US08171626B1
A method for forming an embedded circuit is disclosed. First, a substrate including a dielectric layer is provided. Second, the dielectric layer is entirely covered by a dummy layer. Then, the dummy layer is patterned and a trench is formed in the dielectric layer at the same time. Later, a seed layer is formed to entirely cover the dummy layer and the trench. Next, the dummy layer is removed and the seed layer covering the dummy layer is removed, too. Afterwards, a metal layer is filled in the trench to form an embedded circuit embedded in the dielectric layer.
US08171619B2
Device for manufacturing a cut-to-length pre-assembly for a tire, wherein in the pre-assembly first and second side walls are situated on either side of an inner liner. The device comprises a supply conveyor for conveying the cut pre-assembly to the building drum. The device is provided with a first side wall measuring device for measuring the length of the first side wall of the cut pre-assembly and for giving a first side wall measuring signal indicative of the measured length of the first side wall, with a second side wall measuring device for measuring the length of the second side wall of the cut pre-assembly and for giving a second side wall measuring signal indicative of the measured length of the second side wall, and with an inner liner measuring device for measuring the length of the inner liner of the cut pre-assembly and for giving an inner liner measuring signal indicative of the measured length of the inner liner.
US08171618B1
A method of forming a write pole for a magnetic recording device is provided. The method comprises providing a layer of magnetic material covered with a secondary hard mask layer and a patterned primary hard mask, milling at a first milling angle to transfer a pattern from the patterned primary hard mask to the secondary hard mask, and milling at a second milling angle to transfer the pattern from the secondary hard mask to the layer of magnetic material to form the write pole. The second milling angle is greater than the first milling angle. The method further comprises milling at a third milling angle to adjust a side wall angle of the write pole to about a desired side wall angle, and milling at a fourth milling angle to reduce a track width of the write pole to a desired track width.
US08171613B2
An electrically-insulative threaded connection includes a pin member having a pin thread and a box member having a box thread. An insulating composite layer is disposed between the pin thread and the box thread. The insulating composite layer includes an insulating fiber and insulating resin. The pin thread and the box thread are wedge threads. A method of making an electrically-insulative threaded connection includes forming a pin wedge thread on a pin member and winding a filament over the pin wedge thread. The filament is wetted with a resin, thereby forming a composite layer. The composite layer is cured and machined to mate with a box wedge thread.
US08171612B2
A device for stretching an elastically expandable body, wherein the device includes a stiff tube over which at least part of the elastically expandable body is arranged to be applied when being stretched. The device includes at least one sliding element designed to be located in at least that end of the body where the application of the tube starts, to facilitate the application of the body onto the tube.
US08171610B2
In a recycling system of the present invention for collecting a subject of recycling, which contains plastics, from the market and reprocessing the plastics to thereby produce a recycled product, the plastics contains a line spectrum radiation that radiates light when receiving ultraviolet rays or an electromagnetic wave. Recycle information particular to the subject of recycling is identified on the basis of the wavelengths of light radiated from the line spectrum radiation.
US08171605B2
A buckle for securing strap ends to each other has an anchor peg, with a recess, attached to one strap end. Another strap end has a clamping head that has a recess adapted to allow insertion and removal of the anchor peg. A moveable locking mechanism in the clamping head can be moved from an open position, that allows insertion or removal of the anchor peg, to a closed position that prevents removal of an anchor peg inserted into the clamping head.
US08171602B1
A pipe or purse accessory for attachment to and around the barrel of a pipe (or a wrist or ankle) is disclosed having a collar wherein the collar is sized for cooperative engagement with the pipe barrel or wrist/ankle. A strap having a first end is attached to the collar and a pocket is attached to the second end of the strap; a clasp allowing detachable engagement with the strap, in proximity with the collar is also included. The collar may be made of an elastic material for a conformable fit around the pipe. The collar size may be adjustable. The clasp to secure the pocket in proximity to the collar may be magnetic, use hooks and loops, buttons and combinations thereof. A band may be affixed to the strap allowing insertion and engagement with an object, such as a key. A slot may be positioned within the pocket to allow conformable insertion and engagement with an object, such as a key.
US08171594B2
A paint brush includes a plurality of filaments that form a brush head. A handle, having a brush attachment end, can be coupled to the brush head. The handle can have a grip that extends away from the brush head. A coating can cover the brush attachment end and at least a portion of the grip. The coating can form a seal around the handle to resist absorption of chemicals by the handle.
US08171585B2
An inexpensive, lightweight, compressible, shock absorbing, and resilient fluid for use in padding applications is presented. A fluid pad can comprise closed-cell foam beads and a surrounding fluid housed in a thin plastic bladder. The closed-cell foam beads can be exactly flooded by the fluid. Alternatively, the fluid can lubricate the closed-cell foam beads. The surrounding fluid may also comprise solid phase microballoons. The addition of the closed-cell foam beads can result in the overall fluid in the bladder being lighter in weight. The fluid pad with the closed-cell foam beads can be compressible and resilient. The fluid pad with the closed-cell foam beads can be shock absorbing with respect to impact loads or vibrations. The addition of the closed-cell foam beads can lower the cost of the fluid pad insert.
US08171584B2
The invention generally pertains to a pillow convertible between an open position as a food and beverage holder and a closed position as a pillow. By way of example, the pillow has a first and second pillow portion that may be coupled and uncoupled to switch between a closed position and an open position. The pillow also has a food surface member with one or more beverage holders that is sized to fit within the interior of the pillow in the closed position. In another example, the food surface member is a two-piece construction with a slidable tray lock that moves between a first position when the pillow is closed and a second position that secures the two pieces together as a substantially coplanar surface when the pillow is open. In yet another example, the beverage holder is tapered so as to fit a variety of sizes of beverage containers.
US08171582B1
The invention relates to therapeutic-prophylactic equipment and domestic articles and can be used in the home for the care of seriously ill patients having limited mobility or being completely immobile as well as for the prophylactic treatment of temporarily immobile patients. The use of the proposed bed makes it possible to combine various methods for acting on the body, thereby making it possible to take measures for the efficient prevention and healing of a wide range of diseases. This, together with all the listed means and the interactions thereof, makes it possible to enhance and widen the healing effect and improve service quality.
US08171581B2
A fitted sheet configured to contour to mattresses of different thickness. The fitted sheet has a top panel and a plurality of side panels extending from the top panel. The fitted sheet further includes at least one stretchable portion secured to at least one end of the side panels wherein the stretchable portions are mated together and configured to extend around at least one corner of the mattress. Accordingly, the fitted sheet may be easier to apply and remove from the mattress and may be easier to fold and store during nonuse.
US08171577B1
A bathtub seat system a bathtub that has a bottom wall and a perimeter wall that is attached to and extends upwardly from the bottom wall. The perimeter wall includes a pair of lateral walls attached to and extending upwardly from the bottom wall. The perimeter wall has an upper edge defining an opening extending into the bathtub. A block is removably positioned in the bathtub and has a bottom side, a top side and a peripheral surface extending between the top and bottom sides. The peripheral surface includes a front side, a back side, a first lateral side, and a second lateral side. A width of the block from the first lateral side to the second lateral side increases from the bottom side to the top side. The block extends between and frictionally engages the lateral walls. The block provides a seating space for a person using the bathtub.
US08171576B2
A jetted bathtub includes: a bathtub; a suction port opening in a wall of the bathtub and allowing water stored in the bathtub to be sucked therein; a pressurizer configured to suck water from the suction port, and pressurize and discharge the water; and a jet nozzle having a single tube held on the wall below a rim of the bathtub, the jet nozzle being configured to eject water introduced into the tube so that the water is ejected into the bathtub with its ejection direction being varied. The tube includes: a running water introduction section configured to receive water supplied from the pressurizer; a channel cross-section shrinking section communicating with the running water introduction section on the downstream side of the running water introduction section, and having a reduced channel cross section relative to the running water introduction section; and a chamber communicating with the channel cross-section shrinking section on the downstream side of the channel cross-section shrinking section, and having at its upstream end a channel cross-section abrupt expansion section with a channel cross section abruptly expanded relative to the channel cross-section shrinking section and at its downstream end an ejection port facing the inside of the bathtub.
US08171573B2
A functional clothing article may include a body for receiving and supporting a hip region, and a waist region of a user. An abdominal support unit may be provided at a front portion of the body to support the abdominal region. The abdominal support unit may have at least a first abdominal support plate positioned between at least two second abdominal support plates. The elasticity of the at least two second abdominal support plates may be less than the at least one first abdominal support plate. A waist support may be attachable the functional clothing article. The waist support may surround a portion of the user's waist.
US08171571B2
A garment with a crotch part according to the present invention is a garment with a crotch pat formed at least by a front body (2) which covers an abdominal, a back body (3) which covers a buttock, and a crotch section (5), wherein an opening (9) is formed at the crotch section (5), and the opening (9) is blocked by joining a godet cloth (12) through heat welding or adhesive. According to such a configuration, the garment with the crotch part according to the present invention is comfortable to wear with the wearing pressure when worn controlled, is able to shape a beautiful lower body, is relatively easy to produce and suited for mass production, and is also inexpensively supplied.
US08176567B2
A method includes receiving at a sub-program a request from an external entity the request comprising at least one parameter and a return address, utilizing the return address and an address list associated with the sub-program to authenticate the external entity, and processing the request if the external entity is authenticated.
US08176566B2
An information distribution device including a storage section, a reception section, a selection section and a distribution section. The storage section stores, for each of predetermined distribution destinations, at least one set of output destination information representing predetermined output destinations, and security level information associated with each set of output destination information. The reception section receives electronic information and distribution destination information which represents a distribution destination of the electronic information. The selection section reads from the storage section the output destination information and security level information that correspond to the distribution destination represented by the received distribution destination information, and selects an output destination of the electronic information on the basis of the security level information. The distribution section distributes the electronic information to the selected output destination.
US08176560B2
According to one embodiment of the present invention, a method for evaluating a software system includes defining a rating of the tamper resistance of a software system and breaking down the rating into a plurality of metrics relevant to the tamper resistance of the software system. A score may then be calculated for each metric and the scores may be combined into a composite score for the rating.
US08176557B2
The invention is directed to techniques for allowing a user to remotely interrogate a target computing device in order to collect and analyze computer evidence that may be stored on the target computing device. A forensic device receives input from a remote user that identifies computer evidence to acquire from the target computing device. The forensic device acquires the computer evidence from the target computing device and presents a user interface for the forensic device through which the remote user views the computer evidence acquired from the target computing device. In this manner, forensic device allows the user to interrogate the target computing device to acquire the computer evidence without seizing or otherwise “shutting down” the target device.
US08176556B1
A computer-implemented method for tracing attacks. The method may include identifying a first website and determining that the first website loads an attack remotely through a second website. The method may also include determining that the second website hosts the attack. The method may include performing a security action, such as blocking downloads from the second website, with respect to the second website. The attack may be a drive-by download. Corresponding systems and computer-readable media are also disclosed.
US08176555B1
A computer-implemented method for detecting a malicious process using file-name heuristics may comprise: 1) identifying a process, 2) identifying a process name for the process, 3) identifying a list of process names for non-malicious processes, and 4) determining, by comparing the process name for the process with the list of process names for non-malicious processes, whether to allow the process to execute. A method for maintaining a database containing information about non-malicious processes is also disclosed. Corresponding systems and computer-readable media are also disclosed.
US08176553B1
A system, method and computer program product are provided. Initially, data is received from a remote source which is destined for a target. A portion of such data is discarded based on a predetermined set of rules utilizing a firewall. Further, the data is compared to a predetermined list of data associated with attacks utilizing an intrusion detection system. Based on the comparison, some of the data is marked as hostile. The data that is marked as hostile is then acted upon in order to prevent an attack.
US08176551B1
A system for detecting an observing program on a computer system is disclosed as including accessing instructions that access observer data. The observer data includes data descriptive of the observer program. The observer program is programmed to observe a user's activities on the computer system and also operates to create data from its observations. The system also includes reading instructions that read memory of the computer system to obtain memory data. Further, the system includes comparing instructions that compare the observer data with memory data read in from memory to determine whether the observer program is present on the computer system. The system may also include generating instructions that generate results from the reading and comparing. The results generated indicate whether the observer program is present on the computer system. In addition, the system includes outputting instructions that obtain the results and provide the results for a user.
US08176540B2
A security method and system. The method includes retrieving configuration data associated with a non interactive entity (NIE) software application. The configuration data comprises refresh counts, refresh periods, and session IDs. A master refresh period is calculated from the refresh periods. Credentials data associated with a requestor are retrieved. The credentials data are transmitted to a resource server. A session key generated by the resource server is received by the NIE software application. The NIE software application calculates a stale time associated with the session key. The NIE software application generates a first updated refresh count. The NIE software application stores the session key, the first updated refresh count, the first refresh period, and the first specified stale time.
US08176535B2
An information processing system includes: an organization information storage that stores organization information which defines an organization including users and groups of the users; a usage control information storage that stores usage control information which is for controlling use of control target information by each user in the organization defined by the organization information and defining a user or a group of users who or which is permitted to use the control target information and a usage range of the control target information in which the user or the group of the users is permitted to use the control target information; a judgment unit that judges whether or not an inconvenience resulting from a change of the organization occurs in the usage control information stored in the usage control information storage based on the organization information stored in the organization information storage; and a countermeasure unit that performs a countermeasure against the inconvenience in a case where the judgment unit judges that the inconvenience resulting from the change of the organization occurs.
US08176531B2
A system for eliminating unauthorized email sent to a user on a network employs an email-receiving server connected between the network and the user's email client for receiving email addressed to the user and rejecting those in which the sender address does not match any of sender addresses maintained on an “authorized senders” list (ASL list). The ASL lists are maintained by an ASL manager in an ASL database operable with a spam processor module. A redirector module rejects the email if, upon sending a request for validation to the spam processor module, the sender's address does not match any authorized sender address on the ASL list. Email rejected by the redirector module is redirected to a web-based messaging (WBM) module which sends a message to the sender to confirm that the sender is a legitimate sender of email to the intended recipient. If the sender logs on to confirm their status, the WBM module executes an interaction procedure which can only be performed by a human, in order to ensure that the confirmation procedure is not performed by a mechanical program. The ASL manager maintains the ASL lists based upon sender address data collected from various sources and analyses of various email usage factors, including sent email, received email, contact lists maintained by the user, user preference inputs, third party programs, etc.
US08176525B2
This invention provides a method, system and apparatus for allowing media context sensitive SIP signaling exchange (such as voice) and call establishment while denying or challenging any other session description protocol (“SDP”) extension dialogs which might not be desired (such as instant messaging, video, Web broadcasting or pushing, data and/or application sharing and the like) by a user. The method and apparatus may further include defining user client media policy preferences, the user media policy preferences establishing the parameters for evaluating a media session request received by a user client, and providing the user client media policy preferences to a policy enforcement point device, the policy enforcement point device evaluating the media session request received by the user client and applying the user client media policy preferences to the media session request. The method and apparatus may further include utilizing a user client portal to gain access to a media policy database, the media policy database providing storage for user client media policy preferences.
US08176520B1
A communication system is provided for use with a mobile platform. The communication system can be configured to store video data on-board to allow pseudo-live or live broadcasts to be played as the mobile platform traverses a number of broadcasts regions. The mobile platforms can be automobiles, aircraft, boats, ships, trains, or other vehicles. The communication system allows Internet access, movies, and other entertainment and business functions to be performed.
US08176519B2
A method and system for transmitting a plurality of ESG data to an MS over a communication network in a DVB-H CBMS portable broadcasting service are provided. The MS requests ESG data over the communication network, a server collects the requested ESG data and transmits at least one of the collected ESG data in an ESG data group file to the MS over the communication network. The MS receives the ESG data group file and stores the ESG data included in the ESG data group file.
US08176514B2
An Internet TV video guide shows thumbnails of video assets available from one or more providers, and one or more of the assets may represent a playlist with two or more associated video clips. When a viewer selects a playlist asset, the thumbnail is expanded to show the individual clips so that a viewer can select a desired clip for play on the TV.
US08176513B2
Embodiments of the present invention are described in which a plurality of mediums are selectively programmed with media content to provide an integrated entertainment experience to consumers. The content that is provided on different mediums is synchronized to provide different events, perspectives or experiences associated with a common storyline. Additional embodiments of the present invention are described in which commercial sponsorship of a program is provided within a storyline, such that sponsors are identified for purposes of brand recognition, or products and services from the sponsor are advertised/marketed or otherwise made directly available for purchase by consumers through synchronized programming of media content among a plurality of mediums.
US08176511B2
A broadcast receiving apparatus and a method for providing user information are provided. The broadcast receiving apparatus transmits user information stored in a storage medium to a broadcast station. Therefore, a user may participate in data broadcasting more conveniently.
US08176505B2
A device and method for simultaneously manipulating multiple data storage cartridges or other storage elements in a storage library. The device housing includes an opening for receiving data storage cartridges. A gripping mechanism extends from the opening. The gripping mechanism is adapted to grip a data storage cartridge to be retrieved and to urge the data storage cartridge into the opening. One or more transport mechanisms are attached to one or more inner walls of the housing. The transport mechanisms are adapted such that once a data storage cartridge moves into the opening, the transport mechanisms will urge the data storage cartridge further into the opening until the data storage cartridge is held within the housing. The data storage cartridge can be moved further into the housing such that the gripping mechanism is free to collect additional cartridges.
US08176502B2
A computer readable storage medium includes executable instructions to provide a scripting language framework. A script is run within the scripting language framework. The script defines an application characterized by a hierarchy of frames in a user interface window. A sub-frame log for a sub-frame in the hierarchy of frames is captured. The log is stored in a top log of a top frame of the hierarchy of frames.
US08176499B2
Platforms and techniques for defining, authorizing/authenticating, distributing, and presenting dynamic device experiences using a number of hierarchically-related, declarative language data structures, such as extensible markup language (“XML”) elements or attributes. A dynamic device experience is presented when two electronic devices are in communication via a communication medium. The data structures are processed to present a graphical user interface to a user—the graphical user interface implements a dynamic device experience associated with the other electronic device. In one exemplary scenario, independent hardware vendors (“IHVs”) author XML documents that include device experience information (such as branding or advertising information, access to Web services or applications, and access to device functionality), in the form of items of data stored in the data structures. The XML documents are verified against a predetermined schema, secured using a cryptographic technique such as a digital signature, and discovered/distributed in flexible, tamper-resistant manners.
US08176487B2
A method in a data processing system is provided for processing a service request of a client partition. The method includes: obtaining by a service partition of the data processing system the service request from the client partition, wherein both the client and service partitions execute above a hypervisor of the data processing system; and processing the service request by the service partition utilizing a processor quantum assigned to the client partition and donated by the client partition to the service partition. The client partition controls scheduling of the service partition by queuing the service request at the client partition until the client partition decides to proceed with execution of the service request by the service partition. In one implementation, the service partition is a partition adjunct of the data processing system, which utilizes donated virtual address space of the client partition.
US08176485B2
The launching of a hypervisor after there is already a running operating system. The operating system itself may launch the hypervisor. The running operating system may be used instead of the hypervisor to discover the physical resources running on the computing system. Other operating systems or operating system instances may be launched after the hypervisor is operational.
US08176480B1
A system and method for instrumenting program instructions. A processing system includes a compiler and a profiler. The profiler is configured to instrument an application by inserting one or more instrumentation instructions in the application. During execution of the application, execution is monitored and a particular condition is detected. Responsive to the condition, a portion of the code which corresponds to the detected condition is identified. A request is conveyed for recompilation of code which corresponds to code. Prior to recompilation of the code, the profiler instruments the portion of code. Execution and monitoring of the execution continue, and instrumentation/recompilation may be repeated. Initially, relatively little of the application code may be instrumented. As execution and monitoring continues, more and more of the application code may be dynamically instrumented during execution.
US08176472B2
A software development system according to the present invention comprises a business component storage layer for storing at least one business standard component of a program; a business component setting layer for setting attribute information of each business standard object, including object type, operating method, execution condition, execution sequence and database (DB) connection information; an application program execution layer for operating and controlling the object in the business component storage layer by the attribute information of the objects set by the user, and performing comparison, execution or calculation according to logic defined in script language; and an environment abstraction layer for controlling information technology (IT) infrastructure including an operating system of a computer, a central processing unit (CPU), a memory, a database management system (DBMS), network and display apparatus.
US08176447B2
A method of forming a mask. The method includes providing design information of a design layer. The design layer includes M original design features and N original dummy features. The method further includes (i) creating a cluster of P representative dummy features, P being a positive integer less than N, (ii) performing OPC for the cluster of the P representative dummy features but not for the N original dummy features, resulting in P OPC-applied representative dummy features, and (iii) forming the mask including N mask dummy features. The N mask dummy features are identical. Each mask dummy feature of the N mask dummy features of the mask has an area which is a function of at least an area of an OPC-applied representative dummy feature of the P OPC-applied representative dummy features. The N mask dummy features have the same relative positions as the N original dummy features.
US08176438B2
A multi-model magnification system is described that can be used with multiple forms of input, including natural input such as touch-based devices. Users can zoom in/out and pan with their preferred mode of interaction, including mouse, keyboard, pen, and touch interactions. The system provides dedicated features for some modes, such as pinch/scroll gestures for touch input, that allow users to easily zoom in/out and pan the magnified area (e.g., on a touch laptop). The system provides an interactive panning mode in which the user the user can interact with the desktop or applications (e.g., clicking on icons) and pan using special gestures. When the system is in the panning mode, the system consumes received gestures or other input, otherwise the system passes received input to a magnified application.
US08176437B1
The technology generally relates to predictively launching applications and powering up devices. Embodiments may include a computer-implemented method that maintains a plurality of individual folders. The individual folders may include one or more applications. A command may be used to open a selected folder. In response to receiving the command, embodiments may predict which application in the selected folder will be selected for launching and load program code associated with the predicted application into active memory. A command to launch a selected application included in the selected folder is received and, in response, the selected application is launched.
US08176435B1
Methods and systems for resizing a display area of a display device are disclosed. An example method may include receiving an on-screen pinch gesture associated with a first location and a second location, the second location being different from the first location on a multi-touch input device. The method may also include for each of a plurality of predefined content areas: adjusting a respective size of each predefined content area based on the on-screen pinch gesture, determining a respective amount of the content to display in the predefined content area based on the respective adjusted size of the predefined content area, and displaying the respective adjusted amount of content within the respective predefined content area associated with the adjusted size on the multi-touch input device.
US08176425B2
A simple display of items from a list, which changes in synchrony with the corresponding video display, and permits simple navigation under user control. The display includes three control objects positioned below a video frame window on a display screen. A middle displayed object is located in a focus position and corresponds to the video segment currently being played in the video window. When play of the segment is complete, the object located to the right of the focus position moves and displaces the middle displayed object, most recently displayed within the focus position, to indicate a forward progression within the viewed video sequence.
US08176419B2
A group of keywords are received, wherein each keyword includes one or more words. A word list is formed from the group of keywords, where the word list includes a list of each word in the group of keywords. A misspelled keyword is corrected using analysis of the words in the word list. The corrected keyword is output.
US08176413B2
A data processing method comprises receiving an electronically parseable document, scanning the document according to at least one predefined rule to determine if the document is suspicious, and, if the document is determined not to be suspicious, parsing the document with a first parser, and, if the document is determined to be suspicious, parsing the document with a second parser.
US08176408B2
A system and method for modularized Web provisioning. Functionalities available for Web provisioning are modularized into individual feature files. A site template may reference one or more of such features. A site provisioned using the site template activates the referenced features by default. Features may be added to or removed from the site. A feature may include atomic Web provisioning elements, custom code, metadata specifying properties of the features, and/or activation dependency information specifying precedent features that need to be activated before the feature can be activated. Feature provisioning can be processed through a command-line tool, an object model, and/or a graphic user interface.
US08176403B2
Various embodiments implement distributed block coding (DBC). DBC can be used for, among other things, distributed forward error correction (DFEC) of source data in communication systems or parity backup for error correction of source data in storage systems where the source data may be corrupted by burst errors. A distributed block encoder (DBE) encodes sequential source data symbols with a plurality of sequential block encoders to produce interleaved parity codewords. The interleaved parity codewords enable decoding of error-corrected source data symbols with a distributed block decoder (DBD) that utilizes a plurality of sequential block decoders to produce the error-corrected source data symbols. A distributed register block encoder (DRBE) and a distributed register block decoder (DRBD) can each be implemented in a single block encoder and a single block decoder, respectively, by using a distributed register arrangement.
US08176401B1
Systems and methods for encoding user information and decoding signal vectors using fractional encoding/decoding and set partitioning. A fractional encoder can select a coset for transmitting or storing user information based on one or more deterministic bits and on encoded user information. The deterministic bits limit the encoder to using only a subset of the available signal vectors in a modulation scheme. A fractional decoder can receive a signal vector, and can find at least two nearest neighbors in each dimension. The fractional decoder can form a set of potential signal vectors using only the at least two nearest neighbors. The decoder may determine which of these potential signal vectors are valid within the fractional signaling scheme, and can decode the received signal vector based on the valid potential signal vectors.
US08176395B2
A writing method of a memory module comprises temporarily storing a piece of 2m-byte data as p characters, wherein each character comprises q bits, and m, p and q are positive integers; rearranging the 2m-byte data to obtain K symbols, wherein each symbol has m bits and K is a positive integer smaller than 2m; encoding the K symbols into a codeword according to a Reed-Solomon (RS)-code algorithm, wherein the codeword comprises N symbols, the codeword has a parity code, the parity code comprises (2T=N−K) symbols, and N and T are positive integers; and writing the p characters and the parity code into a memory-cell array, wherein all the symbols belong to a finite field GF(2m).
US08176393B2
The present invention aims at providing an encoding device for error correction, encoding method for error correction and encoding program for error correction wherein countermeasures against eavesdropping are taken into account. To achieve this, in accordance with an aspect of the present invention there is provided an encoding device for error correction, the device comprises a generation means for generating randomly a vector u=(xk+1, . . . , xm) composed of m-k digit(s); a creation means for creating an x′=[xu]=(x1, . . . , xm) by concatenating the vector u=(xk+1, . . . , xm) composed of m-k digit(s) randomly created by the creation means to data x=(x1, . . . , xk) to send; and an output means for outputting a vector of length n by carrying out [n, m] encoding of the x′ created by the creation means.
US08176392B2
When decoding a set of symbols to be decoded, several data blocks representative of the set of symbols to be decoded are received by a decoding node of a communications network. The data blocks are encoded using an error correction code enabling a decoding by erasure. The decoding node performs the following steps: first selecting at least one of the data blocks, first determining first erasures, and checking whether the number of the first erasures is below a given threshold. In a case the check is positive, the decoding node performs first decoding by erasure of the set of symbols to be decoded. In a case the check is negative, the decoding node performs second selecting of at least one of the data blocks, second determining second erasures, and second decoding by erasure of the set of symbols to be decoded from the second erasures.
US08176383B2
The present invention relates to a method of constructing a low density Parity Check code, a method of decoding the same and a transmission system using the same. The method comprises steps of: constructing a low density Parity Check matrix of the low density Parity Check code by using a fixed pattern; blocking data sent from an information source (101), encoding the data by directly or indirectly using the constructed low density Parity Check matrix to obtain codewords of the low density Parity Check code; and outputting the codewords of the low density Parity Check code. The low density Parity Check code can be encoded by using the Parity Check matrix or a generation matrix. According to the proposed constructing method, a Parity Check matrix of a low density Parity Check code having excellent performance, a method of constructing the low density Parity Check code and a complexity-reduced decoding method can be obtained.
US08176382B2
A method for managing a memory block is provided. In this method, a plurality of block tables having different storing priorities is provided. In addition, the number of error correction bits in the memory block is checked. Thereby, in the present invention, data can be stored into the memory block in a block table according to the number of error correction bits in the memory block so that the sequence in which the memory block is used for storing data is determined.
US08176380B2
Algebraic method to construct LDPC (Low Density Parity Check) codes with parity check matrix having CSI (Cyclic Shifted Identity) sub-matrices. A novel approach is presented by which identity sub-matrices undergo cyclic shifting, thereby generating CSI sub-matrices that are arranged forming a parity check matrix of an LDPC code. The parity check matrix of the LDPC code may correspond to a regular LDPC code, or the parity check matrix of the LDPC code may undergo further modification to transform it to that of an irregular LDPC code. The parity check matrix of the LDPC code may be partitioned into 2 sub-matrices such that one of these 2 sub-matrices is transformed to be a block dual diagonal matrix; the other of these 2 sub-matrices may be modified using a variety of means, including the density evolution approach, to ensure the desired bit and check degrees of the irregular LDPC code.
US08176374B2
The present disclosure describes novel methods and apparatuses for directly accessing JTAG Tap domains that exist in a scan path of many serially connected JTAG Tap domains. Direct scan access to a selected Tap domain by a JTAG controller is achieved using auxiliary digital or analog terminals associated with the Tap domain and connected to the JTAG controller. During direct scan access, the auxiliary digital or analog terminals serve as serial data input and serial data output paths between the selected Tap domain and the JTAG controller.
US08176362B2
A multiprocessor system comprising a plurality of processors is disclosed. The plurality of processors includes a first processor including first monitor on-chip and a second processor including a including a second monitor on-chip. The first monitor on-chip is configured to measure load on the second processor and the second monitor on-chip is configured to measure load on the first processor. The first monitor on-chip is configured to cause the second monitor on-chip to perform a self-test on the second processor if the load on the second processor is below a second processor load threshold value and the second monitor on-chip is configured to cause the first monitor on-chip to perform a self-test on the first processor if the load on the first processor is below first processor load threshold value.
US08176361B2
A processing circuit has functional units (10a-c) configured to perform operations each in response to a respective command. The functional units (10a-c) are configured to execute at least one of the operations with a selectable level of susceptibility to incurring an error during execution. Different functional units may be provided, designed to execute the same operation with different levels of susceptibility at the cost of more circuit area, power consumption or execution time in the case of less susceptibility. The less susceptible functional unit may comprise additional error correction circuits, or more pipeline stages for example. The program directs commands to execute the operation to different functional units according to the required level of susceptibility. High level programs may be provided wherein variables are declared with a specified level of reliability. These declarations may be used during compilation to select how instructions will be executed.
US08176358B2
A backup image generator can create a primary image and periodic delta images of all or part of a primary server. The images can be sent to a network attached storage device and a remote storage server. In the event of a failure of the primary server, the failure can be diagnosed to develop a recovery strategy. Based on the diagnosis, at least one delta image may be applied to a copy of the primary image to generate an updated primary image at either the network attached storage or the remote storage server. The updated primary image may be converted to a virtual server in a physical to virtual conversion at either the network attached storage device or remote storage server and users may be redirected to the virtual server. The updated primary image may also be restored to the primary server in a virtual to physical conversion. As a result, the primary data storage may be timely backed-up, recovered and restored with the possibility of providing server and business continuity in the event of a failure.
US08176353B2
The invention describes a method for transferring data between a first clock domain having a first clock rate (CLK1) and at least one additional clock domain having a second clock rate (CLK2), comprising the following for the transfer of data from the first to the second clock domain (CLK1, CLK2): reading in of a data item in accordance with the first clock rate (CLK1) into a first memory (11), and locking of the first memory after saving the data item, signalizing a transfer start after saving the data item in the first memory (11) by means of a transfer start signal (TS), reading out the data item from the first memory, and reading in the data item into a second memory, each according to the second clock signal (CLK2), processing the transfer start signal (TS) according to the second clock signal (CLK2) for generating a transfer end signal (TD), processing the transfer end signal (TD) according to the first clock signal (CLK1) for generating a release signal (TD′) and releasing the first memory as a function of the release signal (TD′).
US08176349B2
A look-ahead processor identifies instructions that are at least likely to be executed by a main processor. The look-ahead processor determines a power state for the main processor that is suitable for executing the instructions. The look-ahead processor signals the main processor to enter the suitable performance state.
US08176337B2
In the field of computer software, obfuscation techniques for enhancing software security are applied to compiled (object) software code. The obfuscation results here in different versions (instances) of the obfuscated code being provided to different installations (recipient computing devices). The complementary code execution uses a boot loader or boot installer-type program at each installation which contains the requisite logic. Typically, the obfuscation results in a different instance of the obfuscated code for each intended installation (recipient) but each instance being semantically equivalent to the others. This is accomplished in one version by generating a random value or other parameter during the obfuscation process, and using the value to select a particular version of the obfuscating process, and then communicating the value along with boot loader or installer program software. This boot loader then selects which particular process to use for the code execution at the time of installation in accordance with the value. This results in different versions of the obfuscated code being provided to each recipient installation, which further enhances security of the code against reverse engineering by hackers.
