US08245317B2
A surface shape of a member to be measured is measured by reflecting measuring light at a reflection surface of a probe and utilizing an atomic force exerting between the probe and utilizing an atomic force exerting between the probe and the member to be measured. In addition to a first scanner for driving the probe, a second scanner for moving a focus position of an optical system is provided. Position conversion data representing a correlation between amounts of control of the first scanner and the second scanner are obtained in advance. By synchronously driving the first scanner and the second scanner, the focus position of the optical system is caused to follow the probe to improve measurement accuracy.
US08245314B2
A system and method for the prevention of malicious file copying detects a file copy operation indicative of copying a file to an electronic clipboard. If the file copy operation is detected, the computer reads file contents of the copied file, and scrambles the file contents. If a file paste operation indicative of the copied file being pasted to a designated file system path, the computer pastes the scrambled file to the designated file system path. File attributes of the scrambled file are the same as file attributes of the copied file.
US08245311B2
The music data (output-prohibited music data) downloaded to the client terminal 2 cannot be output until it is formally purchased. In addition, this music data can be reproduced only while the user of the client terminal 2 is being registered to pay the predetermined fixed charges. Therefore, this prevents from hurting the interests of copyright owners or the like. And the client terminal 2 can acquire music data more efficiently, since it does not have to repeat a process of downloading music data.
US08245310B2
In one or more embodiments, a license associated with a first piece of content can grant rights with respect to a second and/or additional pieces of content. That is, language that is included in a first license can express a policy that is interpreted by a client-side device. This policy can establish rights with respect to additional pieces of content. Accordingly, policy enforcement with respect to licensed content can take place on the client-side device and can establish how different content is to be played relative to one another.
US08245302B2
A network activity visualization system can include an MDL grammar database adapted to store a plurality of MDL grammars, and a pattern matching module adapted to match a received network activity data set against the MDL grammars by calculating a distance of the network activity data set from each MDL grammar. The system can also include an intelligent icon module adapted to receive the MDL grammars and distances of a network data set from each respective MDL grammar, and adapted to generate intelligent icons based on the MDL grammars and distances. The system can further include a display system adapted to display the intelligent icons so as to provide a visual indication of network security.
US08245290B2
An object of the present invention is to improve usability of a copying machine. In order to achieve the object, an image processing apparatus according to the present invention has: accepting unit that accepts setting of a function from a user; first obtaining unit that obtains information of a function usable by the user; second obtaining unit that obtains information of a usable function by using a two-dimensional code of a document as an object of the function; and first executing unit that, even when the function that the accepting unit accepts setting thereof from the user is not included in the information of the usable function obtained by the first obtaining unit, executes on the document the function that the accepting unit accepts setting thereof when the function is included in the information of the usable function by the second obtaining unit.
US08245285B1
A system and method is provided to facilitate secure communications for a server-application executing on a resource-constrained device. A request, from a client application executing on a client device to access a server application executing on the resource-constrained device is received on an application-specific secure port of a resource-constrained device. The request is authenticated using a security token stored in an application context of the server application. The authentication is performed by a transport security layer protocol executing within the application context of the server application. The security token is specific for the server application. A secure connection is established directly between the secure port and the client application upon the authentication being successful.
US08245284B2
A computer system that can configure itself to establish a network connection. Configuration is performed by identifying a connection profile with information from a combination of sources. Information may be obtained from user input, network traffic monitoring and a discovery process involving attempts to establish a connection with different profiles. The computer system may perform the configuration process under the control of software that performs an automated configuration process is adapted to receive extensions for operation on computers with hardware components that have non-standardized configuration options. Extensions for networks operating according to non-standardized security protocol extensions are also possible.
US08245276B1
An improved system and method for providing Internet access services to guests of a hotel chain. A web services (WS) framework is used for communications between a central authentication server (CAS) and property management system (PMS) of a hotel within a chain. Authentication of a user to a high speed Internet network is accomplished using the WS framework to facilitate communication between the CAS and PMS. A gateway device for authentication is bypassed and transactions are posted by implementing a WS interface between a CAS and PMS at each hotel. Additional transactions may be incorporated within the WS interface thereby increasing the system and method's ability to deliver significant improvements in customer service to the hotel guest. Reduced dependence upon a gateway device to facilitate communications allows a hotel to implement a high speed Internet access program with a degree of independence from one particular vendor.
US08245275B2
The present invention relates to data transfer to an external storage device disposed on or connected to an electronic device and can accelerate the data transfer. The present invention relates to an electronic device (portable terminal device) connected or disposed with an external storage device, includes a transmission channel connected to an external device (personal computer) that is a data source to transmit data, and simplifies a data transmission path intervening between the transmission path and the external storage device to accelerate the data transfer and accelerate the writing of data into the external storage device.
US08245266B2
A method of controlling quality of video data transmitted from a first user terminal to at least one other user terminal in a communication system includes detecting at said first user terminal a condition that indicates that the quality of the video data is below an acceptable threshold; automatically generating instructions based on the detected condition for a user of the first user terminal, said instructions intended to provide a humanly implementable remedy to improve the quality of the video data; outputting the instructions to the user in a humanly comprehensible form; and receiving an input from a user of the first user terminal responsive to the instructions to implement the remedy and thereby improve the quality of the video data.
US08245264B2
A method of reducing the channel selection transition delay from a first media data channel to a second media data channel includes the operations of accumulating an independent media data frame and any related dependent media data frames based on a first decoder decoding at least a first portion of a second channel to form a second channel current media state, receiving a channel change request from a second decoder to change decoding to the second media channel, identifying an insertion position for a current independent frame relative to a current second channel frame set, and generating the current independent frame based on the second channel current media state corresponding to the insertion position. The dependent media data frames are used to modify the second channel current media state based on the independent media data frame.
US08245262B2
Embodiments include a system and method of synchronizing broadcast signals from multiple broadcast networks on televisions or other media devices. One embodiment includes a method comprising receiving signatures or other data indicative of each of a plurality of video frames from each of a plurality of video devices, each of the video devices having received the frame from a video broadcast. At least one of the video frames is identified as being received by each of the video devices based on the received data. A request or other data indicative of a time to display the one of the video frames is communicated to each of the plurality of video devices. Other embodiments include media devices configured to send such frame data and to display video frames at the indicated time.
US08245258B2
A method for providing video telephony is presented. By the method, a telephone directory of a broadcast receiving apparatus can be updated by receiving a telephone directory of a connected external device is provided. A call request signal can be transmitted to an information communication terminal of the user of an external broadcast receiving apparatus when the external broadcast receiving apparatus is turned off. A video telephony mode can change according to whether or not audio signals are transmitted and received when video telephony is connected. The volume of a plurality of windows can each be adjusted separately. As a result, users can utilize video telephony more conveniently.
US08245256B2
A video client device receives a request for interactive television content. The video client device provides, in response to the request, the interactive television content for display on a video display device. The video client device receives an instruction to initiate an autoscroll function. The video client device retrieves, in response to the instruction, configuration information that identifies a manner for performing the autoscroll function. The video client device performs the autoscroll function to automatically scroll through the interactive television content, in a horizontal direction or a vertical direction, on the video display device based on the configuration information.
US08245252B2
A system, method, and computer program product is provided for the selective replacement of objectionable content in a program with less-objectionable material. The selective replacement of objectionable content in a program with less-objectionable material is accomplished by applying an encoding process and a decoding process to the audio and/or video signal of the program. The encoding process includes marking potentially objectionable material in the program with replacement information that identifies the type (e.g., audio, violent content, sexual content, etc.) and intensity level (e.g., mild, graphic, extreme, etc.) of the potentially objectionable material using replacement codes. The decoding process includes comparing, during the presentation of the program to the user and prior to outputting the audio or displaying the video, the replacement information to a replacement criterion, which includes user supplied replacement settings, to determine whether replacement of the potentially objectionable content (i.e., audio and/or video) should be performed. If replacement is to be performed, the objectionable content in the program is replaced according to the replacement information which, in the preferred embodiment, identifies the start and duration of the replacement and, for replacement of the video of the program, also identifies the display area of the video to be replaced.
US08245250B2
The present invention is directed to a television schedule system with a user interface which allows a user to control access to television programs by time, rating, content, and/or channel. Furthermore, the user may set a limit on pay-per-view (PPV) spending to limit the purchase of PPV programs.
US08245244B2
Device, system, and method of executing a call to a routine within a transaction. In some embodiments an apparatus may include a memory having stored thereon compiled code corresponding to a transaction, wherein the transaction includes at least one call to a first routine of a pair of first and second mutually inverse routines, and wherein the compiled code includes a call to a first wrapped routine replacing the call to the first routine; and a runtime library including wrapper code, wherein the wrapper code, when executed in response to the call to the first wrapped routine, results in executing the call to the first routine within the transaction and undoing the call to the first routine responsive to abort of the transaction. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US08245242B2
An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for managing policies on a computer having a foreign operating system. Policies may specify hardware or software configuration information. Policies on a first computer with a native operating system are translated into configuration information usable on a second computer having a foreign operating system. In an embodiment, a translator manager manages the association between the policy on the first computer and the translator on the second computer. Computer management complexity and information technology management costs are reduced by centralizing computer management on the native operating system. Further reductions in management complexity are realized when the present invention is used in conjunction with network directory services.
US08245239B2
A method includes executing one or more applications in a deterministic execution environment and executing a plurality of background tasks in the deterministic execution environment. The one or more applications and the background tasks are executed in different time slots. At least one of the background tasks cannot be completed within a single time slot. The at least one of the background task is executed incrementally in multiple non-adjacent time slots so as to prevent the at least one background task from interfering with the execution of the one or more applications.
US08245235B1
A computer system has plural partitions for running respective workloads. Reliability-indicating events are monitored and the resulting data is used by a workload manager in allocating computer resources to workloads.
US08245225B2
A method for installing software components includes: a terminal receives a software component package delivered by a Device Management (DM) server directly or a download address of the component package and a command instructing to download delivered by the DM server, where the software component package contains more than one software component; if the terminal receives the download address and the command instructing to download, the terminal downloads the software component package from the download address; the terminal installs the obtained software component package locally and generates management nodes and subnodes of the management nodes corresponding to the software components under a Deployed subtree of the Software Component Management Object (SCOMO) of the terminal. With the present invention, the process of installing software component is more reasonable. A system and apparatus for installing software components are also provided.
US08245221B2
Content formatting and installation techniques are described. In an implementation, a method includes receiving one or more inputs for initiating an installation process of one or more content items and performing the installation process without user intervention. The performing of the installation process includes obtaining a content package, from over a network, which includes a manifest which describes a content type for each of the content items. Each of the content items is installed for use by an application module based on a respective content type.
US08245215B2
A method for automatically modifying a program of an automation system, wherein a first item of data related to a program component is determined using an identificator assigned to the automation system, wherein a program code object stored in a database is selected using a selector based upon the first item of data, and wherein the program is modified by means of the program code object in that the program code object is integrated into the program. Further, an automation system with a program having program components and which is automatically modifiable in accordance with the method, having an assigned identificator for determining a first item of data related to a program component, a selector for selecting a program code object stored in a database based upon the first item of data, and an integrator for integrating the program code object into the program and finally a computer readable medium.
US08245212B2
The claimed subject matter provides systems and mechanisms that create frame accurate call trees for threads. The system can include devices that determine the thread on which a break point or event halted execution, identifies a location of the event that halted execution, sets break points at multiple locations during a stopping event where stopping events do not typically involve setting or unsetting set break points, and constructs the frame accurate call tree subset for the thread based at least in part on the break point or event that halted execution and information gleaned from an inspection of a call stack associated with the event that halted execution or the break point.
US08245206B2
A system and method for efficient string concatenation in a virtual machine (VM), or other runtime environment, and particularly for use in a system that includes a Java Virtual Machine (JVM). An embodiment improves the performance of string concatenation significantly by analysing the string concatenation chains during bytecode compilation and replacing the dynamic string concatenation code with fixed size structures without bounds checks or locks. The resulting code is also more suitable for inlining.
US08245202B2
A method and apparatus for processor emulation using speculative forward translation are disclosed. A potential candidate for forward translation is identified from one or more portions of target system code. A priority for forward translation is assigned to the potential candidate. It is determined whether the potential candidate is a valid candidate for forward translation. If valid, the potential candidate is translated with a host system to produce one or more corresponding blocks of translated code executable by the host system.
US08245197B2
A program monitoring method includes the steps of describing an operating point code (2P) indicating an operating point value (3P) in one or more locations of a module (1M), counting the operating point value (3P) indicated by the operating point code (2P) by a counter if an execution position becomes the location of the operating point code (2P) while the module (1M) is being executed, and deciding that the module (1M) has not been executed normally if a difference between the numerical value counted by the counter and a score value (3S) is not a predetermined numerical value.
US08245192B1
A system is provided comprising a computer and application that creates a development zone in response to a first message. The zone comprises a recording of state-based references to files and folders of a master production build in read-only and read-write copies of the build. The system receives another message containing a request to commit changes to the build. The changes comprise updating the build with changes to the read-write clone. The system compares the read-only snapshot with the current build to determine changes committed after the zone creation. The system compares changes to the read-write clone and changes committed to the build after zone creation. The system identifies files and folders changed in the read-write clone and commits the changes made to the read-write clone to a staging build and the master production build.
US08245190B2
An apparatus in one example comprises: a first manager component responsible for one or more first software components within one or more first executables of a distributed software application; and a second manager component responsible for one or more second software components within one or more second executables of the distributed software application. The first and second manager components communicate to initialize and/or shut down the one or more first software components and the one or more second software components in an ordered sequence based on one or more dependency relationships among two or more of: the one or more first software components; and/or the one or more second software components.
US08245179B2
It is required to qualitatively design a circuitry device in which not only in a small-signal simulation but also in a large-signal simulation, loop oscillation and motorboating oscillation of an amplifier are precisely predicted to suppress oscillation without severing a loop or without inserting a circulator. To remove insertion loss due to a probe resistor Rx, a negative resistor −Rx/2 is arranged at both ends thereof. To prevent consumption of a DC bias in the probe, a DC block is applied. Further, to remove thermal noise caused by an actual resistor to reduce influence on a noise factor NF, the noise temperature (environmental temperature) of the actual resistor is set to zero Kelvin.
US08245174B2
A method includes receiving an identification of a plurality of cells to be included in an integrated circuit (IC) layout, including a list of pairs of cells within the plurality of cells to be connected to each other. First routing paths are identified, to connect a maximum number of the pairs of cells using one-dimensional (1-D) routing between cells within those pairs of cells. Second routing paths are selected from a predetermined set of two-dimensional (2-D) routing patterns to connect any of the pairs of cells which cannot be connected by 1-D routing. The first and second routing paths are output to a machine readable storage medium to be read by a control system for controlling a semiconductor fabrication process to fabricate the IC.
US08245159B2
A mechanism is provided for optimizing a photolithograph mask. A given target pattern is received. An initial fictitious mask is generated from the given target pattern and an initial value of α2 is selected where the initial value of α2 is used to determine a light intensity and a wafer image. The light intensity for each pixel in the initial fictitious mask and the wafer image for each pixel in the initial fictitious mask are then determined. A determination is then made as to whether a convergence has been achieved by comparing the wafer image generated from the fictitious mask to the given target pattern. Responsive to a convergence of the wafer image generated from the fictitious mask to the given target pattern, a final mask is generated to use to transfer an image to a wafer.
US08245155B2
An information processing apparatus includes a display unit and a control unit. The display unit is configured to display a dividing region dividing a main display region into two sub regions. The control unit is configured to control the display unit to display a plurality of icons in the dividing region, to change position of the dividing region in the main display region based on user input, and to display, when an icon of the plurality of icons is selected, information corresponding to the icon in at least one of the sub regions.
US08245154B2
Task switching among windows on a graphical user interface. Responsive to user action (such as simultaneously pressing the ALT and TAB keys), a task selection window is displayed in which an iconic representation is provided for a plurality of windows, including at least one child window, and the iconic representations are arranged according to how recently the associated window had focus. Responsive to user action (such as pressing the TAB key while the ALT key remains depressed), a selection indicator moves through the selectable iconic representations in the order of the recency of the focus.
US08245152B2
Methods and apparatuses to accelerate scrolling for buffered windows. In one aspect of the invention, a method to scroll a buffered window on a data processing system includes: determining a second region of a second pixel image of a window in a frame buffer, which corresponds to a first region of a first pixel image of the window buffered in a window buffer that is scrolled from a first position to a second position in the first pixel image of the window in the window buffer; and scrolling the second region in the frame buffer to synchronize the second pixel image in the frame buffer with the first pixel image in the window buffer. In one example according to this aspect, the second region in the frame buffer is scrolled using graphics hardware; the frame buffer is located inside a video memory under control of the graphics hardware.
US08245151B2
Systems, methodologies, media, and other embodiments associated with web browsers are described. One exemplary embodiment includes a graphical user interface having a window arrangement option for display on a display screen and being configured to initiate, when selected, an arrangement of open windows having a selected window type. An arrangement logic that, in response to the window arrangement option being selected, re-displays the open windows having the selected window type in a selected arrangement on the display screen without re-displaying open windows not having the selected window type.
US08245142B2
The present invention provides a method and system for acquiring, storing and displaying content on a mobile terminal. The mobile terminal is adapted to acquire content from content providing devices or sources such as the Internet, e-mail, or direct download from a PC to the mobile terminal for display. Content providing devices of the system are stand-alone devices which store content, such as location based advertising information, for downloading by a mobile terminal in close proximity to the content providing device. An application resident on the mobile terminal can provide scrolling player functionality to enable stored data content to be easily viewed.
US08245141B1
In one embodiment, a first administrative entity having first members may initiate an operated shared workspace having a policy control engine. The first administrative entity may configure a first set of policies regarding workspace access, while a second administrative entity, having second members, may configure a second set of policies regarding workspace access. The policy control engine may then apply the first policies to the first and second members, and also may apply one or more policies of the second set of policies to the second members in response to the respective policies being stricter than corresponding policies of the first set of policies.
US08245138B2
Disclosed is a recording-reproduction apparatus having a recording-reproduction unit which includes an operation unit and an output unit. The operation unit has an operation element. The recording-reproduction unit further includes a control unit that displays a discrimination figure displaying the current operating status of the recording-reproduction apparatus in the center of the operating-content-viewing region and generates a display command signal for displaying a plurality of discrimination figures in the periphery of the discrimination figure displaying the current operating status. The discrimination figures are provided as guiding signs to which contents of recording or reproduction operations are assigned. The output unit is provided for outputting a display signal prepared from the display command signal generated from the control unit.
US08245133B2
The invention relates to a system and method for automatically producing documents that incorporate one or more data elements. A guided/structured software environment is provided that assists users in creating manuals by defining the appropriate content for each manual section, content rules and relationships, and tasks to be performed for each type of manual entry. Manual content is stored as structured data elements, rather than pages of sentences, to more efficiently generate, revise, and store the content of a manual. A storage database is provided for retrieving and storing predefined templates, documents and individual data elements to produce a final manual. Manuals are created by combining various data elements. An instant preview interface permits a user to quickly view what revisions will look like in a final document prior to actually publishing the manual. A published manual is compiled by assembling the stored data elements and into a document.
US08245131B2
Methods, systems and machine-readable instructions for constraining layout variations for accommodating variable content in electronic documents are described. In one aspect, explicit logical blocks extracted from the electronic document are received. Each of the explicit logical blocks corresponds to a content region of the electronic document assigned a respective content style. Layout relationships among the explicit logical blocks are determined. Based on the layout relationships, rules constraining layout variations among implicit logical blocks to approximate the electronic document in appearance while accommodating variable content are generated. Each of the implicit logical blocks corresponds to a respective one of the explicit logical blocks and accommodates variable content having the content style assigned to the corresponding explicit logical block. The rules are stored in a machine-readable medium.
US08245125B1
Disclosed herein are methods and systems for hybrid rendering of web applications. A request for a first webpage is sent to a server-side renderer from a web browser. The first webpage and associated JavaScript instructions are received in the web browser from the server-side renderer. The first webpage is displayed in the web browser. It is then determined if the JavaScript instructions are loaded in the web browser. If the JavaScript instructions are loaded, a second webpage is rendered in the web browser based upon a request for the second webpage. If the JavaScript instructions are not loaded, the web browser sends the request for the second web page to the server-side renderer.
US08245122B2
A method for determining if a first component can be connected to a second component for inclusion in a processing graph, includes: accessing a first component description, the first component description describing an output object of the first component with a set of tags; accessing a second component description, the second component description describing an input condition of the second component with a set of tags; determining that the first component can be connected to the second component if the set of tags describing the output object includes all tags describing the input condition; and including the first and second connected components in a processing graph if they are connected to each other.
US08245118B2
Systems and methods are provided for implementing error identification and evaluation for a Reed-Solomon (RS) error-correction code (ECC) system. The BMA algorithm and/or list decoding may produce one or more error locator polynomials that are related to a decision-codeword. An accelerated Chien search can be used to more quickly evaluate the one or more error locator polynomial. If the accelerated Chien search identifies a valid error locator polynomial, a normal Chien search can be used to identify error locations, and Forney's algorithm or an equivalent technique can be used to evaluate the error values. A RS ECC decoder can include a computation circuit that evaluates an error locator polynomial or an error evaluator polynomial. The computation circuit can include computation components that receive the coefficients of the polynomials.
US08245117B1
Data is processed by obtaining a length of an error locator polynomial. It is determined whether the length of the error locator polynomial is greater than a threshold. In the event the length of the error locator polynomial is greater than the threshold, performance of a Chien search on the error locator polynomial is skipped. In the event the length of the error locator polynomial is less than or equal to than the threshold, the Chien search is performed on the error locator polynomial to determine one or more roots of the error locator polynomial, where the roots correspond to one or more error locations.
US08245108B2
A semiconductor memory device includes: a first bank and a second bank; one or more first data input/output pads disposed at one side of the first bank and used in access to data of the first bank; one or more second data input/output pads disposed at one side of the second bank and used in access to data of the second bank; a first cyclic redundancy code (CRC) generation circuit for generating a first CRC using a plurality of data output from the first bank and outputting the generated first CRC through the first data input/output pads; and a second CRC generation circuit for generating a second CRC using a plurality of data output from the second bank and outputting the generated second CRC through the second data input/output pads.
