment of the present invention.
US08149871B2
In one embodiment, a SONET/SDH over Ethernet demapping point utilizes a pointer offset mechanism for clock recovery and timing. The pointer offset is determined by the difference between a client clock and a reference clock.
US08149870B2
The present invention provides a method for forwarding data in the Ethernet, an Ethernet physical layer cross apparatus, an Ethernet Media Access Control (MAC) layer cross apparatus, an Ethernet IP layer cross apparatus and cross cascade systems. In the method of the present invention includes the following features: configuring cross relationships between network device interfaces; determining whether an interface has a cross relationship with other interfaces according to the cross relationships configured after receiving data from the interface; sending the data to an interface which has a cross relationship with the interface from which the data is received if the interface from which the data is received has a cross relationship with other interfaces; and proceeding with existing forwarding processing in each layer if the interface from which the data is received does not have a cross relationship with other interfaces. The solution of the present invention dramatically reduces workload of network devices in the Ethernet and improves forwarding performance of the network devices.
US08149852B2
A transmission method, system, and router based on a border gateway protocol (BGP) are provided. The method includes: notifying a standby route and a data packet ID corresponding to the standby route to a peer autonomous system (AS); receiving a data packet carrying a data packet ID from the peer AS; and forwarding the data packet via a standby route corresponding to the data packet ID carried in the data packet. The transmission performance based on the BGP can be improved by applying the present invention.
US08149846B2
A method is provided of managing cluster interconnect traffic, comprising prioritising the cluster interconnect traffic using at least two priorities, and distributing the prioritised cluster interconnect traffic according to the prioritising. Corresponding system and computer program product are also provided.
US08149845B2
Networks for exchanging packet signals between first network-units (1) like access providers and/or access multiplexers coupled to terminals and second network-units (2) like service providers and/or gateways coupled to further networks can be improved by providing a network with a pooled connection (3) having a capacity smaller than a sum of all terminal-capacities, which sum equals the capacity necessary in case all terminals communicate via the network at the same time. This pooled connection (3) is located between said first (1) and second (2) network-unit and is managed by a manager (23) in said second network-unit (2). By providing a first network-unit (1) with a router (12) managed by a manager (13), control traffic can be routed transparently to said second network-unit (2). By providing a manager (23) in the second network-unit (2) with a controller (28), the capacity of said pooled connection (3) can be controlled and guarded.
US08149844B1
Determining a next time to communicate via a network with a source of updates is disclosed. In some embodiments, determining a next time to communicate via a network with a source of updates comprises receiving from a request source an update request, and scheduling a next time for the request source to check for updates. In some embodiments, determining a next time to communicate via a network with a source of updates comprises monitoring network communication activity, and in the event anomalous network communication activity is observed, reducing a time remaining until a next check for updates is performed.
US08149843B2
Techniques for exchanging capabilities in a wireless network are provided. In one embodiment, a first device receives a capability message over a communication link from a second device in a WiMAX network. The communication link may be between any combination of base stations and gateways. For example, the R4, R6, or R8 interface may be used. Other interfaces may also be appreciated in a WiMAX network. The capability message includes one or more capabilities supported by a second device in the WiMAX network. Capabilities to support are then determined based on the one or more capabilities. These capabilities will be supported by the first device for communications with the second device. The first device is then configured to support the determined capabilities. Accordingly, the first device is dynamically configured based on the capability message received.
US08149837B2
An apparatus comprising a first interface configured to transmit or receive backbone traffic, a second interface configured to transmit or receive non-backbone traffic, and a third interface in communication with the first interface and second interface, the third interface configured to multiplex or demultiplex the backbone traffic and the non-backbone traffic is disclosed, wherein the backbone traffic is traffic that will be, is, or has been B-tagged. Also disclosed is a node comprising a processor configured to implement a method comprising receiving a first data stream comprising backbone traffic, receiving a second data stream comprising non-backbone traffic, and multiplexing the first data stream with the second data stream.
US08149826B2
In general, the invention relates to a method for classifying an application. The method includes receiving, at a kernel, a plurality of packets from the application, wherein the application is executing outside of the kernel, obtaining a first measurement from the plurality of packets associated with a first parameter using a first internal estimator in the kernel, applying a first statistical technique to the first measurement to generate a first estimate of the first parameter, and obtaining a classification of the application based on the first estimate. Further, the classification of the application is used to optimize a network connection associated with the application.
US08149824B2
A method for implementing a service triggered by off-hook includes: sending information of a service triggered by off-hook which is subscribed by a user to a service implementing server; carrying out an operation of the service triggered by off-hook according to the information of the service triggered by off-hook when the user is off-hook. The embodiments of the present invention also provide a system for implementing a service triggered by off-hook. In accordance with the embodiments of the present invention, the service implementing server may carry out the operation of the service triggered by off-hook according to a subscription type of the user to implement the service triggered by off-hook.
US08149823B2
Methods and systems are disclosed for enabling a dynamic computer telephony integration campus call center that leverages the assets of a school communications system including internal telecommunications networks, information systems, data networks, and applications, of public telecommunications networks, of public data networks, and/or of various communications devices to facilitate improved access, sharing, notification, and/or management of communications (e.g., external and internal communications) and associated data to enhance school safety services.
US08149821B2
Systems, methods and computer products for the logging of incoming calls to an Internet Protocol Television call log. Exemplary embodiments include a method for logging incoming communication requests related to an Internet-Protocol-enabled device, the method including receiving a communication request from a caller device over a voice network, the communication request including a caller party number and name of the caller device and a called party number and name of a called device associated with the communication request, mapping the called party number and name to an Internet Protocol-enabled device address of a called party, sending the caller party number to the Internet Protocol-enabled device address corresponding to the called party number and recording the caller identification information in a log associated with the Internet Protocol-enabled device.
US08149819B2
An ENUM system includes a Web server and an ENUM server. The Web server stores first NAPTR records corresponding to an ENUM client and another ENUM client on an IP network. The ENUM server stores second NAPTR records in which first URIs are associated with predetermined information for being linked to the Web server. In the ENUM system, the ENUM client transmits, to the ENUM server, a query for the second NAPTR record of the another ENUM client. The ENUM client then transmits, to the Web server, a request for access to the first URI included in the received second NAPTR record, and obtains the first NAPTR record corresponding to the another ENUM client.
US08149816B2
A header compression and packet transmission method in a sensor network and an apparatus therefor, for selecting technologies related to Internet Protocol (IP) header compression according to characteristics of each node, and processing the technologies. The header compression and packet transmission method and apparatus therefor distinguishes a node supporting the adaptation layer function and a node that does not support the adaptation layer function, and determines whether to compress the packet, thereby enabling a node transmitting data to transmit the data having a proper form that is acceptable to a sensor node receiving the data. By doing so, an efficient packet transmission is possible.
US08149813B2
A wireless communications device having a fast-receive mode for measuring received signal strength indication (RSSI) enables the device to handle higher time division multiple access (TDMA) multislot classes without requiring that the device include either a second receiver or a receiver with a more advanced and expensive phase-locked loop (PLL) design. The time to complete an RSSI measurement is reduced by initiating the sampling of signal strength before the radio transceiver is fully stabilized in the downlink mode. By initiating sampling before PLL stabilization is complete, the overall time to complete an RSSI measurement is reduced sufficiently to enable scheduling of an RSSI measurement in each GSM frame.
US08149802B2
A fixed broadband wireless data access service providing shared wide-band packet-switched data transport for high speed data access in areas where conventional ADSL service and fiber optic service are unavailable. The wireless data access service is a point-to-multipoint cellular-type network that connects customers to data service providers through the ATM backbone of an existing network. Customers connect to the ATM backbone and data service provider through a cellular grid in which a wireless base station in each cell communicates with the individual customer wireless equipment within its cell site coverage area. The base stations are connected to an ATM backbone switch through wireless and wireline backhaul links. The upstream and downstream bandwidths of the wireless broadband network are engineered in various symmetric and asymmetric configurations to provide a shared packet-switched connection that emulates an uninterrupted, direct wireline ADSL connection. The wireless broadband network employs a data protocol of shared access bandwidth and adaptive asymmetric data rates to support multiuser service sessions by wireless transmission. The wireless broadband network is not network protocol specific and can be applied to wireless asymmetric digital subscriber line service, wireless integrated service digital network over digital subscriber line service, wireless very high bit rate digital subscriber line service, or wireless symmetric or single-line digital subscriber line service.
US08149794B2
A method of managing channel allocation for asynchronous data transmission includes (a) broadcasting a first superframe for a first beacon period, the first superframe containing a control section and a data slot section; (b) receiving a request frame from at least one wireless device belonging to a network via the control section, the request frame requesting addition of a data slot for asynchronous data transmission; (c) transmitting a response frame to the at least one wireless device via the control section in response to the request frame; and (d) broadcasting a second superframe for a second beacon period, the second superframe containing information regarding a data slot added to the at least one wireless device.
US08149792B2
In a radio access network (10) comprising a radio network controller node (26) and a base station node (28), a code tree has spreading codes which are allocatable between high speed downlink shared (HS-DSCH) channels and dedicated (DCH) channels. According to one aspect of the technology, use of the spreading codes of the code tree is monitored and an HS-DSCH channel is allocated a free spreading code which is non-adjacent to a spreading code already allocated to the HS-DSCH channels. In some example implementations, the free, non-adjacent spreading code is allocated so that more than one high speed channel user can use the spreading codes. In other example implementations, the free, non-adjacent spreading code is allocated so that one user uses the spreading codes by using more than one HS-SCCH channel. Preferably the non-adjacent spreading code is released from the HS-DSCH channel when the non-adjacent spreading code is needed for use by a DCH channel.
US08149790B2
Apparatus for bi-directional handover are disclosed. An apparatus configured to perform handover from a wireless code division multiple access (WCDMA) to a wireless broadband (WiBro) network is disclosed. An apparatus configured to perform handover from a WCDMA network to a WiFi (IEEE 802.11x) network is disclosed. An apparatus configured to perform handover from a WiFi network to a WCDMA network is disclosed.
US08149789B2
A mobile station is configured to transmit a sequence of data packets over a wireless network. The station includes a data sequence expander. The expander receives an indication of a pending hand-off for the mobile station from a first network access point to a second network access point and estimates an amount of time prior to occurrence of the hand-off. The expander inserts a number of delay packets into the sequence of data packets in response to receiving the indication of the pending hand-off. The number of delay packets is determined based on the estimated amount of time prior to the occurrence of the hand-off such that the insertion of the delay packets into the sequence of data packets will cause a delay that corresponds to the amount of time prior to occurrence of the hand-off.
US08149786B2
A method and devices are provided to enable continuing a communication session currently carried by a mobile subscriber station (MSS) while switching from a first base station to a second base station. During the communication session that is being held with the MSS, a first Internet Protocol (IP) datagram is selected from among a plurality of IP datagrams associated with that communication session and received at a network gateway adapted to convey IP traffic received from the MSS. Following that selection and prior to establishing a connection between the mobile subscriber terminal and the second base station, IP datagrams that will be received at that network gateway after that first IP datagram had been received and which are addressed to the MSS, are backed up. Upon establishing a connection between the MSS and the second base station, the IP datagrams that were backed up are forwarded to the MSS, and all further IP datagrams which are addressed to the MSS and received at that network gateway after establishing the connection between the MSS and the second base station, will be forwarded to the MSS through the second base station.
US08149784B2
A bridge-based RAS backbone network system and a signal processing method therefor are provided. In the bridge-based RAS backbone network system, a plurality of BSBs with Layer 2 (L2) switches are connected to a plurality of RASs, and a plurality of SCBs with L2 switches are connected to part of the BSBs in a lower layer, forming a core network. An HLR manages configuration information of network entities by storing the IP addresses and MAC addresses of MNs within the network and the addresses of SCBs to which the MNs belong in a table. Each of the SCBs statically preserves the MAC address of an external default router, for relaying an egress frame, statically registers its individual MAC address in other SCBs in the core network beforehand, detects a destination MN through the HLR, and sends a frame to the SCB of the destination MN or the MAC address of the external default router.
US08149783B2
A method for providing mobility control information to a communications device includes determining, for a transceiver device of a communication system, mobility control information of at least one further transceiver device and broadcasting system information from the transceiver device on a basic broadcast control channel, wherein the system information comprises the mobility control information of the at least one further transceiver device.
US08149778B2
A User Equipment, UE, of a cellular communication system transmits scheduling assistance data to a base station comprising a base station scheduler which schedules uplink packet data. The scheduling assistance data relates to uplink packet data transmission from the UE. The UE comprises a channel controller which is operable to cause the scheduling assistance data to be transmitted from the UE to the base station in a first physical resource of an uplink air interface. The first physical resource is not managed by the base station based scheduler. The scheduling assistance data may specifically be transmitted in a first transport channel multiplexed with other transport channels on a physical resource. The transport channels may be individually optimized and may have different termination points and transmission reliabilities. Specifically, the transport channel supporting the scheduling assistance data signaling may have a high reliability and be terminated in the base station.