US08176323B2
Disclosed is a self-contained hardware-based authentication system that incorporates different authentication protocols for access to soft and/or hard assets with different security levels. The system embodiments include the use of a RFID device that comprises dual RFID tags operating under different frequencies. Specifically, one RFID tag operates on a public frequency and, when activated, transmits an identifier encrypted using a public key. The other RFID tag operates on a private frequency and, when activated, transmits a private key that can be used to decrypt the encrypted identifier. Upon receipt by a processor (e.g., a local processor or security server) of a request for access to a specific asset, a security level for the specific asset is determined. Then, depending upon the particular security level (e.g., low, medium or high) different authentication protocols are instituted using the RFID device. Also disclosed are embodiments of an associated authentication methodology.
US08176322B2
A method and apparatus for copying or moving a rights object having right information regarding digital contents between a device and a portable storage device to copy or move the digital contents there between are provided. According to the method and apparatus, the digital works can be prevented from being recklessly and randomly copied and moved, and therefore, copyright can be protected. In addition, data loss or unauthorized access can be prevented.
US08176307B2
A firmware data processing system may be operable to allocate a configuration area in the firmware binary image file for customizable settings. During the firmware build process for the firmware binary image file, default configuration information may be inserted into this configuration area. This default configuration information may be either actual default setting values or indicator to use the default setting values. During post-build modification process, a separately created utility application may be operable to read in the original firmware binary image file, select new settings, and insert new configuration information into the configuration area. The utility application may also be operable to create a new firmware binary image file with reproduced checksums or other error detection mechanisms required for the original firmware binary image file, based on the new configuration information in the configuration area.
US08176302B2
A data processing arrangement (MPS) comprises a plurality of data processors (SPR, PM1, . . . , PM4) that can be reset individually. A reset module (RSM) handles various reset request signals (HRG, SRG, SRP1, . . . , SRP4) in accordance with a prioritization and timing scheme so as to obtain respective reset signals (GRS, PRS1, . . . , PRS4) for respective data processors (SPR, PM1, . . . , PM4). The reset module (RSM) preferably comprises a reset request register, which stores respective reset requests that the respective reset request signals convey, and a request execute register, which stores respective granted reset requests that the reset signals convey.
US08176298B2
An advanced processor comprises a plurality of multithreaded processor cores each having a data cache and instruction cache. A data switch interconnect is coupled to each of the processor cores and configured to pass information among the processor cores. A messaging network is coupled to each of the processor cores and a plurality of communication ports. In one aspect of an embodiment of the invention, the data switch interconnect is coupled to each of the processor cores by its respective data cache, and the messaging network is coupled to each of the processor cores by its respective message station. Advantages of the invention include the ability to provide high bandwidth communications between computer systems and memory in an efficient and cost-effective manner.
US08176296B2
Embodiments of the present invention are directed to a microcontroller device having a microprocessor, programmable memory components, and programmable analog and digital blocks. The programmable analog and digital blocks are configurable based on programming information stored in the memory components. Programmable interconnect logic, also programmable from the memory components, is used to couple the programmable analog and digital blocks as needed. The advanced microcontroller design also includes programmable input/output blocks for coupling selected signals to external pins. The memory components also include user programs that the embedded microprocessor executes. These programs may include instructions for programming the digital and analog blocks “on-the-fly,” e.g., dynamically. In one implementation, there are a plurality of programmable digital blocks and a plurality of programmable analog blocks.
US08176294B2
Storage expansion for a virtual machine operating system is reduced. In one embodiment, virtual machines are run on a host and accessed by remote clients over a network. When a guest operating system on one of the virtual machines deletes a file, a VM storage manager on the host detects a special write performed by the guest operating system that writes zeros into a logical block of the file. The VM storage manager links the logical block to a designated block, and de-allocates the disk block that is mapped to the logical block. The de-allocation allows the disk block to be reused by the virtual machines.
US08176293B2
Embodiments of the present invention are directed to enhancing VPAR monitors to allow an active VPAR to be moved from one machine to another, as well as to enhancing virtual-machine monitors to move active VPARs from one machine to another. Because traditional VPAR monitors lack access to many computational resources and to executing-operating-system state, VPAR movement is carried out primarily by specialized routines executing within active VPARs, unlike the movement of guest operating systems between machines carried out by virtual-machine-monitor routines.
US08176290B2
A memory controller, on receiving a write request to write write-data into an address of a second memory region issued by a processor, determines whether read-data requested to be read from an address of a first memory region by the processor is matched with the write-data requested to be written into the address of the second memory region, and if the read-data is matched with the write-data, prevents the write-data from being written into the address of the second memory region.
US08176277B2
A method of replicating a deduplicated storage system is disclosed. The method comprises storing a stream of data on an originator deduplicating system by storing deduplicated segments and information on how to reconstruct the stream of data. The method further comprises replicating the originator deduplicating system by receiving a copy of the deduplicated segments, information regarding containers for the deduplicated segments, and information on how to reconstruct the stream of data transferred from the originator deduplicating system to the replica system.
US08176275B2
De-duplication operations are applied to mirror volumes. Data stored to a first volume is mirrored to a second volume. The second volume is a virtual volume having a plurality of logical addresses, such that segments of physical storage capacity are allocated for a specified logical address as needed when data is stored to the specified logical address. A de-duplication operation is carried out on the second volume following a split from the first volume. A particular segment of the second volume is identified as having data that is the same as another segment in the second volume or in the same consistency group. A link is created from the particular segment to the other segment and the particular segment is released from the second volume so that physical storage capacity required for the second volume is reduced.
US08176270B2
A method of operating a data control system to copy a volume of data from a primary storage system to a secondary storage system comprises receiving an instruction to copy the volume of data, wherein the volume of data comprises a plurality of data blocks, in response to the instruction, determining if at least a data block of the plurality of data blocks requires copying to the secondary storage system, if the data block requires copying to the secondary storage system, then reading the data block from memory in the primary storage system and transferring the data block for writing to memory in the secondary storage system, and if the data block does not require copying, then transferring a synthetic block for writing to the memory in the secondary storage system.
US08176267B2
A data accessing method, and a storage system and a controller using the same are provided. The data accessing method is suitable for a flash memory storage system having a data perturbation module. The data accessing method includes receiving a read command from a host and obtaining a logical block to be read and a page to be read from the read command. The data accessing method also includes determining whether a physical block in a data area corresponding to the logical block to be read is a new block and transmitting a predetermined data to the host when the physical block corresponding to the logical block to be read is a new block. Thereby, the host is prevented from reading garbled code from the flash memory storage system having the data perturbation module.
US08176253B2
Various technologies and techniques are disclosed for using transactional memory hardware to accelerate virtualization or emulation. A central processing unit is provided with the transactional memory hardware. Code backpatching can be facilitated by providing transactional memory hardware that supports a facility to maintain private memory state and an atomic commit feature. Changes made to certain code are stored in the private state facility. Backpatching changes are enacted by attempting to commit all the changes to memory at once using the atomic commit feature. An efficient call return stack can be provided by using transactional memory hardware. A call return cache stored in the private state facility captures a host address to return to after execution of a guest function completes. A direct-lookup hardware-based hash table is used for the call return cache.
US08176247B2
Embodiments of methods of protecting RAID systems from multiple failures and such protected RAID systems are disclosed. More particularly, in certain embodiments of a distributed RAID system each data bank has a set of associated storage media and executes a similar distributed RAID application. The distributed RAID applications on each of the data banks coordinate among themselves to distribute and control data flow associated with implementing a level of RAID in conjunction with data stored on the associated storage media of the data banks. Furthermore, one or more levels of RAID may be implemented within one or more of the data banks comprising the distributed RAID system.
US08176246B1
The present invention provides a mechanism for storing and accessing attributes of a data container (e.g., characteristics such as a name of a data container used to perform a lookup operation against the data container) in cache memory within storage systems in a cluster of storage systems. Further, a mechanism is provided so that an attribute of a data container is inserted into a cache memory of preferably one storage system (in the cluster) that caches metadata of the data container (e.g., information describing the data container). As a result, a lookup operation for a data container is directed to and served by the storage system that caches the metadata and the attribute of the data container. The lookup request is not relayed to a storage system that maintains a central directory of attributes of all data containers in the cluster.
US08176227B2
A USB system includes a USB hub, a USB device, and a USB bus interconnecting the USB hub and the USB device. The USB hub asserts a reset signaling on the USB bus to initiate a high-speed detection handshake. The USB hub and the USB device activate corresponding dual-mode squelch detectors in a first (handshake) mode of operation. The USB device transmits a device chirp signal to the USB hub. The USB hub responds with a sequence of hub chirp signals. The USB device detects the hub chirp signals and then the USB hub and the USB device establish a communication link in a high-speed mode of communication in accordance with USB 2.0. The dual-mode squelch detectors in the USB hub and the USB device can also be activated in a second (normal) mode of operation.
US08176226B2
A signal switch for sharing a video monitor, a plurality of console devices compliant with an industry standard and one or more than one peripheral device in any of a plurality of computer systems, is provided. A KVM switch allows all the computers connected to the switch to share any USB peripheral devices, and which can switch the KVM channels and peripheral channels to a common computer or to different computers either asynchronously or synchronously without interruption of data flow to that peripheral when the switch is changed. In another embodiment the KVM switch allows a keyboard and a mouse of a user console to separately control two different computers. In another embodiment, the KVM switch is connected to the computers via computer connection modules and connected to a user console and peripheral devices via a console connection module.
US08176225B2
A method and apparatus for distributing events. In one embodiment, the method includes a bus concurrently transmitting a first event-signal and a first event-identification (event-ID); wherein the first event-signal, when active, indicates that a first event has occurred, is occurring, or should occur. The first event-ID corresponds to the first event-signal.
US08176215B2
A memory card capable of connecting to a host device includes a flash memory, a host interface unit which transfers data between a host device and the memory card, and a transfer mode control unit which changes a data transfer mode based on a command from the host device. The transfer mode control unit outputs status data containing an error code to the host device if a transfer mode change command is inputted from the host device, instructing the memory card to change to a transfer mode not supported by the host interface unit of the memory card.
US08176214B2
Transmission of alternative content over standard device connectors. An embodiment of a method includes connecting a first device to a second device utilizing a standard connector, the connector including multiple pins, and detecting whether the second device is operating in a standard mode or an alternative mode. If the second device is operating in the alternative mode, then switching one or more pins of the standard connector for the alternative mode and transmitting or receiving signals for the alternative mode via the plurality of pins of the standard connector.
US08176202B2
Provided is a multi-host management server that includes: a reception section that receives failure information about paths from hosts and stores the received failure information in a failure information reception queue; an extraction section that extracts from the failure information reception queue plural pieces of failure information about a plurality of paths received from a common host; a retrieval section that retrieves failure information about one path from the extracted plural pieces of failure information about the plurality of paths; a registration section that registers information indicating a host in a host refresh queue for updating path information; a deletion section that deletes, after the registration, the plural pieces of failure information about the plurality of paths received from the common host from the failure information reception queue; and an execution section that executes update of path information for the relevant host.
US08176188B2
An apparatus, program product and method for determining a cost for using a standby resource that accounts for the cause for the resource=s usage. A standby resource, such as a processor, is activated in response to a resource requirement. The cause of the resource requirement is automatically determined. The result of that automatic determination is used to determine a charge indicator for using the standby resource. For instance, performance code associated with a failure may be associated with a charge indicator. A user may later be billed according to the determined charge indicator, i.e., according to their actual use of the standby resource and/or their usage status.
US08176182B2
A portable terminal includes an access request receiving section for receiving an access request for accessing an IP push server via a communication apparatus which is installed as an external device at the portable terminal, wherein the access request is sent from an SMS server which is requested by the IP push server to send the access request; a commanding section for commanding the communication apparatus to hold power supplied to the communication apparatus after a communication port allocated to the communication apparatus is disconnected, in accordance with the reception of the access request; a communication port disconnecting section for once disconnecting the communication port in accordance with the reception of the access request; and an accessing section for accessing the IP push server by dial-up connection using the communication apparatus.
US08176162B2
An email system comprises a plurality of email servers connected by a data communications network. The email system avoids single points of failure by employing multiple email servers which self configure, without requiring dedicated servers, through self addressing and discovery and announcement protocols. An email server can act as a primary email server by executing an administration tool allowing an administrator to modify the configuration data set which the email servers utilize, and the primary email server will then announce the resulting change in the version level of the configuration data set to other email servers. Each email server will then determine and request any needed updates to its respective configuration data set from the primary email server or another email server. The resulting email system is: robust, avoiding single points of failure; scalable, as additional email processing capacity can be achieved by adding additional email servers; and is simple to administer as changes to the configuration data set can be made at any email server with a copy of the appropriate administration tool and such changes automatically propagate through the email system.
US08176160B2
This invention relates to a network management system accelerated event channel. This invention also relates to a method and computer program product for controlling an accelerated event channel in a network management system. The network management system comprising: a probe for intercepting a system event from a monitored system and creating an event item or modifying an event item associated with the system event; a collection database server collecting, in database of event items, a new event item or modification to an existing event item; a client; a notifying means for notifying a client of the new event item or event item modification; a channel table for storing an association between a channel and a client id; and wherein the probe associates the event item with a channel and the notifying means uses the channel table to find the client association.
US08176159B2
A method for authentication is disclosed. During use, the observed usage of the device is compared to an expected pattern of usage of the device. Deviation between the observed and expected usage indicates that the user might not be authorized to use the device. If the deviation exceeds a threshold, a credential is required from the user to authenticate itself as the authorized user.
US08176154B2
A system for providing a high communications quality is provided. The system comprises: (a) an input operable to receive a message from at least one of first and second network nodes 200 and 204, the first and second network nodes communicating with one another in a session and the message indicating a service problem with the session and (b) a statistic collection agent 248 operable to cause, in response to the message, at least one of the following operations: (i) reconfiguration of one or more attributes or resources in the network; (ii) variation of a sampling frequency of one or more session-related performance attributes associated with the network; (iii) alteration of the types of session-related performance attributes being collected regarding the network; and (iv) collection of session-related information from nodes other than the at least first and second network nodes.
US08176151B2
An information processing system includes a runtime versioning facility which allows for managing its configuration so that modifications made during runtime are propagated and take affect without restarting the system or a portion thereof. This allows the potential for 100% uptime while upgrading such systems. This also provides a system capability to process multiple configuration versions, and to be able to process such versions even while such versions are changing during operation of the information processing systems. For example, a system such as a registry server capable of transactional configuration changes is provided which manages its configuration so that modifications made during runtime are propagated and take affect without restarting the server.
US08176149B2
A method for managing a storage system comprises ejecting a first drive in the storage system having a plurality of drives, in response to determining a fault associated with the first drive, wherein the ejecting takes place in response to a command issued by a management tool utilized for determining the fault associated with the plurality of drives in the storage system.
US08176147B2
A method for managing media contents in a uniform storage includes: storing media contents and media content metadata corresponding to the media contents at a messaging system network side, performing management operations on the media contents by a user client based on the media content metadata. A messaging system for managing media contents in a uniform storage includes a user client and a network uniform storage entity, wherein the user client is configured to send a request for managing media contents to the network uniform storage entity; the network uniform storage entity is configured to store the media contents and media content metadata, and perform operations corresponding to the management request from the user client based on the media content metadata. Therefore, the user client may perform various management operations on the media contents stored at the messaging system network side. Accordingly, the user experience is improved.
US08176131B2
A private network system operates over a public network to provide an asymmetric service to members with information from other members and non-members. The system includes central servers and databases connected via the public network to client systems of public network users. The users may be members who communicate with a private protocol or non-members who communicate with the public protocol. A process for the private service includes communication of information between users via the private service servers. The private service server implements the private service, which includes a viral engine for network deployment. Features of the viral engine include genetic algorithms, data mining, personalization, frictionless service setup, user maximization, and member-controlled privacy. A sample setup process and contact update wizard that include several viral engine features are described.
US08176127B2
A system allowing traders, etc. to use instant messaging (IM) (or other non-FIX based) communications to input trading instructions directly into a broker's Order Management System (OMS) for managing/executing trades. Accordingly, trading instructions may be provided electronically directly from a buy-side trader, and directly to a sell-side broker's/brokerage's OMS, without the need for the sell-side broker to manually re-key the order into the sell-side firm's OMS. Further, trading instructions are provided in electronic format directly to the broker's OMS without the need for the buy-side trader to have an expensive FIX based OMS or associated FIX connection, which is also expensive, thereby allowing relatively smaller investment houses/buy-side organizations to enjoy the benefits of electronic delivery of trading instructions directly to brokers' OMS.
US08176115B2
A real-world representation system includes a set of devices, each device being arranged to provide one or more real-world parameters, for example, audio and visual characteristics. At least one of the devices is arranged to receive a real-world description in the form of an instruction set of a markup language and the devices are operated according to the description. General terms expressed in the language are interpreted by either a local server or a distributed browser to operate the devices to render the real-world experience to the user.
US08176114B2
A method for a distributed deployment includes selecting a first feature module of an application to be deployed where the application includes multiple feature modules. A second feature module of an application to be deployed is selected. A first server and a second server to which to deploy the first selected feature module and the second selected feature module, respectively, are selected. A first archive file and a second archive file for the first selected feature module and the second selected feature module, respectively, are generated using deployment information, a deployment template for the application, and at least one feature module file. The first archive file contains a feature module not contained in the second archive file.
US08176110B2
Modular multiplication of two elements X(t) and Y(t), over GF(2), where m is a field degree, may utilize field degree to determine, at least in part, the number of iterations. An extra shift operation may be employed when the number of iterations is reduced. Modular multiplication of two elements X(t) and Y(t), over GF(2), may include a shared reduction circuit utilized during multiplication and reduction. In addition, a modular multiplication of binary polynomials X(t) and Y(t), over GF(2), may utilize the Karatsuba algorithm, e.g., by recursively splitting up a multiplication into smaller operands determined according to the Karatsuba algorithm.
US08176102B2
Systems and methods for extending and controlling access to a Common Information Model (CIM) are presented. According to an embodiment, access requests for a CIM object manager (CIMOM) pass through a CIM file system (CIMFS) where each access requested is authenticated. The CIMFS maintains and manages a hidden file system representing CIM classes and a CIM class hierarchy on a volume of storage. The structure, metadata, and values for the CIM classes, CIM object, and CIM providers are maintained in a hidden directory on the volume. This information is accessible via the CIMFS to use existing file system management operations.
US08176100B2
A system of the present invention includes a storage device for distinguishably storing old objects that are objects having existed for not less than a predetermined period since being generated and new objects that are objects having existed for less than the predetermined period since being generated. Then, a new object that has existed for less than the predetermined period since being generated is selected from the storage device, and an old object having the same content as the selected new object is searched for. If such an old object is not found, the selected new object is newly stored as an old object in the storage device. If the old object is found, a reference to the selected new object is integrated with a reference to the found old object. If the old object is stored, the reference to the selected new object is changed to a reference to the stored old object.
US08176095B2
Resource usage data is automatically collected for an individual, household, family, organization, or other entity. The collected data is transmitted to a central repository, where it is stored and compared with real-time and/or historical usage data by that same entity and/or with data from other sources. Graphical, interactive displays and reports of resource usage data are then made available. These displays can include comparisons with data representing any or all of community averages, specific entities, historical use, representative similarly-situated entities, and the like. Resource usage data can be made available within a social networking context, published, and/or selectively shared with other entities.
US08176091B2
A system for detecting a local phenomenon, the system includes an interface for receiving queries information from a system for retrieving art related media, and a processor, configured to: (a) create a first local popularity chart, wherein the creating of the first local popularity chart includes enumerating, for each geographic area of a group of sampled geographic areas, identical query strings of queries that are included in a group of queries; (b) create a first global popularity chart, wherein the creating of the first global popularity chart includes enumerating identical query strings of the queries that are included in the group of queries; and (c) select at least one query string in response to a scoring of the query string at the first local popularity chart and to a scoring of the query string at the first global popularity chart; wherein the group of queries includes queries which were queried during a first period of time.
US08176086B2
Methods and apparatus are disclosed for collecting presence information about a user from one or more presence sources associated with the user, such as applications, devices and locations. A presence agent is associated with each presence source; and the presence agents provide presence information to one or more presence servers. Typically, the presence agents execute on a processor associated with the corresponding presence source. The presence agent reports one or more of macropresence events and micropresence events. The presence agent optionally prompts the user to update the presence information based on one or more criteria, such as exceeding a time threshold since the last presence event. Continuous presence functions are generated for each presence source that characterize the likelihood of the user to be present on the corresponding presence source at a given time.
US08176080B2
A method for desensitizing character strings comprises ordering an original set of character strings and generating a tree structure that has nodes corresponding to the ordered set of sensitive strings. The sensitive characters on the nodes of the tree are then desensitized in depth-first order such that a set of desensitized strings is generated that preserves the ordering of the original sensitive set.
US08176070B2
Apparatus, system and methods for a media plan managing interface are disclosed. A data hierarchy for a media plan is defined. The multilevel data hierarchy includes different levels for orders and placements. An input form is provided to receive modifications to the values in the different levels of the hierarchy. Any modifications of data are compared against the permitted inputs provided through a conditional input field. If the modifications are permitted inputs, then they are accepted and conditional input fields are set up for any subsequent data input. The data hierarchy is stored as a media plan.
US08176063B2
A method for data mapping, and corresponding computer readable medium and data processing system. The method includes loading an input object in a data processing system, the input object including a plurality of elements. The method includes loading a mapping control file and processing the input object and the mapping control file to produce a result set including a plurality of result documents. The method includes combining multiple ones of the plurality of result documents according to inheritance data defined in the mapping control file to produce a combined result. The method includes storing the combined result in the data processing system.
US08176060B2
A system and methodology that facilitates online registration of portable electronic media containing sensitive information is provided. The system tracks, collects and logs information associated with the media shipments and generates detailed reports. Furthermore, the system analyzes the information collected and reported to measure accountability and to calculate risk. The system provides consolidated, comprehensive information about media containing sensitive data shipped outside an organization. Additionally, the system facilitates risk management while tracking and reporting compliance around most any media activity.
US08176059B2
A system and method for effectively implementing a personal channel for interactive television comprises a personal channel manager that may include a configuration module, a search module, and a content packaging module. A system user may utilize the configuration module to perform a personal channel configuration procedure to specify personal channel configuration data for performing a content record search procedure. The search module may manage the content record search procedure according to one or more search parameters that may be defined during the personal channel configuration procedure. The search module may selectively locate and access one or more content records from one or more remote content databases during the foregoing content record search procedure. The content packaging module may then responsively coordinate a content record sorting procedure according to user-specified sorting criteria to thereby organize the located content records into a personal channel program. The personal channel program may then be presented upon a television device for viewing by the system user.
US08176058B2
The present invention relates to a computerized method and systems for managing feeds so that a user's playlists may be automatically updated in accordance with a user's desired media preferences.
US08176052B2
Hyperspace index data structure. A data structure indexes identifiers corresponding to parameter patterns. The presence of an identifier in the data structure indicates that the corresponding parameter pattern may be present in a set of parameter patterns, while absence of the indicator can be used to indicate that the corresponding parameter pattern is not present. The data structure includes a first field which includes binary bits or groups of small parameter pattern keyed records. Each binary bit or parameter pattern keyed record corresponds to an identifier corresponding to a parameter pattern. If the bit or record corresponding to the identifier is set or present, the identifier is included in the first field. One or more additional fields are hierarchically below the first data field. Each of the additional fields includes identifiers for a subset of information in the first field. The absence of an identifier corresponding to a parameter pattern at any level in all of the hierarchical threads indicates that the parameter pattern is not present.
US08176048B2
A method transforms unstructured text into structured data in a domain-specific ontology. The method includes recording an input block of text using an information extraction module (IEM), accessing a domain-specific ontology and supplemental data in a knowledge source(s) via the IEM, processing the input text block, and using the IEM to generate a plurality of nodes in the domain-specific ontology. Each node classifies the unstructured text to corresponding objects of interest, thereby transforming the unstructured text into the structured data. An IEM is also provided having a computer device and an algorithm executable thereby to transform unstructured text into structured data in a domain-specific ontology. The IEM is adapted for recording a text phrase using the computer device, accessing and retrieving the domain-specific ontology and supplemental data from a knowledge source(s), and processing the text block using the computer device to generate a plurality of nodes in the domain-specific ontology.
US08176047B2
A computer system includes a user interface. The user interface includes at least one control for inputting at least one search criterion for searching in a database. The user interface also includes a visual result interface for visually outputting the result, at least one control in the visual result interface for selecting at least one element of a result of the searching, and a visual selection interface for at least visually outputting the selection. The visual result interface and the visual selection interface are positioned beside each other. In addition, the computer system includes a processor device communicatively connected to the user interface and connectable to the database. The processor may execute instructions for searching the database with said at least one search criterion, outputting to the user interface a result of the searching, and outputting to the user interface the selection from the result.
US08176041B1
Delivering search results is disclosed. A search term is obtained and categories are determined. Results specific to each category are obtained and ranked based on a criterion that is specific to each category. The results are ranked based at least in part on a topic dependent score and may also be ranked in part on a topic independent score.
US08176040B2
According to a fourth aspect there is provided a system to receive a request to search for the data. The system performs a search of a logical table based on a single criterion to identify a plurality of rows in the logical table. The system generates a first plurality of tuples based on the plurality of rows to identify a first plurality of physical tables that are mapped to the logical table, the first plurality of tuples including a first and second tuple, the first tuple identifies a first server and a first physical table that is accessed via the first server, the second tuple identifies a second server and a second physical table that is accessed via the second server. Next, the system queries at least two data sources for the data to generate results that include the data. The at least two data sources are at least partially identified by utilizing the first plurality of tuples. Finally, the system communicates the data in response to the request to search for the data.
US08176038B2
The invention may be a method and apparatus of organizing pointers. The pointers may identify addresses where objects are stored. The pointers may be stored in arrays so that at least two key entries are required from an input device for determining a byte and comparing the byte with bytes representing elements of objects in a database. The invention may be embodied as a machine designed to carry out the method, or as a memory device that is capable of causing a computer to carry out the method.
US08176036B2
Methods, systems and computer instructions on computer readable media are disclosed for optimizing a query, including a first join path, a second join path, and an optimizer, to efficiently provide high quality information from large, multiple databases. The methods and systems include evaluating a schema graph identifying the join paths between a field X and a field Y, and a value X=x, to identify the top-few values of Y=y that are reachable from a specified X=x value when using the join paths. Each data path that instantiates the schema join paths can be scored and evaluated as to the quality of the data with respect to specified integrity constraints to alleviate data quality problems. Agglomerative scoring methodologies can be implemented to compute high quality information in the form of a top-few answers to a specified problem as requested by the query.
US08176033B2
A document processing method, including: a collection step of collecting access history of a user; a document similarity computing step of computing a document similarity, which indicates similarity between documents, by one user pattern which indicates a plurality of users who have accessed one document and another user pattern which indicates a plurality of users who have accessed another document, according to the access history collected in the collection step; a keyword weight vector correction step of correcting a keyword weight vector of the one document using the document similarity computed in the document similarity computing step; and an evaluation value calculation step of calculating an evaluation value for input information for searching, based on the keyword weight vector corrected in the keyword weight vector correction step.
US08176030B2
A system and method for providing full-text search integration in XQuery is presented. A built-in search function defined in an XQuery language is implemented, and a full-text search is initiated. The search function includes one or more search terms and a relation logic. Variants for each search term in the search function are identified. Posting lists are obtained for one or more of the variants. Each posting list includes values offset from elements containing the search term associated with the variant to which the posting list corresponds. The relation logic is applied to the offset values of the posting lists. Those elements with offset values that satisfy the relation logic are selected. The elements that satisfy the relation logic are provided as results of the full-text search.
US08176026B2
Mechanisms for performing a backend operation in a file system are provided. A backend operation on a portion of the file system is initiated. At least one indirect transition table data structure is created for performing the backend operation. Metadata corresponding to the portion of the file system is linked to the at least one indirect transition table data structure. The backend operation is performed on data in a sub-portion of the portion of the file system and the at least one indirect transition table data structure is updated with pointers to new locations of the data in the sub-portion as transitions of the data are completed. At least one data access operation is performed to the portion of the file system at substantially a same time as performing the backend operation on the data in the sub-portion of the portion of the file system.
US08176011B2
A method and system are provided for maintaining profiles of information channels available on the Web, wherein the information channels are accessed via pull-only protocols. The method includes monitoring one or more channels by a channel pull action at a monitoring rate, wherein the monitoring rate is determined for the one or more channels based on the number of update events in a previous time period. The method may optimally include filtering the update events in the time period by a novelty measure, wherein the filtering disregards events that do not include significant novel information. The monitoring rate is adapted based on reinforcement learning applying iterative learning rules over time.
US08176008B2
A data replication system comprises a NAS controller and a storage system. In a first embodiment, after a NAS system takes a snapshot of a volume, the NAS system changes the referral information within the volume. Also, as an additional way to ensure the consistency after taking a snapshot, the NAS System returns the changed referral information based on a referral management table when clients access a referral within the snapshot volume so that clients can access an appropriate volume. In a second embodiment, after a volume on a NAS system is replicated by remote copy to a remotely deployed NAS system, the remotely deployed NAS system returns the changed referral information based on a referral management table when clients access a referral within the replicated volume so that clients can access an appropriate volume.
US08175997B2
The user-defined inference rule is created using a knowledge base search language that is basically provided in a knowledge base management system. Accordingly, the user-defined inference rule is a knowledge base search statement and is processed using a function of searching a knowledge base as a base function of the knowledge base management system. The user-defined inference rule is applied by including a knowledge base search process and a search result in the knowledge base, when the knowledge base is changed. The user-defined inference rule is managed by a user-defined inference rule manager. The user-defined inference rule manager monitors a change in the knowledge base to determine when the user-defined inference rule is applied, executes the user-defined inference rule to obtain the execution result, and includes the execution result in the knowledge base.
US08175996B1
In some embodiments, a method includes receiving an electronic document that comprising a list of one or more features specified for use during processing of the electronic document by an application. The method also includes determining if one or more specified features from the list of specified features is not supported by the application. The method includes executing an operation that is defined by a prescription associated with one or more specified features, in response to a determination that the one or more specified features is not supported by the application, wherein the prescription defines at least one of an operation to be performed or a restriction to be applied by the application as part of subsequent processing of the electronic document.
US08175995B2
Quantum and digital processors are employed together to solve computational problems. The quantum processor may be configured with a problem via a problem Hamiltonian and operated to perform adiabatic quantum computation and/or quantum annealing on the problem Hamiltonian to return a first solution to the problem that is in the neighborhood of the global minimum of the problem Hamiltonian. The digital processor may then be used to refine the first solution to the problem by casting the first solution to the problem as a starting point for a classical optimization algorithm. The classical optimization algorithm may return a second solution to the problem that corresponds to a lower energy state in the neighborhood of the global minimum, such as a ground state of the problem Hamiltonian. The quantum processor may include a superconducting quantum processor implementing superconducting flux qubits.
US08175986B2
A computer implemented method for generating a storage policy for a storage system based on simulation results associated with a state of the storage system is provided. The method comprises receiving a target function applicable to a storage system, wherein the target function represents a measure of values associated with storage parameters related to productivity and loss tolerance of the storage system; wherein the simulation results for a state of the storage system are calculated based on a least one of (a) the storage system simulated response to a set of simulated file-related storage operation requests generated based on one or more simulation rules, (b) the state of the storage system before responding to the set of simulated file-related storage operation requests, (c) the storage system target function; and (d) rules for simulating file-related storage operation requests.
US08175982B2
Reinforcement learning is one of the intellectual operations applied to autonomously moving robots etc. It is a system having excellent sides, for example, enabling operation in unknown environments. However, it has the basic problem called the “incomplete perception problem”. A variety of solution has been proposed, but none has been decisive. The systems also become complex. A simple and effective method of solution has been desired.A complex value function defining a state-action value by a complex number is introduced. Time series information is introduced into a phase part of the complex number value. Due to this, the time series information is introduced into the value function without using a complex algorithm, so the incomplete perception problem is effectively solved by simple loading of the method.
US08175976B2
In a data providing server 1101, whether or not specified compressed content data D51 generated by means of a specified compression coding method corresponding to terminal identification information has been stored in a content database 1113 is detected, according to content specifying data D53 transmitted from a portable dedicated terminal 1104. If the specified compressed content data D51 has been stored, the data providing server 1101 reads and transmits this to the portable dedicated terminal 1104. And if the specified compressed content data D51 has not been stored, the data providing server 1101 generates the specified compressed content data D51 by means of the specified compression coding method, and transmits this to the portable dedicated terminal 1104. Thereby, the specified compressed content data D51 generated by means of a specified decoding method can be properly provided to the portable dedicated terminal 1104, and the user can easily view a content based on the content data.