US08245104B2
Various embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for data processing. For example, a variable iteration data processing system is disclosed that includes at least a first detector, a second detector, a decoder, and a queuing buffer. The first detector is operable to perform a data detection on an input data set at a first time. The decoder receives a derivation of an output from the first detector and performs a decoding process. Where the decoding process fails to converge, the decoder output is passed to the second detector for a subsequent detection and decoding process at a second time.
US08245102B1
Method and apparatus for error checking information is described. Configuration data includes data bits and parity bits. Notably, parity bits may be relocated for determining a syndrome value. Syndrome bits are determined by computing a partial syndrome value for each word serially transmitted of the configuration data, where the configuration data includes one or more data vectors. Location of each word of the configuration data is identified. It is determined whether a partial syndrome value is an initial partial syndrome value or other partial syndrome value responsive to word location. An initial partial syndrome value is stored, and subsequent partial syndrome values are cumulatively added for each word of a data vector to arrive at a syndrome value for the data vector.
US08245088B1
Methods and systems are provided for implementing quality of service (QoS) by using Hybrid ARQ (HARQ) response for triggering the EV-DO reverse activity bit (RAB). In an embodiment, an access node provides service to a plurality of access terminals, the plurality including a select group of one or more access terminals. The access node detects that it has, over a time period, sent more than a threshold number of HARQ negative acknowledgements (NACKs) with respect to reverse-link communication of the select group, and responsively (1) sets the RAB for the first wireless coverage area and (2) instructs the select group of access terminals to ignore the RAB. The select group ignores the RAB, while the rest of the access terminals obey the RAB.
US08245085B2
A dump output control apparatus includes a storage unit that stores output device information indicating an output device that is an output destination of dump information, a dump output device control unit that obtains the output device information stored in the storage unit and, determines a device as an output device for outputting the dump information thereto based on the obtained output device information, and a dump output unit that outputs the dump information to the determined output device.
US08245081B2
A software component is executed to carry out a task, the task including a subtask. An external function is called to perform the subtask, the external function executing in a separate thread or process. The component receives an observation recorded by the external function, the observation including an identifier of a possible error condition and instance data associated with the possible error condition. The possible error condition being a cause of the failure of the external function to carry out the subtask. If the task cannot be completed, then a new observation is recorded along with the received observation, the new observation being related to a possible error condition of the component, which is a cause of the failure of the component to carry out the task. When the task can be completed despite the failure of the external function, the observation recorded by the external function is cleared.
US08245080B2
A software testing system includes a test interface and a verification interface. The test interface receives a first processing request for the application program under test. The test interface generates a second processing request equivalent to the first processing request, and communicates the first and second processing requests to the application program under test and a model of the application program, respectively. A verification interface compares a first and a second response data set received, respectively, from the application program under test and the model. The verification interface generates an error indication if a difference is determined from the comparison of the first and second response data sets. If a difference is not determined from the comparison, then the verification interface generates a success indication. The verification interface communicates either the success or error indication to the test interface.
US08245079B2
Problems in a network may be diagnosed based on alarm messages received from devices in the network and based on logical circuit path information of the network. In one implementation, a device may log alarm messages, in which each of the logged alarm messages may identify a network device that generated the alarm message and each of the alarm messages are associated with a time value. The device may group the alarm messages in the log of alarm messages based on the time values of the alarm messages to obtain one or more alarm message clusters and analyze the alarm message clusters to locate potential causes of the logged alarm messages.
US08245075B2
A method for overclocking a central processing unit (CPU) of a computer motherboard is disclosed. Step A is to set a second frequency of front side bus (FSB) by an operating interface of BIOS. Step B is to determine FSB frequency Fn at each of N stages according to a difference between a first frequency and the second frequency. Step C is to load the CPU with an operating system by booting the CPU at the first frequency of FSB, and send an interruption signal to the CPU from a chipset at predetermined intervals upon completion of the loading of the operating system so as to allow the BIOS to gain control over the CPU, and execute step D by the CPU on each of N occasions of interruption until the FSB frequency of the CPU is changed to the second frequency. Step D is to execute the BIOS by the CPU on the nth occasion of interruption such that the CPU operates at the FSB frequency Fn, and allow the operating system to resume control over the CPU.
US08245068B2
A device having a power supply monitoring capabilities, the device includes: a power supply unit; at least one real time clock generator counter adapted to receive a supply voltage from the power supply unit; a fixed value storage circuit that is un-accessible to software executed by a processor; wherein the fixed value storage circuit stores a fixed value; wherein the fixed value includes multiple bits; a volatile storage unit, being accessible to the processor; wherein the volatile storage unit is adapted to: (i) store a reset value after being reset; (ii) receive the fixed value during an initialization state; and (iii) store the fixed value until being reset; wherein the volatile storage unit is designed such that there is a low probability that the reset value equals the fixed value; and a comparator adapted to provide a tamper indication if the fixed value stored at the fixed value storage circuit differs from a value stored at the volatile storage unit.
US08245062B1
According to one general aspect, a method may include operating a computing device in a first power mode. The method may also include executing, by a processor of the computing device, at least one non-interactive task. The method may also include detecting, by a processor of the computing device, a request to place the computing device in a second power mode, wherein the second power mode consumes less system resources than the first power mode. The method may further include delaying the transition of the computing device to the second power mode until either the completion of the non-interactive task or an overriding triggering event.
US08245061B2
Various systems and methods for power management are disclosed herein. For example, a synchronous semiconductor circuit is disclosed that includes two or more clock sources and a power management controller. The power management controller is operable to apply power to one of the clock sources and to select another of the clock sources for synchronization of the circuit. Then, upon stabilization of the first clock source, it is selected by the power management controller to synchronize the circuit.
US08245038B2
One embodiment of the present invention provides a system which allows a document owner to redact content from a document and allows a recipient of the redacted document to challenge the appropriateness of the redaction. During operation, the system allows the document owner to redact a string Mi from location i in the document. In doing so, the system produces a commitment Ci=C(Mi, Ri) based on string Mi and a string Ri used as randomness and communicates Ci to the recipient. When the recipient challenges the redaction, the system receives a topic string T from the recipient, and produces a string RT. The system then communicates RT to the recipient, thereby allowing the recipient to produce a commitment CT=C(T, RT) based on strings T and RT, and compare CT with Ci. Comparing commitment CT with Ci allows the recipient to test redactions for string equality.
US08245034B2
The present invention is intended to allow distribution of personal information to be managed on the basis of not only a personal information management policy defined by a personal information producer but also management policies of all apparatuses which handle personal information when the distribution of personal information is managed between apparatuses. In its configuration, personal information generation apparatus 1 encapsulates personal information together with a transmission policy to generate a personal information capsule which is transmitted to personal information utilization apparatus 2. Personal information utilization apparatus 2 receives and holds the personal information capsule for utilization. In this event, personal information generation apparatus 1 transmits a transmission policy defined by the personal information producer. Personal information utilization apparatus 2 in turn transmits a reception policy defined by a personal information user. Then, personal information generation apparatus 1 and personal information utilization apparatus 2 determine a contractual coverage in regard to personal information to be distributed, and generate contract information. Eventually, the personal information is distributed from personal information generation apparatus 1 to personal information utilization apparatus 2 based on the generated contract information.
US08245023B2
A method capable of executing programs for a computer system operating in a shut down state includes generating a control instruction while a key of the computer system is pressed down; storing the control instruction; and performing actions according to the control instruction when the computer system is booted up.
US08245018B2
An information handling system includes a processor that may perform general purpose register recovery operations after an instruction flush operation that an exception, such as a branch misprediction causes. The processor receives an instruction stream that may include multiple instructions that operate on a particular target register that stores instruction result information. The general purpose register may temporarily store instruction opcode and register bits information for use during dispatch, execution and other operations. The processor includes a recovery buffer unit for use during flush recovery operations. The processor may use recovery valid and recovery pending bits that correspond with each instruction during the register recovery from flush operation.
US08245017B2
A microprocessor includes a first branch condition state and a second branch condition state. The microprocessor also includes a conditional branch instruction of a first type that instructs the microprocessor to wait to correctly resolve the conditional branch instruction of the first type based on the first branch condition state until other instructions within the microprocessor that update the first branch condition state and that are older than the conditional branch instruction of the first type have updated the first branch condition state. A conditional branch instruction of a second type instructs the microprocessor to correctly resolve the conditional branch instruction of the second type based on the second branch condition state without regard to whether other instructions within the microprocessor that update the second branch condition state and that are older than the conditional branch instruction of the second type have yet updated the second branch condition state.
US08245011B2
Methods and systems are provided for geometry-based virtual memory management. The methods and systems use Boolean space algebra operations to manage allocation and deallocation of tiled virtual memory pages in a tiled virtual memory provided by a tiled virtual memory subsystem. A region quadtree may be maintained representing a current allocation state of tiled virtual memory pages within a container. The region quadtree may be used to locate a rectangle or two dimensional (2D) array of unallocated tiled virtual memory pages, and physical memory pages may be mapped to tiled virtual memory pages in the rectangle by updating a lookup table used to translate tiled virtual memory page addresses to physical memory page addresses. A union or intersection of region quadtrees may be performed to generate a new region quadtree representing a new current allocation state of the tiled virtual memory pages.
US08245007B2
There is provided a storage subsystem having a virtual volume and a page volume which has a page physical area allocated to the virtual volume. The storage subsystem divides an address space of the virtual volume into a plurality of pages, classifies each of the pages into one of a plurality of states including at least a first state and a second state, and further divide a page which is classified into the second state into a plurality of segments to managed the page classified into the second state. The first state is a state in which a page physical area is allocated to the page from the page volume, and the write data is stored in the page physical area. The second state is a state in which the predetermined pattern data and the segment are managed, in the memory, by correlating with each other.
US08245002B2
Call stack protection, including executing at least one application program on the one or more computer processors, including initializing threads of execution, each thread having a call stack, each call stack characterized by a separate guard area defining a maximum extent of the call stack, dispatching one of the threads of the process, including loading a guard area specification for the dispatched thread's call stack guard area from thread context storage into address comparison registers of a processor; determining by use of address comparison logic in dependence upon a guard area specification for the dispatched thread whether each access of memory by the dispatched thread is a precluded access of memory in the dispatched thread's call stack's guard area; and effecting by the address comparison logic an address comparison interrupt for each access of memory that is a precluded access of memory in the dispatched thread's guard area.
US08245001B2
The present invention provides a storage device and a method for protecting its protected partition in which the storage device comprises a master boot record unit and a protected partition, the protected partition comprises an application data area and a system data area for storing application data and system data to be provided to a user, respectively, and the system data area is in a customized data format of nonstandard file system. With the storage device and the method for protecting its protected partition, security of system data in the protected partition of the storage device is enhanced.
US08245000B2
A computing device and method for managing security of a memory or storage device without the need for administer privileges. To access the secure memory, a host provides a data block containing a control command and authentication data to the memory device. The memory device includes a controller for controlling access to a secure memory in the memory device. The memory device identifies the control command in the data block, authenticates the control command based on the authentication data, and executes the control command to allow the host device to access the secure memory.
US08244996B2
A storage apparatus includes a first storage device that primarily stores data, a second storage device, having a property differing from the first storage device, that secondarily stores the data, and a control device that controls a data migration between the first storage device and the second storage device. The control device includes a storage section that stores attribute information on the data stored in the first storage device, a priority determination section which, based on the attribute information, determines a priority for the data migration from the first storage device to the second storage device, and a data migration section which, based on the priority, causes the data to migrate from the first storage device to the second storage device.
US08244989B2
One or more target files are securely erased from a host storage medium such as a disk by overwriting the target files not just with “O's,” “1's” and/or random data, but also (or instead) by overwriting them with portions of other, selected, innocuous files found on the same medium. By booting the host using a secondary, preferably external mechanism, before the host operating system is allowed to load, logging of file accesses and process execution by the host OS is circumvented. Post-replacement fragmentation and defragmentation may also be used to further reduce the detectability of the erasure, and the success of the process may be evaluated using statistical analysis.
US08244988B2
A method, circuit arrangement, and design structure utilize a lock prediction data structure to control ownership of a cache line in a shared memory computing system. In a first node among the plurality of nodes, lock prediction data in a hardware-based lock prediction data structure for a cache line associated with a first memory request is updated in response to that first memory request, wherein at least a portion of the lock prediction data is predictive of whether the cache line is associated with a release operation. The lock prediction data is then accessed in response to a second memory request associated with the cache line and issued by a second node and a determination is made as to whether to transfer ownership of the cache line from the first node to the second node based at least in part on the accessed lock prediction data.
US08244977B2
Methods, systems, and products are provided that display memory statistics for a keydrive that do not require the keydrive to be plugged into another device. Displaying memory statistics according to embodiments of the present invention include receiving a command resulting in a change to the memory usage of the keydrive, calculating memory statistics describing the current state of memory usage of the keydrive, storing the memory statistics in memory on the keydrive, and displaying the memory statistics on a display on the keydrive. Calculating memory statistics describing the current state of memory usage of the keydrive may be carried out by calculating a total memory usage of the keydrive. Calculating memory statistics describing the current state of memory usage of the keydrive may also be carried out by calculating a percent of total memory used.
US08244957B2
A mechanism for dynamic placement of virtual machines (VMs) during live migration based on memory is disclosed. A method of embodiments of the invention includes determining candidate target host machines capable of receiving a VM to be migrated, obtaining a hash value for memory pages of the VM to be migrated, obtaining for each candidate target host machine hash values for shared memory pages utilized by one or more VMs hosted by the candidate target host machine, comparing for each candidate target host machine the hash values for the memory pages of the VM to be migrated with the hash values for the shared memory pages, and adjusting a score in a general selection algorithm for the candidate target host machine with the most identical matches of the hash values for the shared memory pages with the hash values for the memory pages of the VM to be migrated.
US08244951B2
A dual host system and method with back to back non-transparent bridges and a proxy packet generating mechanism. The proxy packet generating mechanism enables the hosts to send interrupt generating packets to each other.
US08244950B2
An improved interface technique for use in a southbridge or I/O hub or in similar devices is provided where non-posted read requests are received from at least one requestor, and upstream commands based on these requests are transmitted. Response data is received in reply to commands that were previously transmitted, and responses are transmitted to the at least one requester based on the response data. A buffer unit is provided for storing command identification data that identifies commands that were already transmitted or that are still to be transmitted, and response availability data that specifies response data that has been received by the receive engine. The improvement may enable multiple outstanding read requests.
US08244944B1
A wireless network device including an antenna, a first communication module, and a second communication module. The first communication module is configured to transmit or receive packets of data in accordance with a first communication standard, and the second communication module is configured to transmit or receive packets of data in accordance with a second communication standard. The wireless network device further includes an arbitration module configured to grant access of each of the first communication module and the second communication module to the antenna so that the first communication module and the second communication module can respectively transmit or receive data packets in accordance with the first communication protocol and the second communication protocol.
US08244943B2
Administering the polling of a number of devices for device status including determining whether a task identification for polling the device is in the delayed polling queue; if the task identification for polling the device is not in the delayed polling queue, determining whether the task identification for polling the device is in the immediate polling queue; if the task identification for polling the device is in the immediate polling queue; calculating a new time interval for polling the device in dependence upon a predetermined base period and a random selection of a time offset, wherein the time offset is within a predetermined range; calculating a next polling time for polling the device in dependence upon the current time and the new time interval; inserting the task identification in the delayed polling queue in dependence upon the next polling time.
US08244939B2
A method for maximizing I/O requests to a target port is provided. The method includes a storage controller obtaining an initiator allowed queue depth, receiving an I/O request and a current sequence identifier from an initiator logged into the target port, and determining if the initiator allowed queue depth is equal to a first queue depth corresponding to the initiator. If the initiator allowed queue depth is equal to the first queue depth then returning a queue full indication and a maximum sequence identifier equal to the current sequence identifier to the initiator. If the initiator allowed queue depth is not equal to the first queue depth then placing the I/O request on a queue, incrementing the first queue depth, and adjusting the maximum sequence identifier. Adjusting the maximum sequence identifier includes adding the current sequence identifier to the initiator allowed queue depth and subtracting the first queue depth.
US08244936B2
A data communication apparatus 1 has a processing section (CPU) 10 that executes at least a part of communication processing of a communication controller 2 and that executes processing other than the communication processing, whereinThe data communication apparatus 1 has an interrupt request blocking section 20 that blocks, during execution of a processing relevant to information exchange concerning a communication condition for the communication controller 2 to carry out a communication processing, an interrupt request to the processing section 10 with priority over the processing relevant to information exchange. With this arrangement, even when additional operation is carried out to execute an interrupt processing during execution of a processing concerning a communication condition such as a modulation system of a modem and a communication speed, the processing can be executed securely and a stable connection of a communication line can be maintained.
US08244934B2
Disclosed is a method of managing a data storage network comprising a plurality of data storage volumes and a plurality of paths for connecting a server to a selected one of said data storage volumes, comprising determining, for an individual path, a plurality of performance parameters of said path during an interval; calculating a path performance metric from a combination of the determined performance parameters; and, if the path performance metric falls below a predefinable quality standard blocking the individual path from being used for a data communication with one of the data storage volumes; and signaling the blocking of the individual path. A computer program product and a server adapted to implement this method are also disclosed.
US08244927B2
An apparatus comprises an audio or video jack connector configured to receive an audio or video jack plug of a separate device, a detection circuit in electrical communication with the connector, and a processor communicatively coupled to the detection circuit. The connector includes an electrical contact for connection to a conducting terminal of the plug. The detection circuit is configured to determine a resistance at the conducting terminal. The resistance is a resistive load of the separate device at the conducting terminal of the plug. The processor is configured to identify a function of the separate device according to the determined resistance, and configure an operation of the apparatus according to the determined function.
US08244926B2
One data processor is provided with an interface for realizing connection with the other data processor. This interface is provided with a function for connecting the other data processor as a bus master to an internal bus of the one data processor, and the relevant other data processor is capable of directly operating peripheral functions that are memory mapped to the internal bus from an external side via the interface. Accordingly, the data processor can utilize the peripheral functions of the other data processor without interruption of the program being executed. In short, one data processor can use in common the peripheral resources of the other data processor.
US08244910B2
A network-based publication system, to publish data over a communications network, includes an interface to receive, via the communications network and from a first user, user data to be published by a network-based publication system. The publication system further includes a publisher component to generate publication data (e.g., an HTML document) including the user data and function modifying code. The publisher component generates the publication data in accordance with a publication format. The interface publishes the publication data via the communications network. The function modifying code is interpreted and executed, at a browser application, to disable (or modify) least one function of programming language supported by the browser application.
US08244899B1
Delivering a video stream is disclosed. A request for the video stream is received. A past portion of the video stream is delivered to a client. The past portion has a marker time that precedes a current time by an interval that corresponds to a buffer length in a client buffer. Receiving a video stream is also disclosed. A request for the video stream is transmitted. A past portion of the video stream is received. The received past portion has a marker time that precedes a current time by an interval that corresponds to a buffer length in a client buffer.
US08244886B2
Systems and methods for managing and providing content and services on a network system. Aspects of the invention include location-based determination of network content and services that may be provided to client computers. Other aspects of the invention include authorization and authentication components that determine access rights of client computers. Additional aspects include systems and methods for redirecting client computers to different network content. The disclosed systems and methods may be used in numerous network system applications.
US08244877B2
A method and system for processing a message in an Internet protocol-based mobile communication system supporting a multimedia service. In the system, application servers include a representative application server and multiple backend application servers. A method for defining a control message between application servers to set up a session using the standard Internet protocol is provided. When an application server performs a call processing operation, control message processing load and control message transmission delay is reduced.
US08244869B2
In one embodiment, services are not loaded if they are not needed by the user and if no services needed by the user are dependent upon them. In one embodiment, server services are represented as nodes in a graph data structure. Connections between the nodes indicate dependencies between the server services. The graph is sorted to create an ordered list of services which can be used to startup the services. In another embodiment a server services manager reads license files and user inputs and marks the ordered list of services to indicate which services are to startup.
US08244867B2
A method for selecting a preferred cache for the download of digital data from a plurality of caches is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of requesting an address of the preferred cache and selecting the preferred cache from the plurality of caches. The selection of the preferred cache is derived from a location identifier of a client requesting the download of the digital data.
US08244836B2
A software provisioning environment can include several provisioning servers for providing software provisioning to one or more target machines. To assign provisioning servers to the target machines, a provisioning server can be configured to assign the provisioning servers utilizing the provisioning objects. The provisioning server can be configured to associate selected provisioning objects with respective provisioning servers. By associating a provisioning object with a respective provisioning server, the respective provisioning server will operate as the provisioning server for any provisioning processes performed on target machines utilizing the selected provisioning object. The provisioning server can be configured to associate the provisioning objects with the provisioning servers based on any number of factors such as location of the provisioning servers, specifications of the provisioning servers, load on a provisioning server, and performance of a provisioning server.
US08244834B2
When a user purchases digital rights to a media file, or otherwise obtains the right to have a copy of the media file downloaded to the user's wireless device, a link to the media file that is stored in the media database is stored in a user storage database. When the user desires to have the media file downloaded to the user's wireless device, the user sends a request to the network. The network performs a check to determine whether the user is authorized to receive the requested media file, and if so, causes the requested media file to be downloaded to the user's wireless device where the media file is stored in the local memory of the wireless device for playback by the user on the wireless device.
US08244833B2
The present invention provides a method and apparatus for providing real-time, two-way transactional capabilities on the Web. Specifically, one embodiment of the present invention discloses a method for enabling object routing, the method comprising the steps of creating a virtual information store containing information entries and attributes associating each of the information entries and the attributes with an object identity, and assigning a unique network address to each of the object identities. A method is also disclosed for enabling service management of the value-added network service, to perform OAM&P functions on the services network.