US08149777B2
A broadband wireless communication system using multiple bands is provided. A method includes determining to stop using a first Secondary (S)-Frequency Assignment (FA) of one or more S-FAs while communicating with a correspondent node over a Primary (P)-FA and the one or more S-FAs, sending a first message which requests to suspend the first S-FA, to the correspondent node, communicating over at least one FA excluding the first S-FA, and when resumption of the first S-FA is determined, sending a second message which requests to resume the first S-FA.
US08149772B2
There is provided a base station device for suppressing increase of current consumption at a communication terminal by a line quality information report used for resource allocation of a downstream line and increase of interference of the upstream line traffic. The base station device reports whether a terminal performing communication which may be delayed, to each communication terminal (ST301). When the communication terminal has received a report that it is a terminal performing communication whose delay is not permitted, it reports the line quality information all the report timings (ST302, ST307, ST310). On the other hand, when the terminal is decided to be a terminal performing communication which may be delayed, it reports line quality information on an preferable average line quality sub-carrier group once a predetermined report timing (ST303).
US08149767B2
A method of a slot-level remapping physical uplink control channels into two resource blocks respectively located at two slots of a subframe, is generally adapted to a complex 3GPP LTE physical uplink where ACK/NAK recourse blocks may be applied by the extended cyclic prefix, mixed resource blocks (where the ACK/NAK and CQI channels coexist) may be applied by the normal cyclic prefix, or mixed recourse blocks (where the ACK/NAK and CQI channels coexist) may be applied by the extended cyclic prefix.
US08149760B2
A mobile system, a mobile system, a method for managing a path in a multi-hop cellular network, and a data frame used in the mobile system. The mobile system includes: an information receiving unit to receive information about at least one of link quality, traffic load, and frequency channel size, via a network; and a path establishment unit to establish a path to a base station based on the received information.
US08149756B2
A relay node is provided for being interposed between at least one source node and at least one destination node. The relay node includes a receiver, a transmitter and a control unit. A transmission signal transmitted by the at least one source node is received by the relay node and modified by the control unit in a substantially pseudo-random manner to generate a time-varying signal that is transmitted by the relay node to the at least one destination node.
US08149754B2
A digital broadcasting system and a data processing method are disclosed. The method includes receiving a data processing method includes receiving a broadcast signal in which main service data and mobile service data are multiplexed, acquiring transmission-parameter-channel signaling information including transmission parameter information of the mobile service data, and fast-information-channel signaling information, acquiring binding information describing a relationship between at least one ensemble transferring the mobile service data and a first virtual channel contained in the at least one ensemble by decoding the fast-information-channel, and acquiring status information of the first virtual channel, displaying content data contained in the mobile service data according to the binding information and the status information of the first virtual channel.
US08149750B2
In various embodiments of the invention, a device in a wireless communications network may negotiate with a network controller to determine when the device may enter a power save mode. The power save mode may include period(s) in which the device is in a low power state in which it cannot transmit or receive, and period(s) in which it is in an operational state in which it can transmit and/or receive.
US08149735B2
A user end-point device may determine a plurality of personal communication devices that are operable to provide ad-hoc network pathway support when communicatively coupled to the user end-point device, and negotiate with the personal communication devices for incentives for facilitating ad-hoc network communication via one or more connections between the devices. Incentives comprise offering pay and/or credit to the personal communication devices. The personal communication devices receive traffic intended for the user end-point device, and the received traffic is stored, buffered, and/or queued in the personal communication devices. Various types of communication are available during ad-hoc network pathway support, comprising multicast and snoop communications. Providing access to, blocking, limiting and/or modifying available/offered services is managed based on incentives and/or availability of resources in the personal communication devices. The user end-point device is operable to reconstruct data from plurality of packets received directly and via the personal communication devices.
US08149730B1
In one embodiment, an apparatus includes a packet generation module that has a set of general purpose processing modules and is configured to define a test packet configured to emulate at least a portion of network traffic. The apparatus also includes a switch device configured to receive the test packet from the packet generation module. The switch device is configured to multi-cast the test packet via a set of ports of the switch device to a target entity based on a routing policy.
US08149726B2
A method for performing wireless communication in a network by at least one of a plurality of network nodes, the network including a network coordinator, the plurality of network nodes, and a plurality of subscriber stations. The method includes sending, by at least one of the plurality of network nodes, delay data to at least one of the network coordinator or one or more upstream network nodes. The delay data includes a network node delay data associated with the at least one of the plurality of network nodes, and the one or more upstream network nodes include any of the plurality of network nodes located along an upstream transmission path between the at least one network node and the network coordinator. In addition, the method includes receiving, from at least one of the network coordinator or the one or more upstream network nodes, target delay data, and receiving, from at least one of the network coordinator or the one or more upstream network nodes, a message. Further, the method includes transmitting, at a target transmission time, the message to one or more of the plurality of subscriber stations. The target delay data is based on the delay data, and the target transmission time is based on the target delay data.
US08149725B2
Methods, systems, and computer program products for a hierarchical, redundant OAM&P architecture for use in an IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) are disclosed. According to one aspect, the subject matter described herein includes a system for managing an Internet protocol multimedia system (IMS) network. The system includes a network operations, administration, maintenance, and provisioning (OAM&P) entity for communicating with an operator's network, a system OAM&P entity associated with the network OAM&P entity, and at least one message processing entity associated with the system OAM&P entity for processing signaling information and for implementing at least one application. The system OAM&P entity receives OAM&P information from one or more message processing entities and communicates at least some of the received OAM&P information to the network OAM&P entity. The network OAM&P entity receives OAM&P information from the system OAM&P entity and communicates at least some of the received OAM&P information to the operator's network.
US08149723B2
A method for discovering computers connected to a computer network, including receiving a packet containing address information of a computer connected to the computer network that sent the packet, extracting the address information from the packet, and adding the address information to a database of discovered computers connected to the computer network.
US08149720B2
A method, an apparatus and a system for operating Quality of Service, QoS, based on stream, are provided. The method may include: delivering a Real-Time Transport Protocol, RTP, data stream feature to a forwarding plane; learning a RTP packet which is delivered by the forwarding plane conforming to the RTP data stream feature; and judging the RTP data stream to be a determined RTP data stream based on the RTP packet learned; identifying and monitoring the determined RTP data stream to obtain control strategy of QoS of the determined RTP data stream; and delivering the control strategy of the QoS of the determined RTP data stream to the forwarding plane so that the forwarding plane manipulates QoS of the determined RTP data stream based on the control strategy of QoS.
US08149714B2
A system for automated installation of a communication line using an optimal route between a source location and a destination location is disclosed. The system includes a routing module configured to provide an automated design process for rendering the optimal route. The routing module utilizes a routing algorithm to select the optimal route from a graph of capacity links defining a plurality of possible routes between the source and destination locations. If, at any time during the design process, the optimal route or capacity links defining the optimal route are detected as unavailable for any reason, the routing module re-initiates the design process and thereafter selects a new optimal route based upon a new capacity graph built without the previously unavailable capacity link. A command and control engine manages the process for assigning the optimal route in the provisioning system.
US08149711B2
A method and apparatus for data stream control for network devices. Some embodiments of an apparatus include a receiver to receive a token for a command associated with a stream of data, where the command is one of multiple command types. The token has a fixed size and format, and the token is provided in a field of a data packet. The apparatus further includes a network unit to determine the type of command based on the token, to parse a set of fields in the data packet for command data, and implement the command.
US08149703B2
In a powerline network, a power line node device coupled to a host bridge application detects a “jam packet” in response to an attempt to pass a frame to the host bridge application. The powerline node device uses internal logic to override a conventional ARQ response to this and subsequent frames, in particular, when such frames are of the type for which a response is expected, with an automatic FAIL response for a predetermined time interval.
US08149702B2
An apparatus for processing signals in a wireless system includes a first memory module to receive input data from a set of physical channels, a first plurality of sub-modules to process the input data. Each of the first plurality of sub-modules is selected to function based upon data and transmission channel specifications. The apparatus also includes a second memory module to receive processed input data and output intermediate data. Locations of the input data in the second memory is allocated in connection with data and transmission channel specifications. The apparatus also includes a second plurality of sub-modules to process the intermediate data. Each of the second plurality of sub-modules is selected to function based upon data and transmission channel specifications. The apparatus also includes a third memory module to receive and output bit rate processing output.
US08149682B2
An optical disk and a method for identifying the optical disk making it possible to identify a recording system of the optical disk easily in a short time by a recording and reproduction apparatus when a groove-recording system and a land-recording system are both employed in one kind of optical disk, such as, for example, a BD-R. Specifically, a polarity upon reproducing wobble information is made to be the same in both an optical disk of groove-recording system and the optical disk of a land-recording system. The recording system of the optical disk that shows the same wobble polarity irrespective of the recording system can be easily detected by finding a tracking polarity that can recognize the wobble information by changing the tracking polarity, whereby the start-up time of the recording and reproduction apparatus can be shortened.
US08149680B2
Current probe-type memory architecture assumes that the minimum chunk of data that a probe tip can access is one entire track and perhaps only four out of five-thousand, for example, probes participate in the access thereby degrading performance. By subdividing the track into D finer chunks or data zones, D times more probes can cooperate to read out the data, hence increasing the data throughput by Dx. Each tip now only scans approximately one Dth of the track and hence the scan time is reduced by a factor D, while D probes are being utilized in parallel.
US08149679B2
If a recording rate of data is close to a writing rate on a recording medium, recorded data is externally transmitted. The problems are solved by: an efficient separate use of data in a buffer and read out data; and the use of low resolution data. As illustrated, the 0th to third low resolution data to be transmitted are not read out from an optical disc because the data remain in a buffer at the time of transmission. Instead, the buffered data is transmitted. When the fourth low resolution data is to be transmitted, the fourth to sixth low resolution data are read out from the optical disc for transmission because the data have already been erased from the buffer. The present invention is applicable to, for example, a disc recorder.
US08149677B2
An optical pickup unit comprises a diffraction grating that divides light into at least three luminous fluxes and condenses the three luminous fluxes to apply at least three focusing spots, independent of each other, onto a signal side of a medium. The diffraction grating is divided into at least four regions, a first region, a second region, a third region, and a fourth region.
US08149674B2
According to one embodiment, an optical recording medium is provided in which interlayer crosstalk is low and in which stable and high-quality recording characteristics can be obtained. To this end, an optical recording medium comprises a first recording part which includes a first recording layer and a first light reflecting layer and which is disposed on a side closer to a light receiving surface, and a second recording part which includes a second recording layer and a second light reflecting layer and which is disposed on a side farther from the light receiving surface, the first recording part and the second recording part being stacked, wherein the thickness of the second light reflecting layer is larger than the thickness of the first light reflecting layer.
US08149669B2
An optical disk apparatus for enabling to insert a multi-layered optical disk therein, which has plural numbers of recording layers, comprising: a spindle motor 42; an optical pickup 2; and a system controller 100 for controlling the optical pickup to move into a radial direction of the optical disk, as well as, for controlling the optical pickup so that a light-beam irradiated therefrom is focused upon either one of the plural numbers of recording layers of the optical disk, wherein when it is determined that the target layer to be accessed lies on a layer different from that, upon which the optical pickup focuses the light-beam at present, the light-beam irradiated from the optical pickup is shifted to the target layer, after being moved into a radial direction of said optical disk on the layer, upon which the light-beam irradiated therefrom is focused at present, up to an information recording area where the information of the target layer is recoded.
US08149664B2
A method and apparatus for recording data on a write-once recording medium are disclosed. In the write-once recording medium, the method includes, when a defect area is detected in the recording medium, deciding a replacement recording method for replacing the defect area, when the detected defect area is replacement recorded in a spare area, recording a position information of the defect area and a position information of the spare area in a temporary management area as a defect management information, and when the detected defect area is skipped and the data is replacement recorded in a next consecutive area, an information indicating that the skipped area is the defect area is recorded in a temporary management area as a defect management information. Thus, the write-once recording medium may be managed with more efficiency and data may be efficiently recorded on the recording medium.
US08149663B2
In response to the trend toward the increase in the number of data layers of optical discs, the invention provides a data erasure method and its optical disc apparatus that enable faster data erasures with a simpler configuration. Test erasures are performed on the test areas T of data layers of an optical disc while the power level Pe of data erasure laser light and the defocus amount Δf of the data erasure laser light from a target data layer are changed. Based on the results of the test erasures, the optimal erasure condition that enables a simultaneous data erasure from the greatest number of data layers is determined. Based on the determined optimal erasure condition, then, the optimal erasure sequence that enables data erasure from all of the data layers with the fewest number of times is determined.