US08175974B2
In systems which execute transactions with an ATM using an IC card in which plural account information is registered in advance, one or more transaction information and intended use information indicating the intended uses of transactions to be executed by the ATM based on the transaction information are associated with each other and are registered as transaction data in the storage section of the IC card, so as to certainly prevent transactions or selections of accounts which are not intended by the user from being erroneously executed. Prior to the execution of transactions by the ATM, the transaction data is read out for the ATM and the intended use information included in the transaction data are displayed along with said transaction information included in the transaction data, in a transaction selection screen on the ATM.
US08175970B1
An end-to-end currency handling and management system and method include a recycler system configured to receive currency, deposit the currency into a desired account and make the currency immediately available. The currency may, in one or more examples, belong to an employee at a business. In such instances, the recycler system may be configured to deposit the currency into an account, such as a pre-paid cash card account, designated by the employee. This allows an employee to avoid carrying large amounts of cash which may lead to loss or theft. At the same time, the deposited currency would be available for use by the business for conducting other transactions.
US08175963B2
In accordance with one or more embodiments, a method and system are provided for facilitating the processing of at least one check in accordance with an offer which the account holder may accept, in one example, via a check being presented by the account holder as payment for a transaction.
US08175962B2
Systems, computer program products, and computer-implemented methods apply or otherwise make available new credit or additional credit to demand deposit accounts, prepaid cards, and existing lines of credit of a customer based on expected tax refund amounts. A computerized estimate of the tax refund available from a tax return of the customer is formed. A portion of the computerized estimate of the tax refund which can be made available as the line of credit is then determined. The existing line of credit is then adjusted based on the expected refund determined to be available, which will serve as an additional source of repayment for the line of credit. One or more of several adjustments may then be made to an existing line of credit: the line of credit may be increased; fees reduced; or the terms of payment adjusted. The invention may be implemented as a computerized process, a computer system or a computer program product.
US08175961B2
A method is disclosed. The method includes receiving transaction data relating to a plurality of commercial transactions conducted by a plurality of buyers and sellers conducting commercial transactions using a transaction processing system, and then receiving a request for transaction information relating to the received transaction data from an entity, wherein the transaction information also relates to a commercial transaction between a buyer and a seller. The method further includes providing the transaction information to an entity, wherein the entity thereafter makes a decision about further interacting with the buyer or the seller.
US08175960B2
A system and method are provided for trading a trading strategy defined for at least one tradeable object in an electronic trading environment. More specifically, one example method includes using a first pay-up tick value to determine a first acceptable price level for an order associated with the trading strategy, automatically modifying the first pay-up tick to a second pay-up tick value in response to detecting a predefined condition, and using the second pay-up tick value to determine a second acceptable price level for the order associated with the trading strategy.
US08175957B1
An electronic trading system and associated methods that provide for anonymous pricing data while ensuring the integrity of the system by preventing it from being used for price discovery information only. Methods are included to police the dealers requesting price information and clear rules are implemented to reward the dealer offering the best price. Dealers request price information by submitting an open (not anonymous) request to a broker for a price on an amount of a security or financial instrument, referred to herein as a “Price-For-Call,” which results in an anonymous RFQ being sent to a group of other dealers. If more than one dealer in the group responds with a price, only the best price (bid or offer or both) is returned to the requesting dealer and only the dealer offering the best price is rewarded with knowledge of the price information by virtue of the fact that his price traded.
US08175954B1
A computer system for offering property for exchange over a computer network includes a master database for storage of information pertaining to the property that is located on at least one master server which can be accessed by an exchangee, e.g. through a browser. The system further includes local agent databases which store information pertaining to property offered for exchange by a particular exchanger. An agent server accesses the master server so as to transfer information stored on an agent database to the master database. The computer system also includes an exchange management program adapted to record information relating to the stages of exchange of property between the exchanger and the exchangees, wherein the exchangees access the master server and request particular information from the master database pertaining to the property.
US08175951B2
The automated bid ask spread negotiations method is a computer process and system for negotiating transactions combining a bargain sale strategy with the normal negotiating process. The system effectively adds a bonus to the package of benefits, thereby closing the gap from a previous nominal price asked and bid, but payable to a charity of the seller's choice, over a long term and at a favorable rate of interest, at the same time, providing a tax deduction for the seller, as well as an interest deduction for the buyer of the asset or services.
US08175950B1
Systems, apparatuses, and methods are provided for determining a bid value for placing an advertisement onto advertising space available through an electronic marketplace. A method is used for calculating the option value of maintaining the advertisement in the advertising space during one or more periods of time. The option value may be based on expected profits and the estimated future value of maintaining the advertisement. The option value may then be used to calculate the bid price for placing the advertisement.
US08175948B2
A computer-based system for determining insurance premium taxes (IPT) for multiple clients 18 in a plurality of countries comprises an electronic database 12 containing data identifying (a) a plurality of classes of risk in each country for which IPT is payable, (b) the tax rates for each tax type applicable to each class of risk in each country, (c) the tax-collection organization(s) in each country for each class of risk, and (d) financial data supplied by clients. Software 10 associated with the database receives financial data from each client relating to insurance transactions for which IPT is payable and stores said data in the database 12, determines from said financial data the relevant class(es) of risk for each country and the tax payable in respect thereof to each tax-collection organization in the country, and prepares a tax return for each transaction for which IPT is due.
US08175942B2
Systems, methods and consumer-readable media for enhancing compliance with the Federal Reserve Custodial Inventory procedures are provided. The system may include an inventory management system for retrieving cash balance inventory information and an information management system for receiving Fed Cash information. This information may be retrieved using specific process steps and predetermined timing. The cash balance inventory information may include information about the amount of unverified cash in inventory. The Fed Cash information may include Custodial Inventory information, minimum vault holding requirement information, a Federal Reserve Cap and physical space cap for Custodial Inventory. The system may also display an amount that can be deposited in the Custodial Inventory. The amount may be based at least in part on the cash balance inventory information, the Custodial Inventory information, the minimum vault holding requirement information, the Federal Reserve Cap for Custodial Inventory and a ratio of 10 and/or 20 dollar bills in unverified cash balance to a total unverified cash balance.
US08175931B2
A product customization system and method are provided in which a consumer can insert user content, such as images or text, onto a product, such as a shoe, and then view the customized product before purchasing the customized product.
US08175930B2
The present invention relates to a computer program product for providing a system for selling shipping services online. The system comprises data recording medium, product selector, shipping service information collector, shipping parameter collector, shipping option computing module, shipping service selector, shipping service notifying module and transaction concluding module. The product selector is for selecting a product by a buyer. The shipping service information collector is for obtaining information about shipping services from carriers. The shipping parameter collector is for obtaining information to specify shipping parameters. The shipping option computing module is for computing available shipping services. The shipping service selector is for selecting a shipping service related to a given carrier. The shipping service notifying module is for generating a shipping service request and transmitting the request to the carrier. The transaction concluding module is for receiving a response to the request and transmitting the response to the buyer.
US08175927B2
An e-commerce based method for requesting information and purchasing products from a dealer through a manufacturer is disclosed. This method and system includes sending a request for detailed dealer information to a manufacturer server system using a client system and displaying real-time detailed dealer information on the client system based on the request, the real-time detailed dealer information received from the manufacturer server system, the manufacturer server system accessing the real-time detailed dealer information from a remote dealer server system via a middleware application system.
US08175915B1
A method and system for conducting an auction. The auction system provides a criteria for a seller to offer an item for sale with a discount off the bid that is displayed before a bid is made by the bidder, and/or a discount that is advertised from a minimum discount up to a maximum discount off the bid amount that is declared and displayed after the auction is closed. The discount(s) apply to the bidders initial bid and each raised bid and are not contingent on or to another condition. The auction system provides a mechanism to conduct an auction that allow persons to pay a bid fee to register as a bidder, register an opening bid with a discount that is stated before a bid is made by the bidder and a means for when the auction opens at a later date, to accept the registered opening bids.
US08175914B1
A learning model is built on a combination of advertiser, publisher and user data. The learning model can be applied to all advertisers in an advertising system. The learning model provides predicted conversion rates for a given advertisement (“ad”) appearing on different publisher networks. A predicted conversion rate represents the probability that a click on a given ad appearing on a given publisher will lead to a conversion. The predicted conversion rates are used to generate a multiplier. The multiplier is used to automatically adjust the advertiser's bid (e.g., maximum cost-per-click (CPC)) for the given ad prior to an auction for the ad. Adjusting the advertiser's bid equalizes a cost-per-conversion among the publishers for the ad.
US08175907B2
A system and method to collaborate participants of different administrative domains in a workflow process is provided. The system includes a membership module for managing the participants, an event module for correlating activities of the workflow process, the membership module and the event module exchanging information relating to changes in the participants and the activities of the workflow process. The membership module for managing the participants includes registering, identifying, adding, querying and modifying the participants. On the other hand, the event module for correlating activities of the workflow process further includes specifying, executing and terminating the activities.
US08175899B2
A method of providing insurance to a customer that comprises the steps of: (1) selling a service contract to the customer that provides protection against the mechanical breakdown or other failure of an item (and in some cases, accidental damage); and (2) in response to the customer purchasing the service contract, providing, at no cost to the customer, third-party-paid insurance coverage that protects the customer against damage to the item, which, in some cases, includes accidental damage. In one embodiment of the invention, the step of providing the third-party-paid insurance coverage is done in order to permit the provision of insurance without the use of a licensed insurance agent.
US08175897B2
The invention aids an entity operating on the Internet or on another network to selectively request additional data about a user who has made a request for an interaction with the entity. The invention helps an entity to determine when and how to request additional data so as to reduce the likelihood of causing the user to have an adverse reaction, e.g., terminate the interaction. One embodiment of the invention concerns customers requesting transactions with on-line merchants. More specifically, this embodiment aids merchants by detecting Internet credit card transactions that are likely to be fraudulent, and providing the merchants with mechanisms for managing a suspected transaction as it occurs to obtain additional information that can be useful to reducing the likelihood of fraud.
US08175891B2
An information system and method that provides the ability to reroute portions of prescription order work between a plurality of organizational units in order to leverage capacity, expertise, or other resources to increase network efficiency.
US08175884B1
An environmental condition detector emits only safe, validated verbal messages recorded in a user's voice to help occupants of a building respond safely to sensed environmental conditions. The message emitted in the user's voice is generally a familiar voice to other building occupants to better capture their attention, and only certain, safe, user messages are validated for use thereby eliminating the chance that the user may unknowingly record an unsafe message to be emitted during a sensed environmental condition. The verbal message is recorded by a user and is analyzed through speech recognition to determine if the user-recorded message can be validated as containing safe content. A user-recorded message found to match manufacturer preprogrammed message content is validated and selected to be audibly emitted in the user's voice when an environmental condition is sensed. Various embodiments include single station units, interconnected units, or centrally controlled security systems.
US08175877B2
The invention comprises a method and apparatus for predicting word accuracy. Specifically, the method comprises obtaining an utterance in speech data where the utterance comprises an actual word string, processing the utterance for generating an interpretation of the actual word string, processing the utterance to identify at least one utterance frame, and predicting a word accuracy associated with the interpretation according to at least one stationary signal-to-noise ratio and at least one non-stationary signal to noise ratio, wherein the at least one stationary signal-to-noise ratio and the at least one non-stationary signal to noise ratio are determined according to a frame energy associated with each of the at least one utterance frame.
US08175875B1
A set of documents may be stored and indexed as a compressed sequence of tokens. A set of documents are grouped into clusters. Sequences of tokens representing the clusters of documents are encoded to elide some repeating instances of tokens. A compressed sequence of tokens is generated from the compressed cluster sequences of tokens. Queries on the compressed sequence are performed by identifying cluster sequences within the compressed sequence that are likely to have documents that satisfy the query and then identifying, within these identified clusters, the documents that actually satisfies the query.
US08175873B2
Systems, methods, and non-transitory computer-readable media for referring to entities. The method includes receiving domain-specific training data of sentences describing a target entity in a context, extracting a speaker history and a visual context from the training data, selecting attributes of the target entity based on at least one of the speaker history, the visual context, and speaker preferences, generating a text expression referring to the target entity based on at least one of the selected attributes, the speaker history, and the context, and outputting the generated text expression. The weighted finite-state automaton can represent partial orderings of word pairs in the domain-specific training data. The weighted finite-state automaton can be speaker specific or speaker independent. The weighted finite-state automaton can include a set of weighted partial orderings of the training data for each possible realization.
US08175870B2
The invention proposed a Dual-Pulse Excitation Model; wherein two pulses of each pair of pulses are always adjacent each other. Only one position index for each pair of pulses needs to be sent to the decoder, which saves bits to code all pulse positions. The magnitudes of each pair of pulses have limited number of patterns. Because the two pulses are adjacent each other, each pair of pulses with different magnitudes can produce different high-pass and/or low-pass effect. Since the magnitudes have enough variation, it is possible to assign the candidate positions of each pair of pulses within a small range in order to save the searching complexity.
US08175867B2
A voice communication apparatus includes a communication portion that receives a plurality of frames including at least a first frame having first voice data and a second frame having second voice data subsequent to the first frame, the first voice data and the second voice data being encoded by a predetermined encoding system, a decoding portion that decodes the first voice data and the second voice data received by the communication portion, a buffer that retains the first voice data and the second voice data decoded by the decoding portion, a calculation portion that calculates an amplitude envelope based on the first voice data decoded by the decoding portion, and a controlling portion that judges whether or not the second voice data decoded by the decoding portion exceeds the amplitude envelope and corrects the second voice data that exceeds the amplitude envelope.
US08175866B2
A method for post-processing of speech signals includes using a pitch correction filter, a pitch weight parameter adjustor, and a first pitch enhancement filter to process the input signal into a first output signal; summing both the input signal and the first output signal as a second output signal; and using a second pitch enhancement filter to process the second output signal. Furthermore, another method for post-processing of speech signals includes using a second pitch enhancement filter to process the input signal into a second output signal; using a pitch correction filter, a pitch weight parameter adjustor, and a first pitch enhancement filter to process the second output signal into a first output signal; and summing both the second output signal and the first output signal as a final output signal. The two methods can simultaneously realize pitch emphasis and enhancement with low computation complexity.
US08175850B2
A monitoring system with dynamically configurable non-interfering signal processing is disclosed. In one aspect, data relating to the management of the operation of a machine and data relating to the safety protection of the machine are combined in a non-interfering manner.
US08175845B1
A method maintains a multidimensional histogram for a data array having a data array size, the method having a processing time substantially less than proportional to the data array size. The method involves (104) receiving a data update that indicates a change to data in the data array; (106) with the data update, updating an intermediate data structure having a size substantially smaller than the data array size, so that the updated intermediate data structure remains an at-least-approximate representation of the data in the data array as changed by the data update; (110) collecting a number of substantially-largest-coefficient linear combinations of then-current data, the number being small compared with the data array size; and (114) forming the multidimensional histogram as a histogram to an intermediate data array re synthesized from the collected linear combinations. Another method prepares a multidimensional histogram for a data array, the data array characterized by a data array size and including data, the method having an execution time proportional to the data array size and using an amount of storage space substantially smaller than the data array size. The method involves (802) receiving data from the data array; (802) transforming the data into linear combinations of data items, or of approximations of the linear combinations of data items; (804) collecting a moderate number of substantially-largest-coefficient linear combinations of the data; and (806) forming the multidimensional histogram as a histogram to the collected linear combinations.
US08175839B2
A wireless interface system can interface with any one of a plurality of transducers of different types, such as pressure sensors, temperature sensors, or current probes. In the system, transducers employ substantially identical connectors with a common connecting scheme. In this manner, any transducer can be connected to a wireless interface which has the same input connection scheme. When the wireless interface is connected to the transducer, a rechargeable battery, which is associated with the wireless interface, is activated. The wireless interface then determines the type of transducer being utilized and provides sufficient circuitry as well as determining the requirements of the connected transducer. In this manner, the wireless interface, can determine the range of the sensor, and depending on the type and range of the sensor, can provide specific circuitry to be activated to supply power and read data from the sensor via common output pins.
US08175833B2
A multi-axis fatigue testing device includes a multiple input, multiple output mechanical linkage driven by a plurality of actuators and a controller operating each of the plurality of actuators in real time and in synchronization to produce user-defined multiple fatigue cycle profiles. A startup method enables a sample mounted at an arbitrary multi-axis state to receive a desired simulation profile while maintaining the sample below any of the extremum values of the desired simulation profile.
US08175831B2
Various methods and systems for creating or performing a dynamic sampling scheme for a process during which measurements are performed on wafers are provided. One method for creating a dynamic sampling scheme for a process during which measurements are performed on wafers includes performing the measurements on all of the wafers in at least one lot at all measurement spots on the wafers. The method also includes determining an optimal sampling scheme, an enhanced sampling scheme, a reduced sampling scheme, and thresholds for the dynamic sampling scheme for the process based on results of the measurements. The thresholds correspond to values of the measurements at which the optimal sampling scheme, the enhanced sampling scheme, and the reduced sampling scheme are to be used for the process.
US08175830B2
A method and system for estimating a magnitude of extremely rare events upon receiving a complete data sample and a specific exceedance probability are described. A distribution is chosen for a complete data sample. An optimal subsample fitted to the distribution is obtained. The optimal subsample is a largest acceptable subsample. A subsample is considered as an acceptable subsample when a goodness-of-fit test on the subsample is satisfactory (i.e., higher than a predetermined threshold). In addition, if a tail measure of an acceptable subsample lies outside a confidence interval of any smaller acceptable subsample, the acceptable subsample is considered as an unacceptable. Based on the optimal subsample and an inputted exceedance probability, a quantile estimate is computed, e.g., by executing an inverse of a cumulative distribution function of generalized Pareto distribution.
US08175827B2
An rf probe is placed within a plasma and an rf signal from a network analyzer for a given dc bias voltage Vp is applied The frequency applied by the network analyzer, ω, is less than the plasma frequency, ωpe, and therefore is not in the resonant absorption range (ω=ωpe) used to determine electron density in typical rf impedance probe operation. Bias voltages at the applied frequency are applied to the probe in a series of voltage steps in a range which includes the plasma potential. At each bias step, a value of Re(Zac), the real part of the plasma's complex impedance, is returned by the analyzer. A local minimum in the real part of the impedance Re(Zac) occurs where the applied bias voltage Vp equals the plasma potential φp. The plasma potential φp can be found by taking the first derivative of Re(Zac) with respect to Vp, ⅆ ( Re ( Z a c ) ⅆ V p , and finding the value of Vp at which ⅆ ( Re ( Z a c ) ⅆ V p = 0 within error tolerances.
US08175822B2
The invention relates to a method for measuring the pressure and/or molar mass of a gas in a housing, the measure being carried out via an acoustic sensor, said acoustic sensor at least one transducer (5), an electric system (8) connected to the transducer (5) and a coupling layer (6) for coupling the transducer (5) to the housing (1), said method comprising the following steps: generating using the transducer (5) an excitation acoustic signal that vibrates the housing (1) and the gas (2) in a wide frequency band; detecting with the transducer (5) a response acoustic signal characteristic of the vibrations of the housing and the gas; analysing the response electric signals from the transducer (5) using the system (8); and deriving, essentially based on the gas (2) resonance frequencies, the speed of the acoustic waves in the gas, the molar mass of the gas and the pressure thereof. The invention also relates to an assembly for implementing the method.
US08175816B2
The present invention generates a visual display of metabolomic data compiled by a database and associated processor. More particularly, the present invention provides a database for automatically receiving a three-dimensional spectrometry data set for a group of samples. The present invention also provides a processor device for manipulating the data sets to produce plots that are directly comparable to a plurality of characteristic plots corresponding to a plurality of selected metabolites. Furthermore, the processor device may generate a visual display indicating the presence of the selected metabolites across the group of samples. Thus, the present invention enables a user to analyze a series of complex data sets in a visual display that may indicate the presence of the selected metabolites across the group of samples. Furthermore, the visual display generated by embodiments of the present invention also expedites the subjective analysis of the spectrometry data sets.
US08175800B2
A route guidance system includes a current position detection section, a route search section, and a guidance section. The guidance section includes a branch computation section computes the number of branches between a host vehicle location and a guidance location along a specified route. A point guidance section executes route guidance based on the computed number of the branches. The number of branches between the host vehicle location and the guidance location is computed, and the route guidance is executed based on the computed number of the branches, so it is possible to recognize the guidance location simply by counting the number of the branches, regardless of the number of traffic signals that exist between the host vehicle location and the guidance location.
US08175795B2
An apparatus calculates a coefficient b that reflects a road slope condition of each section based on an altitude difference of both ends of each section stored in a memory, and identifies a carbon dioxide discharge amount that changes in proportion to the distance of each section by multiplying a distance D of each section by the coefficient b and another coefficient Ec. Further, the apparatus identifies a discharge amount that changes in proportion to a travel time of each section by multiplying a travel time T of each section and yet another coefficient a, and identifies a discharge amount based on an index that changes in proportion to the number of stops in each section by multiplying an index AEE by the coefficient Ec and still yet another coefficient c for performing a carbon-conscious routing between a start place and a destination.
US08175791B2
A method of managing the degraded modes of a system for the automatic starting/stopping of a heat engine of a vehicle, whereby the system receives information supplied by measurement and detection sensors and by a bus for the communication of vehicle operating data. The method comprises the following steps consisting in verifying the presence and validity of the information supplied by the sensors and, in the event of a negative result, defining a first degraded mode in which any stopping phase of the automatic start/stop mode is forbidden until an end-of-restriction condition has been fulfilled, and, in the even of a positive result, testing the communication with the data communication bus and, in the event of a negative result, defining a second degraded mode in which the automatic start/stop mode is inhibited until an end-of-inhibition condition has been fulfilled.
US08175786B2
A method is provided for operating a gas turbine, which especially feeds power to a local isolated power supply network, and which comprises a compressor for compressing combustion air which is drawn in from the environment, a combustion chamber for combusting supplied fuel by the compressed combustion air, a turbine which is driven by the hot gas from the combustion chamber, and a generator, which is driven by the turbine, for generating electric power. With such a method, an improvement of controlling is achieved by one or more parameters of the gas turbine being measured or determined, by the effective thermal output power of the gas turbine being calculated from the measured or determined parameters, and by the calculated effective thermal output power being used for controlling the gas turbine.
US08175785B2
A system and related operating method for performance launch control of a vehicle begins by receiving a user-selected driving condition setting that is indicative of road conditions. The method also collects real-time vehicle status data during operation of the vehicle, and derives a target wheel slip profile from the user-selected driving condition setting and the real-time vehicle status data. The actual propulsion system torque of the vehicle is limited using the target wheel slip profile, resulting in improved performance for standstill launches.
US08175784B2
In a method for controlling electromechanical brakes of a vehicle brake system, the brakes have at least one self-boosting device and the method has steps for switching a first sub-group of the electromechanical brakes (10) from a first operating position (27) into a second operating position (28) and for varying the brake force (41) of a second sub-group of the electromechanical brakes (10) during the switch of the first sub-group of the electromechanical brakes (10) such that the overall brake force applied by the vehicle brake system substantially always corresponds to the brake force setpoint value (46) for the vehicle brake system.
US08175778B2
If a mode-detection value is switched from an automatic shift-mode to a manual shift-mode, a T-ECU changes a shift-stage to a speed lower than a speed that is obtained before the switching of the mode-detection value. The T-ECU determines that a state of the T-ECU returns to a recognizable-state, in which a mode-selection value can be recognized, from an unrecognizable-state, in which the mode-selection value cannot be recognized. The T-ECU sets the shift-stage to a hold value after the return. The T-ECU controls the shift-stage in the automatic shift-mode “D” over a standby-period after the return. The T-ECU controls the shift-stage in the automatic shift-mode “D” until the detection of the operation of the shift-lever after the standby-period passes.
US08175777B2
A control apparatus for a continuously variable transmission includes a clamping force increase portion. The continuously variable transmission includes a pair of a primary pulley and a secondary pulley on which a transmission belt is wound. A shift of the continuously variable transmission is performed by changing effective diameters of the primary pulley and the secondary pulley. The clamping force increase portion increases a belt clamping force when it is determined that a torque capacity is decreased by determining that drive power input to the primary pulley is decreased by an amount equal to or larger than a predetermined amount while the secondary pulley is in a stopped state or a substantially stopped state, as compared to when it is determined that the torque capacity is not decreased.
US08175776B2
A system and method for controlling automatic leveling heavy construction equipment. The system has a lower frame and an upper frame, the lower frame having a traveling unit, and the upper frame being tiltably and swingably connected to the lower frame. The system comprises a sensor unit, provided in the equipment, including an inclination detecting sensor for measuring twist angles of the lower frame and the upper frame against a reference horizontal surface, a traveling detection sensor for measuring a traveling speed of the equipment, and a working device sensor for detecting working state information of a working device. A control unit receives the twist angles, the traveling speed, and the working state information, calculates a corrected angle at which the upper frame is to be tilted against the lower frame, and generates a control signal for instructing an operation of an actuator. A driving unit performs a leveling control through the actuator in accordance with the received control signal.
US08175774B2
A system for capacitive object recognition including a pair of electrodes, one of the electrodes having an adjustable parameter, and a controller modeling current pathways formed by interaction of an object with an electric field between the pair electrodes as a network of capacitors. The controller is configured to set the adjustable parameter to a first setting and to apply a set of alternating current voltages to the pair electrodes and measure a resulting first set of current values at each of the electrodes, configured to set the adjustable parameter to a second setting and apply the set of alternating current voltages to the pair of electrodes and measure a resulting second set of current values at each of the electrodes, and configured to determine values for up to all capacitors of the network of capacitors based on the first and second sets of current values.
US08175747B2
A robot component is provided as assembly units for assembling a robot toy with a great variety of configuration. The robot component has three connectors, i.e., a rotatable connector of a gear shaft, a laterally protruding connector of the gear shaft, and a receivable connector of a middle housing. These connectors are engaged with various joint members so several robot components are joined to each other to realize the complete robot toy. The robot toy has a master main-processor unit board provided in one of the robot components and joint control systems respectively provided in the other robot components. Each joint control system operates the robot component according to a predefined operation pattern when the master main-processor unit board transmits robot control signals.
US08175735B2
A system and a method of multi-objective capacity planning in the thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panel manufacturing industry are provided. The system includes a capacity planning module and a multi-objective planning module. In the present method, a capacity planning plan corresponding to different objective is evaluated by the capacity planning module. A set of constraints of each objective is established by the multi-objective planning module according to characteristic parameters, so as to optimize the objective. Then, the optimized objectives are drawn into a graph to select an appropriate capacity planning plan.
US08175732B2
One aspect related to design of systems and methods for product manufacturing is portability, i.e., allowing for manufacture at multiple locations independent of the skill set of the contract manufacturer. Another aspect includes making data needed and generated during the manufacturing process readily accessible to various elements of the system infrastructure. The present invention contemplates design of manufacturing systems for products that incorporate technology in skilled areas. A preferred approach includes design of the product itself, data exchange between infrastructure elements, and making data accessible also for post-manufacturing functions. This includes storing manufacturing related data in a server and making such data substantially instantly accessible once the data is written in the server. Such data preferably includes software to configure production stations in a production portion of the system. A system design using this approach is particularly useful in the manufacture of a microwave radio.
US08175728B2
System and methods for recognizing user gestures by processing audio from a microphone in a personal mobile communication device (PMCD) are disclosed. One such method includes sensing audio using a microphone in the PMCD and detecting a user gesture from audio sensed by the microphone. One such system includes a microphone, memory for storing instructions, and a processor configured by the instructions to sense audio using the microphone and detecting user gestures from audio sensed by the microphone. Also disclosed is a computer-readable medium storing a computer program for use in a personal mobile communication device. The program comprises instructions to: sense audio using a microphone in the personal mobile communication device; record the audio sensed by the microphone; process the recorded audio to extract a feature; classify the feature of the recorded audio; and identify one of a plurality of user gesture types based on the classified feature.
US08175725B2
Adapting move constraints for position based moves in a trajectory generator. Specification of a trajectory may be received. The specification may include a geometry of the trajectory, where the geometry specifies a desired trajectory length. A plurality of constraints for the trajectory may be received. The plurality of constraints may include one or more of a velocity, acceleration, or jerk constraint. A motion control profile may be generated based on the plurality of constraints. The method may include determining if a distance of the motion control profile exceeds the desired trajectory length. If the distance of the motion control profile exceeds the desired trajectory length, one or more values of the plurality of constraints may be decreased to make the distance of the motion control profile less than or equal to the desired trajectory length.
US08175722B2
An implantable tissue-stimulating device for an implantee comprising: an elongate member, and at least one electrode disposed on the elongate member, wherein at least a portion of the device is coated, prior to implantation in the implantee, with a coating configured to at least partially inhibit adhesion of body tissue to the device following implantation, and wherein the coating is removable, after implantation, by an electrochemical cleaning process during which potential of one or more of the at least one electrode is increased and then decreased.
US08175718B2
A system for stimulating a nerve or nerves in a patient includes an electrode patch having an array of equally spaced concentric electrodes each having a central cathode and a concentrically surrounding anode. The electrode array patch is used to determine the location of the nerve or nerves to be stimulated by electrical pulses. Once the location of the nerve is determined, a concentric electrode patch having a central cathode and a concentrically surrounding anode is positioned at the optimal location on the patient's skin to effect neurostimulation. The concentric electrode patch may be removably affixed to the patient's skin by adhesive or magnets.
US08175712B2
Disclosed are methods for regulating blood pressure in a subject which include administering a first induction stimulus effective to sensitize brainstem baroreflex neurons of a subject for a period of time in the range of about 10-15 hours thereby producing an enhanced baroreflex in the subject, wherein the enhanced baroreflex is characterized in that a threshold blood pressure for generating a depressor response is lower than prior to induction stimulus administration, the depressor response in the subject is larger than prior to induction stimulus administration or both the threshold blood pressure for generating a depressor response is lower than prior to induction stimulus administration and the depressor response in the subject is larger than prior to induction stimulus administration. An induction stimulus has diminished effectiveness to sensitize neurons in the nucleus tractus solitarius of the subject in the presence of an NMDA receptor antagonist. One or more additional induction stimuli are optionally administered to regulate blood pressure in the subject.
US08175707B1
An exemplary method includes delivering a cardiac resynchronization therapy using an atrio-ventricular delay and an interventricular delay, monitoring patient activity, optimizing the atrio-ventricular delay and the interventricular delay for a plurality of patient activity states to generate a plurality of optimal atrio-ventricular delays and a plurality of optimal interventricular delays, storing the optimal atrio-ventricular delays and the optimal interventricular delays in association with corresponding patient activity states, detecting a change in patient activity, adjusting an atrial pacing rate in response to the detected change in patient activity based at least in part on a heart failure status and setting the atrio-ventricular delay and the interventricular delay, in response to the detected change in patient activity, using a stored optimal atrio-ventricular delay that corresponds to the patient activity and a stored optimal interventricular delay that corresponds to the patient activity. Other exemplary technologies are also disclosed.
US08175706B2
An example implantable medical device (IMD), such as an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, may be configured to store a ventricular tachycardia zone, wherein the ventricular tachycardia zone specifies ventricular depolarization rates indicative of ventricular tachycardia, and to deliver pacing pulses to at least one ventricle of a heart in response to detecting intrinsic atrial depolarizations at rates within the ventricular tachycardia zone. The IMD may further store a maximum ventricular tracking rate that is greater than a lower bound of the ventricular tachycardia zone, and be further configured to deliver the pacing pulses to the at least one ventricle in response to detecting intrinsic atrial depolarizations at rates up to the maximum ventricular rate. In this manner, the IMD may be configured with overlapping pacing and tachyarrhythmia detection zones. In some examples, the IMD dynamically modifies the maximum ventricular tracking rate for ventricular tracking pacing within the ventricular tachycardia zone.
US08175692B2
An electrocardiogram signal processing method and device for extracting a fetus electrocardiogram signal included in a biopotential signal detected from an electrode attached to a mother's body is provided. The electrocardiogram signal processing method for extracting an electrocardiogram signal of a fetus (1b) from a biopotential signal containing electrocardiogram signals of the mother's body (1) and a fetus (1b) inputted through an electrode (E) attached to the mother's body (1) during pregnancy, comprises a reference signal generating step 4 of generating a reference signal for separating/extracting a fetus electrocardiogram signal of a specified induction type according to a beat rate signal inputted from a sensor (S) for detecting the beat rate of the fetus (1b) and a fetus electrocardiogram signal extracting step 5 of separating/extracting the fetus electrocardiogram signal of the specified induction type from the biopotential signal inputted through an electrode (E) according to the reference signal generated at reference signal generating step 4 by a reference system independent component analyzing method.