US08244829B2
A data transmitting apparatus, which implements a RESUME function which is capable of properly setting a resume position and capable of setting plural resume positions, executes a Java™ application program and includes: a memory for storing content and content attribute information; a network unit which transmits a content to a data receiving apparatus; an action request receiving and responding unit which receives an update request indicating a resume position, from the data receiving apparatus; and a resume position managing unit which updates content attribute information stored in the memory in accordance with the received update request, so that such resume position and a resume position identifier are included in the content attribute information.
US08244821B2
A method, system, and data structure for creating electronic calendar entries are disclosed. One aspect of the invention involves a computer data structure that includes an email message with an embedded link. The embedded link contains event information corresponding to multiple parameters for an event described in the email message. The embedded link is configured, upon activation, to initiate generation of an electronic calendar entry form with multiple fields. A plurality of the multiple fields contain event information from the embedded link.
US08244810B1
An instant message delivery system includes a network node with a packet queue. The packet queue stores packets containing instant messages. When the system detects network congestion, it merges two or more packets where possible to make a single packet. In particular, when two or more data packets contain instant messages with the same recipient, the system merges the data packets into a single data packet with multiple instant messages. When two or more data packets have instant messages with the same recipient and the same sender, the system merges the data packets into a single data packet and further merges the instant messages into a single instant message containing more than one message body.
US08244807B2
The present disclosure provides for merging of instant messaging (IM) chat sessions. In some embodiments, two separate IM chat sessions are merged into a single IM chat session.
US08244799B1
Processes are disclosed for fingerprinting and identifying client applications based on the analysis of client requests. In an HTTP-based embodiment, a fingerprint is constructed based on the presence and order of HTTP headers included in a request from a client application or device. This fingerprint may then be compared to known fingerprints associated with particular client applications to identify the particular client application and/or to assess whether the client application is malicious. The results of this analysis may, for example, be used to determine how to respond to the current request and/or subsequent requests.
US08244797B2
With an operation information supplement instructing unit (16), a service progress dependent information storage unit (11), a service progress dependent information search unit (12) and a service progress dependent information answering unit (13) provided, when the operation information supplement instructing unit (16) is pressed, the service progress dependent information search unit (12) searches the service progress dependent information storage unit (11) for supplemental contents recorded in pair with the same service progress as a current service progress (information indicating how far service progresses) and presents the searched supplemental contents to a user through the service progress dependent information answering unit (13).
US08244793B2
Methods, apparatus, and computer program products are described for resetting a HyperTransport link in a blade server, including reassigning, by a blade management module, a gate signal from enabling a transceiver to signaling a HyperTransport link reset; sending, by the blade management module to a reset sync module on an out-of-band bus, the gate signal; and in response to the gate signal, sending, by the reset sync module to the blade processor, HyperTransport reset signals. The HyperTransport link includes a bidirectional, serial/parallel, high-bandwidth, low-latency, point to point data communications link. The blade server includes the blade processor, the reset sync module, and the baseboard management controller. The blade server is installed in the blade center. The blade center includes the blade management module. The blade management module is coupled to the baseboard management controller by the blade communication bus.
US08244783B2
A floating point processor unit includes a shift amount calculation circuit within a normalizer portion of the floating point unit, wherein the shift amount calculation circuit is utilized to compute the normalizer shift amount for a log estimate instruction that runs as a pipelinable instruction.
US08244781B2
A system and method provides for querying and setting file attributes between Network File System and Common Internet File System network attached storage systems. Aspects of the present invention may be performed by a storage virtualization system that acts as an intermediary between one or more network attached storage systems. By querying and setting file attributes, files may be migrated between network attached storage systems while keeping the file attributes and primary location of the file contents intact. In addition, the present invention provides an additional aspect of ensuring that file names of multi-protocol files are compatible across every protocol.
US08244756B2
A method and device for searching for a music file of a mobile terminal are provided. The method of searching for a music file of a mobile terminal includes, receiving at least one input key signal in an idle state of the mobile terminal, setting a search word by combining characters mapped to the received at least one input key signal, determining whether a music file that includes the search word exists within the mobile terminal, and requesting, if it is determined that a music file that includes the search word does not exist within the mobile terminal, a search for a music file that includes the search word to a preset web server.
US08244750B2
An inversion of the basic format of searching is provided herein. Instead of receiving a search query and providing web page results, a search engine receives a web page identifier as search input from an end user, determines related search queries for the associated web page, and provides the related search queries to the end user issuing the search. Related search queries for web pages may also be used to refine search engines performing the basic form of searching by facilitating the determination of web pages to index and the ranking of web pages as search results to user queries. Additionally, related search queries may be used in advertising revenue generation and sharing.
US08244747B2
An implementation wherein RFID data is shared across independent organizations has been addressed. RFID data is usually spread across different parties, e.g. enterprises in a supply chain and thus, efficient query processing across all parties is required. Traceability is emerging as one of the key applications of RFID technology. A generic data model is introduced for querying RFID data across a network of independently operated data sources. The model can be used to facilitate traceability query processing and give a set of representative traceability queries. A newly designed process-and-forward approach is implemented for executing traceability queries.
US08244745B2
In an information management system, activity data is collected and analyzed for patterns. The information management system may be policy based. Activity data may be organized as entries including information on user, application, machine, action, object or document, time, and location. When checking for patterns in the activity or historical data, techniques may include inferencing, frequency checking, location and distance checking, and relationship checking, and any combination of these. Analyzing the activity data may include comparing like types or categories of information for two or more entries.
US08244744B1
In some embodiments, disclosed techniques may include providing a profile of a first user to a second user, wherein the profile of the first user includes a first profile data; determining that the second user is permitted to modify the profile of the first user, wherein said determination includes determining that a social connection exists between the second user and the first user; receiving a second profile data from the second user, wherein the second profile data is a proposed modification to the first profile data; providing the second profile data to the first user; receiving from the first user an approval of a change to the profile of the first user, wherein the change to the profile of the first user includes the second profile data; and associating the second profile data with the profile of the first user.
US08244739B2
The data retrieval device includes a first skip correspondence table which corresponds to each piece of data in a retrieval target data series, and, for each possible similarity range which is taken by a similarity between corresponding data and retrieval data, records skip destination data information for specifying the data which appears first after the corresponding data among pieces of data in which similarities with the retrieval data have the possibility to have a predetermined relationship in comparison with a predetermined threshold. The data retrieval device also includes a control unit which, when retrieving data in which a similarity with the retrieval data is smaller than or equal to the threshold from among the retrieval target data series, selects data in the retrieval target data series for which calculation of a similarity with the retrieval data is necessary, using the first skip correspondence table.
US08244732B2
A named entity marking apparatus, a named entity marking method, and a computer program product thereof are provided. The named entity marking apparatus comprises a processor and a storage unit, wherein the processor is electrically connected to the storage unit. The storage unit is stored with an electronic document and a named entity database. The processor marks the electronic document into a first marked document by a first set of the named entity database. The processor decides a second set of the named entity database according to the first marked document. The processor re-marks the electronic document into a second marked document by the second set of the named entity database.
US08244731B2
An embodiment of the present invention provides a method and system for displaying and processing an electronic file list. The method includes: determining a keyword used for sorting in the electronic file list, retrieving keyword information of each electronic file in the electronic file list; and displaying the electronic file list in which electronic files are sorted.
US08244725B2
A method and system for information retrieval are provided whereby at least one search criterion is received from a user; a query is created based on the at least one search criterion; the query is executed to generate results, each of the results corresponding to a respective data entity which satisfies the at least one search criterion; the results are arranged into an order, the order being determined at least in part by a characteristic of the data entity corresponding to each result and a previous act by a user with respect to the data entity corresponding to each result; and the results are displayed to the user.
US08244724B2
One embodiment is a computer-implemented method for classifying documents in a collection of documents according to their intended readerships. The method comprises using a computer to select a document in the collection of documents; and using a computer to determine a characteristic of the selected document, the characteristic being: misleading when the document includes one or more features that are determined to be for a purpose other than reading the document; commercial when the document includes features that are presented for a commercial purpose; or personal when the document includes features of a personal opinion. The method further includes using a computer to classify the selected document as misleading, commercial, or personal according to its determined characteristic; and using a computer to repeat the steps of select document, determine a characteristic of the selected document, and classify the selected document for additional documents in the collection. At least some documents are classified as misleading, at least some documents are classified as commercial, and at least some documents are classified as personal. Other methods and computer program products are also disclosed according to even more embodiments.
US08244723B2
A system may determine an extent to which a document is selected when the document is included in a set of search results, generate a score for the document based, at least in part, on the extent to which the document is selected when the document is included in a set of search results; and rank the document with regard to at least one other document based, at least in part, on the score.
US08244711B2
A system, method, and apparatus for information retrieval are provided. Embodiments of the present invention may generate data structures that may be used to process user queries. According to embodiments of the present invention, a processor component configured to perform the operations of an indexing module and a storage module, the indexing module configured to generate a term list and a term-file matrix from information stored on the storage module, the indexing module further configured to generate an adjacency matrix from the one or more files, wherein the adjacency matrix represents a relationship of the one or more terms in each of the one or more files; and the indexing module further configured to generate a probability matrix using the adjacency matrix and a one-step or two-step random walk.
US08244694B2
Embodiments of the invention provide a method, system, and article of manufacture for the dynamic schema assembly for documents managed by a content management system (CMS). In one embodiment, a transient, application specific markup schema is dynamically generated when a user accesses a data object managed by the CMS. For example, users may perform operations such as checking out a document from the CMS, viewing a document in the CMS or exporting a document from the CMS. The transient schema is configured to accommodate application-specific metadata, without directly changing or interfering with a base schema associated with the data object.
US08244693B2
A method for compressing a table based on finite automata (FA) includes analyzing transferring characteristics of all states in an original two-dimensional structure table and combining continual states with unified transferring characteristics in the original two-dimensional structure table. A method for matching a table based on FA, a device for compressing a table, and a device for matching a table are also provided.
US08244692B1
Various embodiments described herein provide systems, methods, software, and data structures that allow a page description language reader application, such as ADOBE® ACROBAT®, to provide a view of the assets compressed within a compressed archive. These and other embodiments including applications that may interleave one or more compressed archives within a page description language file, such as a PDF file. This interleaving leverages properties of both compressed archive files and page description language files to insert object markers around compressed assets within the compressed archives and references to at least some of the object markers in an index portion of the page description language files. As a result, compressed assets of compressed archives included in a page description language file package may be viewed within the listing of assets of the page description language file. These and other embodiments are described in greater detail below.
US08244686B2
Provided are techniques for, in response to a source object being changed by a local transaction, generating log records, wherein each of the log records includes a sequence identifier, a source system entity modification timestamp, a target key, a target partition identifier, and values of source properties, wherein the source properties are identified using a target key indicator. The log records to process are selected based on a phase value of each log record, wherein the phase value is one of submitted, in-flight, and source system entity state change complete. One or more disjoint partitions are assigned to each of multiple processing instances. Under control of each of the multiple processing instances, it is determined whether to transmit a log record in the one or more disjoint partitions assigned to said processing instance and, in response to determining that the log record is to be transmitted, the log record is transmitted.
US08244680B2
Methods and systems for performing rapid recovery of deleted object in Active Directory. The invention allows automated recovery of any object at any point in an Active Directory hierarchy. In one embodiment, the method for recovering a deleted object includes determining whether the object of interest is contained in the tombstone and, if not, recursively evaluating higher-order parent nodes until a parent node is found that exists in the tombstone. The object of interest can then be reanimated and its attributes automatically restored as well as those for all of the children of the object of interest.
US08244675B2
Methods and systems for updating a database with one or more update records are provided in the present application. A staged table corresponding to a primary table of the database is generated. The update record is processed to validate the update record to determine whether there is an error in the update record and to add the update record to the staged table. The update record is copied from the staged table to the primary table when there is no error in the update record. The update record is deleted from the staged table after the update record is processed.
US08244673B2
An information presenting device for narrowing down information for users and stimulating interest in users from various viewpoints, and presenting the information to users in an easily ascertainable manner. Specifically, a content recommending device displays an image, a commonality map image includes a title image, a Venn diagram image, and a details button image. The Venn diagram in the commonality map image relating to all content is narrowed down to a Venn diagram about a set containing, as elements, content IDs of content having an attribute value, for example, “Mayumi Hamada” for an attribute “artist”. In the content recommending device, a multiple profile acquiring unit acquires viewing/listening history tables including content IDs of content viewed/listened to in player terminals, and a profile common relationship ascertaining unit calculates an extent of a common portion of the acquired viewing/listening history tables. The commonality is expressed as a Venn diagram.
US08244669B2
A method for determining membership in a group of notification recipients and issuing a notification to the group of notification recipients, is disclosed. The method includes associating a set of potential recipients of notifications with at least one descriptor and dynamically forming a group of recipients to receive at least one notification based on the descriptors currently associated with the set of potential recipients of notifications. The method also includes issuing the at least one notification to the group of recipients. A system for determining membership in a group of notification recipients and issuing a notification to the group of notification recipients, is also provided.
US08244661B1
Provided are methods and systems that extract facts of unstructured documents and build an oracle for various domains. The present invention addresses the problem of efficient finding and extraction of facts about a particular subject domain from semi-structured and unstructured documents, makes inferences of new facts from the extracted facts and the ways of verification of the facts, thus becoming a source of knowledge about the domain to be effectively queried. The methods and systems can also extract temporal information from unstructured and semi-structured documents, and can find and extract dynamically generated documents from Deep or Dynamic Web.
US08244659B2
Application management apparatus, systems, and methods to process government agency forms and applications such as, for example, immigration forms, petitions and applications to increase the likelihood of acceptance.
US08244651B1
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for suggesting training examples. In one aspect, a method includes receiving a plurality of training examples. A plurality of different types of predictive models are trained using the received training examples, wherein each of the predictive models implements a different machine learning technique. The performance of each trained model is measured. A suggestion score is computed for each training example according to each respective trained model, including weighting each suggestion score by the measured performance of the respective trained model. The computed suggestion scores for each training example are combined to compute an overall suggestion score for each training example, and the training examples are ranked by suggestion scores.
US08244646B2
Embodiments of the invention may provide systems and methods for determining estimated lead times based on delivery history information to a same or similar geographical area. According to one example embodiment, a method is provided. The method can include identifying a payee and determining that the payee is associated with a geographical area for mailpiece delivery. The method can further include identifying multiple delivery methods for mailpiece delivery to the geographical area, wherein each of delivery methods is associated with (a) a distribution center, (b) a delivery agent, and (c) an estimated lead time determined at least in part by analyzing the delivery history information associated with multiple mailpieces mailed from the respective distribution center to the geographical area via the respective delivery agent. The method can further include selecting one of the delivery methods for mailpiece delivery to the payee and associating the selected delivery method with the payee.
US08244645B2
A new model for transportation planning vehicle scheduling (TPVS). A database table for shipment documents independent of an order for goods, e.g., a sales order is created. When an order for goods is received, the database table is populated with a shipment document corresponding to, but independent of, the order for goods. This shipment document is owned by the TPVS system.
US08244636B2
An electronic transaction payment system is provided having a vendor terminal associated with a vendor who provides goods or services to a purchaser, a vendor smart-card and a vendor smart-card reader for transmitting data to and receiving data from the vendor smart-card. The system also includes a purchaser smart-card reader which is connected to the vendor terminal and which is operable for transmitting data to and receiving data from a purchaser smart-card. In operation, payment for goods purchased by the purchaser is made between the purchaser smart-card and the vendor smart-card. In a preferred embodiment, the payment data is encrypted using an encryption key specific to the transaction between the purchaser and the vendor. A third party registry terminal may also be provided for providing validation of the vendor and/or the purchaser.
US08244625B2
A method of making payment. A request is received to effect payment between a buyer and a seller for a transaction having established terms. The terms include a payment amount and a settlement date. Messages are exchanged between the buyer and the seller that include an offer and acceptance of new terms for payment at other than the established terms. The new terms include an adjusted amount of payment to be made at a particular time after an event associated with the transaction. An electronic notification that the event has occurred is received, and the after the notification, payment between the buyer and seller is effected under the new terms.
US08244624B2
A method and system for establishing an index useful for pricing diamonds in a standardized way that thus makes diamonds amenable for derivative trading via futures contracts or the like.
US08244618B1
Computer-implemented methods and systems for evaluating residential mortgage loan backed security products in which electronic loan data for the same individual loans is received from two or more different loan information providers, and the electronic loan data for respective individual loans received from the loan information providers is integrated. Thereafter, each individual loan in the integrated loan data is scored with a risk score based on a plurality of risk attributes of each individual loan; pre-defined forecast vectors are applied to the bucketed loans; cash flow forecasts are generated for the bucketed loans; and a price and/or yield for each bucketed loan is derived based on the cash flow forecasts.
US08244617B2
Methods and systems are provided herewith for rating a likelihood of payment of one or more cash flows. A computing device determines a probability of payment for one or more payments on a payment schedule for each of one or more debt instruments of a debt instrument portfolio. The computing device may also determine a portfolio cash flow rating of the debt instrument portfolio based on the quantity and purchase price associated with each of the one or more debt instruments, the probability of payment for the one or more payments, a current market price of each of the one or more debt instruments, a net present expected value of the one or more payments in the payment schedule for each of the one or more debt instruments, and/or a credit rating of one or more issuers associated with the debt instruments.
US08244616B1
In one aspect, the invention comprises a computer-implemented method comprising: (1) electronically receiving data describing a fund index and funds on which the index is based; (2) electronically receiving data describing one or more securities; (3) electronically receiving data describing returns of: (a) the fund index, (b) funds on which the index is based, and (c) the one or more securities; (4) electronically identifying a subset of funds on which the fund index is based as superior-performing funds over a period of time preceding a first time; and (5) constructing, at the first time, and based on the identified subset of funds, a first portfolio of securities whose return exceeds a return of the fund index over a first period of time. Other aspects of the invention comprise software for implementing the above aspect and embodiments thereof, as well as portfolios constructed according to the above aspect and embodiments thereof.
US08244613B1
The invention provides a method for conducting a transaction between a first and second consumer, and a merchant using one or more electronic communication devices. The method includes issuing a first prepaid calling card to a first consumer and issuing a second dependent prepaid calling card dependent on the first prepaid calling card, to a second consumer dependent on the first consumer, based on a second specified criteria. In the invention, the second specified criteria is specified by the first consumer, wherein both the first and second specified criteria are stored as imbedded data in the respective prepaid calling cards. The invention further involves conducting, at a merchant network node a micropayment transaction and receiving into the merchant network node from the at least one consumer electronic communications device first prepaid-calling card data or second dependent prepaid-calling card data as payment for the item of value.
US08244612B2
A method of adding a value to a customer account is provided. A request to add a value to a customer account of a customer is received from a point of sale terminal. The request may comprise value identification data associated with the value and account identification data associated with the customer account. The customer account identification data may be entered at the point of sale. The request may be associated with a purchase of the value. The value may be caused to be added to the customer account. During subsequent value purchase transactions, additional value may be added to the account.
US08244607B1
A presentation configuration system may receive metadata from multiple users utilizing tax preparation applications. The metadata may be tags or labels of interview segments of the tax preparation applications. The presentation configuration system may create community defined presentation structures from the metadata such that the community defined presentation structure includes an organization of interview segments within a tax preparation application. The community defined presentation structure may indicate how interview segments of a tax preparation application should be presented to a user. Furthermore, a tax preparation application may provide a user (e.g., a taxpayer) with multiple options corresponding to community defined presentation structures. The tax preparation application may receive a selection of one of the options from the user. Thus, the tax preparation application may present the tax preparation interview segments of the tax preparation application to the user according to the community defined presentation structure indicated by the option selected.
US08244600B2
Improved methods, systems, graphical user interfaces and computer program code for presenting representations or information concerning digital products are disclosed. The representations of digital products can serve to promote certain digital products at an online digital product distribution site. Information concerning a particular digital product can be rapidly accessible from a displayed page at an online digital product distribution site referencing a plurality of different digital products. According to one aspect, a plurality of representations (e.g., images) can be dynamically presented to facilitate access to corresponding digital product information. The representations being presented can be automatically changed on a periodic basis, unless user interaction requests otherwise. According to another aspect, digital product information can be presented in an overlay window that can be initiated by a user and present relevant information concerning a digital product. Advantageously, digital product information can be quickly presented to a user without having to navigate to a new page of an online distribution site.
US08244598B2
Various computer-implemented services are disclosed for increasing the utility of electronic wish lists, and for assisting users in making gift purchases. One such service automatically notifies a user when an item being accessed in an electronic catalog is on, or is similar to an item on, an electronic wish list of an “affiliated” user. The affiliations may be created explicitly by the users (e.g., by completing an online form), and/or implicitly based on actions performed by the users (e.g., when one user purchases a gift for another user). Another service automatically reminds a first user who is affiliated with a second user when a known or inferred gift-giving event of the second user is approaching. The reminder may include a link to a wish list of the second user, and/or may include or provide a link for viewing personalized gift recommendations for the second user.
US08244594B2
A system and method for remote acquisition and delivery of goods includes a server in communication with customer computers, such as through a user interface via the internet. The server can store customer information including billing information, and may include a real-time video processor. A mobile delivery system in communication with the server includes an energy efficient vehicle, a real-time video device, a global positioning system, a communication device and a printer. In use, a customer communicates with a mobile delivery agent via the real-time video device and the communication device to remotely acquire a product. Once acquired, the delivery agent delivers the product to a designated delivery location. The real-time video device can be utilized during the entire transaction. The system preferably includes a processor for optimizing system efficiencies, including selecting a delivery agent based on the product, pick-up location and delivery site.
US08244593B2
An e-commerce system, comprising an endorsement engine, a first interface software coupled to the endorsement engine and adapted to interact with one or more content sources connected over a network and adapted to enable subscriptions from users using a protocol, and a second interface software coupled to the endorsement engine and adapted to interact with one or more merchants to receive information about products, is disclosed. In an embodiment, the first interface software enables an endorsing user to browse the content sources and select a content item, to enter code associated with the selected content element, to view product information provided by merchants, to select a product for endorsement, and to enter code associated with the selected product. Upon retrieval of content by a viewing user who previously subscribed to the content source using the protocol, at least one of the content-specific code and the product-specific code is also provided to the viewing user via the protocol. Upon activation of the content-specific code, the viewing user is connected to the selected content and is able to view the selected content, and upon activation of the product-specific code by a viewing user, the viewing user is connected to a network-connected shopping cart, and is thereby enabled to buy the product.