US08149661B2
Directed to freely adjusting an emission period of a semiconductor laser.In the present invention, pulsed light serving as pulse-shaped laser light (LL) is emitted from a semiconductor laser (3), and a laser drive voltage (DJ) that is generated on the basis of a pulse signal (SL) and that has pulse-shaped drive voltage pulses (DJw) is applied to the semiconductor laser (3). At this time, a short-pulse light source (51) varies a voltage period (TV) corresponding to an interval between the drive voltage pulses (DJw), thereby varying a set period (TS) corresponding to an interval between generated signal pulses (SLw) in the pulse signal (SL).
US08149651B2
The invention concerns an electronic watch comprising an electric motor (5) for driving analogue display means (6), and a time base (1, 2) comprising an oscillator circuit (2) and a resonator (1), both mounted in the same case (9), characterized in that said case further comprises a control circuit (4) for said electric motor.
US08149648B2
Error correction in an echo pulse is performed by periodically (for example, every 100th pulse) generating a parabola derived from a selected part of the pulse leading edge. An error value is generated from the distance from a leading edge reference point to the peak of the generated parabola or to the echo peak, whichever is less. In this way an error correction is dynamically re-learned.
US08149646B2
A memory device that, in certain embodiments, includes a memory element and a digital filter. The digital filter may include a counter and a divider, where the divider is configured to divide a count from the counter by a divisor.
US08149644B2
The memory system includes a semiconductor memory that has an internal circuit, which operates according to a first power supply voltage, and a memory input/output circuit coupled to the internal circuit and operates according to a second power supply voltage, a first control unit that includes a control input/output circuit, coupled to the memory input/output circuit and operates according to the second power supply voltage, a voltage generating unit that generates the second power supply voltage and changes the second power supply voltage according to a voltage adjustment signal, a clock generating unit that generates the clock signal and changes the frequency of the clock signal according to a clock adjustment signal, and a second control unit that generates the voltage adjustment signal and the clock adjustment signal according to an access state of the semiconductor memory by the first control unit.
US08149643B2
A memory device and method may include separating alternating read and write accesses to different banks of a memory device.
US08149639B2
A test apparatus includes a test fuse unit for generating a test fuse signal in response to a test mode signal during a test time and generating a test fuse signals according to a fuse cutting after a termination of the test time, a combination signal generating unit for storing a test signal and inactivating a combination signal when the test mode signal is inactivate and for outputting the stored test signal as the combination signal when the test mode signal is activate, and a code signal generating unit for activating a test code signal when one of the test fuse signal and the combination signal is activated.
US08149637B2
Provided is a semiconductor device capable of effectively testing whether memory cells and a memory cell array are defective. The semiconductor device may include a memory cell array having a plurality of memory cells and an external test pad connected to an internal test pad. A test voltage may be applied to the plurality of word lines connected to the plurality of memory cells via the external test pad and the internal test pad in a test mode, wherein the test voltage disables the plurality of word lines.
US08149629B2
A memory cell array has a number of memory cells which are connected to word lines and bit lines and are arranged in a matrix form, each of the memory cells storing one of n levels (n is a natural number of 2 or more). A control circuit controls the potentials on the word lines and the bit lines in accordance with input data to write data to the memory cells. The control circuit is adapted to, at the write time, first apply a first potential to a well region or substrate in which the memory cells are formed, then set the well region or substrate to a second potential lower than the first potential, and next apply a predetermined voltage to the word lines to thereby perform a write operation.
US08149620B2
A nonvolatile semiconductor memory device includes a string selection transistor coupled to a bit line. The device also includes a plurality of memory cells coupled in series to the string selection transistor, wherein at least one of the memory cells is configured to be in a programmed state during an erase procedure of the plurality of memory cells.
US08149610B2
A memory device comprises an array of memory cells each capable of storing multiple bits of data. Each memory cell includes a programmable transistor in series with a resistance switching device. The transistor is switchable between a plurality of different threshold voltages associated with respective memory states. The resistance switching device is configured to be switchable between a plurality of different resistances associated with respective memory states.
US08149606B2
A semiconductor memory device comprises a semiconductor substrate; a plurality of memory cell arrays stacked on the semiconductor substrate, each memory cell array including a plurality of first lines paralleled with each other, a plurality of second lines paralleled with each other and formed crossing the first lines, and a plurality of memory cells arranged at intersections of the first lines and the second lines, each memory cell having one end connected to the first line and the other end connected to the second line; a first control circuit provided on the semiconductor substrate immediately beneath the memory cell arrays and having one end connected to the first line to select and drive the first line; and a second control circuit provided on the semiconductor substrate immediately beneath the memory cell arrays and having one end connected to the second line to select and drive the second line.
US08149599B2
A controller circuit is specified, having a step-up controller, a resonant converter connected downstream of the step-up controller on the output side, a transformer, a rectifier, which rectifier is connected to the secondary winding of the transformer on the input side, and a CLL resonant circuit connected to the resonant converter and to the primary winding of the transformer, which CLL resonant circuit has a resonance capacitance and a first and a second resonance inductance. In order to reduce the switching losses, the CLL resonant circuit is embodied as a “T” circuit.
US08149596B2
An N-phase full bridge power converter, comprising: a load device; a plurality of bridge legs, each being composed of two power switches; a plurality of transformers, each being coupled between two nodes each disposed between two power switches in two adjacent bridge legs on its primary side and coupled to the load device on its secondary side; and a plurality of inductors, each being connected between a node and the primary side of one of the transformers corresponding thereto.
US08149594B2
An electromagnetic shield structure of an electronics housing includes a terminal having a protrusion for external connection; a substrate having the terminal disposed thereon and electrically connected to the terminal; a housing made of resin, enclosing the substrate and having an opening at a position corresponding to the protrusion of the terminal on a front surface side where the protrusion of the terminal is located; and an electromagnetic shield disposed so as to surround the substrate inside the housing, having an opening at the position corresponding to the protrusion of the terminal, and electromagnetically shielding the substrate. The electromagnetic shield has a bent portion formed on the front surface side for filling a gap between the terminal and the housing.
US08149592B2
An AC/DC power supply and platform for a military radio has been developed. The apparatus includes a base that supports at least one SINCGARS RT-1523 radio. The base is connected to an AC power supply and at least one DC power supply. The AC supply and DC power supply are configured to switch automatically to the DC power supply should the AC power supply fail. The housing of the platform is sealed from the exterior environment with gaskets.
US08149584B2
In a dielectric element, the angle θ made by either the top face or the bottom face and the side faces is either 0°<θ<89°, or is 91°<θ<180°, and is an angle other than 89°≦θ≦91°. By this means, the area of contact of the side faces of the dielectric element with a glass epoxy resin substrate and with insulating material is increased, adhesion with the resin substrates is improved, and strength and reliability can be enhanced when buried between the two resin substrates.
US08149579B2
A cooling member for a variable speed drive. The variable speed drive has a component that generates heat during operation of the drive and a base. The base has a surface that receives the component, a channel formed in the surface of the base and a passageway formed in the base and receiving fluid therethrough. Fluid flowing through the passageway provides cooling to the component and the base is manufactured from an injection molding process.
US08149576B2
Since an information processing unit of the present invention includes a protrusion portion on a back face side of a first casing, it is possible to reduce an impact transmitted to a notebook PC when the notebook PC is placed in an upright position on the surface of a desk. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the notebook PC from being damaged. Furthermore, since the protrusion portion is provided to the back face side of the first casing, it is possible not to allow the notebook PC to stand self-supported in an upright position. Therefore, the notebook PC will not be placed carelessly in an upright position on the surface of a desk or the like; thus, it is possible to prevent the PC from being broken or damaged due to a fall.
US08149572B2
A liquid crystal display with a height adjustable base assembly includes a base, a main arm, which is provided with a pivotal connection with the base and has slide rails, a panel fixing frame, which is capable of ascending and descending along the slide rails of the main arm and has a lock rod. A plumbing stop block is pivotally connected to the main arm to correspond to the lock rod. When the main arm rotates a preset inclining angular position with respect to the base, the plumbing stop block is urged to rotate by the gravity thereof for the lock rod being pushed to engage with the locating groove of the plumbing stop groove such that the operation of lifting the panel fixing frame with respect to the main arm is locked. Hence, the liquid crystal panel bouncing outward suddenly during unpacked is avoided to secure the safety with convenient operations.
US08149570B2
A universal power supply system having a power supply configured to generate a predetermined direct current output sufficient to simultaneously power a plurality of direct current powered devices connected thereto. A plurality of identical sockets are electrically coupled in parallel with the direct current output of the power supply. Individual power cables having a standardized first plug which fits into the sockets at one end and a device specific second plug at an opposing end. A voltage regulating circuit is operatively disposed in either the standardized first plug or device specific second plug which converts the intermediate direct current voltage generated by the power supply to a direct current voltage required by a particular direct current powered device.
US08149558B2
A battery control module for a battery system includes a pulse-width modulation (PWM) module that generates N PWM signals. The battery control module also includes a contactor control module that consecutively applies the N PWM signals to close a contactor in order to connect a battery to a load. Application of a first one of the N PWM signals moves the contactor at a first velocity from an open position and application of a second one of the N PWM signals moves the contactor at a second velocity to a closed position. The first velocity is less than the second velocity. N is an integer greater than one.
US08149557B2
Residual magnetic locks, brakes, rotation inhibitors, clutches, actuators, and latches. The residual magnetic devices can include a core housing and an armature. The residual magnetic devices can include a coil that receives a magnetization current to create an irreversible residual magnetic force between the core housing and the armature.
US08149555B2
In order to provide a power semiconductor module for power distribution and transmission, having a power semiconductor circuit which is connected via connecting lines to an energy storage device, which limits the current amplitudes that occur in the electrical fault and effectively protects the power electronics, it is proposed that the connecting lines have a weak point which breaks when the current load is above a threshold value, with the connecting lines furthermore having a resistance which is connected in parallel with the weak point.
US08149553B2
An integrated circuit 2 is provided with a clamp transistor 20 for providing electrostatic discharge event protection. A detector circuit 28 produces a clamp control signal for switching the clamp transistor 20 to a conductive state so as to provide the electrostatic discharge protection. The detector circuit 28 also generates an electrostatic discharge event signal 36 which is distributed elsewhere within the integrated circuit 2 and controls a protection circuit element 60, 64, 44 to force a processing control signal 40, 52 of a signal processing transistor 38, 54 into a state in which the signal processing transistor 38, 54 is more resistant to electrostatic discharge damage. The signal processing transistors 38, 54 may be P-type field effect transistors associated with a receiver 14 or a transmitter 12 connected to an external signal communication line. The use of this active protection controlled by the electrostatic discharge event signal 36 permits smaller protection diodes 22, 24 to be use with such communication signal lines and/or provide for increased electrostatic discharge protection.
US08149549B2
A magnetoresistive head is provided with high reliability and produced at a high yield rate. The magnetoresistive head includes a lower magnetic shield layer, an upper magnetic shield layer, a magnetoresistive effect film, and means for causing a current to flow in the direction of the thickness of the magnetoresistive effect film. The magnetoresistive effect film is provided between the lower magnetic shield layer and the upper magnetic shield layer. The magnetoresistive effect film is composed of a fixed layer, a non-magnetic layer, an insulating barrier layer and a free layer. The four layers of the magnetoresistive effect film are formed in this order. The insulating barrier layer is an oxide layer containing at least one of titanium and nickel.
US08149548B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide a magnetic head having a read head of stable reading operation and with less magnetic fluctuation noise. According to one embodiment, a free layer has a structure comprising two ferromagnetic layers (a first free layer and a second free layer) that are coupled anti-ferromagnetically by way of a non-magnetic intermediate layer, in which the magnetization amount of the first free layer is set to larger than the magnetization amount of the second free layer. Further, the magnetic domains in the first free layer and the second free layer are stabilized simultaneously by increasing the distance between the second free layer and the magnetic domain control film to be more than the distance between the first free layer and the magnetic domain control film, thereby adjusting the magnetization amount of the magnetic domain control film. Further, the volume of the entire free layer is increased thereby greatly decreasing the magnetic fluctuation noises, to obtain a read head showing a high SN ratio.
US08149544B2
Components and assemblies for a hard disk drive (HDD) with a recessed actuator joint are described. A rotary actuator hub assembly comprises a shaft having a flange, and a pivot seat on which the flange is seated when the shaft is fastened to an HDD chassis. According to an embodiment, the pivot seat has at least one “contact-reducing feature” recessed from the surface of the pivot seat at which the seat contacts the flange. A purpose of the contact-reducing feature(s) of the pivot seat is to weaken the joint between the actuator hub assembly and the chassis, thereby mechanically loosening the rotary actuator assembly from the chassis. Consequently, movements to and vibrations from the chassis are less likely to be transmitted to the rotary actuator assembly and, ultimately, to the HDD read/write head(s).