US08175690B2
An optical device for assessing optical depth in a sample illuminated by polarized radiation from a source include two radiation guides having their end portions arranged for capturing reflected radiation from the sample. A detector measures two polarizations of the reflected radiation, and two intensities of the reflected radiation in the two radiation guides, respectively. A processor is configured to calculate two pectral functions, which are indicative of single scattering events in the sample. The processor is further configured to calculate a measure of the correlation between the two spectral functions so as to assess whether the single scattering events originate from substantially the same optical depth within the sample. Thus, the causal relation between the two spectral functions can be used for assessing whether the single scattering events giving rise to the two spectral functions come from substantially the same optical depth within the sample.
US08175688B2
A medical instrument that comprises: a first-stage optic responsive to a tissue surface of a patient; a spectral separator optically responsive to the first stage optic and having a control input; an imaging sensor optically responsive to the spectral separator and having an image data output; and a diagnostic processor having an image acquisition interface with an input responsive to the imaging sensor and a filter control interface having a control output provided to the control input of the spectral separator.
US08175681B2
A navigation system or combination of navigation systems can be used to provide two or more types of navigation or modalities of navigation to navigate a single instrument. The single instrument can be positioned within the patient and tracked. For example, both an Electromagnetic (EM) and Electropotential (EP) navigation system can be used to navigate an instrument within a patient.
US08175680B2
Systems and methods for imaging a body cavity and for guiding a treatment element within a body cavity are provided. A system may include an imaging subsystem having an imaging device and an image processor that gather image data for the body cavity. A mapping subsystem may be provided, including a mapping device and a map processor, to identify target sites within the body cavity, and provide location data for the sites. The system may also include a location processor coupled to a location element on a treatment device to track the location of the location element. The location of a treatment element is determined by reference to the location element. A treatment subsystem including a treatment device having a treatment element and a treatment delivery source may also be provided. A registration subsystem receives and registers data from the other subsystems, and displays the data.
US08175667B2
A sensor for pulse oximeter systems is provided which comprises a first source of electromagnetic radiation configured to operate at a first wavelength, a second source of electromagnetic radiation configured to operate at a second wavelength and a third source of electromagnetic radiation configured to operate at a third wavelength. The first and third sources of electromagnetic radiation are symmetrically oriented about an axis.
US08175664B2
Wireless handheld mobile communication device including a housing with a display above a keyboard exposed for user actuation. A length of the device is greater than the width. Each key of a right-hand keyfield has a longitudinal axis oriented at a left-to-right inclined angle while each key of a left-hand keyfield has a longitudinal axis oriented at a right-to-left inclined angle from the vertical centerline. A left boundary of the keyboard is located adjacent the left lateral side edge of the device and the right boundary of the keyboard is located adjacent the right lateral side edge of the device so that the keyboard spans a substantial entirety of the width of the device. When the device is cradled in a right hand of the user, the longitudinal axis of each key of said plurality of keys located on the right is oriented to be parallel with a widthwise axis of the user's right thumb. When said device is cradled in a left hand of the user, the longitudinal axis of the keys located on the left-hand side of said vertical centerline is oriented to be substantially with a length wise axis of the user's left thumb. At least one key in the right-hand keyfield and one key in the left-hand keyfield is isosceles trapezoidal shaped.
US08175663B2
Provided is a mobile station UE equipped with a broadcast information generation unit (11) which generates broadcast information containing tag information formed by a plurality of bits. The tag information has a value defined only by a plurality of first bit values or by a plurality of first bit values and second bit values. The first bits contain a flag indicating whether the tag information contains the second bits. The broadcast information generation unit (11) updates the tag information value each time the content of the broadcast information is updated.
US08175660B2
Method for wireless energy transfer is disclosed. According to an embodiment, the method includes transferring electrical energy from one electronic device to another electronic device with the help of electromagnetic waves. An electronic device that requires electrical energy can get energy transferred from one or more other electronic devices present in its vicinity. The electrical energy being transferred can be used to charge the battery of the electronic device.
US08175653B2
Techniques are described to implement a user interface for a display of a mobile device. In an implementation, the user interface may include a chromeless menu configured to be displayed when menu-based user input to the mobile device is available; a system tray configured to be displayed on the display when a notice containing status information affecting operability of the mobile device is available; and a task switcher module operable to cause a chromeless overlay be displayed over an active application being executed by the mobile device to allow selection of one or more applications of the mobile device.
US08175648B2
A super economical broadcast system and method are provided. The system includes a plurality of base transceiver stations that define a plurality of respective cells, each base transceiver station includes a phased-array antenna having a plurality of sectors, each sector has a plurality of vertically-arranged antenna panels, and each antenna panel has a plurality of vertically-arranged radiators disposed in at least two staggered columns. The method includes forming a horizontally and vertically shaped beam using a plurality of vertically-arranged antenna panels, in which each antenna panel has a plurality of vertically-arranged radiators disposed in at least two staggered columns, and transmitting a power distribution that has an essentially uniform field strength over a near zone, a middle zone and at least a portion of a far zone.
US08175645B2
The present invention provides a system and method for modifying a profile of a user device prior to sending the profile to a destination server, wherein the destination server customizes content provided to the user device based on the modified profile. In general, the profile of the user device may include information identifying capabilities of the user device, user preferences, and demographic information regarding a user of the user device. At either the user device or a mediating server interconnecting the user device and the destination server, the profile of the user device is modified based upon one or more rules to provide the modified profile. The modified profile is then provided to the destination server, which customizes content provided to the user device based on the modified profile.
US08175637B2
A method for a multi-party call in a mobile station is provided. The method includes performing a multi-party call and call-connecting, if a mobile station is selected for call connection from mobile stations connected for the multi-party call, to the selected mobile station. Accordingly, a user can reject a call connection request of a third party during communication through a base station. Further, the user can directly select a desired mobile station for call connection or connection release.
US08175618B2
Systems, methods, and software are described for identifying a location with a mobile communications device. According to various embodiments of the invention, an electronic image is captured via the mobile communications device. A first set of data identifying the location of the mobile communications device may be received, and the first set of data may be associated with the electronic image. At a later time, an identifier of the captured image may then be selected, and a suggested route or a map which includes the location associated with captured image may then be created.
US08175612B2
A map-based system displays a map of spectrum allocation information in a multi-dimensional representation. The system may provide a two-dimensional or three-dimensional area map of a geographic location of interest from an aerial perspective. In another dimension in the elevation direction, allocated spectrum segments may be stacked on the map to provide a representation of spectrum rights allocated in the selected geographical location. Time may provide an additional dimensional aspect to the map. A user may display the spectrum allocation map for a single instant in time, or view a dynamic map that displays the changing spectrum allocation over a time range. A user may also employ search criteria to filter the map display of spectrum allocation information by a specific frequency range, holder/licensee name, channel block, time window, lease or license expiration data, and other criteria.
US08175611B2
A cellular network system comprises a device identifier comparator and a connection enable indicator. A device identifier comparator for comparing a received device identifier with one of a plurality of stored device identifiers, wherein the one of the stored plurality of stored device identifiers is associated with a stored subscriber identifier. A connection enable indicator for indicating whether a connection from a cellular device associated with the received device identifier to a data network associated with the cellular network system should be enabled.
US08175606B2
When measurement results of received radio wave intensities of wireless base stations, which demands a soft handoff, are received from a wireless terminal in a wireless communication system and when a base station controller attempts to acquire a traffic channel in a wireless base station, via which a wireless communication path will be added, in the state in which the channel resource usage rate of that wireless base station is over a threshold, a traffic channel may be acquired only if the ratio between the radio wave intensity of the wireless base stations establishing communication paths and the radio wave intensity of the wireless base station via which a communication path will be added is higher than a threshold or if the difference between the radio wave intensity of the wireless base stations and the radio wave intensity of the wireless base station smaller than a threshold.
US08175603B1
A wireless network for addressing the unavailability of airlink connection resources (“resources”) is disclosed. A plurality of smaller cells are dynamically created within the coverage boundary of a macrocell, wherein each smaller cell is capable of providing the same resources available from the macrocell. The network further addresses the inefficient “push” schema for handover of services from one node to another. Nodes within each of the plurality of smaller cells continuously scan other nodes to measure resources used by the other nodes for handover using a “pull” schema. The measurement tells a node if it is capable of providing at least a minimum grade of service, and if so, the node informs the subscriber device. If the measurement is mutually valid, the current node initiates the handover to the node. After the handover, the new node continues to provide the at least minimum grade of service.
US08175600B2
A method and apparatus for handing over a mobile station (106) from a serving base station (104a) to a target base station (104b) within a wireless communication system (100) is described. A session is established between the mobile station and the serving base station and it is determined that the mobile station is to be handed over from the serving base station to the target base station. The target base station notifies the serving base station of identifying data of the target base station and added to the identifying data is a message to be sent to mobile station regarding the handover of the mobile station. The serving base station sends the message including the identifying data to the mobile station and the mobile station is handed over from the serving base station to the target base station using the identifying data of the target base station.
US08175599B2
A method, medium, and apparatus controlling a handover between different network types, including the operations of transmitting a message requesting a transmission bandwidth change, so as to have a transmission bandwidth supported by a new network after movement of the mobile terminal, from the mobile terminal to the server after performing the handover, changing the transmission bandwidth of the server to be supported by the new network based on the transmitted message of requesting the bandwidth change, transmitting a message acknowledging the changed transmission bandwidth from the server to the router, and transceiving data through a new data transmission tunnel between the router and a new access point within the new based on the message acknowledging the changed transmission bandwidth. Accordingly, loss of data packets occurring when a handover is performed may be effectively prevented.
US08175589B2
Method for SIM card replacement, aimed to obtain the functionality of a first SIM card storing a real IMSI number associated to a real MSISDN (MSISDNrA,MSISDNrB), the method comprising: providing a user with a replacement SIM card storing a fake IMSI number (IMSIfA,IMSIfB); associating the fake IMSI number (IMSIfA,IMSIfB) with a fake MSISDN (MSISDNfA,MSISDNfB); setting unconditional call forwarding of all incoming calls aimed to the real MSISDN (MSISDNrB) to the fake MSISDN (MSISDNfB); for each call originated from a calling mobile station (1af) using a replacement SIM card, replacing the calling party number (MSISDNfA) with the real MSISDN (MSISDNrA).
US08175588B2
A communication system includes logic to detect a second communication device in proximity to a first communication device engaged in a call, and to provide a substantially uninterrupted transfer of selected parties to the call to the second communication device. A proximate device may be identified as one capable of rendering a particular data type, and a substantially uninterrupted transfer may be performed to the proximate device of data of the communications having the data type. An application associated with communication data may be identified, as well as a proximate device capable of providing the application, and a substantially uninterrupted transfer may be performed to the proximate device of data associated with the application.
US08175586B2
Embodiments of the present invention disclose a method for implementing a One Card Multiple-Number (OCMN) service, which includes: establishing a mapping relation between an internal network number of a user and at least one external number of the user; determining an internal network number of a called user corresponding to an external number of the called user according to the mapping relation when a calling user initiates a call to the external number of the called user; connecting the call to the called user according to the internal network number of the called user. Embodiments of the present invention further disclose a system. According to the embodiments of the present invention, the OCMN service may be implemented flexibly.
US08175585B2
A system for targeting advertising content includes the steps of: (a) receiving respective requests for advertising content corresponding to a plurality of mobile communication facilities operated by a group of users, wherein the plurality includes first and second types of mobile communication facilities with different rendering capabilities; (b) receiving a datum corresponding to the group; (c) selecting from a first and second sponsor respective content based on a relevancy to the datum, wherein each content includes a first and second item requiring respective rendering capabilities; (d) receiving bids from the first and second sponsors; (e) attributing a priority to the content of the first sponsor based upon a determination that a yield associated with the first sponsor is greater than a yield associated with the second sponsor; and (f) transmitting the first and second items of the first sponsor to the first and second types of mobile communication facilities respectively.
US08175584B2
The invention relates to systems and method to facilitate downloading a data file. In one embodiment, a method includes receiving at a first wireless communication device a request to download a requested data file. A determination is made at the first wireless communication device whether the requested data file is stored at a second wireless communication device with which the first wireless communication device communicates via a local wireless link. If the requested data file is determined to be stored at the second wireless communication device, the first wireless communication device retrieving the requested data file from second wireless communication device via the local wireless link.
US08175579B2
A mobile device embodiment communicates program distribution account information to a program distributor. The mobile device embodiment receives from the program distributor, authorization to use programming that is conditioned on the communicated program distribution account information. The mobile device embodiment communicates the authorization to a receiving device.
US08175575B2
Communication networks and methods are disclosed for performing online charging credit control in a visited network when a user is roaming. The visited network which is providing service to a roaming user includes a proxy online charging system (OCS) that communicates with a home OCS in a home network of the user. The proxy OCS transmits an online charging request message to a home OCS in a home network for the roaming user requesting charging information for the roaming user. The proxy OCS receives an online charging response message from the home OCS that includes the charging information for the roaming user. The proxy OCS then processes the charging information to perform credit control for one or more network elements in the visited network that is serving the session.
US08175573B2
Jamming is detected as occurring to communications associated with at least one electronic device disposed at a vehicle. Responsive to detecting the jamming, an indication is transmitted from the vehicle to a base station informing the base station that jamming is occurring. Communications are subsequently conducted between the base station and the vehicle on at least one predetermined and prearranged communication channel.
US08175563B2
A method for processing wireless information is disclosed and may include performing by one or more circuits within a single-chip multi-band RF receiver, the one or more circuits comprising a filter, generating at least one control signal based on a signal strength of a baseband frequency signal generated by the one or more circuits within the single-chip multi-band RF receiver. A bandwidth of the filter may be adjusted using the generated at least one control signal. The generated baseband frequency signal may be filtered utilizing the bandwidth adjusted filter. A frequency response signal of the filter may be determined using a reference frequency signal. An attenuated reference frequency signal may be generated by attenuating the reference frequency signal. The attenuated reference frequency signal may be compared with the frequency response signal. The at least one control signal may be generated based on the comparison.
US08175561B2
A method and apparatus for optimization of RF receiver interference performance in a mobile phone operating in a TDMA communications system is disclosed. The battery supply voltage ripple of the battery of the mobile phone is measured and it is determining when the battery supply voltage ripple is greater than a predetermined level. The RF receiver is adjusted to improve the mode of operation of the RF receiver when the battery supply voltage ripple is greater than the predetermined level.
US08175553B2
A wireless communication unit includes a linearised transmitter having a forward path and a feedback path, respectively comprising at least one up-mixer and down-mixer, and forming two loops in quadrature. A phase training signal is applied to the at least one down-mixer in the feedback path in an open loop mode of operation to identify a loop phase adjustment to be applied. At least one of the two loops is switched to a closed loop mode of operation and the loop phase adjustment is applied to at least one up-mixer located in the forward path.
US08175549B2
A novel and useful apparatus for and method of closed loop IQ calibration for use in a transmitter. The IQ calibration mechanism functions to provide calibration of IQ imbalance in the presence of real world RF impairments. An iterative process is used to update the gain and phase mismatch values whereby the metrics are calculated in a differential manner without the need for calculation absolute imbalance values. At each iteration, updating the gain and phase mismatch estimate requires only the direction of the correction to be determined. The direction of the correction is calculated using only the differences between output power measurements. The updated gain and phase mismatch estimates are used to update an IQ correction matrix. This process is repeated until a desired stopping criterion is reached. Gear shifting is used to ensure quick convergence of the algorithm while providing the ability to achieve any desired level of accuracy.
US08175547B1
A disposable sensor device for remote sensing of conditions such as temperature and dangerous gasses includes a body defining an enclosed chamber, a power source mounted in the chamber, an on-off switch mounted on and accessible from outside the body, a processor mounted in the chamber and powered by the power source, sensors mounted on the exterior of the body in communication with the processor and capable of detecting gasses and temperature. A transceiver, a speaker, and a microphone are mounted in the chamber and in communication with the processor. The transceiver is adapted to receive sound signals from a remote unit and input the signals to the speaker for broadcast, and the microphone is adapted to receive sound signals from outside the body and input the received sound signals to the processor for transmittal to the remote unit.
US08175546B1
The present receive antenna interface for an RF (radio frequency) transceiver includes a transmitting and receiving antenna. The receive antenna interface also includes a relay and an electrically-isolated transmit-ground connector that are configured such that the receiving antenna is not capable of being used by the transceiver unless the transmit-ground connector is connected to a ground-on-transmit connector provided by the transceiver. As a result, damage from the accidental transmission of RF signals into the receiving circuitry of the transceiver is prevented.
US08175545B2
A communication device includes an integrated circuit having an on-chip thermal sensing circuit that generates a temperature signal based on a temperature of the integrated circuit. A processing module processes the temperature signal to generate temperature information that can be transmitted to a remote device or processes the temperature signal to generate control for adjusting transmit and/or receive characteristics of an RF transceiver.
US08175541B2
A front end circuit for coupling an antenna to a radio frequency (RF) transceiver for time domain duplex systems is disclosed. The front end circuit includes an antenna port, a power amplifier, a low noise amplifier, and a matching network. The output of the power amplifier and the input of the low noise amplifier are coupled to the matching network and connected in common to the antenna. The power amplifier and the low noise amplifier are activated and deactivated in sequence corresponding to the transmit and receive modes of the transceiver, and the matching network minimizes the effect that one has on the other at the designated operating frequency.
US08175537B2
In a method of complexity reduced noise floor estimation in a wireless communications system, determining (S1), for a respective of at least a subset of a plurality of power grid points /c, a product of complementary cumulative distribution functions, each such function corresponding to a respective of a plurality j of provided wideband power measure estimates Ln a sliding window, and determining (S2), for each of said at least subset of power grid points, a probability distribution function of a minimum of said plurality of wideband power measure estimates based on said determined product.
US08175536B2
A channel estimation and prediction unit 18 estimates a channel and predicts a plurality of channels for a next transmission slot. An SVD unit 19 performs singular value decomposition on a plurality of channel prediction values. An eigenvalue calculation unit 20 calculates a plurality of eigenvalues in a slot, whereas an eigenmode quality calculation unit 21 calculates a single quality for each eigenmode, considering variation frequency of the eigenvalue in the slot and outputs the quality to a transmission adaptive control unit 22.
US08175534B2
Methods and systems are provided for filtering packets in a wireless communication system in the to-mobile subscriber direction. This filtering is at least in part based on RF circuit state information. For example, a packet filter is used that either permits or denies packets from reaching a mobile subscriber based on whether there is already an established RF circuit to provide packets to the mobile subscriber. Alternatively, or in addition, the packet filter may consider the history of circuit state transitions associated with a particular mobile subscriber, the percentage (or aggregate number) of available airlink resources that are currently in use, and/or the length of time associated with the dormancy of a mobile subscriber's RF connection. In various embodiments, the packet filter may cause one or more packets to be sent to a mobile subscriber using a special data channel that does not require the establishment of an RF circuit.
US08175531B2
The present invention is an information processing apparatus which obtains identification information of an electronic device and makes communication with the electronic device via a network based on the identification information. When a portable telephone (11) is placed on an input display section (2) of a personal computer (1), a reader/writer built in the personal computer (1) reads a telephone number of the portable telephone (11) stored in an RF tag built in the portable telephone (11). Based on the telephone number, a telephone line is connected between the portable telephone (11) and the personal computer (1). Data is interchanged between the portable telephone (11) and the personal computer (1) via the telephone line.
US08175529B2
An information processing apparatus shares content data with a different apparatus which has the content data and management data including identification information of the content data and used for management of the content data. The information processing apparatus includes a management data acquisition section that controls a first communication section, which carries out proximity radio communication, to acquire the management data from the different apparatus. The information processing apparatus also includes a requesting section that controls a second communication section, which carries out short distance radio communication, to issue a request for the content data to the different apparatus. Further, the information processing apparatus includes a content data acquisition section that controls the second communication section to acquire the content data supplied in response to the request by the requesting section.
US08175528B2
Systems and/or methods are presented that can facilitate access of a memory device by the use of wireless communication technologies. A memory module is presented which combines memory with a wireless adapter component and a memory controller component to facilitate the wireless transmission and reception of data and/or commands from and to host component that requests access to the memory and the data stored therein. The memory module can dynamically switch between one wireless communication technology to another based on signal strength, signal quality, the distance between the memory module and a host component, power usage, as well as other criteria to facilitate an optimal data transmission or throughput rate.
US08175523B2
A switch element includes a switch device having a drain, a source and a plurality of gates, and at least one additional interconnect located between the plurality of gates, the additional interconnect operative to establish a constant potential between the at least two gates.
US08175520B2
The present application relates to a wireless communication system and related methods and apparatuses for transmitting a signal from a source apparatus to a destination apparatus, via at least one intermediate apparatus. In particular, the present invention relates to techniques which seek to improve the throughput of data in multi-hop communication systems.
US08175519B2
Methods and systems for processing negotiable economic credits through, or at the request of, a hand held device in association with a third-party provider communicative with the hand held device and/or a point of sale. At least one negotiable economic credit can be transferred from a third-party provider communicative with the hand held device to the hand held device and/or point of sale. The negotiable economic credit can be stored within a memory of the hand held device and/or point of sale for retrieval and processing at a point of sale associated with a retail establishment and/or by a hand held device. The negotiable economic credit can be associated with a security module for protecting the privacy of the negotiable economic credit. A user profile can be compiled for utilization during the retrieval of the negotiable economic credit.
US08175504B2
An image forming apparatus includes an image carrier that carries an electrostatic latent image on a surface thereof, a toner carrying roller that is disposed to face the image carrier and rotates in a predetermined rotation direction with charged toner carried on a surface thereof so as to transport the toner in an opposing position for facing the image carrier, and a bias applying unit that develops the electrostatic latent image with the toner by applying an AC voltage as a developing bias to the toner carrying roller. In addition, periodical concavo-convexes that are formed of a plurality of convex portions arranged at a constant pitch in a circumferential direction and concave portions that surround the plurality of convex portions are formed on the surface of the toner carrying roller. When the arrangement pitch is denoted by P, the frequency of the developing bias is denoted by F, and the moving speed of the surface of the toner carrying roller for the circumferential direction is denoted by V, a quotient acquired from dividing V by F is a value acquired from multiplying P by a natural number or an approximately natural number.
US08175485B2
An image heating apparatus includes an image heating rotational member configured to heat an image on a recording material, a pressure member configured to form a nip portion with the image heating rotational member and pinch the heated recording material in the nip portion, a first external heater including a first heat generation member and configured to contact an outer surface of the image heating rotational member and heat an area of the image heating rotational member that has passed the nip portion, and a second external heater including a second heat generation member and configured to contact an outer surface of the image heating rotational member and heat an area of the image heating rotational member heated by the first external heater. In the image heating apparatus, maximum power applied to the second heat generation member is smaller than maximum power applied to the first heat generation member.
US08175483B2
An image forming apparatus includes: print data generating unit for generating gradation correction test chart print data to juxtapose and draw a basis density pattern having a basis density of a yellow color and plural reference density patterns having respective densities of the yellow color compared with the basis density and additionally draw a contrast effect pattern composed of colors having a contrast effect on the yellow color; printing unit for printing a gradation correction test chart including a yellow color gradation correction pattern in which the basis density pattern and the plurality of reference density patterns are juxtaposed and printed and the contrast effect pattern is additionally printed; receiving unit for receiving an input of a density adjustment value of any pattern based on a shading comparison of the basis density pattern and the reference density patterns; and gradation correcting unit for performing a gradation correction.
US08175482B2
A printer is provided comprising substrate transport apparatus for moving substrates along a substrate path through the printer; a fuser assembly comprising a heat transfer member including a belt and a heater to heat the belt, a backup member adapted to engage the belt so as to define a fusing nip with the belt, and a temperature sensor for sensing a temperature of a portion of the backup member; and a controller coupled to the temperature sensor. Based on signals generated by the temperature sensor, the controller determines whether a substrate moving along the substrate path has been contacted by the backup member portion.
US08175455B2
The present invention is intended to provide an optical transmission system which is applicable not only to a known signal but also to an unknown signal, and has a high reliability at a low cost. A branching device branches an optical transmission output of a transmitter, and transmits the branched signals through different optical transmission channels. A polarization mode dispersion monitor monitors the degree of polarization mode dispersion from the optical transmission channels at the receiving end. A switch control circuit and a switch select a signal which is less affected by a deterioration in quality due to polarization mode dispersion, and outputs the selected signal to receiver 8. In this way, the probability of a deterioration in the quality of a signal due to polarization mode dispersion can be reduced for a transmission signal.
US08175445B2
A non-contact cutter for a polymer corner protector disposed on a load includes an air manifold having an inlet and an outlet and defining an air passage and a heating element disposed at least in part in the air passage. A compressed gas is communicated to the manifold and into the air passage for intimate contact with the heating element to heat the gas. The heated gas is discharged through the outlet to contact and soften the polymer corner protector at a desired location to separate the corner protector at the desired location. A system and method for non-contact cutting are disclosed.
US08175435B2
Disclosed are optical fiber devices incorporating optical fibers with total dispersion greater than material dispersion, and with preferred dispersion values less than +50 ps/nm-km. The desired dispersion values are obtained when light resides substantially in a single higher order mode (HOM) of the fiber, typically the LP02 mode. The optical fibers also preferably have substantial separation between the effective indices of the HOM and any other mode.
US08175425B2
An approach is provided for an automated patch panel. A command is received to change a connection state of an optic patch cord. A robotic arm is controlled to change the connection state of the optic patch cord with respect to a particular port of a plurality of ports disposed about a disk-shaped face of a docking panel.
US08175420B2
An in-browser photo-editing application method and system. The method may typically include retrieving an image for manipulation along with a set of image manipulation instructions at a client computer and engaging a manipulation to the image from the client computer. Then, the client computer records image manipulation instructions simultaneous to displaying user edits. The set of image manipulation instructions are transmitted to the server when a mirror of the user's manipulated image is desired on the server. The server performs the manipulation instructions on its own copy of the original image to produce the mirror image. Copies of the pre-manipulated and post-manipulated image as well as the manipulation instructions may be stored at several locations including the client computer, the server computer or even a remote storage computer.
US08175415B2
An image processing device changes a size of original image represented by an original image data to create size-changed image data representing a size-changed image and outputs the size-changed image data to an output device. The image processing device has an image size determination unit determines a target image size based on a ratio of a predetermined standard character size to a character size regarding character data included in the original image data and based on an image size of the original image data. An image data creating unit changes the size of the original image to create the size-changed image data based on the determined target size. An output control unit controls an output of the created size-changed image data to the output device such that the size-changed image is shown within the image formation area in the output image.
US08175413B1
Proprietary rights logos are detected in a video. The video is divided into a plurality of regions that are analyzed for generic proprietary rights logo features. A confidence mask is generated that comprises a plurality of scaling factors, each scaling factor corresponding to a region of the video and indicating a likelihood that the corresponding region of the video includes a proprietary rights logo. The scaling factors of the confidence mask are applied to the video data to generate an altered video. The altered video is analyzed to determine a confidence measure that the video includes a reference proprietary rights logo.
US08175409B1
A method includes receiving a selection input to define a selection mask with respect to digital data. The selection input is used to generate the selection mask with respect to the digital data. An icon is automatically associated with the selection mask, the icon being selectable to select the selection mask.
US08175404B2
A method for estimating quality of images compressed with a transformation based compression method. The estimation method uses estimated errors generated by quantization to obtain an image quality indicator and does not require use of a reference image. The estimation method includes calculating a probability of at least one specific quantized transformation coefficient value for at least all coefficients representing one identical two-dimensional frequency, and estimating identifying parameters of at least one probability density function of non-quantized coefficient values from the quantized coefficient value probabilities, with a type of probability density function being preset. The estimation method further includes calculating an image quality indicator from errors introduced by quantization, which are derived from probability density function parameters and quantization parameters.
US08175392B2
The time segment representative feature vector generation device includes an intra-time segment feature vector group selection means for selecting, for each time segment and from a feature vector series for respective frames, feature vectors of a plurality of frames included in a time segment; and a dimension selection means for selecting, for each time segment and from the selected feature vectors of different frames in the time segment, features of different dimensions of the feature vectors, and generating a time segment representative feature vector which is a feature vector representing the time segment.
US08175384B1
Method and apparatus for creating foreground masks, or mattes, in images including complex images. A discriminative matting technique may generate accurate alpha mattes for textured images or objects with spatial-varying color distributions. Given an input image and a trimap defining an unknown region, a discriminative color analysis is applied to the unknown region, yielding estimated alpha values, estimated binary segmentation values, and a mixture probability map for the region. The map may be adaptively smoothed. The pixels in the unknown region are classified into boundary pixels and non-boundary pixels according to the probability map. The non-boundary pixels are classified as either foreground or background pixels using a differencing technique that compares multiple pixel features. The estimated alpha values for the boundary pixels are refined. An alpha matte for the image is output. The process may be repeated until convergence of the alpha matte.
US08175379B2
A method, system, and computer-readable storage medium for automatic segmentation of a video sequence. A segmentation shape prediction and a segmentation color model are determined for a current image of a video sequence based on existing segmentation information for at least one previous image of the video sequence. A segmentation of the current image is automatically generated based on a weighted combination of the segmentation shape prediction and the segmentation color model. The segmentation of the current image is stored in a memory medium.
US08175376B2
An apparatus and method for detecting a region of interest in an image are disclosed. Image representations for a set of images that have been manually annotated with regions of interest are stored, along with positive and negative representations of each image which are similarly derived to the image representations except that they are based on features extracted from patches within the region of interest and outside it, respectively. For an original image for which a region of interest is desired, the stored information for K similar images is automatically retrieved and used to train a classifier. The trained classifier provides, for each patch of the original image, a probability of being in a region of interest, based extracted features of the patch (represented, for example, as a Fisher vector), which can be used to determine a region of interest in the original image.
US08175372B2
Some aspects of the present invention relate to a wafer inspection method. A plurality of images is acquired about an edge portion of a wafer. Each of the images comprises a pixel array having a first dimension and a second dimension. A composite image of compressed pixel arrays is generated by compressing each of the pixel arrays in the first dimension and concatenating the pixel arrays. The composite image is analyzed to identify a wafer feature, for example using a sinusoidal line fit.
US08175371B2
Provided are methods for determining and analyzing photometric and morphogenic features of small objects, such as cells to, for example, identify different cell states. In particularly, methods are provided for identifying apoptotic cells, and for distinguishing between cells undergoing apoptosis versus necrosis.
US08175366B2
A method for recording a set of MRI images of a tissue pixel by pixel that evolve with time in a specific manner described by a function; processing the recorded MRI images by aggregating the pixels thereof according to a preselected aspect of time behavior; best fitting the aggregated pixels to a predetermined pixel function to obtain the parameters of the function; and presenting the parameters visually. A computer readable medium containing executable program instructions for carrying out the method.
US08175362B2
Systems and methods are described for displaying classifier output and confidence measure in an image. The confidence measure advantageously provides additional information to the user indicating the accuracy of the classification result. Based on the classification accuracy, the user may accept or reject the classification result. In an exemplary embodiment, the classifier output is displayed on the image by color coding regions in the image based on their classifications. The confidence measure is displayed by adjusting the transparencies of the color coded regions according to their confidence measures. In one embodiment, only the classifications having confidence measures above a threshold are displayed. In other embodiments, the classifier output and confidence measure may be displayed separately, contour lines may be drawn through image regions having similar confidence measures, and the confidence measure may be displayed for a region under a pointer that the user can move within the image.
US08175361B2
In order to regularize a reconstruction method associated with computed tomography (CT), in at least one example embodiment, information relating to the statistics of the attenuation values of the reconstructed object is also included in the form of the logarithmic probability function of the attenuation values. This information can be obtained from the regions of those image parts which are still completely contained in a scanning field of view (SFOV), but nevertheless lie in the vicinity of the region where the object leaves the SFOV. Furthermore, the information may be used in an algebraic reconstruction method by adding a boundary condition term to the cost function to be minimized.
US08175357B2
A storage unit stores data of a blood vessel image, a first mask image, and a second mask image of an object, an imaging unit which images a fluoroscopic image for the object. A subtraction unit subtracts the first mask image from the fluoroscopic image and generates data of a subtraction image. A calculating unit calculates anatomical displacement amount between the first mask image and the second mask image. A display unit displays the blood vessel image and the subtraction image so as to be superimposed each other by positioning the blood vessel image and the subtraction image to be fitted together on the basis of the calculated displacement amount.
US08175350B2
An image guidance system is provided for improving tissue culture extraction where the tissue is extracted under the guidance of first and second knowledge-based systems. The first knowledge-based system provides initial suggested regions of interest for tissue biopsy in an internal organ. These regions of interest are then confirmed as being of interest of being benign by the second knowledge-based system. Information from two different sources may provide a more accurate, intelligent and robust method that helps in selecting biopsy sites accurately, such that suspicious regions are not overlooked and the benign regions are not unnecessarily operated upon. This not only helps in better diagnosis and treatment, but also helps reduce pain to the patient, in addition to reducing wastage of resources and invaluable time.