US08244591B2
A method for processing an incoming order for equipment can be provided. A plurality of objects representing environmental factors is read, each object comprising at least one of a required parts list and an excluded parts list. Next, a customer places an order for computer equipment, wherein the order comprises a list of parts. A list of environmental factors is entered by the customer and the list of environmental factors is matched to at least one of the objects. The method can further include comparing the list of parts of the order to the required parts list and/or the excluded parts list of the at least one object. Finally, a record that the order is validated is stored if the list of parts of the order is consistent with the required parts list and/or the excluded parts list of the at least one object.
US08244581B2
A data processing system includes a distributing device that distributes edited advertisement data and display terminal devices that display the edited advertisement data distributed to a first place in a predetermined territory. The display terminal devices are each provided with a first reader/writer configured to read out from and/or write in an IC card having stored memory identification data. The data processing system also includes a second reader/writer configured to read out from and/or write in an IC card. The data processing system also includes a hysteresis management device that manages hysteresis data HD1, HD2 from the first reader/writer, correlated with the memory identification data, and hysteresis data HD1 from the second reader/writer, correlated with the memory identification data. The data processing system further includes a hysteresis analysis device that correlates the hysteresis data HD1, HD2 for each of the memory identification data to generate analysis data.
US08244576B2
A system and method for calculating a return on investment made in training. The system includes at least one computer having access to networks and servers to collect and synthesize accounting, training, and personnel data, in order to calculate costs and benefits of training. The method for calculating costs and benefits includes steps of collecting data, calculating contributions by members of the organization, calculating costs incurred by members of the organization, and correlating contributions made by members with training received by members of the organization.
US08244566B1
Computer-based system and computer-implemented methods for providing an automated computer network-based, or online, appointment scheduling service through which registered customers are individually capable of scheduling an appointment with a plurality of businesses that are also registered with the online appointment scheduling service. The application describes an optimization algorithm for controlling the start times presented to a customer when selecting an appointment time that seeks to cluster the new appointment to existing appointments for the business in order to reduce time gaps during the day for the business/service provider that are of insufficient duration to schedule other appointments for other customers of the business.
US08244564B2
Techniques are described for dynamically generating recommendations for users, such as for products and other items. In at least some situations, the techniques include using multiple recommendation strategies, such as by aggregating recommendation results from multiple different recommendation strategies. Such recommendation strategies may have various forms, and may be based at least in part on data regarding prior interactions of numerous users with numerous items. In addition, information about current selections of a particular user may be gathered based at least in part on providing a GUI (“graphical user interface”) for display to the user that includes selectable information about numerous recommended items, and dynamically updating the displayed GUI with newly generated recommendations of items as the user makes selections of particular displayed recommended items (e.g., newly generated recommendations that are similar to the selected items in one or more manners, or are otherwise related to the selected items).
US08244561B2
This invention relates to an electronic means by which people can select the exact seat or seats they want for any type of event or reserve an appointment for any activity. More specifically, a customer or a ticket re-seller or a venue operator can go, for example, to the internet and select the event or activity for which he wants a ticket or tickets or reserve a time and reserve and order the exact seat or seats or the time of his choosing directly online. The seat or seats may be displayed on a personal computing device, and additional information about the seat or seats may be displayed in response to the customer or ticket re-seller or venue operator placing a location indicator over a portion of the interactive seating display.
US08244560B1
A method, machine, article for an entity holding insurance. The method can include: storing in memory terms of an agreement governing an entity in which at least two parties have contributed permanent life insurance policies to the entity in exchange for ownership interests in the entity; determining, by a digital computer accessing the memory and receiving policy cash value data, an allocation of entity ownership among the parties, and storing the allocation in the memory; determining, by the computer accessing the memory and receiving data corresponding to policy cash values, policy death benefits and entity assets and liabilities, an allocation of entity profits and losses among the parties, an allocation of income among the parties, an allocation of expenses among the parties and an allocation of changes in entity assets among the parties that occur from one specified point in time to another, and storing said allocations in the memory; determining, by the computer accessing the memory, an accounting of entity, income, expenses, assets, and liabilities; and outputting, by the computer, the accounting and at least one of the allocations.
US08244559B2
Embodiments for interacting with cloud computing providers are disclosed. In accordance with at least one embodiment, a resource broker receives a request for a computing task that is to be performed from a customer. The resource broker selects one of the cloud computing providers to perform at least a part of the computing task. In turn, the resource broker may obtain a gain from performance of the at least one part of the computing task by the cloud computing provider.
US08244557B1
The method, system and user-interface allows alignment of refill dates associated with a plurality of prescriptions, such that the plurality of prescriptions all require refills on the same date, thus limiting the number of occasions on which a customer must visit the pharmacy to retrieve refills of the aligned prescriptions, and increasing the likelihood that the customer will comply with the recommended medication regimen. The plurality of prescriptions are associated with a plurality of customers, for example, living in the same household, being members of the same family, or being patients in the care of a single entity or person.
US08244550B2
A mobile communication terminal equipped with a Zigbee communication module for transmitting/receiving contents data in a Zigbee Personal Area Network (PAN) and a method for transmitting/receiving data by a mobile communication terminal in a communication system of the Zigbee PAN are provided. The communication system of the Zigbee PAN includes a first terminal equipped with a Zigbee communication module capable of Zigbee communication, for generating contents data for extracting a tag from the generated contents data, generating profile information using the tag, and for broadcasting the profile information and the contents data in the Zigbee PAN, and a second terminal for comparing a tag of the contents data detected from the received profile information with a previously stored tag upon receiving the profile information broadcasted from the first terminal, and then for receiving the contents data if the detected tag of the contents data and the previously stored tag coincide with each other.
US08244549B1
A method and system for providing fractional ownership of an aircraft. The method includes operating the aircraft under an FAA certification that permits the sale of aircraft capacity. Fractional owners of the aircraft, at least one of the fractional owners may be a syndicate having multiple members. The syndicate members may be managed on behalf of the syndicate. One FAA certification that permits the sale of aircraft capacity includes FAR Part 135. Additionally, the syndicate members may be billed usage fees on behalf of the syndicate, where the usage fees are billed proportional to use of the aircraft. Available capacity of the aircraft may be resold to other fractional owners and syndicate members.
US08244537B2
Video signal relative to an imaged audience and audio signal according to voices from the audience are generated in an input unit. A characteristic amount detection unit detects information on a movement amount, movement periodicity, a volume, voice periodicity of the audience, and a frequency component of voices from the audience based on the video signal or the audio signal. An estimation unit estimates an audience state based on the detected result. An output unit outputs the estimated result of the audience state. The audience state can be easily estimated without observing the audience state by a person.
US08244533B2
Speech recognition performance is improved without changing a speech recognition engine. A speech data generation section generates, from speech data for which speech recognition is to be performed, a plurality of pieces of speech data whose starting positions of the non-speech regions differ. A speech recognition engine performs speech recognition by using each of the pieces of speech data. A totaling/comparison section provides the most numerous recognized result from among a plurality of obtained recognized results.
US08244519B2
A translation method comprises: retrieving a fuzzy match text segment translation pair from a translation memory (TM) for an input source language text segment, the fuzzy match text segment translation pair comprising a fuzzy source language text segment having a fuzzy match to the input source language text segment and a corresponding translated target language text segment; extracting from the fuzzy match text segment translation pair an exact match phrase pair comprising a source language phrase that exactly matches a phrase of the input source language text segment and a corresponding translated target language phrase; and invoking a statistical machine translation (SMT) system to generate a proposed translation of the input source language text segment based on a statistical translation model that is enriched by the exact match phrase pair with the exact match phrase pair assigned a high statistical probability.
US08244518B2
The emulation of a data processing I/O protocol employs a process which obviates the need to consider hardware specific functionality for which emulation is not an optimal solution. The particular protocol described in exemplary fashion herein is the OSA protocol as defined by Open System Adapter standards. The use of this emulation is also seen to leave in place all of the software tools otherwise employed.
US08244514B2
A method and system for correlating out interactions, which occur due to one or a set of specific events, of an application, which is deployed in multiple adjacent tiers in an actual environment is described. First, a simulation environment corresponding to the actual environment is created. Then, specific events are led to the actual environment and the simulation environment. A pattern(s) of interactions, which are related with the specific events, between adjacent tiers in the simulation environment and a large number of interactions between adjacent tiers in the actual environment are obtained. Afterwards, interactions, which are related with the specific events, between adjacent tiers among the obtained interactions between adjacent tiers in the actual environment are correlated using a template of the obtained pattern(s) of interactions, which are related with the specific events, between adjacent tiers in the simulation environment as a template.
US08244478B2
The present invention provides a method of confirming the gene expression, useful in the decision of a five year survival rate of a patient with lung cancer and the use of a DNA probe kit in the method. A method useful in the decision of a survival rate of a patient with non-small cell lung cancer comprising confirming the expression strength of at least one gene in lung cancer tissues isolated from the patient.
US08244476B2
In a hepatic disease-evaluating apparatus, an indicator calculating unit calculates an index indicating the degree of hepatic fibrosis from amino acid concentration data to be evaluated including amino acid concentration value, based on one or more indices of fractional expression having amino acid concentration as variable. A disease state evaluating unit evaluates the disease state of the hepatic disease to be evaluated, based on the index value.
US08244471B2
A system for analyzing an oilfield having at least one wellsite, each at least one wellsite having a wellbore penetrating a subterranean formation for extracting fluid from an underground reservoir therein, that includes a data collection means for obtaining source data having a plurality of data elements of heterogeneous data types, memory for storing the source data, a functional method configured to perform a function on a dataset of a dataset type to obtain a processed dataset, and a client code configured to process the dataset. The client code includes an object instantiation code configured to use a dataset wrapper class to create the dataset with the dataset type from the source data, and a functional method invocation code configured to call the functional method with the dataset.
US08244460B2
A navigation system presents and updates information that allows the driver to determine an appropriate vehicle speed and a steering angle depending on a condition or a feature of a road. The navigation system includes storage means for storing map data, a display for displaying information, a vehicle speed sensor for detecting a vehicle speed, and a controller for determining the shape of a road section being approached by a vehicle, based on the map data and the vehicle speed, and controlling the display to display the shape of the road.
US08244453B2
A method of adjusting the trajectory of an aircraft flying a climb circuit, of substantially helical form corresponding to a succession of racetracks, denoted HOLD, the last HOLD, called the exit HOLD, having predefined geometric characteristics and comprising a lock-on point, allowing the aircraft to enter and to exit in the HOLD, the aircraft attaining the setpoint altitude of the climb circuit during the flight of the exit HOLD, comprises at least three steps, including: a step of computing the prediction of the position of the aircraft when the setpoint altitude will be attained; a step of computing the remaining distance to be traveled, between the position of the aircraft when the setpoint altitude will be attained and the lock-on point; and a step making it possible to carry out an adaptation of the form of the exit HOLD so as to minimize the remaining distance to be traveled DELTA.
US08244452B2
Systems and methods for integrated air traffic control management are provided. In one embodiment, a system comprises a first processing system including a FANS application for implementing a CPDLC and AFN system; a second processing system including an ATN application for implementing a PM-CPDLC and CM system; a third processing system implementing a HMI, the HMI configured to provide access to a first set of pages driven by the FANS application and a second set of pages driven by the ATN application; and an ATC Manager accessed from the HMI, the HMI configured to provide access to a third set of pages driven by the ATC manager, wherein the third set of pages selectively directs a user of the HMI to either the first set of pages or the second set of pages based on a selected ATC center.
US08244448B2
The subject of the present invention is a method for remote starting an internal combustion engine of a vehicle. The method includes detecting a wireless remote start signal; after detecting the wireless remote start signal, communicating with a garage door opener to determine if a garage door is closed; remote starting the engine if no closed garage door indication is received; transmitting a wireless garage door open signal and remote starting the engine if a closed garage door indication is received; monitoring a time since remote starting the engine; monitoring for vehicle operator interaction with the vehicle; and if no vehicle operator interaction with the vehicle is detected before the monitored time reaches a predetermined amount of time and the wireless garage door open signal was transmitted when the engine was remote started, automatically transmitting a wireless garage door close signal and automatically turning off the engine.
US08244447B2
A spark plug includes a ground electrode, a center electrode and a thermosensor for detecting a temperature, the thermosensor being situated on a combustion chamber-side end of the spark plug near the combustion chamber, and an end area of the thermosensor being situated so that it is exposed on the spark plug. In addition, an internal combustion engine having a spark plug is provided.
US08244439B2
The compaction vehicle having a speed adjustment member, a displacement detector, and a drive source controller further includes a calculation device between the displacement detector and the drive source controller, receiving the displacement S, and outputting a signal I calculated to the controller; a running speed setting switch for the operator operating ON at a desired running speed; a control signal memory device provided inside the calculation device and memorizing a signal I1 to the controller. In a normal operation, the calculation device outputs the signal I to the controller so that a running speed increases or decreases according to the displacement S, and when the switch is operated to ON, the calculation device maintains the ON state, and the displacement S is not less than a predetermined value, the calculation device outputs the signal I1 memorized in the memory device so as that the vehicle will run at a constant speed.
US08244438B2
A tool control system is disclosed. The control system may have a first actuator configured to control a first linkage. The control system may further have a second actuator configured to control a second linkage. The control system may also have a third actuator configured to control a work tool, wherein the second linkage is connected to the work tool and movably connected to the first linkage. The control system may still further have a plurality of operator input devices configured to provide operator control of the first, second, and third actuators. The control system may also have a controller in communication with the first, second, and third actuators and the plurality of operator input devices. The controller may be configured to receive a desired tool path for the work tool. The controller may also be configured to control movement of the first, second, and third actuators based on operator input received from fewer than all of the plurality of operator input devices to move the work tool along the desired tool path.
US08244432B2
A road-surface friction-coefficient estimating device compares a rack-thrust-force deviation value with a preliminarily set maximum-value-determination threshold value. If the rack-thrust-force deviation value is above the maximum-value-determination threshold value, the device determines that tires are slipping, and sets a front-wheel friction-circle utilization rate in that state as a road-surface friction coefficient. If the rack-thrust-force deviation value is below the maximum-value-determination threshold value, the device refers to a preliminarily set map to determine a restoring speed at which the road-surface friction coefficient is to be restored to 1.0 based on a vehicle speed and a front-wheel slip angle. While restoring the road-surface friction coefficient at the restoring speed, the device calculates and outputs the road-surface friction coefficient.
US08244427B2
A vehicle includes a power inverter module (PIM), a motor/generator unit (MGU), vehicle components, temperature sensors, and a controller. The sensors measure temperatures of a motor winding of the MGU, and temperatures of the multiple phase outputs of the PIM. The second plurality of temperature sensors measures temperatures of the vehicle components. The controller calculates an average temperature of the components, and individually diagnoses each temperature sensor using the average temperature. A control circuit for the vehicle includes the first and second plurality of sensors and the controller. A temperature performance diagnostic method includes using the first plurality to measure a temperature of the motor winding and the phase outputs of the PIM, using the second plurality to measure a temperature of the components, calculating an average temperature of the components, and individually diagnosing the performance of each of the first plurality of sensors using the average temperature.
US08244423B2
A vehicle electronic control system includes a first electronic control unit that completes execution of a first control process in a predetermined time, and a second electronic control unit connected to the first electronic control unit that executes a second control process inseparable from the first control process. The first electronic control unit transmits a synchronization signal at periods sufficiently less than the predetermined time. The second electronic control unit starts execution of the second control process with reference to the synchronization signal received.
US08244416B2
A process for evaluating an error in the aircraft positioning as generated by an on-board positioning system is disclosed. The aircraft positioning as generated by the positioning system is recorded through radar means, the presence of at least one group of targets arranged on the ground is detected through said radar means, the position of such a group of targets is measured through said radar means with respect to the aircraft positioning, and the error in the aircraft positioning is evaluated, comparing with at least one threshold value the value of at least one reference magnitude being characteristic of the difference existing between the measured position and a known position of the group of targets with respect to the aircraft positioning.
US08244415B1
Aircraft operating environment information is sensed. The aircraft operating environment information is encapsulated in at least one sensor object. The at least one sensor object is transferred to a sensor object processing system. The at least one sensor object is processed.
US08244409B2
A method and a system are provided for controlling a braking force of a vehicle. The method includes the steps of detecting at least one operating parameter of the vehicle, detecting a position of an operator controlled braking element, determining a magnitude of a braking force on the basis of a detected magnitude of the operating parameter and the detected position of the operator controlled braking element and braking the vehicle according to the determined braking force.
US08244396B2
The turning machine according to the present invention includes a displacement sensor (200) which measures a distance between an immobile reference point and a position of variable point which reflects the positional displacement of the tool, the immobile reference point being able to determine a relative positional correlation relating to a variable position of tools with the progress of machining of the workpiece (W) by the tool (421). In drawings the reference point is set up in the guide bush (90). And based on the measured result by the displacement sensor, the tool is moved so that the center height of the tool and the center line of the workpiece satisfy relatively the predetermined positional correlation. Accordingly, the center height deviation amount due to heat deformation and the like is corrected.
US08244393B2
Systems and methods for registering a web to an on-line pitched unit operation.
US08244388B2
A method for arranging a primary contest including a primary computer system in communication with a data feed to a source of data including sequences, wherein the sequences are discrete functions of time, the method including selecting sequences as contestants in the contest, providing a definition of a contest outcome as a measure relating to either a contestant's performance independently of other contestants or a joint performance of interacting contestants, receiving data from the data feed, wherein the data relates to the sequences selected, and determining an outcome of the contest according to the definition.
US08244379B2
Certain aspects of the disclosure pertain to methods and apparatus for providing positive fixation of medical components to a portion of incised pericardial tissue. Accordingly, a resilient member protrudes through an incision in the pericardium and produces a positive biasing force to adjacent pericardial tissue against a side surface of an attached body structure. The resilient member can optionally be compressed during implantation and then relaxed to thereafter provide the positive biasing force. Diverse medical components can thus be safely and reliably chronically deployed into the pericardial space, including without limitation, cardiac sensing/pacing, defibrillation and/or cardioversion electrodes, mechanical and/or metabolic sensors and the like. More than one body structure can be linked to a single medical electrical lead and the medical components can couple within and/or upon a portion of the body structure, the resilient member, and the lead in myriad configurations.
US08244375B2
Disclosed herein is an implantable medical lead. In one embodiment, the lead includes a ring electrode, a tip electrode, first and second helically wound coaxial conductor coils, and a distal coil transition. The coils extend between the proximal and distal ends of the lead. The distal coil transition is proximal to the ring electrode and near the distal end and is where the first coil transitions from being outside the second coil proximal of the distal coil transition to being inside the second coil distal of the distal coil transition.
US08244371B2
An implant device comprising an electrode for electrical stimulation of the pancreas, the device being adapted to be inserted into the pancreas, and to change at least one of its properties after being inserted into the pancreas, so that it will cause less irritation to the pancreas than before changing said property.
US08244370B2
A band stop filter is provided for a lead wire of an active medical device (AMD). The band stop filter includes a capacitor in parallel with an inductor. The parallel capacitor and inductor are placed in series with the lead wire of the AMD, wherein values of capacitance and inductance are selected such that the band stop filter is resonant at a selected frequency. The Q of the inductor may be relatively maximized and the Q of the capacitor may be relatively minimized to reduce the overall Q of the band stop filter to attenuate current flow through the lead wire along a range of selected frequencies. In a preferred form, the band stop filter is integrated into a TIP and/or RING electrode for an active implantable medical device.
US08244355B2
A system and method are provided for determining an index of autonomic nervous system (ANS) or sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity for use in patient monitoring or therapy delivery control. An ANS or SNS index is calculated as a function of multiple monitored physiological variables that strongly correlate to changes in autonomic or sympathetic tone. These ANS-influenced variables are derived from selected hemodynamic and/or electrical signals and may include variables relating to any of: the maximum rate of pressure rise (dP/dtmax), the maximum rate of pressure decline (dP/dtmin), pulse pressure (PP), pre-ejection time interval (PEI) and/or systolic time interval (STI), heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), and baro-reflex gain. Changes in the ANS or SNS index may be used to automatically adjust a device delivered therapy.
US08244351B2
A cardiac interface device helps program an implantable cardiac rhythm or function management device, such as to reduce unnecessary ventricular pacing to avoid contributing to the advancement of heart failure disease progression. An intrinsic conducted AV interval is measured for at least one heart rate, and is predicted or measured for other heart rates. One or more of an age-predicted upper rate limit, a measured sensed AV offset, a PVARP based on measured retrograde conduction time can be used to determine an AV search hysteresis control parameter, and a resulting ventricular interval is graphically displayed relative to the intrinsic conducted AV interval at various heart rates. Confidence intervals or percentage ventricular pacing can also be displayed. Separate graphs for sense and pace initiated AV intervals can be provided.
US08244349B2
Methods and devices that are configured to deliver cardiac stimuli in a particular fashion. In an illustrative embodiment, a method is used wherein a first stimulus is delivered using a first polarity, and, if the first stimulus fails to successfully convert an arrhythmia, a second stimulus having a second polarity that is different from or opposite of the first polarity is then delivered. Subsequent stimuli, if needed, are delivered in a continuing alternating-polarity manner. The first polarity may be determined by observing whether successfully-converting stimulus has been delivered previously and, if so, the polarity of the most recent stimulus that resulted in successful conversion is used as the first polarity. In additional embodiments, electrode configuration may be changed instead of or in addition to polarity, following unsuccessful stimulus delivery. Devices configured to perform such methods are included in additional illustrative embodiments.