US08149543B2
A hard disk drive apparatus includes a magnetic head having a write head to record data on a disk and a read head to read the data recorded on the disk, at least one actuator arm on which the magnetic head is mounted, a voice coil motor to rotate the at least one actuator arm across the disk, a printed circuit board electrically connected to the write head, the read head, and the voice coil motor, and a flexible printed circuit having at least one write trace to electrically connect the write head and the printed circuit board, at least one read trace to electrically connect the read head and the printed circuit board, and a voice coil motor trace to electrically connect the voice coil motor and the printed circuit board. In the hard disk drive, the write trace is arranged between the read trace and the voice coil motor trace.
US08149542B2
A wiring connecting structure for a piezoelectric element is capable of performing wiring to the piezoelectric element without deteriorating the quality and reliability of the piezoelectric element. The piezoelectric element is arranged between a base and head of an object, to minutely move the head in a sway direction according to deformation that occurs on the piezoelectric element in response to a voltage applied from a terminal to an electrode of the piezoelectric element. The wiring connecting structure includes first and second liquid stoppers arranged between the terminal and the electrode, the second liquid stopper being arranged outside the first liquid stopper. The wiring connecting structure also includes an adhesive part to connect the electrode to the terminal. The adhesive part has a conductive adhesive part defined by the first liquid stopper and a sealing adhesive part defined by the second liquid stopper. The sealing adhesive part seals the first liquid stopper and conductive adhesive part.
US08149536B1
A method and system for manufacturing a perpendicular magnetic recording head is disclosed. The method and system include providing a chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) uniformity structure having an aperture therein and forming a perpendicular magnetic recording pole within the aperture. The CMP uniformity structure may include a CMP barrier layer. The method and system further include fabricating an insulator after formation of the perpendicular magnetic recording pole and performing a CMP to remove a portion of the insulator, expose a portion of the perpendicular magnetic recording pole and planarize an exposed surface of the perpendicular magnetic recording head.
US08149535B2
A disk device with disk contamination control having a spindle for rotating at least one disk. A spindle hub located on the spindle. A disk clamp for clamping the at least one disk on the hub. A magnetic clamp seal magnetically and removably attached to the disk clamp wherein the magnetic clamp seal encapsulates disk contaminants between the clamp and the clamp seal. The magnetic clamp seal magnetically collects metallic contaminants within a sealed housing.
US08149533B2
According to one embodiment, an estimation method comprises measuring and creating. The measuring is configured to measure a head velocity and a terminal voltage of a coil of a voice coil motor at least two times before unload in a control system eliminating an influence caused by a transient response of inductance of the voice coil motor. The calculating is configured to a calculate torque constant and a coil resistance based on command voltages and at least two measured head velocities and terminal voltages of the coil.
US08149528B1
A disk drive is disclosed comprising a head actuated over a disk comprising a plurality of data tracks. A first defect shape is detected during a manufacturing defect scan of the disk. A second defect shape is detected while the disk drive is deployed in-the-field. Whether the first defect shape is connectable to the second defect shape is determined, and when the first defect shape is connectable to the second defect shape, data sectors along a trajectory between the first defect shape and the second defect shape are relocated.
US08149514B2
A zoom lens system of the present invention has a plurality of lens units each composed of at least one lens element and, in order from the object side to the image side, comprises: a first lens unit having negative optical power and composed of two lens elements; a second lens unit having positive optical power; and a third lens unit having positive optical power, wherein in zooming, at least the first lens unit and the second lens unit move along an optical axis, on the image side relative to the second lens unit, an aperture diaphragm is arranged that moves along the optical axis integrally with the second lens unit during zooming, the second lens unit moves in a direction perpendicular to the optical axis, and the condition is satisfied: 1.00<(1−m2W)×m3W<1.50 where, Z=fT/fW>4.0, ωW>35, m2W, m3W: lateral magnifications of the second and third lens units at a wide-angle limit in an infinity in-focus condition, fT, fW: focal lengths of the entire system at a telephoto limit, a wide-angle limit, ωW: a half value of maximum view angle at a wide-angle limit.
US08149511B2
The present invention relates to a security element (20) for security papers, value documents and the like, having a micro-optical moiré magnification arrangement having a motif image that consists of a periodic or at least locally periodic arrangement of a plurality of micromotif elements (28) that is planar or applied on a curved surface, and a periodic or at least locally periodic arrangement of a plurality of microfocusing elements (24) that is planar or applied on a curved surface, for moiré-magnified viewing of the micromotif elements (28) of the motif image, the arrangement of micromotif elements (28) and/or the arrangement of microfocusing elements (24) exhibiting, in the planar case, no symmetry axis in the plane of the arrangement in its periodic or at least locally periodic regions.
US08149510B2
A diffractive optical element according to the present invention includes: a lens body 11 with a blazed grating 13 on an aspheric surface 11a thereof; and an optical adjustment layer 15 that covers the diffraction grating 13. The lens body 11 is made of a first material 14a and the optical adjustment layer 15 is made of a second material 14b that has a higher refractive index than the first material 14a. The diffraction grating 13 has a number of ring zones that are arranged concentrically around an optical axis, where the height of each ring zone with respect to the aspheric surface 11a of the lens body 11 is represented by an increasing function of a distance r from the optical axis. The increasing function is represented by a phase polynomial that uses the distance r as a variable and that has a magnitude of 3/4π to 7/4π when r=0.
US08149509B2
A projection screen apparatus having a retention member configured, in use, to be in contact with at least one surface of a screen along at least a portion of at least one edge of the screen. The projection screen may include polymeric material and the retention member may be bonded to the screen. The retention member may comprise a plurality of apertures and tensioning members extending through the apertures to apply tension to the screen. A portion of each tensioning member extending through the apertures to contact the retention member may be flexible and non-resilient. The retention member may be configured to allow slidable engagement with the plurality of tensioning members. Each retention member may comprise biasing means configured to bias each retention member away from a neighboring retention member, the biasing means adjustable to vary the bias applied when the screen is in situ.
US08149502B2
A cladding-pumped gain optical fiber is provided. The cladding-pumped gain optical fiber includes a core transmitting a signal light; a first cladding covering the core and having an optical-gain dopant; a second cladding covering the first cladding for transmitting a pumping light; and a third cladding covering the second cladding for reflecting the pumping light.
US08149499B2
An electrophoretic display device includes a display element including a pair of first and second substrates which are opposed to each other, and a microcapsule enclosing a display material changed in optical characteristics in response to an electric impulse, the microcapsule being sandwiched between the first and second substrates; and a protective film sealing the display element. In the display device, a first electrode is provided on the surface of the first substrate which faces the second substrate, a second electrode is provided on the surface of the second substrate which faces the first substrate, and a spacer is provided in the space between the periphery of the facing surface of the first substrate and the first electrode.
US08149485B2
Dynamically reconfigurable holograms with electronically erasable programmable intermediate layers are disclosed. An example apparatus includes first nanowires, each of the first nanowires having protuberances along a length thereof. The example apparatus also includes second nanowires arranged approximately perpendicular to the first nanowires, the protuberances of the first nanowires being approximately parallel to corresponding ones of the second nanowires. In addition, a layer is disposed between the first and second nanowires. The layer is to control refractive indices at nanowire intersections at intersecting ones of the first and second nanowires.
US08149482B2
A system and method is provided for characterizing color separation misregistration associated with marking a substrate. The method includes providing an input image having a plurality of patches, each patch having a pattern using a first and second color; marking a substrate with a copy of the input image using a first and second color separation to correspond to the first and second colors, respectively; and measuring a color characteristic of markings of respective copied patches of the copied plurality of patches and generating corresponding colorimetric values. Misregistration of the first color separation markings relative to the second color separation markings is characterized based on the measured calorimetric values.
US08149477B2
In an optical scanning apparatus, the shape of a sub-scanning section of a transmissive imaging optical element on which a light beam subjected to scanning and deflected by a deflecting surface of an optical deflector is incident twice, the tilt angle of a reflective optical element disposed in an optical path between the optical deflector and a surface to be scanned, and the relationship between the transmissive imaging optical element and the reflective optical element are provided.
US08149475B2
An image processing apparatus includes an address specifying unit, a reading unit, a writing unit, and a shifting unit. The address specifying unit specifies an address in a storage device that stores therein pixel data of an image. The reading unit reads the pixel data from the address by a line pixel amount. The writing unit writes the pixel data in an output storage unit. The shifting unit shifts the address in either one of a first direction along a sub-scanning direction and a second direction opposite to the first direction by a predetermined amount.
US08149464B2
A clustered-dot screen design method, a device to perform the clustered-dot screen design method based on human vision characteristics and printer model characteristics, and an image-forming apparatus to output binary images using designed screens. The clustered-dot screen design method based on the human vision characteristics and the printer model characteristics includes determining positions of a plurality of clustered-dot centers using a predetermined method, and designing a screen by growing specific sub-dots about the cluster centers using a predetermined algorithm according to position information of the cluster centers, the human vision characteristics, and the printer model characteristics. The clustered-dot design method has a high tolerance for defects of printers, since a dot growth sequence about the cluster centers is designed in an optimized method based on the human vision characteristics and the printer model characteristics to have an optimized image quality in output images of the printers, and the dots are clustered about the cluster centers.
US08149455B2
A units of red {u1-uA}, B units of green {v1-vB} and C units of blue {w1-wC} are sampled and measurements are performed, and an interpolation equation is found from the A×B×C units of data in three-dimensions (L*, a*, b*) that are obtained. Firstly, A units of point sequence data in 3×B×C dimensions are least squares approximated for the parameters u, and Mu control points in 3×B×C dimensions are found. Then, B units of point sequence data in 3×C×Mu dimensions are least squares approximated for the parameters v, and Mv control points in 3×C×Mu dimensions are found. Next, C units of point sequence data in 3×Mu×Mv dimensions are least squares approximated for the parameters w, and Mw control points in 3×Mu×Mv dimensions are found. Then, output values (L*,a*,b*) corresponding to arbitrary input values (Red,Green,Blue) can be obtained by an interpolation equation according to Mu×Mv×Mw final control points in three dimensions and basis functions used in the least squares approximations.
US08149448B2
A method of rapidly creating an image from a document is disclosed. Image data derived from a document is received at an imaging device. It is then determined whether the image data is in an image-ready format that can be directly processed by a marking engine. If the image data is in an image-ready format, it is transmitted to the marking engine to create an image. If it is not in an image-ready format, the image data is converted to a proper format. The image data is transmitted to the marking engine. If the image data is spooled to a nonvolatile storage device, the spooling takes place only after or concurrent with transmission of the image data to the marking engine such that creation of the image is not delayed by this spooling process.
US08149444B2
A print system in which a printer and a client personal computer are connected to a network. The printer may include a storage unit configured to store a residual quantity information of sheets of paper in a paper feed cassette, a communication unit configured to transmit the residual quantity information to the client personal computer, and a printing unit. The client personal computer may include a generation unit configured to generating print data corresponding to a print job, and a control unit configured to acquire the residual quantity information and a number of sheets of paper necessary for the print job and compare the residual quantity information and the number of sheets of paper necessary. Upon judging an occurrence of exhaustion of sheets of paper according to a comparison result, the control unit may notify a user before starting printing in the printer.
US08149442B2
A method receives a variable information print job and determines if any of the personalized content exceeds the size of a corresponding content area of the template. If the personalized content exceeds the size of a corresponding content area of the template, the method resolves such size inconsistencies (between the personalized content and the content area) by selectively removing and/or filtering portions of the personalized content according to the knowledge-based rules.
US08149438B2
A method is provided for managing a print job in a distributed printing system including a first printing system having a first default operating mode with a first rated output and a second printing system having a second default operating mode with a second rated output. The method includes determining that the second printing system has the capability to operate in an adjusted operating mode with an effective output that differs from either the first rated output or the second rated output. In practice the print job is split into first and second job portions in such a way that when (a) both the first and second print job portions are communicated to the distributed printing arrangement, (b) the first print job portion is printed at the first printing system in the first default operating mode, and (c) the second print job portion is printed at the second printing system in the adjusted operating mode, printing of the first and second print job portions end substantially simultaneously.
US08149433B2
The image forming apparatus executes controls relating to image formation in a dispersed manner without centralization. A printer part of the image forming apparatus includes a laser module, an image process module, a paper-feed cassette module, a conveyance module, a both-side module, a fixing module, a paper discharge module and a shared data module. Each module stores operation condition information, indicating its operation condition in the shared data module, and executes autonomously a specific operation by referring to operation parameters and the operation condition information indicating the operation conditions of the modules, stored in the shared data module.