US08175340B2
A map information display apparatus for displaying map information on the basis of information on image-capturing times and image-capturing positions that are respectively associated with a plurality of captured images includes a captured image extraction unit configured to extract images captured within a predetermined time period that includes the image-capturing time of a predetermined captured image from among the plurality of captured images; a map area selection unit configured to select an area of a map so as to include the image-capturing positions of the captured images extracted by the captured image extraction unit by using as a reference the image-capturing position of the predetermined captured image; and a map information display unit configured to display map information in such a manner that the area of the map, which is selected by the map area selection unit, is displayed.
US08175336B2
For a tracking of a target object in a time series of frames of image data, a tracking object designation acceptor accepts a designation of a tracking object, a target color setter sets a color of the designated tracking object as a target color, and a particle filter processor employs particles for measurements to determine color likelihoods by comparison between the target color and colors in vicinities of particles, works, as the color likelihoods meet a criterion, to estimate a region of the tracking object in a frame of image data in accordance with results of the measurements, and as the color likelihoods fails to meet the criterion, to use particles, for measurements to determine luminance likelihoods based on luminance differences between frames of image data in a time series of frames of image data, and estimate a region of the tracking object in a frame of image data in accordance with results of the measurements, and updates the target color by a color in either estimated region.
US08175335B2
Content adaptive detection of images having stand-out objects involves block variance-based detection and determining if an object includes a stand-out object. The images with a stand-out object are further processed to isolate an object of interest. The images without a detected stand-out object are further processed with a transition map-based detection method which includes generating a transition map. If an object portrait is determined from the transition map, then the image is further processed to isolate the object of interest.
US08175332B2
A computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer program product for monitoring wind direction, speed, and turbidity. The visible sky is monitored by a set of cameras for contrails produced by a high-altitude aircraft. In response to identifying a contrail, the contrail is tracked across the field of view of the camera. Contrail data generated when the contrail is identified and during the tracking of the contrail is stored. The contrail data describes characteristics of the contrail including the spread of the contrail and the movement of the contrail across the field of view of the camera. Coordinates of the high-altitude aircraft are determined and compared with the contrail data to identify wind conditions.
US08175328B2
A two level cross-correlation based system for watermarking continuous digital media at the system application level. It is a post-compression process for watermarking where no a priori knowledge of the underlying compression algorithm is required. Per each compressed media frame, a current unique digital signature is generated based on the data from the current compressed frame plus the digital signature that has been previously generated. The signature thus generated is then used in conjunction with the next compressed frame to generate the next unique digital signature. All digital signatures are correlated according to the above process until a “reset” signal is issued. A new chain of correlated digital signatures is produced by the system with a pre-determined initial signature.
US08175325B2
Watermark information (denoted WM) consists of several symbols which are embedded continuously by reference sequence modulation in an audio or a video signal. At decoder site the WM is regained using correlation of the received signal with a corresponding reference sequence. The symbols form watermark data frames. The invention uses for the bit values ‘zero’ and ‘one’ in each payload symbol and for each payload symbol in a watermark data frame different reference sequences, without using synchronisation symbols. A logarithmic search is performed in the WM decoder to reduce the numbers of correlations to be calculated. The invention makes watermarking of critical sound signals much more robust.
US08175319B2
A moving coil loudspeaker has an interchangeable magnet assembly with a plurality of interchangeable magnet segments configured to be circumferentially disposed about a voice coil within the loudspeaker. Heat sink members can be arranged in between the magnet segments to absorb excess heat generated during operation of the loud speaker. In one embodiment, the magnet assembly has at least one annular magnetic member made up of the plurality of magnet segments, a plurality of heat sink members disposed in between the magnet segments, an annular first plate adjacent a first side of the annular magnetic member, and a yoke member having a second plate adjacent a second side of the annular magnetic member and a central cylindrical portion configured to pass through a central opening in the annular magnetic member.
US08175313B2
A tamper detection apparatus includes a housing defining an internal cavity. A sensing device embodied as a microphone is positioned within the internal cavity of the housing, which may also be a protective grommet. A conductive element spans the internal cavity and is positioned in front of the microphone. The conductive element initiates a fault signal when a specified electrical condition is met to indicate a tampering or an attempted tampering with the microphone.
US08175305B2
A hearing aid with a drop safeguard has an accelerometer, an electrical circuit, and a memory. The accelerometer generates an electrical signal in dependence on an acceleration of the hearing aid. The signal is transmitted to the electrical circuit which uses this to determine a jerky acceleration of the hearing aid. The electrical circuit saves the respectively current settings of the hearing aid to the memory in the case of a jerky acceleration of the hearing aid. After the hearing aid is dropped, the settings can be reconstructed from the memory so that as a result this prevents the settings of the hearing aid from being changed.
US08175302B2
A device (100) for generating a vibration source driving signal (DS) is described, which device (100) comprises an input (101) for receiving an input signal (IS) and an output (102) for providing said driving signal (DS), generating means (103; 803) for generating a control signal (CS) which is representative of dynamic signal changes of the input signal (IS), and a processing unit (105; 201; 301; 401; 804) adapted to process a source signal (SRS; IAS) based on the control signal (CS) yielding said driving signal (DS).
US08175298B2
In an audio output system including a TV, an AV amplifier, a DVD player, and the like, a simple control program decides an audio output mode setting, i.e., whether to output audio from a built-in speaker of the TV or output audio from an external speaker connected to the AV amplifier by linking operations of the respective devices. A control unit of a DVD player transmits a request signal concerning the audio output mode to a control unit of a TV. According to a request from the DVD player, the control unit of the TV instructs a control unit of an AV amplifier to be set to a mode for outputting audio from an external speaker connected to the AV amplifier or a mode for not outputting audio and sets a built-in speaker of the TV to a state opposite to the state of the external speaker.
US08175297B1
Systems and methods for estimating audio at a requested location are presented. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving from a client device a request for audio at a requested location. The method further includes determining a location of a plurality of audio sensors, where the plurality of audio sensors are coupled to head-mounted devices in which a location of each of the plurality of audio sensors varies. The method further includes, based on the requested location and the location of the plurality of audio sensors, determining an ad hoc array of audio sensors, receiving audio sensed from audio sensors in the ad hoc array, and processing the audio sensed from audio sensors in the ad hoc array to produce an output substantially estimating audio at the requested location.
US08175296B2
An audio amplifier having a variably configurable housing, which may be mounted to an interior surface of a motor vehicle. The housing is formed in two complementing housing sections mutually joined by a hinge, tether, or other connector. A power supply is contained in one housing section and an audio output module is contained in the other housing section. The power supply and audio output module may be connected by flexible signal conductors to accommodate pivot of the two housing sections relative to one another. A heat sink comprising cooling fins and communications and power terminals may be disposed on the exterior of the housing sections to enable conventional connection to an associated audio system. The hinge may incorporate a fixing element which releasably holds the two housing sections at a selected degree of pivot.
US08175287B2
A sound device includes an input terminal for electronic signal input; a line out terminal adapted to output electronic signals input on the input terminal to an external area; a delay arrangement adapted to delay electronic signals input on the input terminal for a certain time; a main output arrangement adapted to output electronic signals delayed by the delay arrangement. The delay arrangement delays signals in order to accommodate a time difference between (1) electronic signals output from an external sound device connected with the line output terminal and (2) electronic signals output from the main output arrangement. The time difference between sound that is output from the sound device and the one that is output from an external sound device that is connected with line connection terminal can be eliminated. Thus, it can prevent sound quality decrease due to time difference from happening.
US08175275B2
The details of an apparatus and method for determining uplink ciphering activation time in universal mobile telecommunications system user equipment are disclosed herein. The ciphering activation time is determined for radio bearers other than RB2 by measuring the data rate on each target radio bearer during the time that it takes for a polling or RRC message sent from the user equipment UE to be acknowledged by the network UTRAN. For RB2, the uplink ciphering activation time is determined by taking into account the size of the RRC response message and the data already queued on RB2 for transmission.
US08175269B2
A system and method for enterprise security including symmetric key protection. In accordance with an embodiment, the system provides a higher level of protection against unauthorized key disclosure by encrypting randomly generated seed data used for key generation, and using digital signatures and asymmetric encryption.
US08175267B2
A communication apparatus stores encrypted pieces having plural pieces as a part of a content encrypted, and number of transmission times. At least one first piece is encrypted by plural different encryption keys. The communication apparatus selects as priority pieces plural encrypted pieces corresponding to at least one first piece among the first pieces, based on number of untransmitted encrypted pieces of which number of transmission times is zero among plural encrypted pieces of which first piece is encrypted, and stores priority piece information specifying the priority piece. When a piece request is received from other communication apparatus, the communication apparatus determines an encrypted piece to be transmitted, based on priority piece information, and transmits the encrypted piece to the other communication apparatus.
US08175265B2
Systems and methods for an implementation of block cipher algorithms (e.g., AES) use lookup tables to obscure key information, increasing difficulty for those with privileged access to a system performing the AES algorithm to obtain such key information. The implementation encodes round key information into a first plurality of tables (T1), which when used for lookup operations also complete SubBytes operations, and output state in an encoded format. A Shiftrows operation is performed arithmetically on the state output from the T1 table lookups. A second plurality of tables (T2) are used to perform a polynomial multiplication portion of MixColumns to state from Shiftrows, and an XOR portion of MixColumns is performed arithmetically on the columns outputted from using the T2 tables. Encoding from the T1 tables is made to match a decoding built into the T2 tables. Subsets of the T1 tables use the same T2 tables, reducing a memory footprint for the T2 tables. Multiple AES keys can be embedded in different sets of T1 tables that encode for the same set of T2 tables.
US08175263B2
A telephony apparatus connectable to a communication network and printed circuit board are provided. The telephony apparatus includes a package having a telephone footprint and comprising at least one connector to the communication network; a thin client device housed within the package, the thin client device connectable to a thin client display and a thin client input device; a stimulus telephony device housed within the package, the stimulus telephony device comprising a telephony display and telephony input device, the stimulus telephony device connectable to an audio input device; and the thin client device and the stimulus telephony device are further connectable to the communication network via the at least one connector.
US08175257B1
A system and method are provided for reducing the wait time for a caller waiting to speak with an agent in an automatic call distribution system. The system and method receive a call from a caller, and receive an indication that the caller is to speak with one of a plurality of agents. The system and method inform the caller of a delay before the caller can speak to one of the plurality of agents and offers the caller an opportunity to establish a reservation to call back at a particular time. The system and method receive an indication that the caller would like to accept the reservation. The system and method provide the caller with a reservation code, and inform the caller to call back at the particular time.
US08175256B2
The present invention discloses a call center system and a method for obtaining interface invoke information to realize automatic analysis of the user behaviors. The method includes steps of sending a connection establishment request message to a user interface server by a call center client after a service is activated; allocating a connection identification for the activated service and sending a response message after the user interface server receives the connection request message; performing interactions between the call center client and the user interface server and recording the interaction message according to the connection identification attached in the interaction message; and decomposing the recorded interaction message and obtaining the information on the application programming interface invoked by each service according to the name of the application programming interface corresponding to the interface identification obtained from each message.
US08175252B2
A ringback tone is played to a calling party on a call to a called party. Identification information of the ringback tone is stored, upon receipt of a bookmark request from the calling party, for later access by the calling party to the ringback tone and/or information related to the ringback tone.
US08175251B2
At least one telephone network element receives an attempt of a caller to place a telephone call to a callee. A telephone number for the call is registered in a telephone number mapping (ENUM) database to receive incoming telephone calls via a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network. The at least one telephone network element receives an indication of a preference of the caller to carry the telephone call via one of a public switched telephone network (PSTN) and a public land mobile network (PLMN), instead of via the VoIP network. Based on the preference, the method inhibits an ENUM query of the ENUM database for the telephone call and forwards the telephone call to a gateway to carry the telephone call to the callee via one of the PSTN and the PLMN instead of via the VoIP network.
US08175248B2
A method and an apparatus to disambiguate requests are presented. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving a request for information from a user. Then data is retrieved from a back-end database in response to the request. Based on a predetermined configuration of a disambiguation system and the data retrieved, the ambiguity within the request is dynamically resolved.
US08175238B2
In a particular embodiment, a method of managing calls to a toll-free telephone number is disclosed. The method includes modifying a calling party identification (ID) privacy indicator associated with a received telephone call directed to a toll-free number. The calling party ID privacy indicator is modified based at least in part on a day that the telephone call is received.
US08175230B2
A system and method provides a natural language interface to world-wide web content. Either in advance or dynamically, webpage content is parsed using a parsing algorithm. A person using a telephone interface can provide speech information, which is converted to text and used to automatically fill in input fields on a webpage form. The form is then submitted to a database search and a response is generated. Information contained on the responsive webpage is extracted and converted to speech via a text-to-speech engine and communicated to the person.
US08175220B2
A multi-modality imaging system includes a first imaging system and a second imaging system that is different from the first imaging system. The first and second imaging systems are slidingly mounted on at least one rail. A table has a movable pallet configured to extend through a scan range of the first imaging system while the first and second imaging systems are positioned proximate each other at one position along the at least one rail. The pallet is further configured to extend through a scan range of the second imaging system while the first and second imaging systems are positioned proximate each other at a different position along the at least one rail. At least a portion of the scan ranges overlap each other.
US08175217B2
An X-ray CT apparatus is provided with an X-ray tube current modulation pattern calculation means that calculates an X-ray tube current modulation pattern based on a 3-dimensional model of an object calculated based on a scanogram image of the object, start-up shape acquisition means that acquires a start-up shape of CT values of a predetermined region of the object or CT value time differences after injecting contrast agent into the object, time contrast curve prediction means that predicts a time contrast curve indicative of a time sequential change of contrast in a diagnostic portion of the object at each slice position at a scan time based on the acquired start-up shape of the CT values or CT value time differences, object 3-dimensional model modification means that modifies a 3-dimensional model of the object based on the predicted time contrast curve, and X-ray tube electric current modulation pattern modification means that modifies the X-ray tube electric current modulation pattern based on the modified 3-dimensional model of the object.
US08175210B2
A method for collecting data regarding the operating condition of a nuclear reactor core including: positioning a first linear array of gamma thermometer (GT) sensors in a first instrument housing; positioning a second linear array of GT sensors in a second instrument housing, wherein the GT sensors are arranged asymmetrically along the linear arrays and the second linear array is asymmetrical with respect to the first linear array; positioning the first instrument housing in the reactor core at a first core location and positioning the second instrument housing at a second core location symmetrical with respect to the first core location; collecting core condition data from at least one of the GT sensors in the first linear array of GT sensors, and applying the collected core condition data as data collected from the second linear array.
US08175206B2
There is provided a communication apparatus capable of reducing power consumption. The communication apparatus in accordance with the present invention includes a synchronization detection block 30 which detects synchronization by performing a receiving process using a plurality of clocks whose phase differs from each other with respect to synchronization information contained in a first frame as well as identifies the synchronization detected clocks as candidate clocks to be selected; a clock phase selection block 40 which selects a sampling clock to be used for sampling of the transmission signal from the candidate clocks to be selected, selects a stop clock separated by a predetermined phase from the selected sampling clock, and outputs an instruction for the stop clock; and a clock gate unit 60 which, terminates supplying the stop clock from the plurality of clocks to the synchronization detection block 30 as well as supplies other clocks to the synchronization detection block 30. In the process of receiving a second frame following the first frame, the synchronization detection block 30 detects synchronization from the clocks other than the stop clock.
US08175202B2
A receiver is described including circuitry for deriving at least a first stream of first digitized samples from a received analog signal at a first sampling rate, circuitry for selecting a first sampling point and at least a second sampling point, a demodulator for demodulating first and second symbols from the at least first stream of samples based on the first and the at least second sampling points, and circuitry for determining a value related to a demodulation accuracy for the first and second symbols and for outputting a signal, the circuitry for selecting being adapted to alter the sampling point based on the signal. By assessing a demodulation accuracy in real time clock drift can be compensated. The demodulation accuracy can be a value related to a phase error or an error energy such as EVM or DEVM for each demodulated symbol.
US08175191B2
Embodiments of cognitive radio technology can recover and utilize under-utilized portions of statically-allocated radio-frequency spectrum. A plurality of sensing methods can be employed. Transmission power control can be responsive to adjacent channel measurements. Digital pre-distortion techniques can enhance performance. Embodiments of a high dynamic range transceiver architecture can be employed.
US08175189B2
A technique is used to realize a generalized decision feedback equalizer (GDFE) Precoder for multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems, which significantly reduces the computational cost while resulting in no capacity loss. The technique is suitable for improving the performance of various MU-MIMO wireless systems including future 4G cellular networks. In one embodiment, a method for configuring a GDFE precoder in a base station of a MU-MIMO wireless system having k user terminals, each user terminal having associated therewith a feedforward filter. The method comprises computing a filter matrix C using one of a plurality of alternative formulas of the invention; and, based on the computation of the filter matrix C, computing a transmit filter matrix B for a transmit filter used to process a symbol vector obtained after a decision feedback equalizing stage of the GDFE precoder, a feedforward filter matrix F, and an interference pre-cancellation matrix G.
US08175186B1
A communication signal including a plurality of bursts that individually include a plurality of data symbols is processed by both interleaving diversity and duplication diversity prior to transmission in order to preserve the content of the signal when the signal is corrupted by interference during transmission of the signal. A received communication signal having a plurality of bursts that individually include a plurality of data symbols which have been processed for transmission by interleaving diversity is processed to recover the content of the signal when the signal is corrupted by interference during transmission of the signal. Upon determining that the received communication signal may have been corrupted by interference during transmission, the received signal is processed by inserting erasure symbols into a deinterleaver prior to deinterleaving of the data symbols. The erasure symbols are necessary for recovering the content of the transmitted interleaved data symbols.
US08175176B2
The present invention provides an FFT window spread generating method used in the modulation of an OFDM system. When OFDM-modulated received signals each having a time length greater than or equal to an effective symbol length are demodulated by FFT processing using a spread FFT window, the spread FFT window makes use of received signals each having the time length greater than or equal to the effective symbol length. Spreading windows spread before and/or after the effective symbol length are provided. Received signals lying within the spreading windows are added to their corresponding received signals lying within the effective symbol length and different in time position by the effective symbol length, and the amplitudes of the added received signals are reduced to half respectively, thereby generating the spread FFT window.
US08175174B2
A communication system, communication method, transmitting apparatus, and receiving apparatus are disclosed herein. The communication system includes: a first clock correlating unit, adapted to correlate a clock to be transmitted with a clock of a data frame at a transmitter of a clock transparent-transmission network; and a second clock correlating unit, adapted to correlate a clock of a data frame at a receiver of a clock transparent-transmission network with a clock to be recovered. The method includes: correlating the clock to be transmitted with the clock of the data frame at the transmitter of the clock transparent-transmission network, and correlating the clock of the data frame at the receiver of the clock transparent-transmission network with the clock to be recovered.
US08175166B2
In one embodiment, the method includes obtaining a reference picture list including multiple reference pictures, and determining an initial reference picture index of the multiple reference pictures in the reference picture list based on display order information for the multiple reference pictures. The initial reference picture index is selectively modified to produce a determined reference picture index based on the macroblock level of the macroblock. The determined reference picture index is the initial reference picture index if the macroblock level of the macroblock is a frame, and the determined reference picture index is the initial reference picture index divided by 2 if the macroblock level of the macroblock is a field. The macroblock is decoded by selecting at least one reference picture from the reference picture list using the determined reference picture index.
US08175155B2
There is disclosed an image processing apparatus which determines an attribute of an image including a pixel to be processed. An image area having a predetermined size including the pixel to be processed is extracted (S701). A variation related to the image area is calculated based on pixel values included in the image area (S705). Pixels in the image area are converted into N-ary data (ternary data or higher) in accordance with the calculated variation (S709). The attribute of the pixel to be processed is determined by analyzing the N-ary data as a result of the N-ary conversion (S711).
US08175154B2
Method for restructuring a group of pictures to provide for random access into the group of pictures
The present invention is a system and method for restructuring a group of pictures in such a manner as to provide for random access into the group of pictures without substantially degrading the quality of service for the video content. When encoding a current picture, if the current picture is an I picture, the current picture is encoded utilizing intra coding. If the current picture is not an I picture, and is not referenced by future pictures, the current picture is compressed using an arbitrary number of pictures in the past as a reference. If the current picture is not an I picture, and the current picture is not referenced by future pictures, the picture is compressed and the number of reference pictures in the past are limited so that picture prior to the last I picture are not used as a reference. This process continues until the conclusion of the group of pictures.
US08175149B2
Provided is a method and apparatus for controlling a bit-rates in which an amount of generated bits is adjusted according to the complexity of each frame, and a bit-rate within a frame can be further effectively adjusted by applying different quantization parameter (QP) values to respective macro blocks. In the apparatus for controlling a bit-rate, a motion compensated temporal filtering (MCTP) operation is performed for each group of pictures (GOP) in an input scalable layer, and thereafter bits are allocated to respective frames in consideration of frame type and frame complexity. Furthermore, a QP is adaptively determined in the unit of a macro block on the basis of the allocated bits.
US08175146B2
In a data compensating circuit and a display apparatus having the same, a previous compressed data compressed from a previous frame data is previously stored in a memory, a decoder decompresses the previous compressed data from the memory to output a previous decompressed data, a coder-decoder compresses a present frame data into a present compressed data to store the present compressed data in the memory and decompresses the present compressed data to output a present decompressed data. A first processor outputs a difference value between the previous decompressed data and the present decompressed data, a second processor adds the present frame data and the difference value to generate a previous re-decompressed data. A compensator outputs a present compensation data based on the previous re-decompressed data and the present frame data. Thus, the size of the memory may be reduced while preventing damage of data.
US08175142B2
A data processing apparatus to map input data symbols to be communicated onto a predetermined number of sub-carrier signals of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed OFDM symbols. The predetermined number of sub-carrier signals is determined in accordance with one of a plurality of operating modes and the input data symbols include first sets of data symbols and second sets of input data symbols. The data processing apparatus includes a controller, an address generator, and an interleaver memory. The controller is configured, when operating in accordance with an even interleaving process, to read out a first set of the input data symbols from the interleaver memory on to the sub-carrier signals of an even OFDM symbol using read addresses generated by the address generator, and to write in a second set of the input data symbols into the interleaver memory using the addresses generated by the address generator.
US08175139B2
An alternative approach to coping with the ever increasing demand for faster communications hardware is to design modems that are capable of operating its speeds at a higher data rate than a speed required for a single port of the standard communication rate for that modem. Basically, by utilizing a resource manager, that directs the data in and out of the various portions of the modem in an orderly manner, keeping track of which of the ports is being operated at any given point in time, a standard single port modem can be reconfigured, for example, at an over clocked rate, to manipulate the data input and output of a modem.
US08175138B2
The present invention provides a power efficient FHSS (Frequency Hopping Spreading Spectrum) base-band hardware architecture, and more particularly to a combinational design to reduce the system jitter of a frequency hopping communication system and bring system synchronization to higher level of performance, thereby achieving better immunity to faulty access header recognition, data corruption by sending and tracking the package header of each package more precise, therefore reduces the uncertain window of access header check. With above-mentioned features, this invention has less error packets resend over wireless link, and maintain same system functionality using MCU clocked at relative lower frequency. Hence it becomes possible to reduce the area of the silicon implementation, extend standby time when used in mobile device, and save power consumption system wide. Moreover, the present invention is applicable for use in various types of base-band hardware communication architectures or similar architectures.
US08175137B2
In a GNSS receiver data sequences derived from a digital signal each with an internally generated correlation sequence derived from a basic sequence and mixed with frequency signals corresponding to various Doppler frequencies and in various phase positions with respect to the data sequence are correlated and the correlation values evaluated. In difficult conditions, e.g., RF levels of the signal of −145 dBm and less, correlation values produced with the same correlation sequence and phase position but with a plurality of data sequences are evaluated together in that, in an evaluator (49), every-correlation value is, in a comparator (52), compared with at least a first value threshold and a second value threshold, with the latter having a value between 1.3 and 1.7 times the value of the first and values −1, 0 or +1 assigned accordingly to a correlation term which is then added to an integer correlation counter which varies over a counter interval, e.g., [0, 15], in an adding unit (53). The correlation counters corresponding to the various Doppler frequencies and phase positions are stored in a memory unit (54). In an arbitration unit (51) a correlation indicator is derived from each correlation counter and the latest corresponding correlation value and the six largest correlation indicators selected and stored together with their Doppler frequencies and phase positions.
US08175135B1
A method for communication includes receiving signals at a receiver from one or more sources, including a target signal transmitted by a given transmitter. A channel response is estimated from the given transmitter to the receiver, and a filter response is computed by taking a sum of an autocorrelation of the received signals with an adaptive noise factor, and applying the sum to the estimated channel response. The filter response is applied to the received signals in order to recover the target signal.
US08175134B1
Decreased capability for detection of communications signals by an adversary is provided by applying frequency hopping, frequency chirping, and direct sequence spreading to the signals. The frequency hopping and frequency chirping can be driven by pseudo random functions. The direct sequence spreading can use a pseudo random chip sequence.
US08175132B2
A laser device which causes lasing with a use of a semiconductor quantum dot is provided with: a laser member (11) in which the semiconductor quantum dot is formed; a resonator (14) for resonating light generated in the laser member (11); and a pump laser (15) for irradiating the laser member (11) with excitation light whose energy corresponds to two-photon resonant excitation, so as to form a biexciton state in the semiconductor quantum dot by the two-photon resonant excitation. In this way, a laser device which enables lasing using efficient light emission is realized.
US08175130B2
A diode laser structure includes multiple stripe emitters disposed next to each other, in which each of the stripe emitters is configured to emit, during operation, a laser beam having a corresponding beam parameter product with respect to a slow axis (BPPSA), where the stripe emitters are arranged such that the corresponding BPPSA of the laser beams successively decrease from a center of the diode laser structure towards a first edge of the diode laser structure and from the center of the diode laser structure towards a second edge of the diode laser structure, the second edge being opposite the first edge. The stripe emitters are oriented in a direction of the slow axis and are offset from one another in the direction of the slow axis.
US08175123B2
A method for positioning a collection window for a Fourier transform function is disclosed. A first orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol and a second OFDM symbol are received. The first OFDM symbol comprises a plurality of frequency division multiplexed (FDM) symbols. The first OFDM symbol is characterized by at least two of the following: a delay spread, a first arriving path (FAP), or a last arriving path (LAP). A channel location is estimated from a channel impulse response. A point relative to the channel location is selected. A beginning of the collection window is positioned for the second OFDM symbol at the selected point. Alternatively, a point is selected at a first location relative to the channel location using a first algorithm if a delay spread is less than a predetermined length. The selected point is chosen at a second location relative to the channel location using a second algorithm if the delay spread is greater than the predetermined length.
US08175120B2
Multiple field units in a CDMA system are synchronized for communication with a base station using a shared forward and reverse link channel. Each field unit is assigned a time slot in a forward link channel to receive messages from the base station. Likewise, each field unit is assigned a time slot on a common reverse link channel for transmitting messages to the base station. Timing alignment among each of many field units and the base station is achieved by analyzing messages received at the base station in a corresponding time slot from each field unit. Thereafter, a message is transmitted in a corresponding time slot to a particular field unit from the base station for adjusting its timing so that future messages transmitted from the field unit are received in the appropriate time slot at the base station. In this way, minimal resources are deployed to maintain communication and precise synchronization between a base station and each of multiple users, minimizing collisions between field units transmitting in adjacent time slots on the reverse link.
US08175112B1
A communication system uses an Ethernet link to provide services to a user. The services have service priorities and bandwidth allocations on the Ethernet link. A pseudo-wire interface exchanges user communications for the services over the Ethernet link and transfers performance information indicating the performance of the Ethernet link. A management system processes the performance information and the service priorities to determine if a bandwidth adjustment should be made. The management system processes the performance information, the service priorities, and any bandwidth adjustment to determine if a status message should be transferred to the Ethernet service provider and to determine a message priority for the status message. The speed of response by the Ethernet service provider to the status message is indicated by the message priority.
US08175110B2
A transmitting station includes: an error detecting code attachment block that attaches error detecting codes respectively to a plurality of data pieces; a transmitter block that transmits the plurality of data pieces with the error detecting codes attached thereto to a receiving station by using different radio frequencies, respectively; a receiver block that receives, from the receiving station, the results of error detections that the receiving station applies respectively to the plurality of data pieces on the basis of the error detecting codes attached respectively to the plurality of data pieces; and a transmission data managing block that controls retransmission of the data to the receiving station on the basis of the received results of the error detection.
US08175103B2
The invention is directed to the use of Provider Backbone Bridging (PBB) technology with Shortest Path Bridging, also called Provider Link State Bridging (PLSB) technology in the context of data centers and virtualized physical servers infrastructures. Virtual servers can be located anywhere inside the data center, or across different data centers, and still act as though they are physically adjacent and share the same Ethernet connectivity. Ethernet virtual machine VLan memberships are mapped to PBB Service Identifiers (I-SIDs). PBB I-SIDs extend the connectivity model to every Ethernet switches in the local, metropolitan or wide area networks. PLSB complements the connectivity by providing dynamic distribution and mapping of I-SID endpoints in the PBB domain. Virtual servers can then be added, removed or transferred to another point in the network and PLSB adjusts the VLan/I-SID specific connectivity pattern to match the physical distribution of the servers.
US08175097B2
Embedded within at least some Real-Time Control Protocol (RTCP) messages sent from a media content source to a recipient is a session description message that describes a media presentation being streamed to the recipient. The session description message can be associated, for example, with one of a plurality of pieces of media content in a play list of media content being streamed from the device to the recipient. In accordance with certain aspects, an RTCP message that embeds a session description message includes at least three fields: a first field containing data identifying the RTCP message as being a type that embeds a session description message; a second field containing data that is the session description message for a media presentation; and a third field containing data identifying a length of the RTCP message, generated by summing the length of the first, second, and third fields.
US08175096B2
A communication device, an illegal communication protection device, and network system for providing protection from illegal communications. A communication device is connected to a network, for receiving packets sent and received over networks, and transmitting packets based on the packet destination, includes a control unit, and a storage unit for storing a routing table that stores the destination information. When there is a connection request from a packet that was received, the control unit stores the transmit source address of that packet and the line number where that packet was received, into a routing table, and where there is no connection request from the received packet, the control unit refers to the routing table, acquires the line number linked to an address matching the destination address of that packet, and sends the applicable packet via the acquired line number.
US08175092B2
An address resolution protocol method of a router device comprising steps of: (a) Proving an Internet domain to connect a plurality of computers and a router device. (b) Accepting an address resolution protocol due to the router device, and the address resolution protocol has a sender Internet protocol address (SIPA) and a target Internet protocol address (TIPA). (c) Comparing the SIPA to have the internal domain. (d) Sending to an Internet resolution protocol (IRP) within the Domain Name of Internet network, and to send the IRP to compare with the internal control protocol address. (e) Corresponding with the SIPA of the internet address; renewing the one of the data of the location of the address due to the router device; the SIPA not to correspond with the data of the internet address; the router device to save the SIPA.
US08175089B2
Systems and methods are provided for communicating with control objects according to a singular and unified address space. In one aspect, an industrial communications system is provided. The system includes a global address protocol that can be employed to communicate with local or remote networks. An industrial protocol is adapted to interface with the global address protocol, where a network component communicates with one or more control components via the industrial protocol and in accordance with an address supplied by the global address protocol.
US08175088B2
Provided is a system for providing mobile telecommunication services using an Internet network built with a UTP cable. The system includes a main unit and a plurality of sub units. The main unit includes a plurality of input ports respectively connected to corresponding distributing ports of the switching hubs through UTP cables, is connected to an external mobile telecommunication base station through a wireless link, combines Internet signals transmitted from the distributing ports of the switching hubs with mobile telecommunication signals transmitted from the mobile telecommunication state through a wireless link. Each sub unit includes an input port connected to corresponding one of the output ports of the main unit through an UTP cable, separates the combined signal from the output port of the main unit into an Internet signal and a mobile telecommunication signal.
US08175071B2
There is provided an intercell interference mitigation apparatus for use in a terminal having a single reception antenna in a multi-cell downlink of an OFDMA system. The apparatus includes one or more parallel interference cancellers for canceling intercell interference by respreading soft decision values of cells other than a self cell; one or more LLR creation blocks for creating channel LLRs required for the soft decision for each of subcarriers, and producing channel soft outputs; one or more soft deciders for performing a soft decision of a self user symbol of the self cell in which interferences from other users are mitigated, and producing the soft decision values; and one or more channel estimation blocks for performing iterative channel estimation by respreading symbols of the soft decision values produced from the soft deciders.