US08244348B2
An implantable cardioverter/defibrillator (ICD) includes a tachyarrhythmia detection and classification system that classifies tachyarrhythmias based on a morphological analysis of arrhythmic waveforms and a template waveform. Correlation coefficients each computed between morphological features of an arrhythmic waveform and morphological features of the template waveform provide for the basis for classifying the tachyarrhythmia. In one embodiment, a correlation analysis takes into account the uncertainty associated with the production of the template waveform by using a template band that includes confidence intervals.
US08244345B2
Cells that are in the late anaphase or telophase stages of cell division are vulnerable to damage by AC electric fields that have specific frequency and field strength characteristics. The selective destruction of rapidly dividing cells can therefore be accomplished by imposing an AC electric field in a target region for extended periods of time. Some of the cells that divide while the field is applied will be damaged, but the cells that do not divide will not be harmed. This selectively damages rapidly dividing cells like tumor cells, but does not harm normal cells that are not dividing. Improved results may be achieved by using a field with two or more frequencies.
US08244342B2
Methods and systems for modifying or enhancing vision are described. In exemplary embodiments, neural or neuromuscular activity is analyzed to determine a focus or other quality of a visual input, and the focus or quality information used as a basis for controlling an adjustable lens system or optical system.
US08244335B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide a method of analyzing cardiac information by collecting a plurality of self-contained, wearable, portable cardiac monitors each of the cardiac monitors electronically storing at least 24 hours of continuously detected and unanalyzed cardiac signals from a mammal. Next, retrieving cardiac information stored in each of the plurality of self-contained portable cardiac monitors. Next, forwarding retrieved cardiac information.
US08244334B2
This invention provides methods for non-invasive, real-time measuring and/or monitoring of local blood flow in a subject. Methods of the invention generally include the steps of obtaining Doppler shift images of at least two planes intersecting blood vessels at the scanned location; determining Doppler angles using the Doppler shift images; and then using the Doppler angles thus determined together with the Doppler shift signals to arrive at a measure of the volumetric blood flow. Also provided are systems and software for performing the methods.
US08244332B2
A diffuse optical spectroscopy system comprises a laser breast scanner, a handheld probe connected to the laser breast scanner for scanning a breast, and a tracking device coupled to the handheld probe, wherein the tracking device determines locations of the handheld probe relative to the breast. The tracking device comprises a magnetic tracking device, an optical tracking device or a laser tracking device.
US08244331B2
Method and device for determining an optimum direction of projection for recording projection images
The invention relates to a method and a device for determination of an optimum direction of projection or position for recording a number of two-dimensional projection images of an object of interest, with the two-dimensional projection images being recorded by rotation or translation of an imaging system around the object. Inventively the process is as follows: a) estimating a position of the object at a point in time; b) determining at least one optimum imaging view from which the optimum direction of projection and/or position is produced, for the position estimated under a) with the aid of previously determined measurement. Preferably the measurement is expressed as a function of a transformation which is described by a spatial object-imaging system relationship.
US08244325B2
A pulse oximetry sensor includes reusable and disposable elements. To assemble the sensor, members of the reusable element are mated with assembly mechanisms of the disposable element. The assembled sensor provides independent movement between the reusable and disposable elements.
US08244322B2
A protective cover mechanism (26) and a portable electronic device (20) using the protective cover mechanism (26) is provided. The protective cover mechanism (26) for covering an interface (28) of the portable electronic device (20), comprises a protective cover (262) and a elastic plate (264). The protective cover (262) for covering the interface (28), and includes a sliding portion (2626), the sliding portion (2626) defines an aperture (2628) therein; The elastic plate (264) passes through the aperture (2628) for stopping the protective cover (262) away from the portable electronic device (20), the elastic plate (264) has a first end (2642) and an opposite second end (2646), the first end (2642) being mounted to the portable electronic device (20), the second end (2646) being biased against the interface (28).
US08244319B2
A balanced portable device that includes a rectangular housing, a rectangular display, and a split keyboard is described. The rectangular housing has a top face and a bottom face and the rectangular display is located on the top face. The split keyboard is configured to receive input that is shown on the rectangular display. The split keyboard includes a first retractable keyboard on a first end of the bottom face and the first keyboard includes a first battery. The split keyboard also includes a second retractable keyboard on an opposing end of the bottom face and the second keyboard also includes a second battery. The first retractable keyboard and the second retractable keyboard substantially weigh the same.
US08244303B2
An apparatus and method for transmitting a plurality of key data. When a Short-Term Key Message (STKM) is received, a mobile equipment transmits the received STKM to a smart card. The smart card determines whether there are a plurality of key data in the STKM, detects the plurality of key data when there are the plurality of key data, generates individual information for identifying each of the plurality of detected key data, generates a response message having the plurality of detected key data and the generated individual information, and transmits the response message to the mobile equipment. Therefore, a plurality of key data can be included and transmitted in one message.
US08244286B2
A mobile communications device to provide feedback on spam text messages. A corresponding method is provided. The method includes steps of: receiving a message from a server; decoding the message; identifying whether the server ID of the received message is one of the predetermined numbers; displaying the menu on the display unit if the server ID is one of the predetermined numbers; receiving a reply code, generating a reply message corresponding to the reply code, and sending the reply message to the server.
US08244278B2
In at least one embodiment, a method includes receiving a description of a route of interest to a user, in response to receiving the description, generating a prospective route based on the description, providing a graphical element corresponding to the prospective route to the user, and scheduling a traversal of the prospective route in a user training database.
US08244277B1
A portable electronic device is provided comprising a processor, a memory, a loading application stored in the memory that accesses loading criteria for a first, second, and third ID wherein the criteria comprise measures of relative importance applied to variables associated with each of the IDs and wherein the IDs comprise at least one of an application, a media file, and a widget. The system determines a current value of at least one variable wherein variables comprise at least one of day of the week, time of day, and geographic location of the device and additionally comprise a first, a second, and a third event status associated with the first, second, and third ID, respectively. The system applies the criteria to the current values of the variables to determine a composite loading factor for each of the IDs and loads one of the IDs based on the factor.
US08244275B2
A system and method for estimating a location of a wireless device receiving signals from plural nodes of a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (“UMTS”) network. Observed time difference of arrival (“OTDOA”) measurements of signals received by the wireless device are collected and a message is transmitted to a stand alone serving mobile location center (“SAS”), the message including round trip time information, tipping information, and the collected OTDOA measurements. One or more location measurement units (“LMU”) are tasked to determine uplink and downlink signal measurements between the wireless device and ones of the plural nodes as a function of the transmitted message. At the one or more LMUs, range measurements from the wireless device to ones of the plural nodes, uplink time of arrival (“TOA”) measurements, and downlink TOA measurements are determined. A location of the wireless device may then be determined as a function of the uplink and downlink TOA measurements, OTDOA measurements, round trip time information, and range measurements.
US08244274B2
A method, system and computer program product for enhancing the acquisition of data from a wireless access point during a window of acquisition. A wireless device in a vehicle obtains a list of wireless access points positioned along a route being traveled by a user of the wireless device. The wireless device acquires its current location and identifies the closest upcoming wireless access point in connection with its current location. If the wireless device had previously had a session with the upcoming wireless access point, then the wireless device continues sending packets to the upcoming wireless access point from the point of previous termination with the upcoming wireless access point until the session is restarted. The wireless device then accesses data from the upcoming wireless access point during the remaining window of acquisition.
US08244262B2
A method for mitigating interference at a small base station in a hierarchical cell structure is provided. In the method, the small base station checks a sub-frame allocated to macro user equipment by using a downlink signal received from a macro base station when an interference candidate user equipment list is received. The interference candidate user equipment list contains information on the macro user equipment adjacent to a femto cell controlled by the small base station. Then the small base station allocates other sub-frame to femto user equipment located in the femto cell by avoiding the sub-frame allocated to the macro user equipment.
US08244257B2
A method for a cellular network (100) comprising cells (110) of a first kind controlled by corresponding base stations (111), and cells (120-122) of a second kind controlled by corresponding base stations (125-127). The second kind of cells are smaller than the first kind of cells (110). The network (100) comprises functions (140) for control of the base stations, and functions (150) for handing over the control of user terminals (123, 112) between base stations. The method is used when a call in a cell of the second kind (120-122) is handed over to a base station of the first kind. The method lets said control function (140) of the base station of the cell of the second kind send identifying information to the control function (140) of the base station (111) of the first kind, such that if the call is to be handed back to the original base station (125-127), the original base station can be found by the network.
US08244250B2
The present invention provides for a method for allocating by a plurality of source base stations of a cellular wireless communication support infrastructure a temporary resource request identifier to a wireless communication device for accessing a target base station. The method includes identifying a list of temporary resource request identifiers associated with the target base station for use by one or more wireless communication devices, wherein the list includes a subset of one or more part time temporary resource request identifiers whose respective assignment to a corresponding grouping of one or more source base stations at a particular time is rotated between more than one of the plurality of corresponding groupings of one or more source base stations. The present invention further provides for allocating a temporary resource request identifier to a wireless communication device for accessing a target base station, where a corresponding one of the temporary resource request identifiers is allocated to a particular wireless communication devices, where the temporary resource request identifier includes a limitation of usage corresponding to particular communication time intervals during which the temporary resource request identifier can be used with the target base station.
US08244240B2
The claimed subject matter provides systems and/or methods that facilitate automatically maintaining a database of base stations. A location component can obtain a query that includes a listing of detected base stations. Additionally, the location component can identify whether the detected base stations are included in a base station database. Further, the location component can generate an estimated location related to the query. Moreover, a database update component can modify the base station database based at least in part upon the query.
US08244237B2
A system for handset self diagnostics is provided. The system includes a handset and a diagnostic engine on the handset to obtain diagnostic data for the handset. The system also includes an application on the handset, and the application includes at least one user interface that uses the diagnostic data to assist a user of the handset to operate the handset.
US08244235B2
The functionality of a mobile device is extended to connect to and communicate with a piece of equipment, data storage peripherals and secure networks. Specifically, a mobile device is extended in capability and functionality through the integration with a portable mobile device extender to facilitate seamless connection and communication with a piece of equipment, data storage peripherals and/or secure networks. Another aspect of the disclosure is to effectively enhance real world imagery by merging, on a mobile device, images and video from the real world with and projections from laser or video from a projection device, controlled by the mobile device.
US08244234B2
A system for testing a communications device includes a portable wireless communications device comprising a transmitter for transmitting an RF signal. A monitoring device receives the RF signals from the portable wireless communications device and analyzes the RF signals to determine total radiated power emitted from the transmitter. An adaptive antenna equivalent circuit is coupled to the transmitter. A connection line extends between the adaptive antenna equivalent circuit and the monitoring device. The adaptive antenna equivalent circuit has an equivalent antenna impedance matched to the portable wireless communications device and the connection line and monitoring device based on transmit frequency to ensure that total radiated power of the RF signals is transmitted from the transmitter to the monitoring device.
US08244233B2
A method for operating a virtual whiteboard using a mobile phone device, comprises the steps of: generating the virtual whiteboard, wherein the mobile phone device is coupled to the virtual whiteboard to input data to the virtual whiteboard; connecting the mobile phone device to an external display device; displaying the virtual whiteboard on the external display device; and operating the virtual whiteboard using the mobile phone device; wherein markings on the virtual whiteboard correspond to spatial movements of the mobile phone device.
US08244231B2
A method and apparatus for unlocking a mobile communication device are provided, the mobile communication device comprising an input device, and a display device, the mobile communication device enabled to initiate emergency calls in a locked state. Password input data is received via the input device, when the mobile communication device is in the locked state, the password input data for unlocking the mobile communication device, the password input data comprising at least a sequence of characters for initiating an emergency call. In response to receiving the sequence of characters for initiating the emergency call, the display device is controlling to provide a representation of instructions to initiate the emergency call upon receipt of emergency call initiate data from the input device.
US08244224B2
To provide customized information to the user, a wireless communications network node receives a stream of data associated with a user. A first trend associated with at least a first attribute in the stream of data is identified, and based on the identified first trend, customized information is sent for presentation to the user at a mobile station.
US08244216B1
A method and system for authenticating an account holder is disclosed herein. The method and system allows for real-time authentication with multiple procedures to prevent fraud and spoofing of the authentication process. The method and system involves the user photographing himself or herself for facial recognition verification, determination of location by cell phone tower verification, and a PIN preferably sent by SMS text message directly the account holder's mobile phone. The method and system may be used for verifying that a gambler is within a gambling jurisdiction.
US08244209B2
Security is provided in a wireless communication system in a moving vehicle, e.g. an aircraft, by requiring user input of one or more security codes for validation before the system permits communication. One code, a security access code (SAC), corresponds to the vehicle travel segment (e.g. flight) and is given to the passenger(s) in transit, e.g. after the aircraft reaches a particular altitude. The second type of possible code, a personal identification number (PIN), is given to the passenger after baggage check-in. The PIN code would be correlated to the passenger and/or seat assignment. The use of either or both codes helps prohibit connectivity for mobile phone handsets or other wireless devices stored in the cargo bay or in other baggage. PIN use enables associated data systems to report the seat number or location of all parties engaging in wireless communications within the vehicle.
US08244193B2
A transmitter includes a dual mode modulator and an amplifier coupled to the dual mode modulator. The dual mode modulator implements a linear modulation scheme during a first mode of the modulator to produce a variable envelope modulated signal. The dual mode modulator implements a non-linear modulation scheme during a second mode of the modulator to produce a constant envelope modulated signal. The amplifier is biased as a linear amplifier during the first mode of the modulator and is biased as a non-linear amplifier during the second mode of the modulator. A feed-forward connection between the dual mode modulator and the amplifier is used to indicate a change in modulation mode and to adjust the bias of the amplifier. A power of the constant envelope modulated signal is increased such that an operating point of the amplifier remains substantially constant during the first and second modes of the modulator.
US08244189B2
A wireless device comprising a plurality of chips may be operable to communicate wireless signals via a mesh network comprising a plurality of integrated directional antennas on the plurality of chips. Wireless signals may be communicated between the plurality of the chips and/or with devices external to the wireless device via the mesh network. Beam-formed wireless signals may be communicated via the plurality of integrated directional antennas. The plurality of chips may be integrated on a single package or on a plurality of packages, which may comprise one or more circuit boards. Wireless signals may be communicated with devices external to the single package via the mesh network. The directional antennas may comprise patch antennas and/or dipole antennas.
US08244187B2
There is provided an inductive coupling transmitting and receiving apparatus. An inductive coupling transmitting and receiving apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention comprises an inductive coupling transceiver transmitting and/or receiving data; an inductor connected to the inductive coupling transceiver; and a resonance compensator connected to the inductive coupling transceiver and the inductor to compensate for a change in inductance of the inductor.
US08244183B2
A bank of correlator modules is used to concurrently execute a series of sync channel searches in a system in which the available frequency spectrum is larger than a channel bandwidth and in which a sync channel bandwidth is more narrow than the channel bandwidth.
US08244181B2
Devices and methods store provisioning data for use in one or mobile devices within a SIM card enclosed within a personal article, such as a wrist watch or item of jewelry. A close range communication link, such as a near field communication (NFC) protocol link, is used to transmit the provisioning data from the personal article to one or more mobile devices. The close range communication link may also be used to transmit updated provisioning data received by a mobile device in an over the air updating procedure via a cellular communications network link to the personal item for storage in the SIM card housed within a personal article. The mobile device may authenticate itself to the personal article prior to the transmission of provisioning data between the devices.
US08244172B2
An electronic device includes a first communication interface operable to receive a decoded digital data set from an apparatus remote from the electronic device, and a first circuit coupled to the first communication interface and operable to enable an output device to provide an output representing the data set.
US08244171B2
Systems and methods are provided for providing recommended radio stations to a user. In particular, an electronic device can compare media from a locally stored or accessed media library with media items provided as part of radio streams received by the device. The electronic device can identify the radio streams having the most media items overlapping with the local library, and recommend those streams as being most likely to be of interest to the user. The electronic device can further access a remote database of a large number of users' libraries, and receive recommendations based on the media items common to the user's library, other users' libraries, and radio broadcasts. This approach allows the electronic device to provide recommendations without requiring any monitoring of the user's listening habits or receiving preference information from the user.
US08244162B2
An image forming apparatus includes a detachable-body mounted member, a detachable body and a sealing portion. The detachable-body mounted member includes a first opening and a first opening-and-closing member that opens and closes the first opening. The detachable body includes a second opening and a second opening-and-closing member. When the detachable body is attached, the second opening allows developer to flow into the first opening. The second opening-and-closing member opens and closes the second opening. When the detachable body is being attached or detached, the sealing portion seals a gap between (i) a front end face of the second opening forming member and (ii) a rear end face of the first opening-and-closing member.
US08244158B2
An apparatus includes: an image forming unit having a photosensitive drum; a motor configured to rotate forwardly and reversely; a discharging roller to which a driving force is transferred from the motor; an one way clutch configured to transfer the driving force to the photosensitive drum or block a transfer of the driving force; a returning roller returning the recording sheet drawn by the discharging roller; a rotation direction converting mechanism transmitting the driving force to the returning roller to rotate the returning roller in a certain direction; and a time lag mechanism including engaging portions with a gap therebetween, when the rotation direction of the motor being switched, each of the engaging portions being engaged with each other after a predetermined time, thereby delaying the transfer of the driving force from the motor to the returning roller.
US08244151B2
A belt cleaning apparatus includes a cleaning blade and a waste toner case. The cleaning blade is a plate-like elastic member that extends in parallel with a width direction of an intermediate transfer belt and is provided so that one end of a lateral direction thereof abuts on an outer peripheral surface of the intermediate transfer belt. The waste toner case supports the other end in the lateral direction of the cleaning blade. The cleaning blade is formed such that a width W1 of the one end in the lateral direction thereof is longer than a width W2 of an elastic layer in the width direction of the intermediate transfer belt.
US08244150B2
A fixing apparatus allows harmonic noise and flicker noise caused by alternating current to be reduced. To accomplish this, the fixing apparatus has a power supply unit that supplies AC power from a commercial power supply to a heater, a temperature detection element that detects the temperature of the heater, a setting unit that sets a duty ratio for providing power to the heater such that the temperature detected by the temperature detection element maintains a target temperature, and a control unit that controls the power supply unit such that an average power duty ratio of a single cycle equals the power duty ratio based on the detected temperature, where a single cycle is three or more full waves of the commercial power supply, there being three or more power duty ratios per one half wave of the commercial power supply in a single cycle.
US08244149B2
An image forming apparatus includes: a gloss difference reducing unit that reduces a difference between gloss of first image that is formed without using transparent toner in a first mode and gloss of a region, which does not use transparent toner, of a second image that is formed using transparent toner on part of an image in a second mode, the first mode being set for forming the first image onto a medium in one fixing operation, and a second mode being set for forming the second image by implementing a second fixing step that fixes transparent toner to part of an intermediate image, after a first fixing step that fixes the intermediate image that has been formed by toner other than transparent toner on the medium.
US08244144B2
A printing apparatus connectable with an external storage device is provided. The printing apparatus includes a printer unit to execute a printing operation to print an image in a current print job, a print log provider to provide a print log, which indicates a record of the printing operation for the current print job, to the external storage device, a print log obtainer to obtain a preceding print log, indicating a record of an earlier printing operation executed earlier in the printing apparatus, provided to and stored in the external storage device, a print log examiner to examine the preceding print log and determine normality of the preceding print log based on the record of the earlier print operation, and a controller to permit the printer unit to print the image and restrict the printer unit from printing the image depending on normality of the obtained print logs.
US08244137B1
A system comprises a laser configured to produce a laser beam; a modulator optically coupled to said laser; and a phase mask optically coupled to said modulator. The phase mask may be configured to pre-distort a pre-existing wavefront to produce a pre-distorted wavefront to be transmitted over free space.
US08244131B2
To equip an optical wavelength dividing multiplexing system with a variable optical band-pass filter, and to provide an apparatus to change the center wavelength and the band width of an optical-band pass filter according to an optical wavelength band to be transmitted, and a method of controlling the apparatus. An optical wavelength multiplexing device 100 includes a CPL (multiplexing portion) 3 that multiplexes optical signals and outputs the multiplexed signal, a BPF (optical band-pass filter) 9 that is capable of changing its center wavelength and band width and receives an optical multiplex signal output by the multiplexing portion and lets the received optical multiplex signal pass therethrough, a storage portion that stores wavelength band control information 4 specifying the center wavelength and the band width, and a control portion that controls the center wavelength and the band width of the BPF 9 based on the wavelength band control information 4. The control circuit 10 controls the center wavelength and the band width of the BPF 9 based on the wavelength band control information 4.
US08244125B2
This disclosure relates to detection of optical fiber failure and implementation of protection switching in a passive optical network (PON). A protection switch determines whether there is an optical fiber failure in a fiber link between an OLT and a group of ONTs. In the case of an optical fiber failure, an optical fiber may be physically cut or damaged, causing the optical fiber link to be disabled. A protection switch may detect an optical fiber failure by determining a peak optical power of at least a portion of an upstream optical signal transmitted from one or more ONTs via the optical fiber link. If the peak optical power is less than a threshold value, the protection switch may detect a fiber failure. In response to a detected fiber failure, the protection switch may switch upstream and downstream PON transmissions from a primary optical fiber to a secondary optical fiber.
US08244123B2
In an optical transmission system, a first monitoring section configured to monitor a first optical signal on a first optical transmission line to detect a first failure. A modulating section generates a second optical signal obtained through modulation of a signal corresponding to the first optical signal based on the first failure, to transmit the second optical signal onto a second optical transmission line which is connected with the first optical transmission line and a terminal unit. A second monitoring section monitors the second optical signal on the second optical transmission line to detect a second failure, and a detecting section detects the first failure from the second optical signal on the second optical transmission line. A line switch configured to selectively switch an optical transmission line to be connected with the terminal unit, from the second optical transmission line to another optical transmission line based on the first failure detected by the detecting section and the second failure detected by the second monitoring section.