US08149432B2
An information processing apparatus that can be connected to an image-forming apparatus, a method, and a program used for the information processing apparatus are disclosed. The information processing apparatus comprises a control unit for controlling print-setting information set for document data to be printed, a recognition unit for recognizing information about a first function specified by the print-setting information by translating the print-setting information controlled by the control unit, an obtaining unit for obtaining information about a second function of the image-forming apparatus connected to the information processing apparatus, a determination unit for determining whether or not the image-forming apparatus can perform the first function recognized by the recognition unit based on the second-function information obtained by the obtaining unit, and a modification unit for modifying the print-setting information controlled by the control unit based on the determination result.
US08149426B2
An image forming apparatus with a copy function may include a reading device, a recognition device, a conversion device, and a print device. The reading device reads characters on a first recording medium. The recognition device recognizes the characters based on a result of reading performed by the reading device. The conversion device converts a result of recognition performed by the recognition device into image data which indicates shapes of the characters. The print device prints the characters on a second recording medium based on the image data.
US08149425B2
An image processing apparatus includes a reading unit, a first designation unit, a first storage unit, and a reading control unit. The reading unit generates an image by reading multiple original documents. The designation unit designates a reading condition with respect to a portion of the original documents in a case of reading. The storage unit stores the reading condition, corresponding to the portion received by the designation unit, as reading condition information. The reading control unit reads the reading condition information stored in the storage unit and controls the reading unit based on the reading condition information read.
US08149421B1
Faults, dimensions and other characteristics of a material or structure are sensed by a coherent beam's reflection from the material when probed with ultrasonic waves or when vibrating at high frequencies. The reflected beam acquires a dynamic phase change substantially different from its original phase and from the phase of a reference beam split from the common source beam. The reflected beam and the reference beam are superimposed by diffraction in an adaptive holographic beam-splitter, and the superimposed beams are detected by a photodetector capable of detecting small phase changes from ultrasonic surface displacements or perturbations. An apparatus and method are disclosed defining an improved crystal homodyne interferometer with an energy source coupled to the crystal and operative to maintain the crystal in a condition for emptying unwanted traps in the crystal.
US08149416B2
The present invention utilizes a holographic optical forcing array for dynamic cellular probing and diagnostics. A holographic optical trapping system generates optical forces on objects so that deformations thereof may be quantified. In one embodiment, digital holography is used to generate an interference pattern, and an analysis thereof determines the phase profile which yields a measurement of the objects' shape deformation using only one image. In another embodiment, phase-stepped holography allows the phase profile of an object to be measured using only one image, by using a holographic optical element to make phase-shifted replicas of the beam in space. In another embodiment, the optical forcing array applies optical forces to beads placed on the objects' surface, deforming the objects. The beads' position is determined by applying Mie theory, and analysis thereof yields the three dimensional position of the beads, and a measurement of the deformation displacement on the objects' surface.
US08149412B2
A detection device based on the surface plasmon resonance effect, including a radiation emitter and a radiation detector, a fluidic substrate, a liquid crystal layer and respective control mechanism.
US08149410B2
A necessary number of metal structures including a trapping body for trapping a target substance provided on a support are one-dimensionally placed to form a transmission path of plasmon, and a signal based on the plasmon transmitted on the transmission path is detected so as to detect whether or not there is trapping of the target substance from a sample to the trapping body. It is thereby possible to detect a reaction of the trapping body belonging to the detecting unit and the target substance with high sensitivity.
US08149402B2
The preferred embodiments of the invention is an optical system for a flow cytometer including a flow channel with an interrogation zone, and an illumination source that impinges the flow channel in the interrogation zone from a particular direction. The optical system preferably includes a lens system and a detection system. The lens system preferably includes multiple lens surfaces arranged around the flow channel and adapted to collect and collimate light from the interrogation zone. The detection system preferably includes multiple detectors adapted to detect light from the lens system. Each detector preferably includes a local filter that independently filters for specific wavelengths. Thus, the user may easily swap the filters in any order to achieve the same detection parameters.
US08149396B2
A defect inspection apparatus for inspecting defects on an inspecting object includes an illuminator which irradiates a beam of light on the inspecting object, a photo-detector which detects rays of light from the inspecting object due to the irradiation of the light beam by the illuminator, a defect detector which detects a defect by processing a signal obtained through detection by the photo-detector, a characteristic quantity calculator which calculates a characteristic quantity related to a size of the defect, and a defect size calculator which uses a relation between size and characteristic quantity which is calculated by an optical simulation and calculates a size of the detected defect.
US08149393B2
A personal identification system, which uses a vein pattern of a finger, optimizes the amount of light of a light source based on a captured finger image and emphasizes the vein pattern during image processing for identification.
US08149377B2
A tunable-focusing liquid crystal lens (TLCL) cell has a liquid crystal layer arranged within a cell gap defined between substrates, a layer of optically transparent material arranged between the first substrate and the LC layer, and a liquid crystal alignment layer arranged between the optically transparent layer and the LC layer. The alignment layer is provided on a third optically transparent substrate having a non-planar shape for giving a non-planar profile to the LC layer, which substrate is obtained from a flexible sheet initially provided with the alignment layer and then formed into the non-planar shape. The lens further has a first optically transparent electrode provided on the second substrate, a second optically transparent electrode provided on either or both of first and third substrates. The electrodes are arranged to generate an electric field acting on the LC layer to change the focal distance of the LC cell. Methods for fabricating such TLCL cell are also provided.
US08149376B2
The test data processing apparatus of the present invention is a test data processing apparatus for processing test data obtained by testing defects of a sheet-shaped product having at least an optical film which is a member of an optical displaying apparatus, comprising a defect information preparing section, wherein, on the basis of surface defect test data relating to a surface defect and bright point test data relating to a bright point obtained when the optical film or a laminate body containing the optical film is regarded as an object of testing, in a case that a position of the surface defect and a position of the bright point are identical, the surface defect and the bright point located at the identical position are not regarded as a defect for processing by the defect information preparing section.
US08149372B2
A liquid crystal display panel according includes a gate line and a data line crossing each other on a first substrate, a common electrode formed in parallel to the data line, a common line connected to the common electrode and arranged in parallel to the gate line, a gate insulating film formed between the gate and data lines to cover the gate line, the common line and the common electrode, a thin film transistor formed at a crossing part of the gate and data lines, a passivation film covering the thin film transistor, the data line and the gate insulating film, a pixel electrode connected to the thin film transistor, a spacer hole penetrating the gate insulating film and the passivation film, and at least one ball spacer formed in the spacer hole.
US08149365B2
A liquid crystal display apparatus includes a lower substrate, an upper substrate and a liquid crystal layer interposed between the lower substrate and the upper substrate. The lower substrate includes a display part for displaying image and a driving part for providing the display part with a driving signal. The upper substrate includes a common electrode and an insulating member that electrically insulates the common electrode from the driving part. The insulating member has a lower dielectric constant than the liquid crystal layer. Thus, a parasitic capacitance between the driving part and the common electrode is reduced to prevent malfunction of the driving part, and a display quality is enhanced.
US08149360B2
A projection image display apparatus includes: light source; polarization/separation element having a polarization/separation plane through which one polarized light passes and which reflects the other orthogonal to the one; an image display element for modulating the incident light into image light and reflecting the image light; and a retardation plate disposed between the polarization/separation element and the image display element: the retardation plate has refractive indices different between two orthogonal directions in an optical surface thereof, and gives phase difference larger than λ/4 to polarized light entering the optical surface and having a wavelength λ; and supposing z axis be a normal to a light entering/exiting surface of the polarization/separation element, y axis be perpendicular to z axis and a normal to the polarization/separation plane, and x axis be perpendicular to z- and y-axes, the first retardation plate has optic axis within xz plane and tilted to x axis.
US08149357B2
A liquid crystal display is presented. The liquid crystal display includes: a first substrate; a pixel electrode formed on the first substrate; a first alignment layer formed on the pixel electrode; a second substrate facing the first substrate; a common electrode formed on the second substrate; a second alignment layer formed on the common electrode; a liquid crystal layer formed between the first alignment layer and the second alignment layer; and a light absorption layer formed between the first substrate and the first alignment layer, or the second substrate and the second alignment layer, wherein the light absorption layer absorbs light having a UV wavelength between about 280 nm and about 450 nm.
US08149355B2
A liquid crystal display device includes a pair of substrates, electrodes formed on the opposing surfaces of the pair of substrates, and a liquid crystal layer twisted in the gap between the pair of substrates at a predetermined twisted angle. A normal polarizing plate to exhibit a polarizing function for the whole visible light is arranged on the outer surface of an observation side substrate in the pair of substrates. A color polarizing plate to exhibit a polarizing function for visible light of a wavelength band other than a specific wavelength band is arranged on the outer surface of the opposite side substrate in the pair of substrates. A reflecting plate to reflect light entering from the observation side toward the observation side is arranged on a surface of the color polarizing plate that is opposite to the surface that opposes the opposite side substrate.
US08149345B2
A liquid crystal display device includes a first substrate, a second substrate, a liquid crystal layer formed between the first substrate and the second substrate, and a transistor formed in a pixel. A first insulating layer is formed over the transistor, a first electrode is formed on the first insulating layer, a second insulating layer is formed on the first electrode, a second electrode is formed on the second insulating layer, and the first electrode has a bumpy plane shape and the second electrode has a line shape portion.
US08149343B2
The present invention relates to a display device having an image-emitting panel and an image dividing sheet. The image-emitting panel includes a light-blocking layer, a lower substrate, an upper substrate and an electro-optic layer. The lower substrate includes pixel electrodes into which a first image signal and a second image signal having different viewing angles are applied in a spatial dividing method. The electro-optic layer reflects a circularly polarized light towards the upper substrate. The image dividing sheet includes a first optical element and a second optical element. The first optical element converts the circularly polarized light into a first light corresponding to the first image signal. The second optical element converts the circularly polarized light into a second light corresponding to the second image signal.
US08149342B2
An autostereoscopic display device comprises: a display panel having an array of display pixels for producing a display, the pixels being arranged in rows and columns; and at least two arrays of light output directing elements, the arrays being arranged in series over the display panel at different depths, each array being controllable to direct the light output from respective groups of pixels in different directions to enable a stereoscopic image to be perceived. The device is operable to selectively control any one of the arrays to provide the light output directing function, thereby providing respective first and second three dimensional display modes having different amounts of perceived depth.
US08149332B2
Aspects of a method and system for processing signals in a television system using a subset of receive operations for detecting digital and analog television signals are provided. The system and method may be deployed in, for example, cable TV set-top boxes, cable TV modems, and television receivers, which may be coupled to a cable TV or over-the-air terrestrial network. Performing only a subset of receiver operations may allow detection of the type of signal; for example digital QAM, digital VSB, or analog; present in a television channel. In this regard, it is not necessary to generate and validate a bit stream in order to detect if a signal is present and/or the type of signal present.
US08149331B2
A method for stabilizing delay during conversion between Standard Definition (SD) video and High Definition (HD) video includes the step of establishing an integer divide ratio (M/N) corresponding to a ratio of clock rates with the output and input formats. The output clock rate is generated from the input clock rate by a Phase Lock Loop (104) using the M/N divide ratio to provide a known phase relationship between the two clocks rates at a repetitive interval. The video frame can be transferred at the known repetitive interval to provide coarse control over the input-to-output video delay. A separate fine tuning control (delay block) is provided to enable any programmable delay in video throughput to be accommodated to an accuracy of ±0.5 output pixel periods.
US08149315B2
An information processing apparatus capable of being opened and closed includes storage means, display means, and taken image display control means. The storage means stores a taken image therein. The display means has a display screen provided in a surface which is located inside when the information processing apparatus is closed and which is located outside when the information processing apparatus is opened. The taken image display control means displays a taken image on the display screen, and changes a taken image to be displayed between before and after closing and opening the information processing apparatus when the information processing apparatus is closed and opened again.
US08149307B2
A method and apparatus providing a CMOS imager with an integrated controller on a common integrated circuit substrate. Also integrated on the common substrate are, a serializer circuit including a dynamic arbiter under the control of the microcontroller core and a set of extended special function registers through which data is passed to allow the microcontroller to control the CMOS imager and the serializer circuit.
US08149306B2
A solid-state imaging device capable of reducing an eclipse (blocking) of an incident light at a circumferential portion of a light receiving portion and realizing a larger angle of view and high-speed driving. A single-layer transfer electrode configuration of forming first transfer electrodes and second transfer electrodes by one polysilicon layer is adopted. Two shunt wirings extending in a horizontal direction are formed on the first transfer electrodes connected in a horizontal direction and, for example, four-phase transfer pulses are supplied to first transfer electrodes and second transfer electrodes on transfer channels through low-resistance shunt wirings extending in the horizontal direction.