US08175069B2
A method and apparatus of resource management for multimedia broadcast multicast services (MBMS) are disclosed. A wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) sends a measurement report and an MBMS reception performance report to a network. Single frequency network (SFN) area change may be made based on cell reselection information, WTRU macro-diversity MBMS reception performance, neighbor cell signal strength reported by a WTRU, interference level measured by the WTRU, a number of WTRUs in a cell, service priority, WTRU class, WTRU mobility trend, WTRU location to a cell center, WTRU MBMS reception interference level, etc. The MBMS service on/off decision and/or point-to-point (PTP) to point-to-multipoint (PTM) switching may be made based on a channel condition of a WTRU. The channel condition may be determined based on whether the WTRU is in in-sync or out-of-sync in MBMS reception, consecutive negative acknowledgements (NAKs) within a certain time window, measured pathloss from a reference channel, etc.
US08175067B2
When a wireless communication network is built in an ad hoc mode, it is possible to appropriately build the wireless communication network regardless of start timings of wireless communication functions of image capturing apparatuses. In order to achieve the object, there is provided the image capturing apparatus which is capable of building a wireless communication network by wirelessly connecting to another image capturing apparatus in an ad hoc mode, and which is capable of switching between a function as a creator and a function as a joiner, including a start unit configured to start as the creator, a unit configured to execute a scan process, and a unit configured to determine based on a result of the scan process whether to function as the creator and to function as the joiner, and to control the image capturing apparatus in accordance with the determination result.
US08175062B2
In a communication system, a first transmitting station transmits a transmission signal to a first receiving station for transmitting a sequence of data via a radio interface. The radio interface is monitored with respect to an interference signal from an interference source prior to transmission via at least one of the first transmitting station and the first receiving station. The transmission only begins if the radio interface is sufficiently free from interference for a moment in time.
US08175058B2
In some illustrative embodiments, a novel system and method is provided that can, for example, extend concepts of pre-authentication (such as, e.g., IEEE 802.11i pre-authentication) so as to operate across networks or subnetworks (such as, e.g., IP subnets). In preferred embodiments, a novel architecture includes one or both of two new mechanisms that substantially improve, e.g., higher-layer handoff performance. A first mechanism is referred to as “pre-configuration,” which allows a mobile to pre-configure higher-layer information effective in candidate IP subnets to handoff. A second mechanism is referred to as “virtual soft-handoff,” which allows a mobile to send or receive packets through the candidate IP subnets even before it is actually perform a handoff to any of the candidate IP subnets.
US08175055B2
A system and apparatus for providing services are provided by embodiments of the present invention. It is guaranteed that a UE is able to establish a call branch at the CS network side with a CSA. The CSA and the S-CSCF are able to establish a call branch at an IMS network side between the CSA and the S-CSCF for the UE. Embodiments of the present invention further provide a method for providing services. The method includes: registering a UE in a Circuit Switched, CS, network, registering the UE in an IP Multimedia Sub-system, IMS, network and establishing a call branch at the CS network side between the UE and the IMS network for an IMS session, wherein registering the UE in the IMS network comprises registering CS access capability of the UE in the IMS network. The system, apparatus and method provided by embodiments of the present invention for providing services may support a UE to access an IMS service platform via a CS network, which effectively reduces the cost.
US08175044B2
The present invention is a wireless communication system having a mobile station and a wireless base station, wherein the wireless base station further having a scheduling processing unit which divides system bandwidth into a plurality of wireless resource blocks in a frequency domain, performs scheduling so that other channels are not assigned to the wireless resource blocks which are adjacent to a first channel when the first channel whose frequency characteristic is not orthogonal to the other channels is assigned to a certain wireless resource block resulting from the division, and creates scheduling information on the scheduling that is performed; and a transmission unit which transmits the scheduling information created by the scheduling processing unit to the mobile station, and the mobile station transmits a channel signal to the wireless base station on the basis of the scheduling information and the wireless base station receives the channel signal transmitted from the mobile station.
US08175043B2
A system and method for establishing and/or maintaining one or more disparate connection paths from a originating mobile user device to a base station via a mobile peer-to-peer (PTP) network including an originating mobile user device configured to broadcasting at least one of a path establishment request signal and one or more path confirmation request signals to one or more intermediate mobile user devices; a mobile peer-to-peer network including the one or more intermediate mobile user devices configured to forwarding the at least one of the path establishment request signal, one or more path establishment response signals, the one or more path confirmation request signal, and one or more path confirmation response signals, via one or more disparate connection paths; and a base station configured to broadcasting at least one of the one or more path establishment response signals and the one or more path confirmation response signals to the originating mobile user device via the one or more disparate connection paths within the mobile peer-to-peer network.
US08175042B2
Briefly, in accordance with one or more embodiments, in a HARQ supported client relaying wireless network, if the intended client subscriber station is able to decode the transmission from the base station, an allocated data zone otherwise allocated for relay transmission and acknowledgment zones in the uplink subframe can be used by another client station for uplink transmission. If the intended client subscriber station cannot decode the transmission from the base station but the relay station can, the relay station may use the allocated data zone in the uplink subframe in which to transmit a relay transmission, along with acknowledgment transmissions in the acknowledgment zones. If the relay station also cannot decode the base station transmission, the other client station may use the allocated data otherwise allocated for relay transmission and acknowledgment zones for uplink transmission.
US08175041B2
A system and method for wireless communication of audiovisual data are disclosed. One embodiment of the system includes a wireless transmitter and a wireless receiver configured to change the size of audiovisual data in response to a change in the condition of a wireless channel. The wireless transmitter is configured to transmit the audiovisual data over the wireless channel. The wireless receiver is configured to receive the audiovisual data over the wireless channel. The wireless transmitter includes an application layer, media access control (MAC) layer, and physical (PHY) layer. The wireless receiver includes an application layer, MAC layer, and PHY layer. The application or MAC layer of the wireless transmitter is configured to change the size of the audiovisual data in response to a change in the condition of the wireless channel. The application or MAC layer of the wireless receiver is configured to restore the size of the audiovisual data.
US08175040B2
Methods and apparatuses enable sending a fast access request in a preamble of a random access request. The fast access request provides for an uplink assignment having bandwidth sufficient to allow the transmission of data with a scheduling request. The fast access request can indicate, for example, a traffic class of a message to be sent. Based on traffic class information, up to a certain additional amount of bandwidth can be allocated for a scheduling procedure for the requesting user device.
US08175036B2
An access point for wireless transmission of packets to user devices includes an application module and a radio module. If the radio module fails to successfully transmit a packet to a user device, the application module takes the packet from its queue and places it in the radio buffer for retransmission. This greatly increases the speed of retransmission. The application module can obtain information on the success of transmitting the packet directly from the radio module.
US08175022B2
The particular frame in a super-frame using orthogonal frequency division multiple access techniques will contain system configuration information in the super-frame header. This super-frame header may be located at a fixed offset from the initial preamble of the frame. In some embodiments, the system configuration information may be located in a broadcast channel section of the super-frame header. In some embodiments, the particular frame may overlap a legacy OFDMA frame in time and in OFDMA sub-channels, so that the two frames share some time and sub-channel resources.
US08175018B2
A data scheduling module, a data scheduling method and computer program product thereof for a wireless communication apparatus are provided. The data scheduling method comprises the following steps: determining that the frame length of a second data transmission interval is not smaller than a frame length of a first data transmission interval; summing at least one first data and at least one second data according to the frame length of the second data transmission interval; calculating an average value according to the frame length of the second data transmission interval and the summed result; calculating an aggregate data transmission interval according to a data transmission capacity, the average value, and an integer adjusting value; and transmitting the at least one first data and the at least one second data via a plurality of frames in accordance with the aggregate data transmission interval.
US08175016B1
Systems, methods and computer readable media consistent with the present invention address this and other needs by providing mechanisms for minimizing an energy cost within a wireless network having a plurality of nodes, including a plurality of transmitting nodes and a plurality of receiving nodes. An energy cost, including at least an overhearing cost, is determined. A transmission power assignment of a transmitting node is then adjusted to reduce the energy cost. These determining and adjusting stages are repeated to reduce the energy cost.
US08175015B1
A media access control (MAC) processor includes a programmable controller and a memory coupled to the programmable controller to store machine readable instructions for implementing MAC functions corresponding to data received by a communication device. A hardware processor is coupled to the programmable controller. The hardware processor includes a processing engine configured to implement MAC functions on the data received by the communication device. The hardware processor additionally includes a context memory coupled to the processing engine to store state information of the processing engine corresponding to one or more contexts, and context switch logic coupled to the processing to determine when the processing engine should switch contexts.
US08174994B2
A data processing mechanism is disclosed for selection of a communication interface for a communication device from a plurality of communication interfaces provided by a communication system. The mechanism comprises a first controller entity for executing a first selection routine for considering at least one first policy on communication via the communication system, and a second controller entity for executing a second selection routine for considering at least one second policy on communication via the communication system. The at least one second policy is related to a different aspect of communication than the at least one first policy. The data processing mechanism is configured to select the communication interface based on outputs of the first selection routine and the second selection routine.
US08174990B2
A method for measuring performance of system. The method includes the steps of retrieving a metric definition from a declarative metrics specification, obtaining a list of computing nodes from a database that are currently assigned to the metric definition, obtaining resource data provided by the computing nodes in the list of computing nodes and determining the metric of system performance based on the metric definition and the resource data. The computing nodes in the list of computing nodes are nodes of a cluster of nodes having a dynamically varying node count.
US08174989B2
Arrangements and methods for developing a software toolkit that can be used to design or obtain parameters for a sensor network. High-level guidelines on the basic relations between sensor network parameters like number of sensors, degree of quantization at each sensor, and the distortion requirements, based on a deep analysis on two basic coding possibilities (multiplexed point-to-point, distributed) are contemplated. By evaluating tradeoffs among the various parameters, an optimization framework to obtain the most cost-effective design with required quantization capabilities pertaining to given distortion criterion is provided.
US08174988B1
A wireless communication device receives a media request from a user and transfers a message to a media server. The media server receives the message, and in response, transfers media to the wireless device in a first set of packets that have a first sequence of packet addresses. The wireless device receives the first set of packets and displays the media. The wireless device displays a QoS control and receives a QoS level from the user, and in response, transfers a message indicating the QoS level to the media server. The media server receives the message, and in response, translates the QoS level into a second sequence of packet addresses and transfers the media to the wireless device in a second set of packets that each have the second sequence of packet addresses. The wireless communication device receives the second set of packets and displays the media.
US08174986B2
Various embodiments are described for potentially reducing the impact of routing area updates on wireless system capacity. Logic flow diagram 10, in FIG. 1, depicts such functionality. In some embodiments, it is determined (12) whether a remote unit is within an edge portion of a routing area, while in other embodiments it is determined (12) whether the remote unit is within an end portion of a routing area update interval. It is also determined (14) whether one or more conditions are present for the remote unit to perform a resource-efficient routing update. A routing area update is then performed (16) when one or more of the conditions are present and when, depending on the embodiment, either the remote unit is determined to be within the edge portion of the routing area or the remote unit is determined to be within the end portion of the routing area update interval.
US08174978B2
A method of congestion management within a switch or network of connected switches is provided, wherein the or each of the switches has a plurality of ingress ports and a plurality of egress ports. The method involves, when congestion is detected at a first ingress or egress port, sending a message to an upstream port connected to the first ingress or egress port indicating that congestion has occurred at a particular port and requesting storage at the upstream port of data packets destined for that port; and, in dependence on the amount of data packets destined for the congested port stored at the upstream port, sending from the upstream port to a further upstream port a message informing the further upstream port of the congestion at the congested port, the further upstream port storing at the further upstream port data packets destined for the congested port.
US08174969B1
A packet switch includes a flow control circuit for preventing a downstream ingress port of the packet switch from providing a non-posted packet to an upstream egress port of the packet switch when a downstream egress port of the packet switch is congested. As a result, congestion is reduced in the downstream egress port. Additionally, congestion is reduced in an upstream ingress port of the packet switch that receives completion packets in response to non-posted packets output from the upstream egress port and provides the completion packets to the downstream egress port. Because congestion is reduced in the upstream ingress port, latency is reduced for a completion packet received at the upstream ingress port and provided to another downstream egress port of the packet switch in response to a non-posted packet provided from another downstream ingress port to the upstream egress port and output from the packet switch.
US08174965B2
In a network (10) providing a service to a client of a terminal (T1) and comprising at lease first and second session border controllers (A, B), at least one identical address (@Ain) is allocated to the first and second session border controllers. A router (Ra) connects the terminal (T1) to the first session border controller (A) and is capable of dynamically managing a routing table indicating at least first and second routes for the address. A message transmitted from the terminal to the network is received at the first session border controller when the router selects the first route and at the second session border controller when the router selects the second route.
US08174964B2
A method for detecting unavailable network connections comprises, at a first data processing node that is hosting a transport protocol connection that uses a plurality of sequence values to identify messages sent to a peer node, wherein the first node is communicatively coupled to a second data processing node serving as a redundant backup, periodically sending a checkpoint sequence value to the second node; detecting that either the transport protocol connection or a process using the transport protocol connection is unavailable, without use of a timeout; and in response thereto, sending a notification to the peer node, wherein the notification includes the checkpoint sequence value. One embodiment provides for rapidly detecting and responding to failure of a TCP process without using long timeouts as conventionally provided in long-lived applications that run on top of TCP.
US08174958B2
Aspects of a method and system for a reference signal (RS) timing loop for OFDM symbol synchronization and tracking may include tracking symbol timing in an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) signal based on at least a reference symbol set. A receiver timing may be adjusted based on at least the symbol timing. The symbol timing may be tracked by generating an output signal as a function of a guard time Δtg in a phase discrimination feedback loop. The reference symbol (RS) set may be generated in an RS extraction module or circuit, from at least a fast Fourier transform of the received OFDM signal. The receiver timing may be coarsely adjusted and then finely adjusted. The coarse receiver timing adjustment may be based on processing at least a primary synchronization signal and a secondary synchronization signal.
US08174946B2
An optical disk apparatus includes a rotary driving unit rotating an optical disk which is flexible, an optical pickup irradiating light upon a recording surface of the optical disk on which writing/reading of information is performed, a stabilizing unit stabilizing vibration of the optical disk in a rotary axial direction by using pressure difference of air flow at least on a portion where writing/reading is performed, and being disposed on a side of the optical disk opposite to a side on which the recording surface is provided, and a control-adjustment unit analyzing a value of a tracking error signal of the optical disk obtained by scanning along a groove of the optical disk with use of the optical pickup, comparing the analyzed value of the tracking error signal of the optical disk and a value priorly obtained by scanning along a groove of a standard disk prepared beforehand, and adjusting a positional relation between the optical disk and the stabilizing member in a three dimensional space according to the result of the comparison.
US08174939B2
An optical head includes a diffraction element capable of improving the quality of a TE signal by a DPP method even if light amounts of two sub-spots are unbalanced for optical discs having different groove pitches. In a three-beam optical head, a diffraction element is divided in a radial direction of an optical disc into a first area, a second area and a third area, wherein the second area is further divided into a fourth area and a fifth area. The periodic structure of the first area is displaced from that of the fourth area by a ¼ period, the periodic structure of the third area is displaced from that of the first area by a ½ period, and the periodic structure of the fifth area is displaced from that of the third area by a ¼ period and from that of the fourth area by a ½ period.
US08174929B2
The present disclosure describes a spindle for a mud pulse telemetry tool. The spindle includes a seal section having an outer surface for contacting a lip seal of a spindle housing in which the spindle is mounted; a top section attachable to at least part of a valve assembly for generating mud pulses; and a base section having a proximal end attachable to a drive motor for moving the spindle and a distal end attachable to the top section such that the seal section is fixed between the top and base sections. The seal section can be made of a ceramic material such as yttrium-stabilized zirconia.
US08174922B2
An anti-fuse memory cell includes: a first transistor connected with a word line and configured to output a second voltage based on a first voltage supplied to the word line in a write mode; a second transistor connected with a bit line, and configured to output a third voltage supplied to the bit line when the second voltage is supplied to a gate of the second transistor in the write mode; and an anti-fuse element connected to a ground line, and having an insulator film. The insulator film is set to a conductive state with the third voltage supplied from the second transistor.
US08174909B2
A nonvolatile semiconductor memory, includes a nonvolatile memory array, a voltage generator circuit that generates a drive voltage which changes depending on a supply voltage and a code, a control circuit that applies the generated drive voltage to the nonvolatile memory array, and a code output circuit that outputs any one of a plurality of codes to the voltage generator circuit, wherein the plurality of codes includes a first code and a second code, wherein the second code is different from the first code, wherein, in a first state, the code output circuit outputs the first code to the voltage generator circuit, and the voltage generator circuit generates the drive voltage according to the first code, and wherein, in a second state, the code output circuit outputs the second code to the voltage generator circuit, and the voltage generator circuit generates the drive voltage according to the second code.
US08174906B2
A method of programming a nonvolatile memory device according to the present invention includes precharging bit lines according to data loaded in page buffers; electrically connecting the precharged bit lines to channels corresponding to the bit lines, respectively, to charge the channels; and applying a word line voltage for a program after charging the channels. A channel voltage boosting of each of the channels is determined according to data loaded in adjacent page buffers.
US08174893B2
Methods for programming a memory device, memory devices configured to perform the disclosed programming methods, and memory systems having a memory device configured to perform the disclosed programming methods, for example, are provided. According to at least one such method, multiple independent semiconductor well regions each having strings of memory cells are independently biased during a programming operation performed on a memory device. Reduced charge leakage may be realized during a programming operation in response to independent well biasing methods.
US08174888B2
In one aspect, a non-volatile memory device is provided which is operable in a programming mode and a read mode. The memory device includes a memory cell array which includes a plurality of non-volatile memory cells, a plurality of word lines, and a plurality of bit lines. The memory device further includes an internal data output line for outputting data read from the bit lines of the memory array, and a page buffer operatively connected between a bit line of the memory cell array and the internal data output line. The page buffer includes a sense node which is selectively connected to the bit line, a latch circuit having a latch node which is selectively connected to the sense node, a latch input path which sets a logic voltage of the latch node in the programming mode and the read mode, and a latch output path which is separate from the latch input path and which sets as logic voltage of the internal date output line according to the logic voltage of the latch node.
US08174881B2
Techniques for reducing disturbance in a semiconductor memory device are disclosed. In one particular exemplary embodiment, the techniques may be realized as a semiconductor memory device having reduced disturbance. The semiconductor memory device may comprise a plurality of memory cells arranged in arrays of rows and columns. The semiconductor memory device may also comprise a plurality of data sense amplifiers, coupled to the plurality of memory cells, configured to perform one or more operations during an operation/access cycle, wherein the operation/access cycle may comprise an operation segment and a disturbance recovery segment.
US08174873B2
A domain wall motion type MRAM has: a magnetic recording layer 10 having perpendicular magnetic anisotropy; and a pair of terminals 51 and 52 used for supplying a current to the magnetic recording layer 10. The magnetic recording layer 10 has: a first magnetization region 11 connected to one of the pair of terminals; a second magnetization region 12 connected to the other of the pair of terminals; and a magnetization switching region 13 connecting between the first magnetization region 11 and the second magnetization region 12 and having reversible magnetization. A first pinning site PS1, by which the domain wall is trapped, is formed at a boundary between the first magnetization region 11 and the magnetization switching region 13. A second pinning site PS2, by which the domain wall is trapped, is formed at a boundary between the second magnetization region 12 and the magnetization switching region 13. A third pinning site PS3, by which the domain wall is trapped, is formed within the first magnetization region 11.
US08174865B2
A memory device includes a plurality of memory bit lines connected to a plurality of memory cells, a plurality of reference bit lines connected to a plurality of reference cells and a reference bit line selection circuit. The memory bit lines has a first pattern and a second pattern, and the first pattern has a first critical dimension (CD) distribution, and the second pattern has a second CD distribution. The reference bit lines have the first pattern and the second pattern. The reference bit line selection circuit provides a reference signal by selecting a reference bit line having a same pattern as a selected memory bit line connected to a memory cell to be read.
US08174851B2
According to an exemplary embodiment a method of operating a resonant power supply comprises controlling the resonant power supply in a discontinuous way. According to an exemplary embodiment a resonant power supply comprises a first switching element, and at least one energy storing element, wherein the resonant power supply is adapted to be controlled in a discontinuous way.
US08174845B2
The purpose of the present invention is providing an electronic apparatus cover easily detached in the electronic apparatus cover that protects a connector installed in a recess portion of the electronic apparatus. The present invention is an electronic apparatus cover that covers a first connector for electrically connecting to a portable apparatus of an electronic apparatus that includes a recess portion to which the portable apparatus can be attached and a first engagement portion that engages the portable apparatus, including: a third engagement portion that engages with the first engagement portion.
US08174844B2
A wired circuit board for electrically connecting a suspension board with circuit comprising a metal supporting layer, an insulating base layer, a conductive layer, and an insulating cover layer, and an external circuit, includes a first wired circuit board electrically connected with the suspension board with circuit; and a second wired circuit board for electrically connecting with the external circuit. The first wired circuit board and the second wired circuit board are electrically connected through a preamplifier. The first wired circuit board includes a first metal supporting layer; a first insulating base layer; a first conductive layer and a first insulating cover layer.
US08174839B2
A mounting structure of a semiconductor package includes a semiconductor package, a chassis having a coupling boss protruding at a position corresponding to the coupling hole, a coupling member penetrating the coupling hole and coupled to the coupling boss, and an insulation member covering around the coupling hole of the reinforcing plate and making insulation contact with the coupling member and the coupling boss. The semiconductor package includes a film substrate for interfacing transmission of signals between a circuit board and a display panel, a semiconductor chip forming an electrical contact point with the film substrate, and a reinforcing plate to which the film substrate and the semiconductor chip are directly attached. The reinforcing plate has a coupling hole.
US08174838B2
A display device includes a circuit board having a plurality of pixels arranged thereon, each pixel having a plurality of light emitting elements, a driving circuit driving the light emitting elements, a case housing the above, a frame having flanges at a circuit board side of the case to block external light toward the light emitting elements, and a shield disposed between the frame and the case to block electromagnetic noise. A screw is inserted into a through hole and placed into a screw receiving portion to fix the frame and the case. The screw receiving portion has a cylindrical metal portion housing the screw and electrically connecting the screw and the shield, and a resin portion interposed between the placed screw and the inner wall surface of the cylindrical metal portion.
US08174836B2
A data card includes a casing provided with a circuit board therein. One end of the casing is provided with a plug electrically connected with the circuit board. The data card further includes a connecting part and a cap part. One end of the connecting part is connected with the casing, while the other end is connected with the cap part. The cap part can cover the plug. An antenna which is electrically connected with the circuit board is provided on the connecting part and/or the cap part. The invention mainly use in wireless data signal receiving or transmitting device.
US08174829B1
To cool racks of electronic devices, the racks are arranged in a plurality of rows to define at least a first aisle and a second aisle, where the second aisle has air cooler than air in the first aisle, and where the fans of the electronic devices cause air to flow from the second aisle to the first aisle. A cooling coil assembly contains a coolant to cool air received from the first aisle, wherein cooled air exits the cooling coil assembly and flows to the second aisle. A temperature of the coolant in the cooling coil assembly is maintained above a dew point of an environment in which the racks are located.
US08174826B2
A computing system is provided. In the computing system, a plurality of modules physically arranged in a three dimensional hexadron configuration. In the computing system, the at least one module is either a liquid-tight module filled with a non-conductive liquid coolant or a module cooled with a liquid coolant circulating through cold plates mounted on electronic components. In the computing system, the liquid coolant is circulated in a closed loop by at least one pump through a plurality of hoses through at least one of a plurality of heat exchangers. In the computing system, the plurality of heat exchangers is coupled to an exterior portion of the surface of the computing system. In the computing system, the plurality of heat exchangers cool the liquid coolant through finned tubes exposed to the surrounding air.
US08174824B2
Techniques for accessing an enclosure are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, an enclosure is configured for rack mounting. The enclosure includes an access panel disposed in a top surface of the enclosure. The access panel is moveably coupled to the enclosure and configured to provide access to the interior of the enclosure.
US08174822B2
A plasma display device includes a plasma display panel (PDP) having electrodes between front and rear substrates, a chassis base on an outer surface of the PDP, a printed circuit board assembly (PBA) on the chassis base, a flexible printed circuit (FPC) connecting the PBA to the electrodes of the PDP, an anisotropic conductive film between terminals of the electrodes and a terminal of the FPC, and a sealing member surrounding the terminals of the electrodes and the terminal of the FPC, the sealing member including a surface hydrophobic modifying layer and an insulation layer.
US08174820B2
An element for a solid electrolytic capacitor having low equivalent series resistance (ESR) and high capacitance per unit volume obtained by controlling the composition or the thickness of the silver paste forming a laminated structure on the anode substrate having a carbon paste layer on the surface. Using two kinds of silver pastes each having different wettability on the carbon paste layer and applying each silver paste on the side (edge) portions and face portions of an anode substrate, respectively, a desired layer thickness can be obtained as a whole. A solid electrolytic capacitor element preferably has a silver paste layer coating the side (edge) portions of the anode substrate which is thicker than the silver paste layer covering the face portions of the anode substrate, wherein a silver paste of composition having a water amount of 0.5 mass % or less is preferably used.
US08174816B2
There is provided a ceramic electronic component including a ceramic sintered body, internal conductive layers, and external electrodes. Each of the external electrodes includes a first electrode layer, a conductive resin layer covering the first electrode layer, and a second electrode layer covering the conductive resin layer and having an extension length greater than the length of the first electrode layer extending from one of the side surfaces of the ceramic sintered body to the portions of the top and bottom surfaces thereof. The distance from the top or bottom surface of the ceramic sintered body to the closest layer of the internal conductive layers is greater than or equal to the length of the first electrode layer extending from one of the side surfaces of the ceramic sintered body to the portions of the top and bottom surfaces thereof.
US08174811B2
The present invention provides an overheat protection device which is capable of effectively preventing a secondary battery from overheating. In the overheat protection device (20), a variable resistive element(s) (11) of which resistance varies depending on a temperature is located on and thermally combined with a certain position(s) of an electrical system (1), and a switching element (15) for controlling a current depending on an applied voltage thereto is arranged so as to control the current flowing through the electrical system (1). When the certain position of the electrical system (1) comes to be under a high temperature condition, the variable resistive element (11) interrupts the current flowing through the electrical system (1) by changing the applied voltage to the switching element (15).
US08174800B2
A magnetoresistive element includes an antiferromagnetic layer formed from a layer containing manganese, a layered magnetization fixed layer which includes a first magnetization fixed layer located over a side of the antiferromagnetic layer and formed from a layer containing a ferromagnetic material and a platinum group metal, a second magnetization fixed layer formed from a layer containing a ferromagnetic material, and a first nonmagnetic intermediate layer located between the first magnetization fixed layer and the second magnetization fixed layer, a magnetic free layer formed from a layer containing a ferromagnetic material, and a second nonmagnetic intermediate layer located between the layered magnetization fixed layer and the magnetic free layer.
US08174795B2
A hard disk drive has a disk, a spindle motor for rotating the disk, a head stack assembly including a swing arm and a head slider disposed at a leading end of the swing arm, and a controller operatively connected to the head slider. The head slider is positioned by the swing arm over the disk and floats in such position during a read/write operation in which data is being read from or written onto the disk. The head slider has a head slider body, a magnetic head embedded in the body, and at least one resistive heating element that generates heat when current is supplied thereto. The heat causes the body of the head slider to thermally expand in such a way that the profile of the disk-facing side of the body of the head slider changes. The controller controls the height of the head slider relative to the disk by controlling the supplying of current to the resistive heating element(s). First, the controller measures the distance between the head slider and the disk during a read/write operation, and compares the measured distance with a predetermined optimum distance or allowable range of distances. Current is supplied and/or cut off from the resistive heating element(s) when the measured distance is different from the predetermined optimum distance or is outside the predetermined range of distances.
US08174786B1
Devices, systems, and techniques for equalization include, in at least some implementations, a first equalizer that produces first equalized data responsive to input data by reducing a total power of both noise and inter symbol interference components of the input data, a first detector that produces first output data responsive to the first equalized data, a second equalizer that produces second equalized data responsive to the first output data by maximizing bit error rate performance, and a second detector that produces second output data responsive to the second equalized data.
US08174777B2
This invention provides a zoom lens assembly in order from an object side toward an image side including a first lens group with negative refractive power, a second lens group with positive refractive power and a third lens group with positive refractive power. The first lens group has only two lenses with refractive power from an object side toward an image side in order including a first lens with negative refractive power and a second lens with negative refractive power. The second lens group from an object side toward an image side in order includes an aperture stop, a third lens and a fourth lens. The third lens group includes a fifth lens. The number of the lens with refractive power in the zoom lens assembly is N, which satisfies the condition of 5≦N≦7, and the lens with refractive power in the zoom lens assembly includes at least three aspheric-surface lens.
US08174774B2
A zoom lens system includes a positive first lens group, a negative second lens group, a positive third lens group, and a positive fourth lens group, in this order from the object.Upon zooming from the short focal length extremity to the long focal length extremity, all of the first through fourth lens groups move along the optical axis. The zoom lens system satisfies the following condition: 3
US08174770B2
A concave lens as an optical component is made of glass containing 20 to 22% of B2O3, 30 to 40% of La2O3, and 19 to 25% of ZnO, expressed as wt %. The concave lens has a thickness t1 in its center portion of 0.5 mm or less, and a ratio (W/t1) of a diameter W with respect to the thickness t1 of 24 or more. The concave lens can be produced suitably by press forming.
US08174768B2
A system and method of reducing turbulence sensitivity in a laser spot detector. Embodiments may include using beam splitters, reflectors, and beam deviators. The reflectors may be trihedral reflectors and the beam deviators may be segmented wedge plates having predetermined physical angles and angle directions in each wedge segment designed to produce opposing blurs for each segment of the aperture. A predetermined blur introduced into each line of sight eliminates the need for de-focus, thereby mitigating effects such as centroid shift caused by turbulence or dirty/damaged sensor apertures.
US08174763B2
Methods and systems for scanning a cytological specimen carried by a slide. Movement or positioning of a motorized stage of an automated screening system may be controlled manually by a user such that the user controls movement, e.g., controlling speed, position, and/or timing, of the motorized stage along a first scan line to controllably scan a first portion of the specimen along the scan line. The user may then index the motorized stage from the first scan line to the next scan line and manually control movement of the stage along the second scan line to controllably scan another portion of the specimen. Stage indexing may also be automatic such that the user does not control or initiate indexing.
US08174758B2
An optical amplifier for amplifying light includes a light source for emitting pump light in accordance with current amount; a rare earth element doped optical fiber doped rare earth element, the rare earth element doped optical fiber pumped by the pump light from the light source; a detector for detecting upconversion light leaked from the rare earth element doped optical fiber; a memory for storing correspondence relationship data of the current amount for the light source and an intensity of the upconversion light in normal state of the light source; a difference calculator for calculating a difference between the intensity of the upconversion light being detected by the detector and an amount being obtained by converting the current amount for the light source by the use of the correspondence relationship data; and a discriminator for discriminating whether the difference calculated at the difference calculator exceeds a predetermined value.
US08174757B2
A multi-layer optical thin film filter comprising plural deposited optical thin films, wherein optical thin film thickness for each of said optical thin films has a predetermined wavelength spectrum in a predetermined gain equalization band and a predetermined wavelength spectrum in a pumping light transmission band other than said gain equalization band.
US08174752B2
A transmissive micromechanical device includes a substrate, an optical stack over the substrate and a moveable membrane over the optical stack. The moveable membrane may include a partially reflective mirror and be configured to move from a first position to a second position. When the movable membrane is in the first position the transmissive micromechanical device is configured to pass light of a predetermined color and when the movable membrane is in the second position, the micromechanical device is configured to block substantially all of light incident on the substrate.
US08174747B2
An optical scanning apparatus for scanning a surface to be scanned includes: a light source that emits laser beam; a deflector that deflects the laser beam emitted from the light source; a plurality of optical scanning elements that introduce the deflected laser beam to the surface to be scanned; a housing that holds therein at least one of the light source, the deflector, and the scanning optical elements; a light receiving element that receives the deflected laser beam; a mirror that introduces the deflected laser beam to the light receiving element; and a holder that is provided on the housing and that holds the light receiving element and the mirror integrally.
US08174744B2
The invention relates to video holograms and devices for reconstructing video holograms, comprising an optical system having a light source, lens and the video hologram having cells arranged in a matrix or a regular pattern with at least one opening per cell, the phase or amplitude of said opening being controllable. The holographic video representations of expanded spatial objects can be achieved in a wide viewing area in real time using controllable displays, whereby the objects are either computer-generated or created by different means. The space-bandwidth product (SBP) of the hologram is thus reduced to a minimum and the periodicity interval of the Fourier spectrum is used as a viewing window on the inverse transformation plane, through which the object is visible in the preceding space. The mobility of the viewer(s) is achieved by tracking the viewing window.