US08244117B2
A photo motion system utilizes a camera mounted photo motion machine in conjunction with a rotating turntable. The photo motion machine uses a vertically moveable carriage which supports a tilt table platform on which a digital camera is mounted. The carriage itself is mounted on columns which extend upward from a moveable, wheeled base member. Once the object to be photographed is properly positioned on the turntable, a computer software program is initiated which simultaneously coordinates the rotation of the turntable, the tilting movement of the camera, the vertical up and down movement of the carriage, the fore and aft movement of the base member, and the photographic image taking timing of the camera to take a series of images at predetermined positions during the movement of the camera on a specific arcuate route of travel around and over the object. The images are ultimately downloaded from the camera and arranged in sequential order to create an animated video.
US08244115B2
A combination flashlight and insect repellent dispensing apparatus. Light is produced by light bulbs or LEDs whereas insect repellent is dispensed by heating a volatilizable insecticide. The insecticide and portable light may be used either concurrently or independently of each other.
US08244104B2
A system for creating content using content project data selects a template containing a setting of a scene arrangement of a plurality of scenes of content and creates content project data for a scene included in the selected template by setting details of the scene using existing material data or newly created data. On an imaging apparatus, a scene is selected while checking the details of the content project data on a display, and an image is captured to generate a video image signal, and the video image signal is recorded. The recorded video image signal is managed by management information for the content project data so that the video image signal is allocated to the scene arrangement of the content project data. At the time necessary scenes are shot, the content project data becomes completed content.
US08244103B1
A method for creating a custom track includes providing a plurality of video clips from a memory and providing, on a display, a plurality of video source windows. Each of the plurality of video source windows corresponds to a respective one of the plurality of video clips. The method further includes providing an audio track from the memory. The audio track has a timeline. The method further includes allowing a user to create the custom track while the audio track is playing by correlating portions of the plurality of video clips with the audio track by selecting respective ones of the plurality of video source windows at desired times in the timeline of the audio track.
US08244100B2
An information reproducing apparatus for making sure a viewer watches commercial broadcast information contained in broadcast information. Concretely, a sequentially supplied series of broadcast data is stored in a storage unit linked with a supplied sequence. Also, based on predetermined identification information contained in this broadcast data, the commercial portions of the broadcast data are detected at a commercial detector. At the time of reproduction of the broadcast data, the detected commercial portions are first sequentially read from the storage unit and reproduced as images, audio, etc. at a reproduction unit. Then, after all detected commercial portions are reproduced, another series of broadcast data other than the commercial portions is read from the storage unit in sequence in accordance with the supplied sequence and reproduced at the reproduction unit.
US08244094B2
Movies are produced in 24 Hz frame frequency and progressive scanning format (denoted 24p) for projection in film theatres, adhering to a worldwide standard for 35 mm film. However, the major TV systems in the world use interlaced scanning and either 50 Hz field frequency (denoted 50i) or 60 Hz field frequency (denoted 60i). Content providers would prefer providing single-picture-frequency single-audio-speed AV discs that can be replayed in most parts of the world. According to the invention, For a 50 HZ output mode, in the media player either audio signal frames are dropped adaptively or video fields or frames are repeated adaptively, depending on the current video and audio content. Thereby the less perceptible stream controls the synchronization.
US08244093B2
A video signal processing device including a specification information obtaining unit for obtaining specification information indicating specifications of a monitor connected to a digital video output terminal, a selecting operation receiving-unit for receiving a user selecting operation for selecting a type of analog video output terminal for a monitor connected to the analog video output terminal, a setting operation receiving unit for receiving a user setting operation for prioritizing one of the specification information obtained by the specification information obtaining unit and the user selecting operation received by the selecting operation receiving unit, and a determining unit for determining a resolution of a video signal to be output on a basis of the specification information obtained by the specification information obtaining unit, the user selecting operation received by the selecting operation receiving unit, and the user setting operation received by the setting operation receiving unit.
US08244091B2
A fiber fuse terminator which is used to terminate a fiber fuse, comprising: an optical fiber which includes a core and a cladding having holes extending in a longitudinal direction thereof, in which: a refractive index of the core of the optical fiber is higher than a refractive index of a portion of the cladding excepting portions of the holes; when it is assumed that a mode field diameter at a used wavelength of the optical fiber is MFD, and a distance in a cross section perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the optical fiber between a center of the core and a position, closest to the center of the core, of the hole that is closest to the core is Rmin, a value expressed by 2×Rmin/MFD is no less than 1.2 and no more than 2.1; when it is assumed that a width, in a diameter direction, of a region where the holes present in the cladding is W, a value expressed by W/MFD is no less than 0.3; and when it is assumed that a diameter of the cladding of the optical fiber is Dfiber, W≦0.45×Dfiber is satisfied.
US08244089B2
A dust cap for a fiber optic connector is disclosed. The fiber optic connector includes a connector body having a first end and second end opposite the first end, and a ferrule positioned at the first end of the connector body. The ferrule holds an optical fiber having an end face. The dust cap includes a housing defining a cavity for receiving the ferrule of the fiber optic connector and a retaining member coupled to the housing. The retaining member is structured to be disposed adjacent to the second end of the connector body when the ferrule is disposed within the cavity to inhibit removal of the fiber optic connector from the dust cap. Additionally, or alternatively, the dust cap may include a mounting member for releasably engaging a support structure.
US08244083B2
A method and apparatus for forming and controlling a microwave Bessel beam which may be utilized for examining microstructure including very early stage tumors.
US08244075B2
There is provided an optical device including a substrate having an electro-optical effect, a plurality of optical modulators including bias electrodes to which a bias voltage is applied so as to generate an electric field from one of the bias electrodes to another of the bias electrodes, and the bias electrodes of the optical modulators being disposed above the substrate, and a partition conductor to reduce influence of the electric field from the bias electrode of a first optical modulator to an optical waveguide of a second optical modulator, the partition conductor being disposed above the substrate.
US08244069B1
One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates computer-assisted tagging of objects in a digital image. During operation, the system receives locations for one or more objects-of-interest in the digital image. Next, the system determines likelihoods of specific tags being assigned to the objects-of-interest. The system then automatically assigns tentative tags to the objects-of-interest based on the determined likelihoods. Next, the system displays the assignments of tentative tags to a user, and receives corrections to the assignments, if any, from the user.
US08244067B2
Disclosed herein is a method for identifying a constellation of alignment marks within an arrangement of computer readable marks in an image (1412), the arrangement of computer readable marks (1412) including alignment marks (1401-1406) and data carrying marks (1407-1410). The alignment marks (1401-1406) define a reference grid within the arrangement of computer readable marks and the data carrying marks (1407-1410) are modulated with respect to the reference grid to encode data. The method selects at least two marks (1501, 1502) from the arrangement of computer readable marks and determines a rotation center with reference to the selected marks (1501, 1502). The method then determines rotated positions for the selected marks by rotating each of the selected marks by a predetermined angle about the rotation center. For each rotated position, a mark having a position that is less than a predetermined threshold from the rotated position is located from the arrangement of marks and then the selected marks and the located marks are identified as the constellation of alignment marks.
US08244066B2
A system and method determines the shape of a surface that preferably is a deployed space-based adaptive flexible membrane antenna, using patterned projections, image capturing, and membrane shape processing for producing membrane shape data describing the contour of the surface of the membrane with the membrane shape data then preferably used as inputs for a feedback control actuation system for deforming the membrane to a desired shaped so as to maintain the three-dimensional shape of the membrane in the desired shape.
US08244063B2
A method includes measuring the likelihood that two different space-time video segments could have resulted from a similar underlying motion field without computing the field. The method may be employed to identify locations in a video sequence where at least one behavioral phenomenon similar to that demonstrated in the video segment occurs. For example, the phenomenon might be a dynamic behavior, an action, a rigid motion, and/or a non-rigid motion.
US08244053B2
A digital image acquisition system includes a portable apparatus for capturing digital images and a digital processing component for detecting, analyzing, invoking subsequent image captures and informing the photographer regarding motion blur, and for reducing camera motion blur in an image captured by the apparatus. The digital processing component operates by comparing the image with at least one other image, for example a preview image, of nominally the same scene taken outside the exposure period of the main image. In one embodiment the digital processing component identifies at least one feature in a single preview image which is relatively less blurred than the corresponding feature in the main image, calculates a point spread function (PSF) in respect of such feature, and initiates a subsequent capture if determined that the motion blur exceeds a certain threshold. In another embodiment the digital processing determines the degree of blur by analyzing the motion blur in the captured image itself, and initiates a subsequent capture if determined that the motion blur exceeds a certain threshold. Such real time analysis may use the auto focusing mechanism to qualitatively determine the PSF.
US08244047B2
An image compression unit of the invention includes a preprocessing unit that performs preprocessing for converting a first bit string representing intensity of pixels of which image data is composed into a second bit string, a number of digits of which is smaller than a number of digits of the first bit string, based on a predetermined region included in the image data and a first attribute information for identifying an attribute of the predetermined region, with the preprocessing being associated with the predetermined region of the image data and a bit string conversion unit which converts the second bit string into a third bit string based on distribution of frequency of appearance of the intensity in the second bit string and the first attribute information such that, for the pixel having higher frequency of appearance, the number of bit planes on which data of the pixel appear is less.
US08244046B2
There is provided a character string updated degree evaluation program that enables quantitative grasping of an amount of intellectual work through editing and updating of character strings. A text subjected to comparison is divided into common part character strings each having a length greater than or equal to a threshold value, and non-common part character strings. A number of edited points from the original text and a context edit distance are calculated based on the rate of the common part character strings and the occurrence pattern thereof. A number of edited point is acquired from a number of elements contained in a common part character string set, and a context edit distance is acquired from a change in an order of occurrence of the common part character strings. Calculation of a new creation percentage and analysis by an N-gram are performed on the non-common part character string. The new creation percentage is acquired from the total length of the elements contained in a non-common part character string set, and a new creation novelty degree is acquired from a non-partial matching rate between a non-common part character string set and an element contained in the non-common part character string set. Calculations for the common part character string set and for the non-common part character string set are united, thereby calculating a text updated degree.
US08244041B1
Disclosed is a method for determining the absence or presence of one or more instances of a predetermined pattern in an image, and for determining the location of each found instance within a multidimensional space. A model represents the pattern to be found, the model including a plurality of probes. Each probe represents a relative position at which a test is performed in an image at a given pose, each such test contributing evidence that the pattern exists at the pose. The method further includes a comparison of the model with a run-time image at each of a plurality of poses. A match score is computed at each pose to provide a match score surface. Then, the match score is compared with an accept threshold, and used to provide the location any instances of the pattern in the image.
US08244040B2
A system recognizes the outline of an object that includes, at its edge, a portion including a rollover or a chipped portion. An image processing unit finds an outline of an object having a flat face from an image captured perpendicular to the flat face. A dark-transition-boundary detecting unit detects, on each of a plurality of recognition lines, a possible boundary point of dark-transition where a bright-to-dark transition occurs from outside toward inside of the object. A bright-transition-boundary detecting unit detects a possible boundary point of bright-transition where a dark-to-bright transition occurs from outside toward inside of the object. An edge detecting unit detects an edge point on the basis of the possible dark-transition-boundary point and the possible bright-transition-boundary point. An outline-determining unit determines an outline of the object that minimizes the sum of deviations between the outline and the respective edge points detected on the recognition lines.
US08244036B2
A method for emphasizing differences in graphical appearances between an original document and a modified document is provided in accordance with an aspect of the present invention. The method includes the step of receiving a first bitmap of the modified document, and a second bitmap of the original document. The method includes deriving a set of difference points based upon a comparison of the first bitmap and the second bitmap. The method includes a step of superposing a spatial index onto the set of difference points, and generating polygon vertices from a plurality of adjacent elements of index. Each of the elements has a predetermined density of difference points. The method concludes with generating an annotation from the polygon vertices.
US08244033B2
This invention generates, from multi-value image data, encoded data having a fixed length of L bits for each block including m×n pixels. An extraction unit extracts representative two colors C0 and C1 from an input block. A detection unit generates binary identification information, which indicates one of the colors C0 and C1 to which each pixel in the block is approximate. A generating unit determines, according to a deletion pattern, which of identification data elements indicating the color C0 and those indicating the color C1 are deleted more, and outputs the determination result as interpolated-identification data. A replacing unit replaces identification data which is the same as non-interpolated-identification data near the pixel position by the interpolated-identification data. A deletion unit deletes identification data according to the deletion pattern. A packing unit couples and outputs the colors C0 and C1, interpolated-identification data, and identification data after deletion.
US08244027B2
A vehicle environment recognition system includes stereo-image taking means for taking images of an environment around a subject vehicle and for outputting the images as a reference image and a comparative image, first stereo matching means for forming a first distance image on the basis of the reference image and the comparative image or on the basis of two images obtained by preprocessing the reference image and the comparative image, second stereo matching means for forming a second distance image on the basis of two images obtained by preprocessing the reference image and the comparative image in a different manner, detection means for detecting objects in the reference image on the basis of the first and second distance images, and selection means for selecting one of the results of detection based on the first and second distance images.
US08244025B2
A method of coalescing information about inspected objects. The method includes acquiring an image set of an object to be inspected, the image set having a three-dimensional model of the object and a plurality of two-dimensional images of the object. A location of interest is identified on a surface of the modeled object and global coordinate points of the three-dimensional model are designated that characterize the location of interest of the modeled object. A markup tag annotating the location of interest is associate with the designated global coordinate points of the three-dimensional model, and the markup tag is conveyed when viewing any one of the plurality of two-dimensional images of the image set that have at least one image point that correlates to a corresponding designated global coordinate point of the three-dimensional model that characterize the location of interest.
US08244024B2
A machine vision system is configured to facilitate placement of a vehicle service apparatus relative to an associated vehicle. The machine vision system is configured to utilize images of optical targets received from one or more cameras to guide the placement of the vehicle service apparatus relative to the associated vehicle.
US08244010B2
An image processing device that quickly performs suitable image processing by using an input device to point at an image displayed on the medical image processing device, and makes it possible to readily observe medical images needed for a medical procedure. The medical image processing device includes: an input element by which medical information that includes at least patient information, and the image processing type that uses the medical image data is input; an extraction element for extracting combinations of the medical image data that conform to the patient information and the image processing type; an evaluating unit for evaluating out combinations of medical image data that have the highest possibility of being used; an information reporting unit for reporting of the combinations of medical image data and evaluating result information; and a selection unit for prompting a user to select the combination of medical image data.
US08244005B2
According to one embodiment, an electronic apparatus includes a viewer image generating module, a viewer recognition module, a group extraction module, and an image display module. The viewer image generating module generates an image of a viewer by capturing the image of the viewer. The viewer recognition module detects a face image in the generated image and recognizes the viewer corresponding to the detected face image. The group extraction module extracts, from a plurality of groups each including still images, groups including at least one of a still image including the face image of the viewer and a still image imported by the viewer. The image display module displays still images in the extracted groups on a screen.
US08244003B2
A method, performed by a software process executing on a computer system, includes accessing a digital image comprising a plurality of pixels. The method also includes determining whether one or more pixels bounding a first rectangular sub-region of a predetermined size within the digital image satisfy a specified criterion. If a predetermined percentage of bounding pixels satisfy the specified criterion, the method assumes that all pixels within the first rectangular sub-region also satisfy the specified criterion. The method further includes selectively executing an image analysis algorithm on the digital image using the assumption that all pixels within the rectangular sub-region also satisfy the specified criterion.
US08243998B2
A method and apparatus are provided for evaluating the severity in a printed image of a repeating band print artifact. After electronically capturing the printed image, each of a plurality of patches taken from captured image is analysed to produce an artifact severity measure for the patch; an overall artifact severity value is then determined for the printed image from the patch severity measures. The analysis of each patch involves producing a spatial intensity profile across the patch substantially at right angles to an expected direction of extent of any repeating band print artifact present; a Fourier-related transform is then applied to the spatial intensity profile and the patch artifact severity measure generated by summing the resultant spatial frequency coefficients in a limited range about a frequency of interest.
US08243997B2
A method, system, and medium are provided for detecting change in a geographic area. One embodiment includes receiving a set of remotely sensed imagery that depicts the geographic area, automatically identifying changes in physical features of the geographic area by comparing, without user intervention, the set of remotely sensed imagery to a dataset of previously stored remotely sensed imagery that also depicts the geographic area, and deriving a change-quality measurement associated with the set of remotely sensed imagery, wherein the change-quality measurement quantifies a suitability of comparison of the set of remotely sensed imagery to the previously stored remotely sensed imagery.
US08243994B2
In a vehicle circumferential image providing device 1, an image converting unit 53 generates an overhead image 205 from images picked up with plural camera modules 10. An image detecting unit 54 performs edge detection in an overhead image 205. Further, the image detecting unit 54 determines continuity of edge lines connecting between connected parts in the overhead image 205, among the detected edge lines. When the edge lines striding over the connected parts in the overhead image 205 are discontinuous, the image detecting unit 54 sets edge lines at the far side of the own vehicle to match edge lines at the near side of the own vehicle, thereby setting the edge lines continuous at the connected parts.
US08243990B2
A method for tracking a moving object is provided. The method detects the moving object in a plurality of continuous images so as to obtain space information of the moving object in each of the images. In addition, appearance features of the moving object in each of the images are captured to build an appearance model. Finally, the space information and the appearance model are combined to track a moving path of the moving object in the images. Accordingly, the present invention is able to keep tracking the moving object even if the moving object leaves the monitoring frame and returns again, so as to assist the supervisor in finding abnormal acts and making following reactions.
US08243989B2
Disclosed is a system (200) and method (101) for collaborative tracking of an object, the method comprising updating (105) the track with an object measurement using a camera tracking module (230), determining (110) a track quality measure for the updated track, based on the track quality measure, determining (120) whether a second tracking module (260), remotely located from the camera, should be applied, if the second tracking module (260) is to be applied, selecting (130) data describing the track and the object, transmitting (140) the selected data to the second tracking module over a network (240) that imposes constraints of bandwidth and/or latency, and applying (150) the second tracking module (260) to determine the next position of the object in the track.
US08243988B1
Methods for grouping images from image corpora using graph clustering are presented. In one embodiment, a method is presented where grouping of images from a collection of digital images is done by: representing regions of images as vertices in a graph; connecting each pair of matching-vertices with a matching-edge; connecting each pair of overlap-vertices with an overlap-edge; assigning weights to each said matching-edge and to each said overlap-edge; clustering the graph, wherein clustering generates one or more vertex-clusters; and grouping the digital images into visual-clusters based on the vertex-clusters. Corresponding systems and computer program products are also presented.
US08243986B2
Disclosed are methods and apparatus for automatic visual detection of events, for recording images of those events and retrieving them for display and human or automated analysis, and for sending synchronized signals to external equipment when events are detected. An event corresponds to a specific condition, among some time-varying conditions within the field of view of an imaging device, that can be detected by visual means based on capturing and analyzing digital images of a two-dimensional field of view in which the event may occur. Events may correspond to rare, short duration mechanical failures for which obtaining images for analysis is desirable. Events are detected by considering evidence obtained from an analysis of multiple images of the field of view, during which time moving mechanical components can be seen from multiple viewing perspectives.
US08243983B2
In accordance with one or more aspects, at a first device both an indication of data to be copied and a request to perform graphical copying of the data is received. The data is graphically encoded to generate an image that is displayed by the first device. In a second device, a request to perform graphical pasting of data is received. The second device captures the image displayed by the first device and decodes data graphically encoded in the image. The decoded data is pasted to a location of the first device.
US08243975B2
There is provided a condenser microphone unit in which the shield of a shielding member that covers a front acoustic terminal from the inside of a unit case is assured to prevent noise caused by electromagnetic waves radiated especially from a cellular phone from being generated. In a condenser microphone unit including a metallic cylindrical unit case 10 having a front acoustic terminal 11 on one end side; an electrostatic acousto-electric converter 20 housed in the unit case 10; and a shielding member 30 disposed between the acousto-electric converter 20 and the front acoustic terminal 11 to cover the front acoustic terminal 11 from the inside of the unit case 10, as the shielding member 30, there is used a shielding plate 32 consisting of a metallic porous plate integrally having a plurality of locking pieces 33, which dig into the inner wall surface of the unit case 10 on account of elastic deformation, in the peripheral edge part thereof.
US08243972B2
The invention relates to a method and an apparatus for the configuration of at least one adjustment option on a hearing device, with the hearing device wearer having the task of setting the hearing device by ear with the aid of the adjustment option to be configured such that a predetermined characteristic on the hearing device is adjusted, with the adjustment option being enabled if the characteristics set by the hearing device wearer equate to the predetermined characteristics or has deviations herefrom, which lie within a predetermined tolerance range.
US08243970B2
The method and apparatus described herein generates realistic audio for a virtual reality simulation based on the position (location and orientation) of a participant's head. The audio may be generated based on independent and dependent audio profiles. The independent audio profile represents the participant-independent propagation of sound from a virtual source to each of one or more virtual objects in the simulation. The dependent audio profile represents the propagation of the sound from each of the one or more virtual objects to the head or ears of the participant based on a position of the participant's head or ears. An audio processor generates the desired audio signal at the head of the participant by combining the dependent and independent audio profiles to determine a total audio profile for the virtual source, and filtering an audio wave corresponding to the virtual source based on the total audio profile.
US08243964B2
A piezo speaker pressure sensor that includes a bladder and a piezo speaker element. The bladder abuts the piezo speaker element. A pressure may be sensed from the piezo speaker element proportional to a pressure exerted on the bladder in a direction of the piezo speaker element. The piezo speaker element functions as a speaker when audio signals are received by the piezo speaker element.
US08243963B2
An audio transducer assembly configured for positioning with respect to a mounting surface, said assembly employing a tweeter in a directionally adjustable body which swivels radially and axially for positioning and directing the tweeter in a desired direction. By keeping the center of rotation at or near the center of the surface of the tweeter, the adjustment of the tweeter does not significantly offset its body in the X or Y direction through its range of motion. Such configuration allows for compensation of the distortion caused by placing the tweeter in the middle of a woofer in a speaker having multiple transducers in a single assembly.