US08149300B2
Technologies that enable correcting for the non-linear relationship between scene irradiance and digital pixel intensity values of an image of the scene produced by a camera. Imaging noise is used as a signal from which a corrective function is derived. Noise distributions from the image are evaluated to determine the radiometric response function of the camera, from which an inverse response function is computed and used for calibration.
US08149297B2
A zoom lens system, in order from an object side to an image side, comprising a first lens unit of positive power, a second lens unit of negative power, a third lens unit of positive power, and a fourth lens unit of positive power, wherein the first lens unit is composed of three or fewer lens elements, wherein the second lens unit is composed of three lens elements, wherein in zooming, the first to the fourth lens units are moved individually along an optical axis such that air spaces should vary, so that variable magnification is achieved, and wherein the conditions are satisfied: 5.50≦fG1/fW≦7.92, ωW≧35 and fT/fW≧10 (fG1 is a composite focal length of the first lens unit, ωW is a half view angle at a wide-angle limit, and fT and fW are focal lengths of the entire system respectively at a telephoto limit and at a wide-angle limit), an imaging device and a camera are provided.
US08149282B2
A hand shake correction apparatus and a digital photographing apparatus including the hand shake correction apparatus are provided. The hand shake correction apparatus includes: a correction lens module including a correction lens and a correction lens supporting plate; a base movably supporting the supporting plate; first and second driving units moving the supporting plate; and third and fourth driving units moving the supporting plate. The first and second driving units are arranged such that a driving force action line applied to the supporting plate by the first and second driving units passes through a center of mass of the correction lens module. The third and fourth driving units are arranged such that a driving force action line applied to the supporting plate by the third and fourth driving units passes through a center of mass of the correction lens module.
US08149273B2
A system for measuring a pulse and respiratory rate from passive thermal video includes contour segmentation and tracking, clustering of informative pixels of interests, and robust dominant frequency component estimation. Contour segmentation is used to locate a blood vessel region to measure, after which all pixels in the nearby region are aligned across frames based on the segmentation's position, and scale in each frame. Spatial filtering is then performed to remove noise not related to heart beat and then non-linear filtering is performed on the temporal signal corresponding to each aligned pixel. The signal spectrum of each pixel is then feed to a clustering algorithm for outlier removal. Pixels in the largest cluster are then used to vote for the dominant frequency, and the median of the dominant frequency is output as the pulse rate.
US08149272B2
A multiple view display comprises a parallax optic such as a parallax barrier (25) and a spatial light modulator (20) having a plurality of pixels arranged as rows and columns. The parallax optic (25) cooperates with the pixel structure to create a plurality of primary viewpoint-corrected viewing windows. The rows are arranged as groups and the parallax elements are arranged as rows. Each parallax element is aligned with a respective group of rows of the pixels. The pixels comprise sets of pixels of different colors arranged so that the sequence of visible colors viewable in each viewing window through each parallax element of each row of parallax elements is different from the sequence of pixel colors visible through the or each nearest parallax element in the or each adjacent row of parallax elements.
US08149263B2
Method, system, and computer program product example embodiments of the invention are disclosed to manage multiple network zones interconnected over a wide area network for video conferencing. In one example embodiment of the invention, an interface of a zone controller is configured to receive a first user request to schedule local resources for a video conferencing session within a local network zone. The zone controller is configured to access local services in the zone to schedule the local resources for the video conferencing session. The interface of the zone controller is further configured to receive a second user request to schedule remote resources in a remote network zone for the video conferencing session. A local Network Zone Manager in the zone controller is configured to determine a remote Network Zone Manager responsible for the remote resources in the remote network zone in response to the second user request. The local Network Zone Manager is further configured to send the second request to the remote Network Zone Manager. The local Network Zone Manager is further configured to receive information on availability of the remote resources from the remote Network Zone Manager and pass the information to a local scheduling service in the zone controller, which is configured to then schedule the video conferencing session between the local and remote resources.
US08149260B2
A method for color blending seamless composite images without requiring overlap of source images is disclosed. A plurality of source images is acquired from a plurality of imagers and is combined to produce a seamless composite image. Moreover, a first reference location is selected in a first source image and a second reference location is selected in a second source image of the composite image. Color transform interpolation is then performed between the reference location in the first source image and the reference location in the second and other source images to produce a seamless color blended composite image without requiring overlap of image regions of the plurality of source images.
US08149256B2
Techniques for changing temperature of a platen are disclosed. In one particular exemplary embodiment, the techniques may be realized as an apparatus for changing temperature of a platen comprising a platen and one or more movable thermal pads comprising one or more thermal fluid channels to carry a thermal fluid configured to affect a temperature of the platen.
US08149254B2
The invention relates to a displaying apparatus having a display unit on which an image corresponding to an image signal inputted is displayed, comprising: an image signal processing unit processing the image signal so that the image is displayed on the display unit; and a control unit controlling the image signal processing unit to output a predetermined image on a blank area where the image is not displayed when the blank area is displayed for a predetermined time and to change the predetermined image. Accordingly, an aspect of the present invention to provide a displaying apparatus capable of preventing an image sticking phenomenon by sensing a blank area, outputting a predetermined pattern on the blank area and changing the predetermined pattern periodically when the blank area is continued for a predetermined period of time.
US08149251B2
A color reproduction system comprises a color imaging output device (e.g., monitor, printer, etc.) and its device characterization (e.g., ICC profile, device link, etc.). A method for assessing the capability and accuracy of a color reproduction system is presented. This method may be used to assess the fit between a color reproduction system and its intended use (e.g., proofing, production, etc.). In addition, it may be used to monitor the color accuracy of a color reproduction system over time, thus informing users of the need to recalibrate and/or recharacterize the system.
US08149244B2
A projection system comprising an information processing apparatus capable of processing image data and a projector capable of performing a display process on the image data processed by the information processing apparatus, when the bit number representing the number of gradations of pixel data transmitted from the information processing apparatus to the projector is n-bit and the bit number representing the number of gradations which can be expressed by the projector is m-bit (m>n). The image processing apparatus outputs image data where m-bit pixel data is divided into k-pieces of pixel data of at most n-bits, and the projector synthesizes the k-pieces of pixel data based on a set synthesis rule to generate the m-bit pixel data in the pixel.
US08149242B2
There is provided a graphics processing system that includes a main processing unit and a graphics processing unit (GPU). The main processing unit puts rendering commands generated using a graphics library in the queue of a command buffer in a main memory. In this process, the library function offered by the graphics library is converted into the rendering commands, without any rendering attributes retained in the library. The GPU reads and executes the rendering commands stacked in the command buffer, and generates rendering data in a frame buffer.
US08149241B2
Systems are disclosed herein that allow a participant to be associated with an avatar and receive a transmission from the participant in response to a participant activated transmission. The transmission can include a participant selectable and time delayed mood and/or activity command which can be associated with a user configurable command to avatar activity conversion table. The associated avatar activity table can provide control signal to the VU system controlling the participant's avatar for extended time periods, where the activity commands allow the avatar to exhibit a mood and to conduct an activity. The preconfigured time controlled activity commands allow the user to control their avatar without being actively engaged in a session with a virtual universe client or logged on and the control configuration can be set up such that a single mood/activity control signal can initiate moods and activities that occur over an extended period of time.
US08149235B2
A method is disclosed which may include providing an original image having an array of samples; defining a two-dimensional target image having a higher resolution than the original image; defining a splat in the target image for each of a plurality of samples in the array; and rendering the plurality of splats employing a graphics processor.
US08149233B2
A system and method is provided for generating a video signal including a signal generator to generate the video signal, a user setting part to allow a user to set information for generating the video signal, and a controller to control the signal generator to generate the video signal on the basis of the information when the information is set through the user setting part. Thus, the system provides a controller for generating a video signal, a simulation system comprising the same, and a method of generating the video signal, in which a desired new video signal is generated or adjusted on the basis of information for generating the video signal input by a user.
US08149223B2
A touch panel with a stacking assembly comprises: a glass substrate; an upper surface of the glass substrate being covered by a lower conductive film and a plurality of projective spacers arranged around the lower conductive film; a lower adhesive frame being arranged at an outer periphery of the upper surface of the glass substrate; a lower surface of the transparent film being formed with an upper conductive film and a plurality of metal conductive circuits connected to the upper conductive film; an outer periphery of the lower surface of the transparent film being installed with a lower adhesive frame; at an inner side of the lower adhesive frame being formed with adhesive textures; the upper adhesive frame being also formed with adhesive textures which are embedded into the recesses between the adhesive textures of the lower adhesive frame so that the transparent film is engaged with the glass substrate.
US08149215B2
The invention discloses a cursor control method applied to a presentation system. The presentation system comprises a computer, an imaging plane, an optical pointer, a camera, and a projector. The projector is a mobile or built-in projector of the computer for projecting output from the computer onto the imaging plane, wherein the output of the computer comprises an internal cursor generated by the computer. The optical pointer is used for projecting an external cursor onto the imaging plane. The camera is a mobile or built-in camera of the computer for capturing an image of the imaging plane. After capturing the image, a processor of the computer detects both a first position of the external cursor and a second position of the internal cursor corresponding to the image, calculates a shift vector between the first and second positions, and moves the internal cursor based on the shift vector.
US08149214B2
A method, medium and apparatus browsing images is disclosed. The method browsing images includes sensing acceleration imparted to a portable digital device, and moving an image onto a display area in accordance with a tilt angle of the portable digital device if the sensed acceleration is greater than a first threshold value.
US08149212B2
A bracelet with information display and inputting capability comprises twelve segments hinged together to allow the bracelet to be folded around the wrist of a user. An information processing unit receives inputted information from an inputting device, for example, by a QWERTY keyboard, and generates display for displaying information on display screen. The display screen and the keyboard each extends over more than one segment of the bracelet, and the segments of the bracelet are hinged to allow the bracelet to be arranged flat for input of information via the inputting device.
US08149206B2
A liquid crystal display includes a liquid crystal display panel, a first and a second light emitting diode (LED) light source unit configured to irradiate light onto the liquid crystal display panel, a light source drive circuit configured to individually drive the first and second LED light source units, and a light source controller configured to generate the address signal and dimming signal and transmit the address signal and dimming signal to the light source drive circuit in a self screen mode.
US08149202B2
A flat display and a method for modulating a clock signal for driving a flat display are provided. The flat display includes a clock generator and a clock modulator. The clock generator provides a clock signal that includes at least a first cycle waveform and a second cycle waveform following said first cycle waveform. The first cycle waveform is modulated by the clock modulator as a first modulated cycle waveform divided by a first positive modulated cycle waveform and a first negative modulated cycle waveform, and the second cycle waveform is modulated as a second modulated cycle waveform divided by a second positive modulated cycle waveform and a second negative modulated cycle waveform. The first positive modulated cycle waveform and the first negative modulated cycle waveform have a first duration difference, and the second positive modulated cycle waveform and the second negative modulated cycle waveform have a second duration difference different from the first duration difference.
US08149178B2
Embodiments of millimeter-wave communication systems and methods for communicating using millimeter-waves are described. In some embodiments, a directional antenna (102) may direct millimeter-wave signals substantially in a horizontal plane (115), and one or more reflectors (104) may be positioned to reflect the millimeter-wave signals to user devices (108).
US08149175B2
The present invention provides a multiple band antenna, including a first radiation element adapted to resonate at a first resonant frequency band by employing a resonant length, which is reduced by a coupling effect with a neighboring radiation element, a power feed unit coupled to one lower side of the first radiation element, a first inductor coupled in series to the other lower side of the first radiation element, a second radiation element adapted to face the first radiator to thereby obtain the coupling effect, wherein the second radiation element has a predetermined lower portion coupled to the first inductor, a second inductor having one end coupled in series to a predetermined upper portion of the second radiation element, and a third radiation element coupled to the other end of the second inductor, wherein the third radiation element operates as one radiation element together with the second radiation element and resonates at a second frequency band.
US08149164B2
A signal processing system for demodulating navigation bits from a satellite signal is disclosed herein. The signal processing system includes a digital baseband processor for determining a boundary between two navigation bits in the navigation bits according to a first plurality of coarse acquisition (C/A) codes captured from the satellite signals, storing the first plurality of C/A codes, and demodulating a second plurality of C/A codes captured after determining the boundary to recover a first series of the navigation bits. The signal processing system further includes a complementary demodulating unit coupled to the digital baseband processor for demodulating the first plurality of C/A codes to recover a second series of the navigation bits.
US08149156B1
A system for estimating a location of the source of a projectile includes a radar system for transmitting a wave and detecting and providing an indication of a wave reflection from the projectile, an acoustic detection system for detecting and providing an indication of at least one sound associated with the projectile, and circuitry for estimating the location in response to the indication of a wave reflection and the indication of at least one sound.