US08174741B2
An image processing method for generating a gradation image, including the steps of: (a) acquiring a coordinate of a start point, a color value of the start point, a coordinate of an end point, and a color value of the end point; (b) setting either the number of pixels between the start point and the end point that is calculated on the basis of the coordinates that are acquired in the coordinate-and-color-value acquisition (a) or the number of colors between the start point and the end point, whichever is smaller, as the number of complementary colors of a complementary color list; (c) creating the complementary color list that has the number of complementary colors that is set in the complementary-color-number setting (b); and (d) generating the gradation image with the use of the complementary color list that is created in the complementary-color-list creation (c).
US08174740B2
An illuminator system includes an illuminator array positioned adjacent to an image bearing surface, a light diffuser, and a linear sensor array. The light diffuser includes a plurality of rounded lenslets having convex or concave configuration positioned between the illuminator array and the image bearing surface. The rounded lenslets are positioned with respect to the illuminator array to receive the light beams emitted by the illuminator elements and to diffuse the light beams being transmitted to the image bearing surface in the linear direction of the illuminator array. Each of the rounded lenslets has a textured surface with a plurality of indentations. Each of the indentations is configured to randomly diffuse the light beams being transmitted to the image bearing surface.
US08174734B2
An apparatus for correcting a scanned image includes a delay circuit configured to delay first image data by a delay amount corresponding to an integer multiple of a line interval, an interpolation circuit configured to perform an interpolation computation responsive to interpolation coefficients with respect to two or more lines included in the first image data delayed by the delay circuit, and a control circuit configured to set the delay amount to the delay circuit and the interpolation coefficients to the interpolation circuit, wherein the control circuit is configured to set the delay amount to an amount corresponding to integer m smaller than integer n and set the interpolation coefficients such that the interpolation computation becomes equivalent to a computation introducing a delay equal to n−m lines if an interval between the first image data and second image data is n times the line interval.
US08174732B2
A white reference member is used to obtain white reference data. An image sensor scans the white reference member line by line to obtain a plurality of lines of white reference data. A skipping unit skips the white reference data with a predetermined skipping ratio to generate a skipped white reference data. A dust detecting unit detects a dust between the white reference member and the image sensor based on the skipped white reference data.
US08174728B2
An image processing method for forming a color conversion table to convert plural input colors into output colors, the method including the steps of: extracting color values of plural gray scales wherein in input and output characteristic data, a signal value of one color is variable and signal values of other colors are fixed; creating a model with which difference values between input and output color values are outputted by inputting the extracted color values; and estimating the output color values corresponding to the input color values to create the color conversion table to convert plural input colors into output colors, after shifting the color values by adding or subtracting the difference values which are obtained by inputting the color values into the model with respect to every output color values.
US08174716B2
In a terminal device connected through a network to an image forming apparatus including a hold print function, the presence of an unprinted hold print job is certainly informed to a user that should print a hold print job. The terminal device includes a hold print job processing unit having a hold print job information managing unit that manages hold print job information sent from the image forming apparatus, an event receiving unit that receives event occurrence information given from an operating system when a predetermined event occurs in a personal computer, and a user interface unit, and displays a message indicating that an unprinted job exists every time the notification of occurrence of the event is sent from the OS if the unprinted hold print job exists in a list of the hold print job information in the hold print job information managing unit.
US08174715B2
An image forming apparatus includes: a memory connecting portion, to which an external memory is detachably connected; a detecting portion that detects a connection state of the external memory; a printing portion that prints an image based on an image file to be printed which is stored in the external memory; and a controller that performs an automatic printing processing in which the controller controls the printing portion to automatically start printing the image in response to a detection by the detecting portion of connection of the external memory to the memory connecting portion.
US08174710B2
Disclosed herein is a system and method for diagnosing a failure condition of an image processing apparatus. When a failure condition is detected in an image path during output of a document, a fault code is issued. The image processing apparatus is then capable of performing an internal diagnosis to generate a diagnostic report, and send the diagnostic report and fault code to an operator at a remote location. The system and method allows one to diagnose a problem or failure condition more quickly and efficiently, thereby cutting down on service time and costs.
US08174703B2
A method for fabricating a sensor, a sensor so fabricated, and a method for sensing a stimulus are provided. The method includes providing an elongated open channel, such as, a V-groove, in a substrate, the open channel providing a first surface; removing at least some material from at least a portion of the open channel to provide a second surface displaced from the first surface; positioning a diaphragm on the second surface; and positioning an elongated wave-guide having a beveled end in the elongated open channel wherein the beveled end is positioned over the diaphragm to define an interferometric cavity between the diaphragm and the outer surface of the wave-guide. The sensor so fabricated can provide an effective sensor for detecting acoustic emission waves, among other pressure waves.
US08174685B2
A network device may include a receiver to receive optical pulses from an optical path, wherein the optical pulses include a plurality of intensities and represent data. The network device may also include a processor to determine a rate of bit errors introduced during propagation of the optical pulses through the optical path and to determine a parameter indicative of nonlinear effects of the optical path based on the rate of bit errors and the plurality of intensities.
US08174684B2
In a modular measuring head system comprising a central module having the shape of a parallelepiped block with six sides, the central module encloses an interior space and is provided on at least five sides with attachment sites, each having at least one opening leading to the interior space. Together with additional modules, the central module forms a modular building structure based on a highly diverse optical measuring head including at least several of an illumination module, a lens module, a mirror module and a camera module. Each of these optional modules can be at least indirectly attached to at least one of the attachment sites.
US08174683B2
A vehicle position measurement system (100) and method to determine the (relative) position of a vehicle (110) and an object (120) are proposed. The system comprises at least two light sources (131, 132) capable of emitting light and positioned at a predetermined distance (140) to each other. Furthermore the system comprises at least one detector (150/151, 152) capable of measuring the light emitted. The light emitted by the light sources comprises synchronized light source identification codes. The detector is arranged to determine the position of the vehicle (110) and object (120) on the basis of a phase-difference measurement between the light originating from the individual light sources (131, 132) and a comparison phase. The vehicle (110) may comprise the at least two light sources (131, 132) and the detector (151, 152), while the phase-difference is measured between light reflected from the object (120) and the comparison phase. Alternatively, the vehicle (110) may comprise the at least two light sources (131, 132) while the object (120) comprises the detector (150) and the detector is arranged to obtain the comparison phase from the light received from one of the light sources (131, 132). The object may be a vehicle.
US08174682B2
An optical system of a shape measuring instrument includes a laser diode, a first optical system irradiating an object to be measured with laser beam, a second optical system focusing reflected light from the object to be measured, and a CCD line sensor portion for detecting a laser beam from the second optical system, where the first optical system includes an optical path displacing unit for displacing an optical path for laser beam, the optical path displacing unit includes a glass plate rotating about a rotating axis extending in a direction perpendicular to a displacement plane of the optical path, a rotating unit for the glass plate, and a rotating unit controller, and the rotating unit controller causes a rotation angle of the rotating unit to coincide with a rotation angle of the rotating unit obtained when the maximum value of an amount of light received by the CCD line sensor according to rotation of the rotating unit is measured by the rotating unit controller.
US08174679B2
The present invention provides an illumination optical system which illuminates a surface to be illuminated with light from a light source, the illumination optical system including a plurality of illumination systems configured to form predetermined illumination regions with the light from the light source, an optical system having reflecting surfaces, which are configured to reflect the light beams from the illumination systems, respectively for the plurality of illumination systems, and a light-shielding unit configured to shield a certain light component in a composite illumination region formed by the light from the optical system to shape a shape of the composite illumination region, wherein one continuous composite illumination region is formed on the surface to be illuminated by connecting the respective illumination regions by reflecting the light beams from the plurality of illumination systems by the reflecting surfaces.
US08174676B2
A method for correcting at least one image defect of a projection objective of a lithography projection exposure machine, the projection objective comprising an optical arrangement composed of a plurality of lenses and at least one mirror, the at least one mirror having an optically operative surface that can be defective and is thus responsible for the at least one image defect, comprises the steps of: at least approximately determining a ratio VM of principal ray height hMH to marginal ray height hMR at the optically operative surface of the at least one mirror, at least approximately determining at least one optically operative lens surface among the lens surfaces of the lenses, at which the magnitude of a ratio VL of principal ray height hLH to marginal ray height hLR comes at least closest to the ratio VM, and selecting the at least one determined lens surface for the correction of the image defect.
US08174658B2
A thin film transistor (TFT) substrate includes: a plurality of gate lines extending in one direction, a plurality of data lines extending in a direction intersecting the gate lines, a pixel electrode formed in a pixel region defined by an intersection of the gate line and the data line, and with one side of the pixel electrode overlapping a portion of one data line and another side of the pixel electrode overlapping a portion of another data line. The TFT further includes a storage electrode line having a storage electrode disposed in a central portion of the pixel region.
US08174648B2
Disclosed is a cellulose acylate film comprising a cellulose acylate satisfying relations of 2.0≦A+B≦2.45, (II): and 0.8≦A≦1.4, and (III): 0.6≦B≦1.65 where “A” represents a degree of acetyl substitution of hydroxy in a glucose unit of cellulose acylate; and “B” represents a degree of with C3 or longer acyl substitution of hydroxy in a glucose unit of cellulose acylate; and satisfying relations of 50 nm≦Re(590)≦70 nm, 100 nm≦Rth(590)≦120 nm, and (VI): 1.4≦Rth(590)/Re(590)≦2.6.
US08174645B2
An electronic display device including a display unit for displaying an image and a light controller disposed in front of the display unit. The light controller includes a polarizing switch for controlling a polarizing direction using an electrical signal, and a pattern polarizer for controlling light transmission in cooperation with the polarizing switch. The polarizing switch has first and second common electrodes facing each other and a liquid crystal layer located between the first and second common electrodes. The pattern polarizer has a plurality of polarizing portions and a plurality of non-polarizing portions alternately arranged in a first direction.
US08174635B2
An electrostatic discharge protection element, a liquid crystal display device having the same, and a manufacturing method. A first ESD organic TFT, a second ESD organic TFT, a third ESD organic TFT each have a gate electrode, a source electrode and a drain electrode in which the source electrode and drain electrode of the first and second ESD organic TFTs and the gate electrode of the third ESD organic TFT are electrically connected. The gate electrode and the source electrode of the first ESD organic TFT are electrically connected to a first array line and the gate electrode and the drain electrode of the second ESD organic TFT are electrically connected to a second array line. The source electrode of the third ESD organic TFT is electrically connected to a data line or a gate line and the drain of the third ESD organic TFT are electrically connected to a common voltage line.
US08174623B2
The present invention provides a device and an image adjustment method by simultaneously adjusting the luminance and the chrominance of an image. The device comprises a luminance analysis device, a contrast adjusting device, a luminance adjusting device, a chrominance compensation device and a luminance gain adjusting device. The method comprises steps of: generating a maximum input luminance signal, an average input luminance signal and a minimum input luminance signal according to an input luminance signal; generating a contrast value according to at least one of the maximum input luminance signal and the average input luminance signal; generating an input luminance offset according to the input luminance signal and the minimum input luminance signal; generating an output chrominance signal according to the contrast value and an input chrominance signal; and generating an output luminance signal according to the input luminance offset and the contrast value.
US08174617B2
An apparatus for providing multiple screens and a method of dynamically configuring the multiple screens are provided. The apparatus for providing multiple screens retrieves the type of the screens in the device and connection relationship therebetween in order to dynamically configure multiple screens that provide a plurality of services on a physical display device. The apparatus for providing multiple screens includes an operation module generating at least one of screens for displaying a received service, and a retrieval module retrieving a screen on which an application included in the service is executed among the screens.
US08174614B2
A video signal processing apparatus, which can prevent degradation of picture quality in converting an interlaced scan video signal to a progressive scan video signal, includes an interframe correlation detection means (11); an interfield correlation detection means (12); a field resolution determination means (13) which generates a signal (filhv) indicative of a degree of high frequency components existing in a field; a pull-down sequence detection means (14) which generates a telecine detection signal (tci) indicating whether or not an input video signal is any of 2-3 pull-down telecine video signal and 2-2 pull-down telecine video signal and also generates a mixing ratio signal (tcmix) indicative of a mixing ratio used at the time of interpolation processing; an interpolation signal generation means (110) which mixes a plurality of kinds of interpolation signals (Im, It) in accordance with the telecine detection signal (tci) and the mixing ratio signal (tcmix); and a rate doubling conversion means (9) which generates the progressive scan video signal (Prog) from a delayed video signal (R) and an interpolation signal (I).
US08174612B1
Improved methods and apparatus for imaging comprising a base, an outer dome mounted on said base, a central shaft intersecting said base, an imaging array including at least one imaging chip mounted on said shaft, means for focusing light onto said imaging chip having at least one pixel, at least one signal processing system, means for rotating said shaft, and means for transmitting data from said imaging chip to said signal processing system and from said signal processing system to an external receiver.
US08174607B2
An image pickup device includes an image pickup element that receives light of an object image formed by a picture-taking lens; and a focus detection filter section that is so disposed near the image pickup element and on the side of the picture-taking lens as to be able to be inserted or withdrawn. The focus detection filter section, from the side of the picture-taking lens, includes a field diaphragm that includes a plurality of openings; a condenser lens disposed near a focus detection area on the surface of the field diaphragm; a pupil division diaphragm that corresponds to the opening of the field diaphragm and includes a pair of openings arranged at such an interval as to secure focusing accuracy; and a re-imaging lens group that includes a plurality of re-imaging lenses that are so arranged as to correspond to the openings of each of the pupil division diaphragms. When the focus detection filter section is inserted into an picture-taking optical path, the light intensity distribution of two light beams that each pass through different areas of the picture-taking lens and the openings of the field diaphragm is received by the image pickup element. The detecting of focus is performed by detecting a phase difference of an output signal representing the light intensity distribution obtained from the image pickup element. When a picture is taken, the focus detection filter section withdraws from the optical path.
US08174605B2
There is provided an image processing apparatus allowing a user to easily process a captured image. This image processing apparatus displays an image generated based on image data and an item representing processing for the image data on a screen, detects a change in the orientation thereof, and performs processing upon the image data corresponding to the displayed image based on a detection result of the change in the orientation thereof.
US08174599B2
An image pickup apparatus which can photograph a high-definition image and a moving image of lower resolution at high quality and an image pickup system which uses the image pickup apparatus are provided. Unit pixel groups each of which comprises plural pixels including photoelectric conversion units and transfer transistors for transferring signal charges from the photoelectric conversion units, an amplification transistor common to the plural pixels, and the like are arranged in row and column directions. With respect to the plural unit pixel groups mutually adjacent in the row direction, control lines for controlling the transfer transistors respectively corresponding to the adjacent two photoelectric conversion units are alternately connected to an odd row and an even row in the row direction.
US08174597B2
A solid-state imaging device includes: a pixel portion configured to convert light into an electric signal; a substrate where the pixel portion is formed; an optical communication unit configured to convert a signal read out from the pixel portion into an optical signal, and outputs the optical signal, which is disposed in one surface where the pixel portion is formed of the substrate; and a light shielding portion configured to shield, of signal light to be output from the optical communication unit, light that directs to the pixel portion, and light to be leaked from the optical communication unit, which is disposed around the optical communication unit.
US08174593B2
A method for determining whether a image pixel of an image comprising a plurality of image pixels generated from a pixel array of an image sensor, each having an image pixel value formed from a respective reset level, has suffered a darkening resulting from a drop in its reset level prior to sampling due to a high intensity illumination. Where a first image pixel has its reset level detected to have crossed a threshold and a second image pixel is saturated, a third image pixel between the first and second image pixels is determined to have suffered such darkening if it is not saturated and if no intervening image pixel between the first and the third image pixels either is saturated or is generated from a reset level detected to have crossed a threshold. The crossing of the reset level may be signaled by a reserved codeword.
US08174575B2
The invention relates to a monitoring system equipped with low-power-consumption camera devices. A main monitor device (15) grasps whether each monitor device (12) makes a request for sending image signals. Each camera device (13) sends a polling signal to the main monitor device (15). The main monitor device (15), in response to the polling signal, sends to a camera device (13), a second relay image-sending request signal containing a piece of identification information of a monitor device (12) requesting for sending of image signals, or no-sending-request signal for relay. The camera device (13) receives the second relay image-sending request signal or the no-sending-request signal for relay so as to grasp whether sending of image signals is required or not and the monitor device (12) requesting for sending of image signals. The camera device (13) sends the image signals to the monitor device (12) requesting for sending of image signals.
US08174573B2
A monitoring camera has a base, a camera module and a casing. The base has a parapet formed on the base. The parapet has a memory slot and at least one pair of guide slots formed oppositely on the parapet. Each guide slot has a notch extending toward the bottom of the parapet. The casing corresponds to and covers the parapet and has at least one pair of guide protrusions formed on the casing. The guide protrusions respectively engage corresponding guide slots. When unscrewing the casing, the guide protrusions will correspondingly move and be mounted in the notches and the memory slot is accessible. Therefore, the casing need not to be completely detached from the base to allow a removable memory to be installed or removed easily.
US08174569B2
An image display apparatus, which is mounted on a head or face of a wearer attachably and detachably and allows the wearer to view an image and hear sound, includes a long formed temple supported by a temporal region of head or an ear when the wearer is wearing the image display apparatus; a speaker that generates sound, a sound generating face thereof being insertable into the ear at a vicinity of an opening of the ear; and a position adjusting mechanism that holds the speaker, attachably to and detachably from the temple, and movably at least substantially along a surface of the temporal region of the head.
US08174565B2
Disclosed herein is a three-dimensional image display system, including: a multi-parallax image reproduction apparatus configured to reproduce two-dimensional images, which include a plurality of parallax images within one frame, at a first frame rate; and a three-dimensional display apparatus configured to carry out multi-parallax stereoscopic moving picture display at a second frame rate based on a plurality of parallax images reproduced by the multi-parallax image reproduction apparatus where one frame of stereoscopic moving pictures is formed from a multi-parallax image formed from a predetermined number of parallax images; the multi-parallax image reproduction apparatus reproducing an image wherein control information is included in any of the parallax images for every one frame or every plurality of frames, the three-dimensional image display apparatus carrying out control in accordance with the control information included in the parallax images to carry out the multi-parallax stereoscopic moving picture display.
US08174560B2
A video camera can be configured to highly compress video data in a visually lossless manner. The camera can be configured to transform blue and red image data in a manner that enhances the compressibility of the data. The data can then be compressed and stored in this form. This allows a user to reconstruct the red and blue data to obtain the original raw data for a modified version of the original raw data that is visually lossless when demosaiced. Additionally, the data can be processed in a manner in which the green image elements are demosaiced first and then the red and blue elements are reconstructed based on values of the demosaiced green image elements.
US08174556B1
A videoconferencing system uses a modular terminal that includes a conventional digital still camera coupled to the input port of the videocommunicator, such as a set top box. There are various features provided by this arrangement, including using the digital still camera to present video information to the videocommunicator with a split screen image representing the still image, a receiver arrangement permitting the digital still camera to fit securely and adjacent to the videocommunicator, and pan/tilt/zoom camera features provided electronically.
US08174553B2
An apparatus includes an output voltage sensing unit, which senses an output voltage of a laser diode, which has been sampled during a power control period and transmits the sensed output voltage of the laser diode to an output voltage control unit; the output voltage control unit, which obtains an error voltage between a reference voltage and the sensed output voltage of the laser diode and generates a control voltage by proportionally integrating the error voltage; and an optical power compensation unit, which receives the control voltage and generates a compensated control voltage by compensating for an optical power deviation on the photosensitive drum during the printing period.
US08174550B2
A printer includes a feeding unit, a conveying unit, a print unit to print information on an intermediate transfer film or a print medium, a transfer unit to transfer the information printed on the intermediate transfer film to a transferred article, a winding unit, a discharge unit, a detection unit structured so as to detect the intermediate transfer film or the print medium and inform the detection information to a setting unit, and the setting unit to decide an intermediate transfer film mode to operate the feeding unit, conveying unit, print unit, transfer unit, and winding unit when the detection information sent from the detection unit indicates that the intermediate transfer film is detected or decide a direct medium mode to operate the feeding unit, conveying unit, print unit, and discharge unit when the detection information sent from the detection unit indicates that the print medium is detected.
US08174547B2
A tablet PC capable of providing continuous utilization of a sound signal collected from a microphone without requiring any user intervention when a use mode thereof has been changed from a PC use mode to a tablet use mode is disclosed. The tablet PC includes a set of microphones to form a microphone array. The tablet PC is able to operate in a sound emphasis mode wherein sound signals collected from the microphones are processed while forming an emphasis space, and to operate in a non-processing mode wherein the sound signals are processed without forming the emphasis space. When a user manipulates a chassis orientation of the tablet PC from a PC use mode to a tablet use mode, the tablet PC operates to process the emphasis space so that the sound signals collected by the microphones can be utilized in the tablet use mode.
US08174546B2
Apparatus and methods are provided that employ one or more of a variety of techniques for reducing the time required to display high resolution images on a high dynamic range display having a light source layer and a display layer. In one technique, the image resolution is reduced, an effective luminance pattern is determined for the reduced resolution image, and the resolution of the effective luminance pattern is then increased to the resolution of the display layer. In another technique, the light source layer's point spread function is decomposed into a plurality of components, and an effective luminance pattern is determined for each component. The effective luminance patterns are then combined to produce a total effective luminance pattern. Additional image display time reduction techniques are provided.
US08174534B2
Various embodiments of shader processing systems and methods are disclosed. One method embodiment, among others, comprises a dependent texture read method executed using a multi-threaded, parallel computational core of a graphics processing unit (GPU). Such a method includes generating a dependent texture read request at logic configured to perform shader computations corresponding to a first thread, and sending shader-calculated, texture-sampling related parameters corresponding to the first thread to a texture pipeline while retaining at the logic all other shader processing related information corresponding to the first thread.
US08174533B2
A system comprises a memory storing data at addresses associated with pixels in images, each address being linked by a function to coordinates of a pixel in an ordered image reference frame, a device for processing the data associated with the pixels, where a pixel being processed is referenced by an associated vector relative to a reference pixel, and an interface device providing data to the processing device. A data request indicates a vector associated with a pixel being processed. The coordinates of the reference pixel are determined by applying the function to an address associated with the reference pixel. Next the coordinates of the pixel being processed are obtained based on the coordinates of the reference pixel and on the vector. Then the address of the data associated with the pixel being processed is determined by applying the inverse function of the function to the coordinates of the pixel being processed.
US08174526B2
Methods and apparatus render images of digital objects or prepare digital objects for subsequent processing. The method includes sorting data representative of positions of at least three vertices of polygons of a digital object, then determining whether the orientation of the vertices of each polygon from a specific reference point differs from the actual, or original, orientation of the vertices. Such a determination may be made by generating an orientation decision variable based on the relative positions of the vertices and calculating a cross product term (CPT) after the vertex data has been sorted. The CPT may also be used in other operations involving the polygon, such as in imparting appearance characteristics to the polygon. The method may be embodied as a computer program that controls the operation of a processor. Processors, computers, and systems that practice the method are also contemplated.
US08174524B1
Ray trees are evaluated to render an image in a computer graphic program with a shaded object by launching rays from an object to be shaded in a scene. The rays intersect other objects in the scene at hit points. The hit points that can be shaded by the same shader program are assigned to the same computational group referred to as a shading grid. The hit points in the same shading grid are evaluated by operators in the shader program as a group. The image may then be rendered using the evaluated hit points.
US08174523B2
A display controlling apparatus stores therein first position information of pieces of data in a predetermined n-dimensional virtual space displayed on a display device, specifies second position information in the virtual space indicating positions of the pieces of data obtained after performing a rearranging process thereon, specifies intermediate position information indicating positions in a m-dimensional virtual space corresponding to a period during which the data is rearranged from the first-position-information positions into the second-position-information positions, the m being smaller than the n by 1 or more, calculates first transition paths in transitions from the first-position-information positions to the intermediate-position-information positions, calculates second transition paths in transitions from the intermediate-position-information positions to the second-position-information positions, and outputs display screen information containing the pieces of data that go through the transitions in the virtual spaces according to the first and the second transition paths.
US08174522B2
A three-dimensional (3D) structure data creation technique capable of readily creating 3D structure data is disclosed. This method is for producing data of a 3D structure which is made up of a plurality of elements. The method includes the steps of preparing first and second two-dimensional (2D) sectional images different in normal vector from each other, forming first and second unit graphics based on these 2D images, partitioning each unit graphic on a per-element basis, performing layout arrangement of two unit graphics in accordance with normal vectors, expanding these unit graphics for conversion to 3D objects, and allocating a selected element to a region in which elements of the unit graphics failing to coincide with each other, which region is included in and specified from those regions with intersection of respective partitioned parts of the unit graphics, thereby to create the 3D structure data required.
US08174521B2
A product modeling system and method are provided. On one embodiment, the product modeling system is used to model a piece of apparel, such as a shirt, with a design wherein the model with the design is used to display the piece of apparel with the design to a consumer.
US08174516B2
An object of the present invention is to realize a transmission distortion correction system for allowing an image signal including a plurality of picture signals to be corrected, and to realize an image signal transmitter and an image display unit. The image display unit of the present invention includes: a second reference signal generation means for generating a second reference signal similar to a first reference signal regarding the image signal in which the first reference signal is inserted into each of the plurality of picture signals by the image signal transmitter; a plurality of waveform equalizers provided that correspond to the plurality of picture signals and that include a filter circuit capable of setting a characteristic thereto; and a control portion for inputting the plurality of picture signals, analyzing a characteristic of a transmission path between the image signal transmitter and the image display unit upon detecting the first reference signal in the input picture signals by comparing the first reference signal with the second reference signal, and setting a characteristic inverse to the analyzed transmission path characteristic to a filter circuit of the waveform equalizers that correspond to the input picture signals.
US08174511B2
Disclosed herein is a touch panel display including, a flat plate-shaped movable panel unit, a movable support member, an acoustic vibration unit, and a soft member, wherein the acoustic vibration unit includes, a sound generating member, an actuator, and a hard member.
US08174509B2
A multi-touch positioning method for a capacitive touch panel includes following steps. A candidate touching position array including a first and a second candidate position groups is generated when the capacitive touch panel is touched by two objects. The first and the second candidate position groups include two first and second candidate positions, respectively. Next, the signal magnitude sensed by a sensing element and respectively corresponding to the first and the second candidate position groups are compared. Then, when the signal magnitude corresponding to the first candidate position group is greater than that corresponding to the second candidate position group, one of the two first candidate positions closer to the sensing element along a first direction is determined as a first actual touching position, and one of the two second candidate positions farther from the sensing element along the first direction is determined as a second actual touching position.
US08174503B2
A method, system, and apparatus of a touch-based authentication of a mobile device through user generated pattern creation are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method of a mobile device includes recognizing a tactile force on a touch screen without a visual aid as an unlocking gesture, storing the unlocking gesture to a memory of the mobile device, associating another tactile force on the touch screen with the unlocking gesture, and transforming the mobile device from an initial state to an unlocked state based on the association between the another tactile force and the unlocking gesture. The method may include transforming the mobile device to operate as a telephonic communication device in the unlocked state.
US08174499B2
A navigation apparatus is disclosed. The navigation apparatus includes a remote control device having a manipulation member and a force generator. The manipulation member is movable in response to user's manipulation and enables the user to point to a position on a display screen of the display device remotely. The force generator applies a force to the manipulation member against the manipulation of the manipulation member. The navigation apparatus sets content of the force based on an arrangement of an item image on the display screen, so that the force causes the pointed position to be attracted toward a fixed item image when the pointed position is located around the fixed item image, while the first force does not cause the pointed position to be attracted toward an on-map item image, which is superimposed on a map image.
US08174494B2
An electrophoretic display device comprises an electrophoretic display panel having drive electrodes, a common electrode, and electrophoretic particles inbetween. The panel can update the display color of each display unit correlated to a particular drive electrode according to a voltage applied between that drive electrode and the common electrode. A drive control unit applies such voltage and also has components that determine for each display unit the current display color and selectively apply specifically configured first, second and third pulses between the common and drive electrodes of display units to effect color change.
US08174488B2
A visual display system for use in conjunction with a display device includes one or more illumination sources for illuminating a region surround the image display region; and a control unit configured to control the illumination sources to vary the illumination in an inactive state of the display device. The control unit is further configured to synchronize the varying illumination with a color scheme.
US08174487B2
The disclosure includes various embodiments including, for example: (i) a color liquid crystal display unit has a color display panel of transmissive type and a backlight unit placed behind the color display panel; (ii) a backlight unit has a plurality of LEDs connected in series and a drive unit to drive the LEDs; (iii) a temperature sensor to detect the temperature of LEDs; (iv) groups of LEDs are arranged in regions where the display unit has the same temperature; and (v) a drive unit controls current to be supplied to LEDs in response to temperature detected by the temperature sensor so that the LEDs retain the constant brightness even when the LEDs fluctuate in temperature.
US08174464B2
A display device, adapted to display a two-dimensional image or a three-dimensional image, includes an image panel for displaying an image and a barrier panel located in front of the image panel. The barrier panel includes a first substrate including In-Plane-Switching type electrodes arranged on a surface of the substrate, a second substrate having a transparent electrode on the inner side surface, and a liquid crystal layer located between the first and second substrates. The barrier panel displays the image as a two-dimensional image or a three-dimensional image depending on electric fields established between first and second substrates of the barrier panel and between the In-Plane-Switching type electrodes formed on the first substrate. The two-dimensional image may be displayed with wide viewing angle and narrow viewing angle options.
US08174451B2
Aspects of a method and system for a configurable antenna in an integrated circuit package are provided. In a hybrid circuit comprising an integrated circuit bonded to a multi-layer package, one or more antenna parameters may be adjusted by configuring a plurality of antenna elements via one or more switching elements. In this regard, the antenna elements and/or the switching elements may be within and/or on the multi-layer package and/or within the integrated circuit. The switching elements may be MEMS switches on and/or within the IC and/or the multi-layer package. The IC may be bonded or mounted to the underside of the package and signals may be communicated between the IC and the package via one or more solder balls. The IC may comprise suitable logic, circuitry, and/or code for configuring the antenna elements. The antenna elements may be configured based on desired polarization, antenna gain, and/or frequency.
US08174436B2
Dive computers in accordance with embodiments of the invention are disclosed. One embodiment includes a microprocessor, a pressure transducer connected to the microprocessor, a microphone connected to the microprocessor, a speaker connected to the microprocessor, a telephone transceiver connected to the microprocessor, a GPS receiver connected to the microprocessor and a display. In addition, the microprocessor, pressure transducer and display are configured to display information concerning the dive computer's depth of submersion, the microprocessor, microphone, speaker and telephone transceiver are configured to enable the dive computer to be used as a telephone handset, and the microprocessor is configured to obtain GPS coordinates from the GPS receiver. In a further embodiment, the microprocessor, the microphone, the speaker, the telephone transceiver, the display, and the GPS receiver are components of a mobile phone handset including an external connector for communicating with external devices, the pressure transducer is packaged separately from the mobile phone handset and the pressure transducer packaging includes a connector configured to mate with the external connector of the mobile phone handset creating a connection between the pressure transducer and the microprocessor, and the mobile phone handset and the pressure transducer are contained within a waterproof housing. In addition, a software application installed on the mobile phone handset configures the microprocessor to record information concerning the dive computer's depth and time of submersion in a dive log.
US08174435B2
Methods and apparatus to provide computing, using a processor, sea clutter threshold bias values as a function of range and azimuth, receiving a first shape corresponding to a first region of sea clutter about a radar, combining the sea clutter threshold bias values with the first shape to provide non-isotropic sensitivity time control (STC) for the radar, and outputting radar return for display with sea clutter suppressed in the first shape.
US08174431B2
A method of predicting turbulence that may involve receiving electromagnetic energy that has traveled along a path subject to the turbulence, with the turbulence altering the electromagnetic energy. A determination may be made as to the alteration caused by the turbulence by filtering the electromagnetic energy as it was received with a velocity of one of a transmitter of the electromagnetic energy or a receiver that received the electromagnetic energy.
US08174422B2
A reference voltage generation circuit generates a reference voltage and outputs it to an amplifier reference voltage line. A power-supply-noise adding circuit adds power supply noise superimposed on a power supply to the reference voltage generated by the reference voltage generation circuit. A differential amplifier amplifies a difference between a voltage of a vertical signal line and a voltage of an amplifier reference voltage line and outputs the amplified voltage.
US08174421B2
An information processing apparatus, includes: a plurality of processor means respectively including storage means for storing analog information and comparison means for comparing analog information stored in the storage means with an inputted reference analog value; input means for inputting the reference analog value to the plurality of processor means while changing the reference analog value in synchronization with a clock signal; and counter means for updating a count value in synchronization with the clock signal and outputting the count value when the analog information and the reference analog value become consistent at a corresponding comparison means.