US08243961B1
Various aspects of this disclosure are directed to determining an orientation of a mobile computing device. The mobile computing device may include a first microphone-speaker system and a second microphone-speaker system that can each provide microphone and speaker capabilities. The first microphone-speaker system may be enabled to operate as a speaker device. The enabling of the first microphone-speaker system may include allowing the first microphone-speaker system to provide audio output and disallowing the mobile computing device to process audio input received from the first microphone-speaker system. The second microphone-speaker system may be enabled to operate as a microphone. Enabling the second microphone-speaker system may include allowing the mobile computing device to process audio input received from the second microphone-speaker system and disallowing the second microphone-speaker system to provide audio output. Enabling of the first and second microphone-speaker systems may be responsive to and based on the determined orientation.
US08243959B2
An audio output control device includes: display means for displaying two screens; speaker output control means for recognizing whether a main screen or a sub screen is being selected on the display means that is displaying the two screens and performing a control process to output a main or sub sound of the selected main or sub screen through a speaker; and headphone output control means for, before a headphone is connected, performing a control process to supply to a headphone terminal of the headphone the sub or main sound of the sub or main screen that is not being selected.
US08243948B2
An amplifier device includes a plurality of input terminals for receiving input signals (e.g. audio signals), a main switch, which switches over the input terminals so as to select one input terminal, an analyzer, which analyzes the input signals at respective timings so as to determine whether or not each of the input signals corresponds to a playback signal, a storage for storing a plurality of determination results in connection with the input terminals, a controller for controlling the main switch to select the input terminal whose input signal is newly determined as the playback signal, and an amplifier for amplifying the input signal of the selected input terminal. The analyzer performs frequency analysis on the input signals so as to determine the input signal including a specific frequency component having a high intensity as noise not forming the playback signal.
US08243944B2
A handheld foldable voice-muffling device using passive noise silencing materials to dampen noise and a microphonic transceiver to transmit a user's speech and receive incoming signals allowing him to wirelessly communicate with another person or other communication devices without causing a disturbance to others in his surrounding area.
US08243942B2
There is provided headphones for connection to an external active noise compensation device. The headphones have at least one earphone, a microphone near the ear, and a passive circuitry network for increasing the amplification of the external noise compensation device. In that way noise compensation in respect of the external noise compensation can be increased by increasing the overall amplification by the passive network.
US08243941B2
As optimal candidate as a control signal (y*) for generating a control sound suppressing noise from a speaker is selected from among a plurality of control signal candidates (y1 to yn) by a selection function unit. For this selection, a residual noise estimation function unit receiving as input a residual noise signal (e) from an error microphone is introduced. The function unit first obtains an estimated value of a noise component using a first transfer characteristic simulating filter. Further, this noise component estimated value and filtered outputs from second transfer characteristic simulating filters are used to obtain residual noise estimated values for the control signal candidates (y1 to yn). Further, the single control signal candidate corresponding to the smallest of these residual noise estimated values is selected and used as the above control signal (y*).
US08243939B2
A method of modelling a feedback path from a receiver to a microphone in a hearing instrument, includes applying an electronic probe signal with an increasing level as a function of time to the receiver for conversion of the electronic probe signal into an acoustic probe signal output by the receiver, monitoring values of a first quality parameter calculated based at least in part on recorded microphone output signal, and after the first quality parameter reaches a predetermined first threshold value, determining at least one parameter of the feedback path based at least in part on the recorded microphone output signal values.
US08243938B2
In a method for manufacturing a hearing device, by registering characteristics of an individual (I) a personality vector (K(CI)) is established in a fitting machine. The personality vector (K(CI)) of the individual (I) momentarily involved is compared with stored personality vectors (K1(C) to Kn(C)). That stored personality vector which is most similar to that of the individual (I) is selected and therefrom a personality profile (PP) which is assigned to such personality vector. There is assigned to the personality profile which accords to the most similar personality vector, a respective fitting vector which controls subsequent manufacturing of the hearing device.
US08243934B2
An electronic device and an encryption method thereof are provided. The electronic device includes a control unit which encrypts an encryption key using an inherent key, and transmits the encrypted encryption key and a key index corresponding to the inherent key to a recording medium. Accordingly, encrypted content stored in a recording medium can be decrypted when an electronic device is malfunctioning or replaced with a new one.
US08243931B2
A method and apparatus for detecting a security error at a PDCP layer of an LTE (Long Term Evolution) system, a mobile communication system, are disclosed.Conditions for determining a security failure are defined. A receiving side PDCP layer determines whether HFN de-synchronization, namely, a security failure, has occurred by using particular conditions (namely, conditions for determining the security failure). If it is determined that the security failure has occurred, the receiving side PDCP layer informs an RRC layer to re-establish an RB or perform a PDCP RESET procedure to re-set security configuration of a transmitting side and the receiving side.
US08243927B2
A decryption process chip has a memory in which a first decryption control unit for decrypting a scramble key by using an ECM and an EMM is downloaded from outside and stored. A stream input unit extracts a packet including the ECM based on first information obtained from the first decryption control unit, and the first decryption control unit extracts the ECM from the packet. An STB control unit extracts only data including the EMM based on second information set up from the first decryption control unit, and the first decryption control unit extracts the EMM from the data. The stream input unit indirectly obtains a scramble key decrypted by the first decryption control unit so as to extract the scramble key and transmit it to a descrambler.
US08243924B2
Various embodiments are directed towards employing a container and communication protocol proxy component within a client device to receive securely real-time streamed, progressively downloaded, or adaptively streamed container over a network using one container and communication protocol, and to securely decrypt the container and provide it to a media player using a different container and communications protocol. In one embodiment, the container is in Flash Video (FLV) file format. A browser or the media player on the client device may be used to request the container. The requested container is sent over one communication protocol and intercepted by the container and communication protocol proxy component. The container may be received as selectively encrypted container. The container and communication protocol proxy component then may enable decryption of the container and providing of it to the media player using another container and communication protocol combination.
US08243923B2
A system and method for providing conditional access authorizations in a satellite-receiving system includes generating a conditional access authorization signal and an expiration signal at a head-end 20, receiving the conditional access authorization signal at a fixed satellite receiver 54 or at a mobile satellite receiver 28. When the mobile satellite receiver operates in a predetermined time window before the expiration time, which is determined from the expiration signal, a warning 434 on a screen display 432 is generated.
US08243922B1
An end user system comprises a communication interface configured to receive content in a protected state and transfer the content in the protected state, a processing system coupled to the communication interface and configured to receive the content in the protected state, process the content with a key hard coded internally to the processing system to modify the content to an unprotected state, and transfer the content in the unprotected state, and a user interface coupled to the processing system and configured to receive the content in the unprotected state and output the content.
US08243916B2
A CODEC circuit for POTS system comprises a digital circuit for outputting a digital control signal having a first bit width, the digital control signal being indicative of a voltage to be applied to a POTS subscriber line pair. Further, the CODEC circuit comprises a noise shaper coupled to an output of the digital circuit for generating a noise-shaped control signal and a digital-to-analog converter coupled to an output of the noise shaper, the input of the digital-to-analog converter having a second bit width being larger than 1 and smaller than the first bit width.
US08243904B2
An embodiment of the invention includes a method for detecting fraudulent use in a conference calling system. A threshold period is received, wherein the threshold period indicates the maximum allowable time period for a participant of a conference call to enter the conference call prior to the entry of the moderator of the conference call. A monitor detects the entry of the moderator into the conference call and entry of the participants into the conference call. A waiting period is determined for one or more of the participants, wherein the waiting period represents the time period between the entry of the moderator and the entry of the participant. A processor compares the waiting period to the threshold period. If the threshold period exceeds the waiting period, the conference call is allowed to continue. In at least one embodiment, actions are performed with the processor if the waiting period exceeds the threshold period.
US08243895B2
A PBX system with a shared line connected to a plurality of telephone devices includes one or more processors that control a connection for an incoming call from a caller, the one or more processors being operable to access a listing that includes one or more callers or calling numbers designated as private to a first telephone device. The one or more processors being further operable to send an alert to only the first telephone device in the event that the one or more callers or the calling numbers in the listing includes a caller or calling number associated with the incoming call. It is emphasized that this abstract is provided to comply with the rules requiring an abstract that will allow a searcher or other reader to quickly ascertain the subject matter of the technical disclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims.
US08243892B1
A system, apparatus and method for identifying the capacity of a particular switch through which a plurality of telephone calls will be broadcast has a processor in operative communication with a communication network and an NPANXX database, and is configured to retrieve a telephone number from a call list from a call list database, then to retrieve from the NPANXX database a CLLI identification associated with the retrieved telephone number. The processor is configured to retrieve a maximum call capacity for a switch associated with the retrieved CLLI identification from a CLLI limit database. The processor is configured to store a number of current calls being made through the switch associated with the retrieved CLLI identification and to make a next telephone call when the number of current calls is less than or equal to the maximum call capacity.
US08243890B2
A WAP-free, IETF-Specification Compliant Multimedia Message Service Center (MMSC)-Multimedia Message Service (MMS) User Agent Interface based on the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is provided, as well as an all-HTTP multimedia messaging technique in general, using HTTP POST and GET techniques, between mobile stations and multimedia messaging service centers (MMSCs) for multimedia message (MM) submission and delivery.
US08243884B2
An X-ray anode includes a coating and a support body. In addition to a strength-imparting region, the support body has a region formed of a diamond-metal composite material. The diamond-metal composite material is formed of 40 to 90% by volume diamond particles, 10 to 60% by volume binding phase(s) formed of a metal or an alloy of the metals of the group consisting of Cu, Ag, Al and at least one carbide of the elements of the group consisting of Tr, Zr, Hf, V, Nb, Ta, Cr, Mo, W, B, and Si. The highly heat-conductive region can be form-lockingly connected at the back to a heat-dissipating region, for example formed of Cu or a Cu alloy. The X-ray anode has improved heat dissipation and lower composite stress.
US08243881B2
A radiography device that can be applied to even general-purpose scattered radiation removing means, capable of producing appropriate radiation images that are independently of the status of installation of scattered radiation removing means. A pixel specifying portion specifies particular pixels of the various pixels that comprise an x-ray image. An intensity estimating portion estimates the scattered x-ray intensities (scattered radiation intensities) at the particular pixels specified by the pixel specifying portion and/or the direct x-ray intensities (the direct radiation intensities) of the particular pixels. Consequently, it is possible to estimate appropriately the scattered x-ray intensities and/or direct x-ray intensities at the particular pixels in consideration of the status of installation of a grid (scattered radiation removing means).
US08243878B2
A method for analysis includes directing a converging beam of X-rays toward a surface of a sample having an epitaxial layer formed thereon, and sensing the X-rays that are diffracted from the sample while resolving the sensed X-rays as a function of angle so as to generate a diffraction spectrum including a diffraction peak and fringes due to the epitaxial layer. A characteristic of the fringes is analyzed in order to measure a relaxation of the epitaxial layer.
US08243877B2
The present invention relates to the field of medical imaging and therapy of lesions that are detrimental to the body. The system is capable of both imaging and treatment with the same kilovoltage radiation source. Dual-use collimators produce a wide beam, which is not a pencil beam or a fan beam, to image and treat a target that has an enhanced radiation cross-section after taking up contrast agent containing a high-Z element. This results in increased radiation dose in the lesion. Furthermore, the significant drop in intensity of a low-energy radiation beam traveling through tissue is surmounted by continually aiming the beam at the target while moving it around the patient. Wide detectors opposing the radiation source permit the imaging and measurement of contrast in the target. More specifically this invention relates to a system, which optimizes delivery of kilovoltage x-rays to a lesion containing contrast agents in higher concentration than the surrounding normal tissues. Thereby subsequent delivery of radiation becomes cytotoxic upon interaction with the contrast.
US08243869B2
Burst mode clock and data recovery (BCDR) circuit and method capable of fast data recovery of passive optical network (PON) traffic. An over-sampled data stream is generated from an input burst data signal and a phase interpolator generates sampling clock signals using a reference clock and phase information. A phase estimation unit (PEU) determines a phase error in the over-sampled data streams; and a phase retrieval unit sets the phase interpolator with the respective phase information of the input burst data signal prior to reception of the input burst data signal.
US08243862B2
A signal receiving method of a receiver includes following steps. Multiple time-domain received signals are transformed into multiple frequency-domain received signals, and channel response matrices corresponding to the frequency-domain received signals are estimated. The frequency-domain received signals are STBC decoded and multiple original combination signals are obtained based on the corresponding channel response matrices. The frequency-domain received signals are rearranged, and the rearranged frequency-domain received signals are STBC decoded and multiple rearrangement combination signals are obtained based on the corresponding channel response matrices. The original combination signals and the rearrangement combination signals are randomly chosen and summed to obtain multiple complex signals. The complex signal with minimum interference power is selected and then the selected signal is used to cancel interference and compensate the channel effect to obtain the detected data.
US08243858B2
A procedure of receiving includes estimating a phase offset of a received signal and calculating one or more phase offsets which result in the estimated phase offset of the received signal and which have different phase rotation directions and/or different phase rotation amounts from one another; compensating for the phase offset of the received signal, using each of a plurality of phase offsets that are the estimated phase offset and the calculated phase offsets, and demodulating and decoding the plurality of compensated received signals; and selecting a decoding result that is the most likely to be the received signal among a plurality of results of the decoding corresponding one for each of the plurality of phase offsets.
US08243850B2
A method of generating reference signals is provided. The method includes precoding a reference signal to generate a plurality of precoded reference signals. For each precoded reference signal, a signal based on the precoded reference signal is transmitted from a corresponding physical antenna.
US08243848B2
A disclosed radio communication method includes precoding modulated information signal sequences to calculate transmit weight information, setting initial transmit power based on prior information including the calculated transmit weight information, generating an objective function of a user channel capacity for a constrained optimization problem based on the transmit weight information and the initial transmit power, generating a new objective function by adding a barrier function to the objective function, using an initial temporary barrier parameter to initiate iteration of an optimization operation for the new objective function, setting an initial barrier parameter based on comparison between the current and previous outputs, calculating transmit power to optimize the new objective function in accordance with an interior point method based on the initial transmit power and the initial barrier parameter and allocating the calculated transmit power to the respective transmit antennas.
US08243846B2
A transmission device includes a first encoder, a plurality of current sources, a switch module, a second encoder, and a plurality of current enhanced circuits. The first encoder converts an input signal to a first control signal. The switch module is coupled between the plurality of current sources and a plurality of signal lines for controlling the connection of the current sources and the signal lines according to the first control signal to generate a current signal. The second encoder generates a second control signal according to the first control signal or the input signal. The plurality of current enhanced circuits is coupled to the plurality of current sources respectively. The plurality of current enhanced circuits provides an extra current in a predetermined duration to enhance the current signal.
US08243840B2
Provided are a system and a method for transmitting/receiving data in a communication system. The method includes calculating a processing matrix of a transmission unit for transmitting data, a processing matrix of a reception unit for receiving the data, a channel matrix formed by a plurality of transmission antennas and a plurality of reception antennas, and a parameter of the transmission data, when the data to be transmitted to the plurality of reception antennas via the plurality of transmission antennas is generated; determining a minimum value of a Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) according to the calculated matrixes and parameter; and transmitting/receiving the data using an MMSE multiplexing scheme based on the determined minimum MMSE value.
US08243837B2
It is an object to provide a sequence allocating method that, while maintaining the number of Zadoff-Chu sequences to compose a sequence group, is configured to make it possible to reduce correlations between different sequential groups and between same sequential groups. This method comprises the steps of setting a standard sequence with a standard sequence length (Nb) and a standard sequence number (rb) in a step (ST101), setting a threshold values (Xth1(m)) and (Xth2(m)) in accordance with an RB number (m) in a step (ST103), setting a sequence length (N) corresponding to RB number (m) in a step (ST104), judging whether ¦r/N−rb/Nb¦=Xth1(m) is satisfied in a step (ST106), judging whether ¦r/N−rb/Nb¦=Xth2(m) is satisfied in a step (ST107), including Zadoff-Chu sequences with a sequence number (r) and a sequence length (N) in a sequence group (rb) in a step (ST108); if both judgments are positive, and allocating the sequence group (rb) to the same cell in a step (ST113).
US08243834B2
A wireless communication device (1) comprises a spatially-multiplexed PSC extracting section (8) for extracting a spatially multiplexed known pilot subcarrier signal (S5) from the received multicarrier-modulated signal, a reference signal generating section (7) for generating a reference signal (S4) of the spatially-multiplexed pilot subcarrier signal, and a phase compensating section (9) for compensating the phase difference of the received signal (S1) according to the pilot subcarrier signal (S5) extracted by the spatially-multiplexed pilot subcarrier extracting section (8) and the reference signal (S4). Therefore, even if a pilot subcarrier signal is spatially multiplexed and transmitted, phase difference detection and phase compensation can be performed by a simple constitution.
US08243829B2
In one embodiment, the method includes obtaining a pixel value difference between two successive pixels. The two successive pixels are on a block boundary. The method further includes calculating the filtering coefficient based on the pixel value difference, and obtaining four successive filtered pixel values based on the filtering coefficient. The four successive pixels include the two successive pixels used in the obtaining a pixel value difference, and two of the four successive pixels are included in a first block and two of the four successive pixels are included in a second block.
US08243828B2
In one embodiment, the method includes obtaining quantization information of a first block including the pixel to be filtered, and obtaining a block type of the first block and a second block. The second block is adjacent to the first block. The quantization information is compared to a threshold value, and loop-filtering is performed on the pixel to be filtered by using at least three successive pixels if the quantization information is greater than the threshold value and the type of the first and second block is an intra-coded block type. The at least three successive pixels include the pixel to be filtered.
US08243824B2
Disclosed herein is an information processing apparatus configured to process a code stream having a first resolution with data having the first resolution scalably encoded, including setting means, first creating means, authoring means, second creating means, and code stream replacing means.
US08243823B2
A method and system for communication uncompressed video over a wireless communication medium is provided. Pixels in an uncompressed video frame are grouped into groups of pixels for wireless transmission from a transmitter to a receiver, wherein the neighboring pixels in each group possess (have) high spatial correlation. Upon receiving the pixel groups, the receiving station reconstructs the video frame from the received pixel groups, wherein upon detecting an erroneous pixel in a group, information from one or more neighboring pixels in that pixel group are used in place of the erroneous pixel. Further, FEC encoding is utilized recovering bit-errors.
US08243820B2
A video codec provides for encoding and decoding pictures of a video sequence at various coded resolutions, such that pictures can be encoded at lower coded resolutions based on bit rate or other constraints while maintaining a consistent display resolution. The video codec further provide for encoding and decoding pictures of the video sequence at ranges lower than that used for display, and then expanding the range after decoding for display. The video codec applies post-processing operations, such as de-blocking, de-ringing, and color conversion, at the native resolution and range of the decoded video, prior to range expansion and upsampling for display.
US08243819B2
In one embodiment, the method includes obtaining a block type of the second block and the third block. The second block is adjacent to the first block horizontally, and the third block is adjacent to the first block vertically. The method further includes determining whether the second and third blocks have non-zero transform coefficient information if the block type of the second and third blocks, respectively, are not an intra-coded block. A horizontal filter strength value and vertical filter strength values are determined based on the above steps. The blocking phenomenon in the first block is removed according to the horizontal filter strength value firstly, then vertical filter strength value secondly.
US08243818B2
In one embodiment, loop-filtering is performed on four successive pixels if obtained quantization information for a first block is greater than the threshold value and the type of the first block and a second block is intra-coded block type. Two pixels of the four successive pixels are in the first block and two pixels of the four successive pixels are in the second block, which is adjacent the first block. The method still further includes performing additional filtering on two successive pixels on the block boundary based on a comparison result of the quantization information and a second threshold value.
US08243807B2
An image processing method in which a video signal is processed to detect a conspicuous area which is thought that a camera person intends to shoot, the method includes the steps of: detecting a motion vector in each portion of the video signal; detecting a representative value that represents a motion in two places in an outer part of a screen; detecting a motion component caused by zooming operations from the representative value; detecting a conspicuous degree by zooming in which a motion component caused by zooming operations is detected in each portion of the video signal based on the motion component caused by zooming operations; correcting a motion vector; detecting a motion component caused by making a pan and tilt from the representative value; detecting a conspicuous degree caused by making a pan and tilt; and detecting a total conspicuous degree.
US08243806B2
A video signal recording and reproducing apparatus is provided that is capable of reducing the encoding amount required for video recording thereby to record a longer video signal while suppressing deterioration of image quality when the video is displayed. An apparatus is also provided that is similarly capable of efficiently transmitting the video signal with a smaller transmission capacity during transmission of the video signal. A structure constituting the present invention comprises: a decoding unit which decodes an inputted video signal into video frames; a decimation unit which decimates the number of video frames decoded by the decimation unit; an encoding unit which encodes the video frames decimated by the decimation unit into encoded video signals; and a storage device which stores the video signals encoded by the encoding unit, wherein the decimation unit performs decimation for each video signal.
US08243803B2
A moving picture encoding device includes a motion vector detection section configured to detect a motion vector of a predetermined area to be encoded in a frame picture, a prediction section configured to predict the motion vector of the predetermined area to be encoded by using an encoded motion vector of a predetermined area in the frame picture, a determination section configured to determine whether or not the motion vector detected by the motion vector detection section is a predetermined motion vector set in accordance with the motion vector predicted by the prediction section, and a switching section configured to switch a method of calculating a motion compensation value of the predetermined area to be encoded depending on whether or not the motion vector detected by the motion vector detection section is the predetermined motion vector.
US08243802B2
In a moving picture encoding apparatus 10, as an embodiment of the present invention, a predicted image generator 16 generates a predicted image with respect to a target image, using a reference image stored in a frame memory 20. A difference image generator 18 performs a difference operation between the target image and the predicted image to generate a difference image. An encoder 22 encodes the difference image to generate an encoded difference signal. A decoder 28 decodes the encoded difference signal to generate a decoded difference image. A reproduced image generator 30 performs a summation of the decoded difference image and the predicted image to generate a reproduced image. An image updater 32 performs a weighted summation of a first image which is one of the reproduced image and the reference image, and a second image which is the other of the reproduced image and the reference image, to generate an updated image. The updated image is stored into the frame memory 20 to be used as a reference image in encoding of another target image.