US08149153B1
An instrumentation structure includes a sensor array and a support structure. The sensor array is rotatable around multiple axes. Radar absorbent material (RAM) is adapted to conform to non-planar exterior surfaces of the instrumentation structure.
US08149140B2
The present invention relates to a pressure-difference warning system comprising an acoustic signal device, comprising an energy supply device and comprising a pressure sensor. The pressure sensor is designed for measuring a pressure difference between an interior region and an exterior region. The energy supply device is designed for providing energy for operating the warning system. The acoustic signal device is designed for outputting an acoustic signal if the measured pressure difference exceeds a specifiable threshold value.
US08149138B1
A manually operated traffic barrier gate which may economically installed and maintained, and easily operated by a single individual during emergency or other critical situations. One embodiment comprises a permanently mounted barrier gate movable from a retracted, upright position to lowered position extended to bridge a preselected traffic path, wherein the gate is counterbalanced to stay in the upright position until deployed, and to be balanced to stay in the deployed state when extended. The barrier gate are operable by one person and includes locking devices to maintain their stored upright or deployed lowered position. A further embodiment of the present invention provides a dual mobile gate which may be towed singly or in a chain (dual gate one behind the other), in a retracted length to the desired location, and thereafter be disconnected from the towing vehicle and left at the site to be deployed in an extended manner or retracted and moved as needed.
US08149137B2
A speed limit announcing device for a vehicle includes: an information obtaining element for obtaining information of a speed limit of a following road, wherein the vehicle is supposed to pass through an intersection and to run on the following road after the intersection; and an announce element for announcing the information of the speed limit of the following road when the vehicle runs on a current road before the intersection.
US08149136B2
A configurable sign includes a mounting mechanism that connects the configurable sign to a vehicle, a display, a memory to store a plurality of instructions, and a processor to execute instructions in the memory. The processor executes instructions in the memory to receive configured sign information from one of a user device or a server, configure one of text, graphics, video, or audio, associated with the display, based on the configured sign information, and display, via the display, the configured text, graphics, video, or audio.
US08149134B2
The present invention relates to a means for monitoring the utility usage in a building with individual units but serviced by a single utility company meter. The individual units receive a pulse flow meter which is hard wired to a central unit and then sent to the internet for reading and then splitting the utility bill into prorated utility bills based on actual usage rather than size of the individual unit as a percentage of the whole unit.
US08149131B2
An apparatus and method for indicating a change in operation of a medical infusion pump includes a memory configured to store an original pump parameter and a current pump parameter. The apparatus further includes a programmable circuit in electrical communication with the memory, the programmable circuit programmed to display the original pump parameter and the current pump parameter.
US08149130B2
A portable electronic device includes a housing, a rotation sensor, and a processor. The rotation sensor includes a supporting plate fixed to the housing, a cylindric carrier, an electron emitting device, a magnet, a number of strip-shaped electrodes, and a detecting device. The cylindric carrier is disposed on the supporting plate and is rotatable relative to the supporting plate. The electron emitting device is disposed on the supporting plate and emits electrons along the center axis of the cylindric carrier. The magnet provides a magnetic field substantially parallel to the supporting plate. The detecting device detects the falling position of the electrons and generates a signal representing the parameters of the rotation of the portable electronic device. The processor receives the signal generated by the detecting device and generates an operating signal for operating the portable electronic device.
US08149124B2
A signaling system is provided for rendering an alarm for an individual in distress combined with a locating and tracking system to thus alert and direct appropriate personnel to the needs of the individual in distress and to monitor the location of that individual. The system comprises a portable signaling unit, a remote alarm switch device, a central dispatch station, and makes use of a wireless communication system. The portable signaling unit and the remote alarm switch may be adapted to be worn at different locations on the person's body. The remote alarm switch way be concealed in the form of a wristband or in the form of any other object such as a broach, pendant, or keychain.
US08149120B2
A radio frequency identification (RFID) tag may have a non-responsive mode, triggered by a command from an RFID reader, that temporarily prevents the RFID tag from responding to a query from any RFID reader for a period of time. In some embodiments this non-responsive mode may automatically end after a certain period of time without further action by the RFID reader. In other embodiments this non-responsive mode may end when directed to by another command addressed specifically to the RFID tag.
US08149118B2
In a device and a method for registering the opening of closures of spaces to be secured, a sealing module, which includes a sensor, a microprocessor, a memory, and a wireless communication device, can be attached to the closure in such a way that the sensor detects a movement and writes data documenting the movement into the memory; a detection unit includes at least one wireless communication device, a microprocessor, and a memory that are embodied to read out at least the data documenting the movement from the memory of the sealing module and to write these data into the memory of the mobile detection unit.
US08149117B2
Methods and systems for providing data communication in medical systems are disclosed.
US08149115B2
This device will allow individuals to pass through explosive detection portals efficiently without undue delay. The airflow from a series of jets will dislodge embedded molecules and direct them to a sensor that will detect the presence of commonly found explosive materials. The molecules that are dislodged will be accomplished by air flow through an air tunnel or portal structure that is not invasive to the person yet allows real time detection of explosive material while not infringing on the privacy of the individual.
US08149109B2
An mobile emergency device is disclosed. The mobile emergency device includes a wireless communications component, a processor in communication with the wireless communications component, a memory in communication with the processor, the memory configured to store computer readable instructions executable by the processor. The computer readable instructions are programmed to communicate an emergency communication via the wireless communications component, wherein the emergency communication is conducted with an emergency device deployed within a building automation system, generate display data based on the received emergency communication, and communicate the display data for presentation to a user.
US08149100B2
A device and a method for distinguishing positions of two tire sensors of a double tire include an LF antenna attached to a vehicle and connected to a central processing unit and one tire sensor each per tire. The tire sensors have a device for measuring field strength of a signal emitted by the LF antenna and the tire sensors report back information on the measured field strength through the LF antenna to the central processing unit. The central processing unit determines the position of the two tire sensors of the double tire from a distribution or course of a current flow during wheel rotation.
US08149095B2
A gateway device includes a base processor which converts a signal input from an IP network to a signal which can be handled by the gateway device, and a home appliance control processor having a controller which converts the signal which can be handled by the gateway device to a control signal in compliance with the communications protocol of a home appliance to be controlled. The controller stores, on a table, information about the communications protocol, driver, controllable setting condition and status of respective appliances to be controlled in association with each other. The controller also includes a conversion functional block which converts information supplied to the control information of the communications protocol of the respective appliances to be controlled on the basis of the stored information.
US08149086B2
There is provided a method for identifying, at the moment of verification, the situation of a threat to a protected ground, airspace and/or sea limits by an approaching ground vehicle, aircraft or sea-going vessel. The method includes an authorized driver/pilot/captain to select first state in which the vehicle, aircraft or sea-going vessel is not considered to present a threat and a second state in which the vehicle, aircraft or sea-going vessel is considered to present a threat. The method further provides entering the first and second PIN codes into a smart card for generating a One Time Indicia (OTI) for each of the PIN codes and disclosing the state associated with each of the first and second OTI codes to at least one control center. Upon the control center receiving an OTI code, the control center obtains positive identification of the driver/pilot/captain and the degree of the threat that the vehicle, aircraft or sea-going vessel presents.
US08149075B2
The present invention relates generally to a plastic cradle. More particularly, the invention encompasses a plastic cradle utilized inside a molded circuit breaker (MCB). The present invention is also directed to a novel nonconductive nonmagnetic cradle that engages a contact arm between a first terminal conductor and a second terminal conductor inside a molded circuit breaker (MCB) in an ON state, and disengages same in an OFF or Neutral state.
US08149073B2
A band-pass filter includes a photonic crystal having a local mode that generates a pass band in a stop band formed by Bragg reflection, a transmission channel that limits electromagnetic waves propagating in the photonic crystal to a mode in which an amplitude direction of an electrical field is a particular direction; and a magnetic field-applying unit for applying to the photonic crystal a DC magnetic field in a direction perpendicular to a propagation direction of the electromagnetic waves. The photonic crystal includes a periodic structure including a low permittivity dielectric member and a plurality of high permittivity dielectric members periodically arranged in the low permittivity dielectric member so that the Bragg reflection occurs in the periodic structure, and a magnetic member disposed in the periodic structure.
US08149070B2
A wideband power coupler and method for taping part of a RF signal from a combined RF and AC signal with relatively simple structure and relatively low number of needed parts. The power coupler may include a BALUN, the BALUN constructed of a central conductor, an outer conductor and a ferrite element. Combined downstream AC and RF signal may flow through the central conductor of the BALUN. A part of the RF signal is reflected on the outer conductor of the BALUN with 180 degrees phase shift with respect to the RF signal, to create a reversed signal. Another part of the RF signal is sampled by a high pass filter. An autotransformer sums the reversed signal with the RF signal to create an output RF signal for an output tap port. When an upstream combined RF and AC signal flows through the BALUN, the phase of the RF signal reflected on the outer conductor of the BALUN is aligned with the phase of the RF signal sampled by the high pass filer such that the autotransformer cancels the upstream RF signal at the output tap port and the power coupler provides isolation to the output port.
US08149065B1
A phase-locked loop that supports a large frequency drift capability, yet maintains a low Kvco, and does not introduce noise or discontinuities in the frequency of the generated phase-locked loop output signal. The phase-locked loop may include a VCO with an LC tank circuit, the capacitance of which may be adjusted in incremental units. By gradually adjusting a control signal applied to a selected VCO LC tank circuit frequency adjustment control line, e.g., in a continuous ramped function, or time-averaged ramped function, from LOW-to-HIGH or from HIGH-to-LOW, over a period of time that is greater than the response time of the phase-locked loop, a frequency range supported by the VCO may be shifted to either a higher frequency range or a lower frequency range, as needed, to accommodate environmentally induced frequency drift in the VCO, without introducing noise or discontinuities in the frequency of the generated phase-locked loop output signal.
US08149060B2
Provided is a low distortion amplifier which can satisfy both securement of a setting space in a vicinity of a transistor and low impedance. The low distortion amplifier includes a short stub having a leading end thereof short-circuited with a high-frequency short-circuit element and a low-frequency short-circuit element, in which the short stub is connected to a vicinity of at least one of a gate terminal and a drain terminal of the transistor, and includes a plurality of branched lines, the plurality of branched lines each having a leading end thereof short-circuited with the high-frequency short-circuit element and the low-frequency short-circuit element.
US08149053B2
The present invention relates to a low noise amplifier comprising a transformer, a first amplifier and a feedback resistor, the transformer comprising a primary stage and a secondary stage. The secondary stage is connected to the input of the first amplifier and the output of the first amplifier is connected in series with a feedback resistor and the primary stage of said transformer.
US08149042B2
An analog signal is input to an input terminal. An analog signal is output via an output terminal. A first transistor is an N-channel MOSFET, and is provided between the input terminal and the output terminal. A first resistor is provided between the gate of the first transistor and a first fixed voltage terminal (power supply terminal), which sets the gate of the first transistor to a high-impedance state.
US08149029B2
An electronic device includes an optical module, a power source module powering the optical module, a processor, a controller, and a switch module. The processor generates and maintains a delay signal for a first predetermined time in response to determination that the power source module is powered on. The processor further generates a driving signal upon determination that the first predetermined time has elapsed. The controller generates and maintains a control signal for a second predetermined time in response to determination that the power source module is powered on. The switch module is turned on to establish an electrical connection between the power source module and the optical module according to the driving signal, and turned off to cut off the electrical connection according to the control signal.
US08149026B2
A driver circuit includes an output section; a voltage-dividing section configured to divide a first voltage at a coupling point between the output section and a termination resistor; a comparison section configured to compare a voltage difference with one of the first voltage and a second voltage, the voltage difference being a difference between the second voltage at a coupling point between the termination resistor and a transmission path and a third voltage output from the voltage-dividing section; and an adjustment section configured to adjust a voltage division ratio of the voltage-dividing section on the basis of the comparison result obtained in the comparison section.
US08149025B2
An exemplary gate driving circuit is adapted for receiving an external gate power supply voltage and an external control signal, sequentially generating multiple internal shift data signal groups and thereby sequentially outputting multiple gate signals. Each of the internal shift data signal groups includes multiple sequentially-generated internal shift data signals. The gate driving circuit includes multiple gate signal generating modules. Each of the gate signal generating modules includes a voltage modulation circuit and a gate output buffer circuit. The voltage modulation circuit modulates the external gate power supply voltage according to a corresponding one of the internal shift data signal groups and the external control signal, and thereby a modulated voltage signal is obtained. The gate output buffer circuit includes a plurality of parallel-coupled output stages. The output stages output the modulated voltage signal as a part of the gate signals during the output stages being sequentially enabled.