US08174420B2
A video encoding apparatus receives a digital video data signal, converts the digital video data signal into an analog video signal and outputs the analog video signal to an externally connected image device. An encoding processor converts the digital video data signal into the analog video signal. A resolution determination unit compares the resolution of an image represented by the digital video data signal with an externally defined resolution. An output controller refers to a result of comparison by the resolution determination unit and, if the externally defined resolution matches the resolution of the image represented by the digital video data signal, outputs the analog video signal. If the resolutions do not match, the output controller restricts the output of the analog video signal.
US08174417B2
A system and method of correcting baseline wander (BLW) are disclosed. An analog-to-digital converter (ADC) converts an analog input to a digital output, and a slicer maps the digital output to one of a plurality of predefined values. A BLW correction unit generates a BLW correction value according to a difference between an input and an output of the slicer. A correction controller generates a fine correction value and a coarse correction value according to the BLW correction value. Specifically, the fine correction value is used to correct the digital output of the ADC, and the coarse correction value is used to correct the analog input of the ADC.
US08174416B2
The present invention relates to a circuit and a method for automatic common-mode rejection calibration in a differential conversion system and unbalance compensation for balancing the operation point of a circuit in the signal path and for enhancing the common-mode rejection. The circuit for automatic common-mode rejection calibration in a differential conversion system comprises an analog input stage for an analog input signal (101), an analog-digital-converter (106) for converting an analog signal (107) into its digital representation (108), a digital block (105) arranged to adapt said digital representation (108) of a portion of a DC offset of said analog input signal (101) in accordance with whether said analog input signal (101) is in a predetermined input range of said analog-digital-converter (106), and a digital-analog-converter (103) arranged in a feedback path (102) from said digital block (105) to subtraction means (111) of said analog input stage for converting a digital signal (104) into an analog output signal (109), wherein said analog output signal (109) is subtracted from said analog input signal (101) resulting in said analog signal (107).
US08174411B2
A system, such as a web server, in communication with the database, includes a configurator application for providing data from the database to a consumer to thereby allow the consumer to configure a controlling device whereupon the controlling device will be adapted to command functional operations of one or more appliances and a builder application for providing data from the database to a developer to thereby allow the developer to develop one or more codesets to be provisioned to a controlling device to thereby allow the controlling device to be adapted to command functional operations of one or more appliances.
US08174410B2
An improved keyboard layout for use with information handling systems such as ultra mobile information handling systems. The improved keyboard layout eliminates the numbered function key (F1-F12) row and maps all of the functions that have traditionally been function (Fn) options on the F1-F12 row (such as brightness, volume, battery meter, etc.) to other keys.
US08174399B1
The invention comprises a set of methods to detect the resistance of a connection to safety ground and to detect the presence of voltage hazardous to people in systems where an unknown amount of current intermittently flows in the safety ground circuit. Samples of voltage between two points in the safety ground circuit are taken repeatedly. When the voltage caused by the unknown currents in the safety ground circuit is below a preset threshold, a known current is applied and another voltage sample is taken to detect the electrical resistance of the safety ground circuit. If an excessive resistance or voltage is detected, one or more outputs are activated or deactivated to indicate the problem and remove power from the system. The invention requires no current sensor for its operation.
US08174397B2
A multi function monitor for monitoring environmental conditions and events, the monitor comprising: a monitor panel having a plurality of monitors thereon; and a measuring device attachable at either end of the monitor panel for measuring the circumference of an object around which it is placed. The monitor panel includes: a temperature detection and display device; an ultraviolet radiation detection and display device; and a humidity detection and display device.
US08174395B2
A measurement system may comprise a sensor wire and a transceiver unit. The sensor wire may comprise an insertable portion configured to be inserted in a blood vessel of a patient's body and a sensor disposed within the insertable portion at a distal end of the sensor wire. The sensor is configured to measure a parameter when inserted inside the patient. The transceiver unit may comprise: a housing adapted to be connected to a proximal end of the sensor wire; and a first communication module within the housing adapted to wirelessly communicate by a communication signal with an external second communication module in order to transfer information to the external second communication module.
US08174393B2
A race management system which includes an RFID tag located between an inner and outer layer and is removably secured to a participant's bib through a mounting film. The inner layer is secured to a second inner layer having at least one fold line and an adhesive portion outward of the at least one fold line. The RFID tag is secured around a portion of the participant's shoe and is activated by at least one antenna to transmit identification data encoded on the tag. The encoded data corresponds to indicia printed on the bib and allows automatic collection of running times.
US08174383B1
A system and method for operating a wireless network comprising a plurality of devices each having a powered down mode, a receive/transmit mode, and a timer, may include a master device and a defined time interval. Time interval information and synchronizing information are communicated to the plurality of devices of the wireless network, whereby the timers of each of the plurality of devices are set to time substantially the same time interval, and the time intervals of the plurality of devices of the wireless network are substantially synchronized.
US08174382B2
A system comprises an electronic device including at least one input for receiving at least one enable signal and external data. The system also comprises a wake-up circuit including at least one input for receiving at least one informational signal, an output for sending the at least one enable signal to the electronic device, and a data interface for external configuration of the wake-up circuit. If the at least one informational signal satisfies predefined criteria, the wake-up circuit enables the electronic device by way of the at least one enable signal before the external data is received by the electronic device.
US08174381B2
According to an aspect of the disclosure, an energy management apparatus for a mobile energy management system and method includes detecting an availability of at least one network device at a site, displaying a proximity control selector within a graphical user interface of a mobile device associated with the site that can be toggled to enable and disable proximity detection using the mobile device, detecting a distance of the mobile device relative to the site in response to enabling proximity detection on the mobile device, and initiating a change to the operating condition of the network device in response to detecting a change in the distance of the mobile device relative to the site and the setting of the proximity control selector. According to an aspect of the disclosure, the network device may be a thermostat associated with the HVAC system of the site or other energy consuming appliances.
US08174371B2
A vibrating device that operates without the need for replacement batteries is disclosed. An apparatus is disclosed for generating electrical power and supplying electrical power to a portable vibrating device. A portable vibrating device in accordance with certain embodiments of the invention is adapted to generate and store its own electrical energy, and is adapted to vibrate to alert a user of the device, or to provide various forms of stimulation to a user of the device.
US08174370B1
An automated dosage reminder console uses a plurality of trays with dosage medication compartments, each dosage medication compartment including a basket having an integrally formed light pipe. Each compartment is selectively illuminated through the use of a program which controls corresponding light emitting diodes for alerting a user to consume a preselected dosage of medication on a preselected day at a preselected time. Sample pill identification boxes are aligned with corresponding dosage medication compartments to indicate the medication found in each basket.
US08174357B2
A method for training a trainable RF transmitter to transmit variable code signals used to actuate a remote device having a receiver where the transmitter includes a memory that has stored variable code characteristics for a plurality of different remote devices includes initiating a training sequence and generating at least one RF carrier signal having the variable code characteristics associated with one remote device of the plurality of different remote devices. The method further includes transmitting the at least one RF carrier signal to the receiver of the remote device and repeating the generating and transmitting steps for the variable code characteristics of each remote device in the plurality of different remote device until feedback is received from a user that the remote device is activated. Upon receiving an indication that the remote device is activated, the transmitter stores an identifier of the variable code characteristics that activated the remote device.
US08174351B2
An appliance assembly includes an appliance and an appliance member. The appliance includes a wall defining a plurality of holes. The appliance member is carried by the appliance. The appliance member includes a housing which includes a snap-fit arrangement coupled with the appliance. The snap-fit arrangement includes a first plurality of ears and a second plurality of ears, the first and second plurality of ears snap-fittingly engaging the plurality of holes.
US08174335B2
A process for reducing common-mode current in a power-line communication equipment, where a power-line network is used as a communication medium, includes applying a signal transmitted by the power-line communication equipment via a common-mode choke circuit. The common-mode choke circuit includes braided signal cables mounted around a toroidal magnetic core. The signal is applied to the braided signal cables. The common-mode choke circuit is located adjacent to a connector of a power supply cable supplying power from a power outlet to the power-line communication equipment.
US08174325B1
The present invention provides an array of tunable, injection-locking oscillators which are scalable to higher frequencies and measure the entire relevant frequency space simultaneously. The scalable, highly-parallelized, adaptive receiver architecture uses arrays of tunable, injection-locking nonlinear oscillator rings for broad spectrum RF analysis. Three separate and different microelectronic circuit configurations, each having a different type of readout, are described. The embodiments are designed to be incorporated as a subsystem in any type of powered system in which a fast image of the broader spectrum is valuable, when no information about the location of signals in the frequency space is predictable or forthcoming.
US08174317B2
A fully-differential amplifier circuit comprises a differential amplifier configured to differentially amplify first and second input signals serving as an input differential pair to generate a pair of first and second intermediate signals, first and second class AB amplifiers configured to amplify the first and second intermediate signals to generate first and second output signals, wherein the first and second output signals serve as an output differential pair, the first class AB amplifier amplifies the first intermediate signal with reference to a reference voltage adjusted by a first feedback signal that is a common mode component of the first output signal and the second output signal, and the second class AB amplifier amplifies the second intermediate signal with reference to a reference voltage adjusted by a second feedback signal that is a common mode component of the first output signal and the second output signal.
US08174316B2
A switching amplifier is disclosed and comprises: a power supply (Vcc); input circuits (Va, Vb); switch transistors (M1, M2) connected with each other in series; driving circuits (I1, I2) coupled with the switch transistors (M1, M2) respectively; a bootstrap circuit for supplying operation voltage to the driving circuit (I1). The switching amplifier also comprises: leakage circuits (M1a, M2a) or auxiliary switching circuits (M1′, M2′). With the switching amplifier of the invention, the fluctuation of the bootstrap potential can be suppressed and the signal distortion of the switching amplifier can be prevented.
US08174305B2
A ladder structure is ferromagnetically coupled to a first qubit where the ladder structure has a monostable energy potential in use, such that the first qubit and the ladder structure effectively operate as a single qubit. The ladder structure and first qubit may be coupled via a superconducting flux coupler. The ladder structure may be a chain of at least two ferromagnetically coupled ladder elements. A value for each ladder element may be less than about 1.
US08174300B2
A clock generator for generating a target clock signal, comprising: a control circuit, receiving a reference clock signal, and for generating a clock enable signal and a delay selecting signal according to the reference clock signal; a delay module, coupled to the control circuit, for delaying the reference clock signal according to the delay selecting signal to generate a delayed reference clock signal; and a clock gating unit, coupled to the delay module and the control circuit, for receiving the delayed reference clock signal and the clock enable signal, and for passing the delayed reference clock signal according to the clock enable signal, to generate the target clock signal.
US08174299B2
In one aspect of the invention, a method of reducing intersymbol interference on a signal line is disclosed. A state machine records previous bits that were transmitted over the line. If the bit on the line has been static for several clock cycles, the slew rate will be increased to facilitate correct reading of the bit for the next clock cycle. If the bit on the line has been dynamic for the previous bits, the slew rate will be a lower slew rate to avoid crosstalk between neighboring lines.
US08174291B1
An improved buffer circuit and method for minimizing (or altogether eliminating) duty cycle distortion between input and output signals of the buffer circuit are provided herein. In general, the improved buffer circuit essentially decouples the charging and discharging current paths of the buffer circuit from a reference voltage supplied to the buffer circuit. This ensures substantially equal time delays between rising and falling edges of the input and output signals, thereby decreasing duty cycle distortion and maintaining a maximum operating frequency of the buffer circuit, even when the reference voltage approaches a transistor threshold voltage. In addition, the improved method may include forwarding an input signal with an input duty cycle onto mutually connected gate terminals of a pair of pull-down transistors, and activating/inactivating at least one of the pair of pull-down transistors during logic high and logic low voltage values of the input duty cycle, respectively. In this manner, the method provides an output signal with an output duty cycle that is substantially equal to the input duty cycle.
US08174287B2
A device including a PLD with at least one interface logic block connection for passing data between (i) a bus arranged for receiving data from an external processor and (ii) at least one I/O register connected with a JTAG interface of the PLD, wherein said interface logic block includes logic for translating data on the bus into a data format for the I/O register. A processor programmable PLD appliance comprising (a) a programmable PLD having a JTAG programming interface supporting real-time re-programming of the PLD while the PLD functions as programmed; and (b) an I/O register interfacing an I/O register and connected with the JTAG programming interface, wherein a PLD logic design implementation of the I/O register is externally accessible through an interface logic block of the PLD, and wherein the interface logic block includes a PLD path between (i) an external processor interface and (ii) the PLD-implemented I/O register.
US08174286B2
A transceiver circuit supports a bidirectional mode and the bidirectional transceiver circuit is signal-compatible with JEDEC SSTL 2. A differential transceiver circuit supports a bidirectional mode and is also signal-compatible with JEDEC SSTL 2. Finally, transceiver circuits which, in interaction with the bidirectional transceiver circuits, allow a bus system to be set up.
US08174279B2
A socket connector for electrically connecting a lead of a semiconductor device under test (DUT) with a tester includes a container having a chamber, a conductive end or plug that seals the chamber at one end, and a conductive membrane that seals the chamber at another end. A liquid conductive material fills the chamber. The conductive plug is arranged to be in electrical contact with the tester. The lead of the semiconductor DUT is in electrical contact with the conductive membrane and thus with the tester via the conductive membrane, the liquid conductive material and the conductive plug.
US08174267B2
An intermittent microwave energy delivery system for use in testing microwave energy systems and devices and for use in performing medical procedures including a microwave energy source configured to provide a continuous microwave energy signal, an energy delivery network configured to intermittently transmit a portion of the continuous microwave energy signal, a resistive load configured to dissipate the microwave energy signal; and a switching network configured to switch the continuous microwave energy signal between the microwave energy network and the resistive load. The continuous microwave energy signal is time proportioned between the energy delivery network and the resistive load.
US08174242B2
Apparatus and method for pre-charging in charging/discharging equipment for an energy-storage device
An apparatus includes a switching circuit operable with an arrangement configured to effectuate a charging or discharging of an energy-storage device to a circuit including electrically-parallel condenser. The switching circuit includes a main switch electrically connectable to the condenser, and a control circuit electrically connected in parallel with the main switch, and electrically connectable to the condenser. The main switch and control circuit are each configured to independently, switchably pass current from the energy-storage device to the condenser and a power load/source. In this regard, the main switch and control circuit are controllable to pass current from the energy-storage device to the power load, and in a manner whereby current from the energy-storage device to the condenser is diverted from passing through the main switch for a period during which a voltage disparity between the condenser and energy-storage device decreases to within a predetermined range.
US08174228B2
A motor control device includes a motor, a control portion controlling the motor, estimating a heating temperature of the motor on the basis of an electric current value and an energizing time period or a stopping time period of the motor, and restricting an electrification of the motor in a case where the estimated heating temperature becomes equal to or greater than a limit value, and a temperature sensing device for detecting a temperature of a predetermined portion of a vehicle, wherein the control portion estimates an initial temperature of the motor when an engine is started on the basis of a temperature signal outputted from the temperature sensing device and determines the limit value on the basis of the estimated initial temperature.
US08174227B2
A fan control system includes a temperature detecting circuit and a rotation rate control circuit. The detecting circuit includes a first amplifier, a second amplifier, and a thermistor. The control circuit includes a first terminal, a second terminal, and a third terminal. The detecting circuit detects temperature and outputs a voltage signal. The control circuit receives the voltage signal and controls the rotation rate of the fan according to the voltage signal.
US08174225B2
The maximum electrical power drawn from an electrical power source by a mining excavator comprising electric motors is reduced by supplying supplementary electrical power from an electrical energy storage unit. The input electrical power drawn by the mining excavator is cyclic. An upper limit is set for the electrical power drawn from the electrical power source. When the input electrical power drawn by the mining excavator exceeds the upper limit, electrical power is supplied by the electrical energy storage unit, such as an ultracapacitor bank. The ultracapacitor bank may be charged by the electrical power source during off-peak intervals. Electrical power generated by electrical motors operating in a regeneration interval may also be recaptured and stored in the electrical energy storage unit.
US08174224B2
Methods and systems are provided for producing a commanded torque in an electric motor in a vehicle. A method comprises obtaining a torque command, obtaining a speed of the electric motor, and operating the inverter based at least in part on a voltage command that corresponds to minimal current through the electric motor for producing the commanded torque at the instantaneous speed of the electric motor.
US08174223B2
In a method of detecting synchronization loss in a stepping motor, a means for applying either control current or control voltage to a coil of each phase to thereby drive a stepping motor and a means for individually measuring a back EMF voltage induced at the coil of each phase are employed, wherein application of either the control current or the control voltage at the coil of each phase is halted by turns phase by phase for such a short time period as not to affect rotation of a rotor of the stepping motor at a predetermined timing within one step period of the rotor, the back EMF voltage at the coil is measured during the short time period, and the stepping motor is judged to lose synchronization when the measurement result of the back EMF voltage at the coil of at least one phase satisfies a detection criterion.
US08174219B2
A motor control unit or a semiconductor integrated circuit device for an air conditioner is provided. The motor control unit includes a current detector that detects a coil wound current of the permanent magnet motor; a coordinate transformer that transforms the coil wound current detected by the current detector into a d-axis current indicating a magnet flux component and a q-axis current indicating a torque component perpendicular to the magnet flux component; a position estimator that estimates a rotational position of the rotor based on an induced voltage of the permanent magnet motor; a current controller that calculates a command d-axis voltage based on a command d-axis current and the d-axis current detected by the current detector, and that calculates a command q-axis voltage based on a command q-axis current and the q-axis current detected by the current detector; an electrifier controller that electrifies the coil wound based on the command d-axis voltage and the command q-axis voltage; and a start-up controller that detects an oscillation of the rotor during a start-up operation and, if a velocity direction of the oscillation corresponds with a rotational direction of a forcible commutation, the start-up controller starts the forcible commutation so as to start an acceleration of the rotor by following an acceleration pattern.
US08174218B2
A method of controlling a current by supplying a d-axis current in order to prevent a voltage saturation includes: defining an amount of the d-axis current as Id=|Idmax|·sin θ; continuously comparing a voltage command value with the voltage command value threshold Vo in a predetermined cycle; extracting a predetermined number No of latest comparison results in terms of time; setting a phase angle θ to be 0° when a number N of the comparison results out of the predetermined number No of the comparison results is equal to or less than an integer Nb; and increasing the phase angle θ depending on largeness of the number N when the number N is more than the integer Nb.
US08174214B2
A three-phase bridge rectifier circuit (BRC) connectable to an AC voltage source (ACVS) via input lines (151, 153, 155) and a load (109) via output lines (157, 159). ACVS (102, 104, 106) supplies BRC (100) with AC voltage waveforms that differ in phase. The BRC includes a three-phase bridge rectifier circuit comprised of field effect transistors (FET) and gate drive circuits (GDC). Each GDC (101a, 103a, 101b, 103b, 101c, 103c) supplies a voltage to a gate of a respective FET (110, 112, 114, 116, 118, 120) for switching the FET to its “on” state at a certain time. The BRC further includes a diode (190, 128, 198, 148, 113, 168) connected between a drain of each FET and a terminal of each GDC. The BRC can further include voltage divider circuits (192/188, 130/140, 107/196, 150/160, 115/111, 170/180) and/or voltage clamping devices (121, 131, 123, 133, 125, 135).
US08174213B2
The configurations of a light emitting device are provided in the present invention. The proposed device includes a light source, an enclosure, and an integrated control circuitry coupled to the light source, enclosed in the enclosure and receiving a universal input voltage.
US08174212B2
A driving arrangement for a plurality of light emitting diodes (LEDs), the driving arrangement constituted of: a plurality of serially connected first LEDs coupled to a source voltage; a plurality of first electronically controlled switches, each associated with a particular one of the plurality of serially connected first LEDs and arranged to provide, when closed, a bypass current path for the associated first LED; and a control circuitry coupled to a control terminal of each of the plurality of first electronically controlled switches, the control circuitry operative to close a number of the plurality of first electronic switches, the number responsive to a voltage level of the source voltage.
US08174202B2
A lamp driving circuit (10) for operating a discharge lamp has a series arrangement of a first and a second switching device (Q1, Q2) connecting supply voltage input terminals. An inverter resonant circuit (20, 30) shunts one of the switching devices and has an inverter inductance (L1), an inverter capacitance (C1), and lamp connection terminals (O1, O2). A control circuit (40) controls the switching devices to generate a lamp current (IL) commutating at a commutation frequency. During a first interval of a commutation period, the control circuit renders the first switching device alternately conducting during a first time period and non-conducting during a second time period at a high frequency being higher than the commutation frequency, and during a second interval of the commutation period, the control circuit renders the second switching device alternately conducting during a third time period and non-conducting during a fourth time period at a high frequency being higher than the commutation frequency. At the start of the first and second intervals of the commutation period, the first time period and the third time period, respectively, are extended for realizing an increased speed of commutation of the lamp current. Alternatively, at the end of the first and second intervals of the commutation period, the second time period and the fourth time period, respectively, are extended for realizing an increased speed of commutation of the lamp current.
US08174201B2
An electronic ballast includes a rectifier circuit having a first output terminal for coupling with a lamp; a first inductor coupled with a first node; a resonant network coupled with the first node; a first capacitor coupled with the first node; a first resistor coupled with a second node; a second resistor coupled with a second output terminal of the rectifier circuit; a power switch having an output end, a ground end and a control end, wherein the output end is coupled with the first node and the ground end is coupled with the second resistor; a voltage divider for driving the power switch; and a second inductor coupled between the second node and the control end of the power switch.
US08174198B2
An image display apparatus includes a rear plate including electron-emitting devices, a face plate including an anode electrode, a voltage applying unit configured to apply a voltage to the anode electrode, a switching unit configured to switch between a display state of displaying an image and a non-display state of displaying no image, and a timing unit. The timing unit measures a non-display time, which is an amount of time that the switching unit allows the non-display state to continue. After the timing unit has measured a certain non-display time, the voltage applying unit applies, to the anode electrode, a second voltage lower than a first voltage to be applied in the display state, to enable the electron-emitting devices to emit electrons.
US08174191B2
A dielectric barrier discharge lamp (1) configured as a coaxial double tube comprises an inner tube (3), which is disposed coaxially inside an outer tube (2). The inner tube (3) comprises an inner electrode tube (8) provided for receiving the inner electrode (7) and a getter tube (10) provided for receiving getter material (9). The inner electrode tube (8) and getter tube (10) are separated from each other in a gastight manner by a partition (11).
US08174186B2
An organic EL device based on top emission and a method for fabricating the same arc disclosed. The organic EL device includes a substrate, a thin film transistor (TFT) formed on the substrate, a planarization film formed on the entire surface of the substrate including the TFT, a first electrode formed on the planarization film, having a surface at a corner area higher than a surface at a center area, an organic EL layer formed on the first electrode, and a second electrode formed on the organic EL layer.
US08174180B2
A light emitting device 1 includes a light emitting diode, a phosphor layer containing phosphors that emit a visible light by being excited by a light emitted from the light emitting diode, and a reflector disposed to surround the light emitting diode. A portion of 50% or more in an area ratio of a reflecting surface of the reflector is formed as a scattering surface with a mean square inclination (Δq) (0.1 mm) in a range of not less than 0.003 nor more than 0.03.
US08174179B2
A top emission type organic light emitting display apparatus that can improve contrast without using a black matrix and can simply the manufacture of a color filter. The top emission type organic light emitting display apparatus includes a substrate, an organic light emitting device arranged on the substrate and including a first electrode layer and a second electrode layer arranged opposite to each other and an organic light emitting layer arranged between the first electrode layer and the second electrode layer, an encapsulating member arranged to encapsulate the organic light emitting device, a polarizing film arranged on the encapsulating member and a color filter arranged between the encapsulating member and the polarizing film, the color filter being arranged directly on the polarizing film.
US08174171B2
An exemplary tuning-fork type piezoelectric vibrating piece has at least a pair of vibrating arms extending from one end of a base portion in a certain longitudinal direction (e.g., Y-direction). Supporting arms extend from respective side edges of the base, outboard of the vibrating arms in the certain direction. The supporting arms have respective mounting regions near their distal tips. Each supporting arm progressively narrows from its proximal end, coupled to the respective side edge of the base, to its respective mounting region. The progressive narrowing can be via one or more constrictions along the length of the supporting arm.
US08174165B2
A surface acoustic wave device includes a piezoelectric element, an IDT electrode formed on the piezoelectric element for exciting a principal wave, a reflection film formed on the piezoelectric element having a higher reflectivity than the reflectivity of the piezoelectric element in a visible light wavelength region, and a light permeable dielectric layer formed on the piezoelectric element, at least a part of the IDT electrode, and the reflection film. Accordingly, when measuring the film thickness of the light permeable dielectric layer by light interference method, the reflected light from the reflection film having a higher reflectivity than the reflectivity of the piezoelectric element in a visible light wavelength region can be utilized, so that the film thickness can be measured more accurately.
US08174164B2
A system for generating electrical power supply signals includes at least one heat engine having a chamber that undergoes heating/cooling cycle and corresponding pressure variations. At least one piezoelectric transducer is deformed in response to the pressure variations of the heat engine. A power converter transforms the electric signals generated in response to deformation of the piezoelectric transducer(s) to a desired electrical power supply signal. The heat engine preferably uses a geothermal source of cold and an ambient source of hot or vice-versa. Hydrogen can be used as a working fluid, and metal hydride material can be used for absorbing and desorbing hydrogen during the cycle of heating and cooling of the heat engine. A phase change material can also be used. The power converter preferably includes an electromechanical battery with a flywheel storing rotational energy and possibly an electrostatic motor that adds rotational energy to the flywheel.
US08174163B2
A device for assisting a relative movement of two parts of a mechanical system, for example a ball bearing or a gear device, configured to form a device with variable capacity, thereby enabling mechanical energy to be recovered and converted into electrical energy. At least one among driving and driven elements of the device includes a conductive zone separated by a variable distance during the relative movements of the elements with respect to each other of the conductive parts of the device, the conductive zone and the conductive parts being coupled to different equipotentials.
US08174152B2
An arrangement for supplying a load with electrical energy from a power source comprises a textile, woven floor covering (101) with longitudinally running warp threads and transversely running weft threads, three or more current conductors (106) that are spaced apart and substantially parallel to one another being woven in either as warp threads or as weft threads, the current conductors replacing part of a filling warp, a binding warp or the weft threads during the weaving operation. The arrangement also comprises a feed for the connection of the current conductors (106) to the power source and a coupling device (130) for picking up electrical energy from the current conductors (106) in the floor covering (101) and transporting it further to the load when the coupling device (130) is brought into a power pick-up area of the floor covering (101). The coupling device (130) is formed in particular in such a way that electrical energy can be inductively picked up from the current conductors (106) running in the floor covering. The supply arrangement allows a high degree of flexibility and can be integrated well in rooms.
US08174146B2
A power, split tailgate system is provided that allows each of an upper and a lower tailgate door to be simultaneously or independently driven between open and closed positions. The tailgate system may be operated in a chauffer mode where the lower tailgate door is opened to allow for the storage of luggage and other materials and in a manner that limits exposure of the passenger compartment.
US08174144B2
A bearing is provided having an inner ring with one or more inner raceways, and an outer ring positioned substantially radially outward from the inner ring. The outer ring has one or more outer raceways. A plurality of rolling elements is positioned between the inner raceways and the outer raceways. A cage for maintaining separation between neighboring rolling elements is oriented substantially radially and extending around at least a portion of each of the plurality of rolling elements.
US08174137B2
A method for controlling a wind turbine installation for the damping tower oscillations, in particular a buoyant wind turbine installation comprising a buoyant body, a tower arranged over the buoyant body, a generator mounted on the tower that is rotatable in relation to the wind direction and fitted with a wind turbine, and an anchor line arrangement connected to anchors or foundations on the sea bed. The tower oscillations are damped by the control with the blade angle controller in the constant power or RPM range of the wind turbine being performed by the rotor velocity (which is the input to the blade angle controller) being estimated in an estimator for the wind turbine. The input to the wind turbine estimator is the estimated incoming wind, so that the tower movements are not visible to the blade angle controller. Negative damping is thus not introduced into the system and the tower oscillations will be expediently damped, while there is also less variation in blade angle, thrust on the rotor and power supplied.
US08174130B2
Disclosed herein is a laser dicing sheet comprising a base material comprising a polyurethane acrylate film and a shape-restoring film; and an adhesive layer formed on a surface of said polyurethane acrylate film of the base material.
US08174124B2
A device includes a semiconductor substrate including a front side and a backside. A through-substrate via (TSV) penetrates the semiconductor substrate. A dummy metal line is formed on the backside of the semiconductor substrate, and may be connected to the dummy TSV.
US08174121B2
A semiconductor device is provided. The semiconductor device includes a substrate in which a first interlayer insulation layer having a first via hole and a first trench is formed. The semiconductor device also includes a first via plug and a first metal line respectively formed by filling the first via hole and the first trench with a first metal, a predetermined scratch being formed on the first metal line; and a second via plug a second metal line respectively formed by filling a second via hole and a second trench with a second metal, the second metal lines being separated.
US08174119B2
A semiconductor package having an embedded die and solid vertical interconnections, such as stud bump interconnections, for increased integration in the direction of the z-axis (i.e., in a direction normal to the circuit side of the die). The semiconductor package can include a die mounted in a face-up configuration (similar to a wire bond package) or in a face-down or flip chip configuration.
US08174112B1
An integrated circuit device includes an integrated circuit formed in a semiconductor die and an integrated circuit package containing the semiconductor die. The integrated circuit package includes a thermal interface material substantially between the semiconductor die and a heat spreader of the integrated circuit device for conducting heat from the semiconductor die to the heat spreader. The thermal interface material includes diamond particles and has a thickness selected to reduce capacitance between the semiconductor die and the heat spreader over that of a conventional integrated circuit device without reducing the rate of thermal conduction from the semiconductor die to the heat spreader. As a result, the integrated circuit device has improved electrostatic discharge immunity.
US08174111B2
A vertical mount pre-molded type package for use with a MEMS sensor may be formed with a low moisture permeable molding material that surrounds a portion of the leadframes and forms a cavity in which one or multiple dies may be held. The package includes structures to reduce package vibration, reduce die stress, increase vertical mount stability, and improve solder joint reliability. The vertical mount package includes a first leadframe having first leads and molding material substantially surrounding at least a portion of the first leads. The molding material forms a cavity for holding the MEMS sensor and forms a package mounting plane for mounting the package on a base. The cavity has a die mounting plane that is substantially non-parallel to the package mounting plane. The first leads are configured to provide electrical contacts within the cavity and to provide electrical contacts to the base.
US08174107B2
The present invention provides a semiconductor device that includes semiconductor packages arranged in a stacked configuration. A plurality of leads are drawn from the stacked semiconductor packages and folded around the outer shape of each semiconductor package such that the leads extend over the upper surfaces of the semiconductor package. Holders affix the stacked semiconductor packages so that first and second leads contact each other, the first leads being drawn from a first one of the stacked semiconductor packages at a lower stacking stage, and the second leads being drawn from a second one of the stacked semiconductor packages at an adjacent, upper stacking stage.
US08174099B2
A DFN package includes internally extended package leads. One or more package pads are physically and electrically extended from a first edge of the package to a second, opposite edge of the package. These extended package leads can terminate at the edges of the leadframe. The package pads and the extended package leads where the IC die is attached can have full leadframe thickness. Other extended package lead features can have a reduced leadframe thickness (e.g., about half the leadframe thickness). Leadframe features can be physically and electrically connected to a tie-bar feature which can be an integral part of a leadframe matrix. The tie-bar can stabilize the leadframe features during assembly. The tie-bar can also provide electrical connectivity for post assembly leadframe plating. The tie-bar can be removed during package singulation by sawing or punching techniques to free the leadframe features both physically and electrically.
US08174086B2
A magnetoresistive element is provided with a first magnetization free layer; a second magnetization free layer; a non-magnetic layer disposed adjacent to the second magnetization free layer; and a first magnetization fixed layer disposed adjacent to the second magnetization free layer on an opposite side of the second magnetization free layer. The first magnetization free layer is formed of ferromagnetic material and has a magnetic anisotropy in a thickness direction. On the other hand, the second magnetization free layer and the first magnetization fixed layer are formed of ferromagnetic material and have a magnetic anisotropy in an in-plane direction. The first magnetization free layer includes: a first magnetization fixed region having a fixed magnetization; a second magnetization fixed region having a fixed magnetization; and a magnetization free region connected to the first and second magnetization fixed regions and having a reversible magnetization. The magnetization free region and the second magnetization free layer are magnetically coupled. In addition, the center of mass of the magnetization free region and the center of mass of the second magnetization free layer are displaced in a particular in-plane direction.