US08149014B2
An I/O driver has v/i characteristic control for maintaining a substantially flat output impedance response using a transmission gate configuration at an I/O output pad. The configuration includes a linear resistive element electrically connected at an I/O pad for limiting a processed data I/O signal, an active impedance element for receiving and processing the data signal, which comprises data represented by a series of voltage state transitions, and pull-up and pull-down array calibration words, for generating and outputting a processed I/O output signal to the resistive element to output a substantially flat v/i response at switching of the data signal.
US08148998B2
An orientation detection circuit is provided. The circuit includes a processor, a first resistor, a second resistor, a third resistor, a vibration switch, a first transistor, and a second transistor. The processor includes a first input pin and a second input pin. The third resistor has a resistance value greater than that of the first resistor and the third resistor. The vibration switch includes a first terminal being grounded, a second terminal connected to the second input pin, a third terminal connected to a power source, and a fourth terminal connected via the third resistor to the second terminal and connected to the first input pin. The first transistor has a first source connected via the first resistor to the power source, a first drain connected to the first input pin, and a first gate connected to the second input pin.
US08148994B2
A control unit (16) of a replacement determination device charges one or more battery modules (10) as determination targets, and measures the voltage change value of the battery module (10) in a predetermined period of time from the time of stoppage of charge by using a voltage measuring device (14). If the voltage change value becomes equal to or more than a reference voltage change value consecutively a predetermined number of times which is equal to or more than one, the control unit determines that the battery module (10) needs to be replaced.
US08148992B2
The present invention, in various embodiments, is directed to a geophysical system and method in which a transmitter coil is oriented with its axis horizontally, and a sensor is positioned below the coil to measure an ambient electrical and/or magnetic parameter associated with a conductive medium surrounding the at least one transmitter coil.
US08148991B2
A method for significantly reducing measurement time for electrical resistivity profiling and logging without degrading the quality of the measurement includes simultaneously transmitting a current from multiple points to underground and carrying out mathematic processing to calculate a potential obtained when a current is transmitted independently from any transmission point, based on observed response potential waveforms. Further current waveforms having a covariance of zero are selected. Then, a possible response obtained independently at transmission point can be determined by dividing the covariance of the observed potential waveform and the current waveform by the variance of the current waveform. As the waveform zeroing the covariance, an M-sequence code with zero added to the end thereof is applied.
US08148984B2
A method for magnitude constrained phase contrast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is provided. The method utilizes an assumption that the image magnitude is shared across a series of images reconstructed from a set of phase contrast enhanced k-space data. In this manner, one common magnitude image and a plurality of phase images are reconstructed substantially contemporaneously from the acquired image data. The method is further applicable to other phase contrast MRI methods, such as phase contract velocimetry. Moreover, simultaneous phase contrast velocimetry and chemical shift imaging, in which water and fat signal separation is achieved, is provided.
US08148982B2
A spin locked balanced steady-state free precession (slSSFP) pulse sequence combines a balanced gradient echo acquisition with an off-resonance spin lock pulse for fast MRI. The transient and steady-state magnetization trajectory is solved numerically using the Bloch equations and is shown to be similar to balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) for a range of T2/T1 and flip angles, although the slSSFP steady-state could be maintained with considerably lower RF power. In both simulations and brain scans performed at 7T, slSSFP is shown to exhibit similar contrast and SNR efficiency to bSSFP, but with significantly lower power.
US08148978B2
A magnetic sensor array includes a first three-dimensional magnetic sensor secured to a substrate in a central location of the substrate. A number of second three-dimensional magnetic sensors are secured to the substrate at a first distance from the first magnetic sensor. Additionally, a number of one-dimensional magnetic sensors are secured to the substrate at a second distance from the first magnetic sensor greater than the first distance. Additional magnetic sensors of any dimension may also be included. The magnetic field sensitivity of the first and second three-dimensional magnetic sensors may be less than the magnetic field sensitivity of the one-dimensional magnetic sensors. The sensing range of the first and second three-dimensional magnetic sensors may be greater than the sensing range of the one-dimensional magnetic sensors. The magnetic sensor array may also include a processing circuit coupled to the magnetic sensors.
US08148974B2
A pulse generator wheel has a cylindrical wall provided with windows distributed about a circumference of the cylindrical wall and closed axially at a first end by a ring. The ring is made of circumferentially extending profiled sections of profiled parts that are separated from one another. The pulse generator wheel is made by stamping in a round sheet metal about the circumference profiled parts each having at least one profiled section extending in the circumferential direction for forming windows between the profiled parts. The profiled sections are spaced from one another in the circumferential direction. The profiled parts are erected and the profiled sections then form a circumferential ring delimiting the windows axially.
US08148970B2
A reference current generating circuit includes first and second standard current generating circuits to generate first and second standard currents, respectively and first and second trimming circuits to generate first and second reference circuits by trimming the standard current values outputted from the standard current generating circuits. The second standard current generating circuit operates for a part of an operation period of the first standard current generating circuit. The value of the first reference current is compared with a value of the second reference current, and controlled so as to approach the value of the second reference current by a trimming controller.
US08148966B2
A power supply control circuit includes a latch including a first latch input for receiving a first logic signal, a second latch input for receiving a second logic signal, and a latch output for providing an output signal. The power supply control circuit further includes a controller coupled to the first and second latch inputs. The controller is configured to generate the first logic signal based on an error signal and a threshold signal and in response to an off-time signal to control timing between pulses in the output signal. The controller is further configured to select one of the error signal and the threshold signal and to generate the second logic signal based on a ramp signal and the one of the error signal and the threshold signal to control a width of the pulse.
US08148961B2
A low-dropout regulator includes: a first operational amplifier having a first input receiving an input voltage; a first P-channel MOSFET having a gate connected to an output of the first operational amplifier, a source connected to a power source terminal, and a drain connected to an output terminal; a feedback circuit providing at least portion of a voltage of the output terminal as a feedback to a second input of the first operational amplifier; and a triode limiter circuit receiving voltages at the source and the gate of the first P-channel MOSFET comparing a voltage difference therebetween with a predetermined reference voltage, and increasing a voltage of the second input of the first operational amplifier when the voltage difference is the same as the reference voltage.
US08148959B2
An integrated circuit die includes a microprocessor and a control circuit to control elements of a voltage regulator to supply power to the microprocessor.
US08148958B2
An embodiment of the invention relates to a power control device configured to provide current-sharing control in a power converter including a plurality of power trains. The power control device transmits or receives a synchronization signal on a synchronization node to initiate a time frame that includes a plurality of time slots, and to control a switching activity of a power switch in a respective power train. The power control device further includes a current sharing bus node on which a digital current-sharing signal is transmitted in a designated time slot. The power control device determines a load current of the power converter and controls a power train current employing current data received on the current-sharing bus node from another power control device. The power control device may be a master power control device that transmits the synchronization signal on the synchronization node.
US08148957B2
The high side or low side FET of a buck converter, or both, are replaced by plural parallel devices of different threshold voltage and are turned on and off in a sequence which offers the best turn on and turn off characteristics related to high and low threshold voltages. The parallel devices can have the same or different active areas.
US08148956B2
The present invention relates to a power factor correction circuit and a method of driving the power factor correction circuit. The power factor correction circuit according to the present invention includes a power transfer element configured to receive an input voltage, an input current corresponding to the input voltage flowing through the power transfer element, and a switch connected to the power transfer element and configured to control an output voltage generated by the current flowing through the power transfer element. The power factor correction circuit is configured to detect a zero voltage edge timing of the input voltage by detecting the input voltage, generate a reference clock signal having a frequency that varies according to the detected edge timing, generate a reference signal using the reference clock signal, generate an error amplification signal based on a difference between the output voltage and a predetermined error reference signal, generate the amplification reference signal by multiplying the reference signal by the error amplification signal, and control a switching operation of the switch using the amplification reference signal and a detection signal corresponding to a current flowing through the switch.
US08148954B1
A super-capacitor-powered device is quickly recharged from an energy buffer incorporated in a USB cradle or USB dongle. That USB energy buffer itself is slowly refilled while it is connected to a USB port. The super-capacitor can be in parallel to a battery. In one embodiment, a facilitated battery changer is provided. A battery swap is performed with a recharged battery in a charger having two battery slots.
US08148951B2
A battery controlling apparatus for a vehicle and effectively prevents overcharge upon battery charging with a simple configuration is provided.The battery controlling apparatus for a vehicle includes a charging ratio detection section 1b for detecting a charging ratio of a battery 4 upon starting of constant current control, an elapsed time measurement section 2a for measuring elapsed time from a point of time at which the constant current control starts, a timeout setting section 2c for setting timeout time of the constant current control based on the charging ratio detected by the charging ratio detection section 1b, and a current cutoff section 2d for cutting off current to be supplied to the battery 4 when the elapsed time measured by the elapsed time measurement section 2a, upon the constant current control, exceeds the timeout time set by the timeout setting section 2c.
US08148942B2
In a power converter, a primary winding receives an input power. In addition, multiple secondary windings transform the input power into multiple charging currents to charge a set of cells via a set of paths. The multiple secondary windings further balance the set of cells based on the charging currents. A ratio between a first turn number of a first secondary winding of the secondary windings and a second turn number of a second secondary winding of the secondary windings is determined by a nominal voltage ratio between two corresponding cells of the set of cells.
US08148934B2
A motor control apparatus includes a step-up/down converter and an inverter. The converter includes a coil, MOSFETs, capacitors and a control circuit. The control circuit turns on the MOSFET in the high potential side, while tuning off the MOSFET in the low potential side. After a predetermined time, the control circuit turns off the MOSFET in the high potential side and then turns on the MOSFET in the low potential side. It is checked whether the MOSFET, which is switched in the step-down operation, is normal or abnormal based on the voltages of the capacitors. The capacitors produce specific changes in the respective voltages in correspondence to the check result. Thus, the abnormality of the MOSFET can be determined based on the changes.
US08148929B2
A power electronics device with an improved IGBT protection mechanism is provided. More specifically, systems and methods are provided for reducing the switching frequency of an inverter module based on the junction temperature variation of the IGBT.
US08148925B2
This electric safety braking device for an electric traction vehicle may allow the force/speed characteristic of the vehicle to be improved and includes a rotating electromechanical machine with permanent magnets which has at least one coil with electric terminals, a rheostatic electric braking torque production device, and a commutation device which are capable of connecting the electric terminals of the electromechanical machine to the braking torque production device. The electric safety braking device includes at least one inductor is connected in series between the braking torque production device and the electromechanical machine.
US08148917B2
A flashlight in accordance with an aspect of the invention includes an ID module for generating an ID signal indicative of a power mode of the flashlight. In an aspect, the flashlight mates with a removable battery pack that regulates at least one of an output voltage and output current in accordance with the ID signal. In an aspect, the flashlight includes a printed circuit board (PCB) on which the ID module is mounted. In an aspect, the flashlight includes a soft-start module and a bulb, wherein the soft start module increases power to the bulb at a controlled rate when the flashlight is turned on. In an aspect, the flashlight includes a lamp housing having a lens retained by a bezel. The lens includes an axially extending peripheral edge. In an aspect, the flashlight includes a main housing having a lamp housing. A mounting mechanism and mating features are adapted to selectively couple and decouple the main housing and the lamp housing. In an aspect, a flexible conduit connects the main housing and lamp housing. The flexible conduit can be formed in an arc having an apex that lies directly above a center of gravity of the flashlight when the main housing and the lamp housing are coupled, thereby allowing the flashlight to be balanced when the flexible conduit is used as a carrying handle.
US08148912B2
Various lighting devices and related methods of operation are provided which may be used to adjust brightness levels of a plurality of light sources in a staggered fashion in response to a single user control. In one example, a lighting device includes a plurality of light sources. Each light source is adapted to exhibit an associated current brightness level within a range of brightness levels associated with each light source extending from an associated minimum brightness level to an associated maximum brightness level. The lighting device also includes a user control adapted to selectively adjust the current brightness levels exhibited by the light sources in a staggered fashion such that the light sources exhibit different current brightness levels from each other over at least a range of positions of the user control.
US08148903B2
A LED driving circuit that may control current flow into an LED on a current path according to the amount of light sensed from the LED. An LED driving circuit for driving at least one LED may include at least one of: An optical sensor for receiving light emitted from the LED and generating a feedback signal having a level corresponding to an amount of the received light. A current regulator provided on a path through which current of the LED flows for regulating an amount of current flowing into the LED according to a comparison of the feedback signal with a first reference signal.
US08148889B1
A flat panel display including: a film electron emitting cathode; and, an anode including: a plurality of pixels, a plurality of TFT circuits, each being associated with a corresponding one of the circuits; and a conductive frame laterally separating the pixels and substantially isolating their respective electric fields.