US08243799B2
In one embodiment, the method includes obtaining at least three horizontally successive reference pixel values including a pixel to be filtered, and applying first weight factors to at least each of the three horizontally successive reference pixel values. The first weight factors are different according to pixel position. A first filtered value is obtained by summing at least the three weighted horizontally successive pixel values. The method further includes obtaining at least three vertically successive reference pixel values including a pixel to be filtered, and applying second weight factors to at least each of the three vertically successive reference pixel values. The second weight factors are different according to pixel position. A second filtered value is obtained by summing at least the three weighted vertically successive pixel values.
US08243795B2
In one embodiment, the apparatus includes a decoder. The decoder is configured to obtain at least three horizontally successive reference pixel values including a pixel to be filtered, and apply first weight factors to at least each of the three horizontally successive reference pixel values. The first weight factors are different according to pixel position. A first filtered value is obtained by the decoder by summing at least the three weighted horizontally successive pixel values. The decoder is also configured to obtain at least three vertically successive reference pixel values including a pixel to be filtered, and apply second weight factors to at least each of the three vertically successive reference pixel values. The second weight factors are different according to pixel position. A second filtered value is obtained by the decoder by summing at least the three weighted vertically successive pixel values.
US08243794B2
In one embodiment, loop-filtering is performed by a decoder on four successive pixels if obtained quantization information for a first block is greater than the threshold value and the type of the first block and a second block is intra-coded block type. Two pixels of the four successive pixels are in the first block and two pixels of the four successive pixels are in the second block, which is adjacent the first block. The decoder is also configured to perform additional filtering on two successive pixels on the block boundary based on a comparison result of the quantization information and a second threshold value.
US08243790B2
Systems, methods, and techniques for treating video information are described. In one implementation, a method includes receiving video information, classifying one or more frames in the received video information as a scene, adjusting one or more coding parameters based on the classification of the frames, and coding the video information in accordance with the adjusted coding parameters.
US08243785B2
The gravity centered coding shall be improved with respect to false contour effect disturbances on plasma display panels for example. Therefore, there is provided a GCC code (gravity center coding) and a motion amplitude of a picture or a part of a picture. Furthermore, there is provided at least one sub-set code of the GCC code. The video data are coded with the GCC code or the at least one sub-set code depending on the motion amplitude. Thus, it is possible to reduce the number of coding levels if the motion increases. A further improvement can be obtained by using texture information for selecting the GCC code.
US08243775B2
Techniques for initial wireless network synchronization by a mobile station are provided. For certain embodiments, the techniques may involve a joint search for the cell identification (ID-cell index) and the coarse carrier frequency offset (CFO) estimation. For certain embodiments, the techniques may be based on hard correlation and binary differential despreading that substantially simplifies computational complexity compare to known techniques that independently search for the ID-cell index and perform CFO estimation.
US08243773B2
A wireless spread-spectrum communication system for transmitting data includes a plurality of end point transmitters and at least one receiver. The end point transmitters transmit data via a frequency-hopped spread-spectrum signal where the transmitting signal is sent without the benefit of frequency stabilization. The receiver is responsive to the frequency-hopping spread-spectrum signals and includes a correlator and a signal processor. The correlator samples at least a first portion of a preamble of the signal and correlates the portion of the preamble with a known preamble pattern to determine a probability of correlation. The signal processor applies a Fast Fourier Transform algorithm to the signal in response to the probability of correlation to track a narrowband frequency of the signal based on at least a second portion of the preamble and to decode data encoded within the signal subsequent to the preamble.
US08243771B2
A global positioning system using Bluetooth technology, including: a first Bluetooth master that receives satellite orbit information; a Bluetooth slave that communicates with the first Bluetooth master in a Bluetooth protocol; and a second Bluetooth master that transmits an inquiry code for communication with the Bluetooth slave in the Bluetooth protocol. The second Bluetooth master provides positioning information by requesting the satellite orbit information from the first Bluetooth master through the Bluetooth slave and transmitting the satellite orbit information to the second Bluetooth master through the Bluetooth slave.
US08243770B2
Emissive quantum photonic imagers comprised of a spatial array of digitally addressable multicolor pixels. Each pixel is a vertical stack of multiple semiconductor laser diodes, each of which can generate laser light of a different color. Within each multicolor pixel, the light generated from the stack of diodes is emitted perpendicular to the plane of the imager device via a plurality of vertical waveguides that are coupled to the optical confinement regions of each of the multiple laser diodes comprising the imager device. Each of the laser diodes comprising a single pixel is individually addressable, enabling each pixel to simultaneously emit any combination of the colors associated with the laser diodes at any required on/off duty cycle for each color. Each individual multicolor pixel can simultaneously emit the required colors and brightness values by controlling the on/off duty cycles of their respective laser diodes.
US08243758B2
The object of the present invention is to provide a mechanism for a more efficient carrier search. The object is achieved by a method for sending a signal in a first node. The first node communicates with a second node via radio communication, which radio communication is performed by multi carrier transmission. The first node uses a carrier, being associated with a frequency range. The method comprises the step of transmitting an end-marker signal within or close to the frequency range. The end-marker signal is intended to be received and used by the second node for identifying the frequency range of the used carrier.
US08243755B2
Disclosed is an apparatus and a method for receiving and playing Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) data using a DMB package and a mobile terminal. The DMB package is separable from the mobile terminal and can be interfaced with the mobile terminal. The apparatus includes DMB package for receiving DMB data, converting data formats of the received DMB data into multimedia data formats which can be reproduced by the typical mobile terminal, and transmitting the DMB data converted into the mobile terminal reproducible data formats to the mobile terminal. Accordingly, even a mobile terminal, which does not have a function of receiving and reproducing DMB data, can reproduce the DMB data.
US08243754B2
A controller system for detecting and matching link speeds. The present invention provides for a controller system. The controller system is a first controller and a first port. The first port is located in the first controller and has a first link speed. The first controller is adapted to match the first link speed to a second link speed of a second port of a first controlled device that is connectable to the first controller.
US08243753B2
An apparatus and a system, as well as a method and article, may operate to send a selected data type without self-definition information to a receiver if a state capable of interpreting the selected data type has been maintained by the receiver, and to send the selected data type with the self-definition information to the receiver if the state capable of interpreting the selected data type has not been maintained by the receiver.
US08243751B2
A method of transmission of at least one data content by a source node associated with a generator application to at least one destination node, each associated with a consumer application, in a communications network comprising a plurality of nodes, each being associated with an application, the network implementing a first clocking which defines a first cycle, called a network cycle, for data transmission on said network.Each node of the network implements a second clocking which defines a second cycle, called a local cycle, for data transmission between the node of the network and its associated application, the network cycle being equal to an integer multiple P, P≧1, of the local cycle, the start of the network cycle coinciding with the start of a local cycle, the local cycle comprising a plurality of virtual channels corresponding to time slots, a set of the virtual channels being assigned to the transmission of the content or contents.
US08243744B2
Sort elements, such as queues processed in a network processor, are provided with relative priorities relative to each other. A set of relative priorities is used to specify priority order of the sort elements. The priority order may be specified by addressing code in a jump table. Duplicate code in the jump table having multiple entrance points allows for reduction of the size of the jump table. The relative priorities may be applied to a lookup table, hash or other function in order to address the jump table.
US08243737B2
Described embodiments provide a first-in, first-out (FIFO) buffer for packet switching in a crossbar switch with a speedup factor of m. The FIFO buffer comprises a plurality of registers configured to receive N-bit portions of data in packets and a plurality of one-port memories, each having width W segmented into S portions a width W/S. A first logic module is coupled to the registers and the one-port memories and receives the N-bit portions of data in and the outputs of the registers. A second logic module coupled to the one-port memories constructs data out read from the one-port memories. In a sequence of clock cycles, the N-bit data portions are alternately transferred from the first logic module to a segment of the one-port memories, and, for each clock cycle, the second logic module constructs the data out packet with output width based on the speedup factor of m.
US08243730B1
This specification describes technologies relating to geographically localizing mobile communication devices. In general, one aspect of the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in a method that includes receiving information corresponding to a location of a wireless landmark in a mobile communication network. The method also includes communicating with the wireless landmark to estimate the location of a first node in the mobile communication network proximate to the wireless landmark. Other embodiments of this aspect include corresponding systems, apparatus, and computer program products.
US08243729B2
A stacked chassis comprising multiple physical switch/router chassis operates without any special stacking hardware or stacking channels. Instead, a stacking LAG is installed between front-end switch ports on the stacked chassis. The chassis controllers negotiate a master, which controls operation of all chassis in the stack. A stacked-chassis-wide port numbering scheme is used to distribute information to all line cards in the system. Each line card processes the information to distill physical-chassis significant information for operation of that chassis in the stack.
US08243723B2
There is provided an instant voice messaging system (and method) for delivering instant messages over a packet-switched network, the system comprising: a client connected to the network, the client selecting one or more recipients, generating an instant voice message therefor, and transmitting the selected recipients and the instant voice message therefor over the network; and a server connected to the network, the server receiving the selected recipients and the instant voice message therefor, and delivering the instant voice message to the selected recipients over the network, the selected recipients being enabled to audibly play the instant voice message.
US08243722B2
A multi-port VoIP telecommunications system that allows the user to gain access to telephone connectivity through the Internet by connecting directly to the Internet or by connecting to the Internet through the existing Internet connection of a computer or cell phone device. The present system includes an Ethernet port, a Wi-Fi receiver to facilitate the transmission and receipt of Internet protocol signals wirelessly, and a USB plug connectable to the ATA.
US08243716B2
A method for preventing Spam over Internet Telephony (SPIT), includes: a terminal receives a call request of a calling user; the terminal sets an identifier of the calling user into a SPIT reporting request upon receipt of the call request; and sends the SPIT reporting request to a server in response to an instruction of a called user that the call request is the SPIT.
US08243710B1
A method, apparatus and computer program product for the express forwarding are presented. A timer (NAV) is maintained at each respective node of a wireless LAN. A frame is designated as a TSQ frame to be express forwarded from a first node to a second node. A duration field of the frame is incremented by a first predetermined time increment (DT0) before the TSQ frame is forwarded and the TSQ frame is forwarded by the first node to the second node. A response is received from the second node wherein non-forwarding neighboring nodes each set their NAV according to a value equal to the duration field of the response. The second node attempts transmission of the TSQ frame when acknowledgement of receipt of the TSQ frame is complete.
US08243708B2
Time division multiplexed input signals (i.e., separated into time slots) are spread in each time slot with a destination code. This spreading is applied for destination identification as opposed to signal information modulation. Each spreading signal is associated with a particular destination for a particular time slot. These spread signals are then combined on a code division bus. Output signals for retransmission to the destinations are recovered from the bus by application of despreading codes. Each despread signal has a destination code which appears in its individual time slot. In a variant code division multiplexed signals are directed to a destination by use of time slot interchanger to achieve time division switching to route the CDMA multiplexed channels.
US08243706B2
An approach is provided for supporting transmission in a multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) communication system including a plurality of terminals. A preamble portion of a frame is transmitted by a multiple transmit antennas of a hub using Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) to the terminals over a channel, wherein each of the terminals determines a characteristic of the channel with respect to the transmit antennas as feedback information. The hub receives the feedback information from the terminals. The hub selects, according to the feedback information, a subset of the antennas for transmission of a remaining portion of the frame to the terminal.
US08243699B2
A multi-channel media access control (MAC) method for Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) devices with single radio interface is provided. The method includes starting a channel coordination window (CCW) that is repeated with a period P, allocating an arbitrary WLAN device pair on a common channel to a destination channel by using a channel utilization vector that indicates whether each of N channels is occupied or available during CCW, and switching the arbitrary WLAN device pair to the destination channel.
US08243698B2
The present invention relates to a device for converting UMTS-FDD signals into WLAN signals, comprising a receiver unit for receiving the UMTS-FDD signals, means for converting the signals received into WLAN signals as well as means for providing or transmitting the WLAN signals. The invention furthermore relates to a device for converting UMTS signals into signals according to a telephone standard, comprising a receiver unit for receiving the UMTS signals, means for converting the signals received into signals according to a telephone standard as well as means for providing or transmitting the signals according to a telephone standard. Finally, the invention relates to a communication system comprising a device as claimed in any of claims 1 to 9 as well as at least one computer connected with the device and/or at least one telephone system or fax machine.
US08243694B2
A communication terminal into which communication data can be input and which can receive a message signalling that at least one further communication terminal is ready to receive the communication data. Following receipt of the message, a transmission device configured to operate in a first mode, in which it sends data at a first data rate, and in a second mode, in which it sends data at a second data rate, which is higher than the first data rate, is used to send the communication data in the second mode.
US08243686B2
Techniques for wireless communications include operating first and second access networks to provide wireless service to wireless devices. The first and second access networks are associated with respective first and second gateways. The first gateway is operated to (1) receive a request for transferring wireless service of a wireless device from the second access network to the first access network and (2) send a message that includes key information to the second gateway based on the request. The second gateway is operated to (1) send session context information to the first gateway in response to the message and (2) forward a data packet associated with the wireless device to the first gateway. The forwarded data packet includes a packet data network identifier (PDN-ID) to identify a packet data network (PDN) associated with a downlink data packet.
US08243684B2
An objective of the present invention is to provide a radio communication apparatus and a communication control method capable of executing processing including a handover appropriate for a communication quality of a radio link while suppressing an increase in development cost, when a handover controller is provided between a mobility manager and a link controller. An MIH function unit sets a communication quality threshold of a radio link in a radio link controller, the communication quality threshold being associated with a service quality requirement value notified by the mobility manager. The MIH function unit also notifies a mobility manager that the service quality requirement value corresponding to the communication quality threshold is satisfied, when being notified by the link controller that the communication quality of the radio link reaches the communication quality threshold.
US08243681B2
Methods and apparatus for supporting broadcast traffic in Mobile IP are disclosed. When a Mobile Node registers via a Foreign Agent supporting Mobile IP, the Foreign Agent receives a registration request from a Mobile Node and sends the registration request to a Home Agent. A registration reply received from the Home Agent has a network mask extension including a network mask associated with the home address of the Mobile Node. The Foreign Agent then sends the registration reply to the Mobile Node. Alternatively, the Mobile Node may register via a collocated care-of address, in which case the registration reply is received directly from the Home Agent. Once the Mobile Node has obtained its network mask, it may send packets such as broadcast packets, as well as roam to its Home Agent. Additionally, in accordance with various embodiments, the Foreign Agent duplicates broadcast packets for transmission to Mobile Nodes, rather than receiving the duplicated packets from the Home Agent. In this manner, broadcast traffic in a Mobile IP environment is optimized.
US08243672B2
A method for transmitting and receiving signals in consideration of a time alignment timer and user equipment (UE) for the same are provided. In this method, a UE performs initial transmission or retransmission of an uplink signal using wireless resources corresponding to an uplink grant signal received from a base station only when a time alignment timer of the UE is running. The UE does not transmit a HARQ feedback signal for a downlink signal received from the base station to the base station when the time alignment timer of the UE is not running.
US08243669B2
A method for assigning acknowledgement (ACK) channels to a user is used to feed back ACKs of a plurality of downlink sub-frames in one uplink sub-frame. According to the method, reserved ACK channels are divided into blocks according to the number of downlink sub-frames; each downlink sub-frame corresponds to one block; each block is divided into several sub-blocks; control channel element (CCE) sets within the same sub-frame are respectively mapped to different sub-blocks; and the ACK channels are assigned to the downlink sub-frames according to a sequence of increasing a mapping label d first and then increasing a sub-block label m. Thus, more unused ACK channels can be released to form resource blocks (RBs) for transmission on other channels, for example, for PUSCH transmission. Other methods for assigning ACK channels to a user, a device for assigning ACK channels to a user, and a communication system are further provided.
US08243668B2
A method for allocating a radio resource in a wireless communication system comprises defining a plurality of resource regions within a frame, a resource region comprising at least one orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) symbol and at least one subchannel, configuring radio resource allocation information indicating which resource region selected from the plurality of resource regions is allocated to a UE, the radio resource allocation information comprising at least one resource region identifier (ID), a resource region ID indicating a resource region selected from the plurality of resource regions, and transmitting the radio resource allocation information to the UE.
US08243664B2
The present invention relates to the field of multi-path wireless communication. The present invention provides a system for assisting in providing a wireless communication link between a first communication device and a second communication device based on a plurality of communication paths comprising a history manager for providing, based on a recorded history of communication path states, a proposal for one or more communication paths based on which the communication link can be provided. The present invention further provides a corresponding method and a communication system and a communication device comprising the system of the present invention. Based on the proposal provided by the present invention, path switching can be performed more effectively, less and shorter interruptions of the communication link can be obtained and an enhanced transmission quality can be provided for multi-path wireless communication systems.
US08243661B2
Methods, systems, and products are provided for establishing RFID-based telecommunications routing for a user including identifying a plurality of telephony devices available to a user, identifying the location of the plurality of telephony devices available to the user, receiving from a user routing preferences, receiving an identification of an RFID tag for the user, and associating with the user the identified telephony devices available to a user, the locations of the plurality of devices available to the user, the routing preferences, and the identification of the RFID tag.
US08243658B2
Techniques for reducing the number of bits needed to specify the best precoding vector for each mobile station in a wireless communication network that employs multi-point transmission are disclosed. An exemplary method begins with the estimation of path loss between a mobile station and each of a plurality of geographically separated transmitter sites, each transmitter site having at least one transmitter antenna. Based on the estimated path losses, one of a plurality of pre-determined subsets (codebooks) of a pre-determined set of antenna precoding vectors is selected. A group index identifying the selected subset is then transmitted to the mobile station. Subsequently, a vector index is received from the mobile station, the vector index corresponding to a precoding vector in the selected subset, and data is transmitted to the mobile station, using the precoding vector applied to the transmitter antennas at the plurality of transmitter sites.
US08243653B2
There is provided a wireless communication system which can synchronize a mobile station with a destination base station in response to the mobile station determining to switch base stations. Each base station generates synchronization information to synchronize the mobile station with the base station from a reverse pilot signal received from the mobile station, generates reverse propagation quality information from the reverse pilot signal, and generates and transmits a control signal including the synchronization information and the reverse propagation quality information. A mobile station generates and transmits a reverse pilot signal, receives a signal including the control signal from each of the base stations.
US08243651B2
Systems, devices, processors, and methods are described for the transmission and reception of broadband signals between a gateway and subscriber terminals via satellite. In one set of embodiments, a wireless signal is generated and transmitted including a series of frames including a physical layer header and payload. A sub-channel identifier may be included in the physical layer header to identify the sub-channel for the payload, and allow for various novel filtering techniques at the subscriber terminal. The frames may be generated to be of substantially equal duration. Novel subscriber terminal configurations are described to leverage this formatting.
US08243644B2
Method and a system for multicast service notification in cellular telephone system to enable the cellular telephone systems to provide both multicast and point-to-point services are disclosed. Several embodiments describe the signaling interaction between an access network and subscriber stations belonging to a multicast group to allow the access network to properly notify the subscriber stations of a the multicast service. Such a signaling further allows the subscriber stations to recognize the multicast service notification to participate in the multicast service.
US08243634B2
A mobile terminal is operated in a cellular communications system that comprises a base station operating in a time division duplex mode. The mobile terminal detects a downlink transmission from the base station and determines therefrom a future moment in time at which an end part of a downlink transmission just prior to a random access window will become detectable at the mobile terminal. An uplink random access transmission is begun at a moment in time that is before the future moment in time. The moment in time that is before the future moment in time can be a fixed amount of time before the future moment in time. If the mobile terminal is not near the edge of the cell, the base station may consequently receive only a partial uplink random access transmission, but this does not detrimentally affect performance.
US08243631B2
Devices are able to identify other devices in a shared audio space (e.g., a room) by emitting a signal and receiving messages from other devices over a data connection indicating which of the other devices received the emitted signal. Devices that are determined to be in the same audio space can selectively mix audio in a teleconference to inhibit mixing of audio signals for devices that are determined to be in the same audio space.
US08243626B2
A method of estimating user location involving collecting data from the access points in the network. The data can then be used to define a relationship, for example the loss of power experienced by a transmitted signal, between the access points. The relationship can be stored within a matrix, database or any other suitable storage method that can be referenced to determine the position of a user device within the network and correlated with corresponding measurements from a user device to determine the location of the user device within the network.
US08243624B2
Provided are a routing table generating method, a data transmission method, and a routing route formation method for multi-hop communication in high rate wireless personal networks. In a high rate WPAN environment including a plurality of piconets, a piconet controller (PNC), which performs a topology server function to provide the optimal route, collects link state information from the PNCs or DEVs (devices) belonging to a sub-tree that serves as a root and applies a minimum cost algorithm based on the collected link state information to calculate the optimal route for all pairs of originations and destinations existing within the sub-tree in consideration of QoS. The optimal route information is transmitted to the origination PNC via the destination PNC/DEV. During performing this, the optimal route between the pairs of originations and destinations is set.
US08243621B2
Method, apparatus, and program for configuring networks with consistent route and bandwidth settings
An apparatus and method for verifying route and bandwidth settings of multiple services provided over networks. The apparatus has an extractor and a verifier. Based on input data describing services each having primary and secondary routes between specific locations, an available bandwidth of each network, and a guaranteed bandwidth of each service, the extractor selects a first network to be verified and extracts first services that use the first network as their respective primary routes. The extractor then selects at least one second network from among the networks that the first services specify as their respective secondary routes. The extractor extracts second services that use the second network as their primary routes and specify the first network as their secondary routes. The verifier sums up guaranteed bandwidths that the first and second services should provide, and determines whether the sum is smaller than an available bandwidth of the first network.
US08243620B2
To reduce energy consumption in a duty-cycled asynchronous wireless communication network values of operation parameters, i.e. duration of the awake interval and duration of the sleep interval, of routing nodes of the network are determined and set. The network is partitioned into clusters so that each cluster comprises one cluster-head node. The energy consumption of a cluster is a function of the probability of busy channel when nodes of the cluster attempt transmission, the probability of communication collision during transmission, the duration of the awake interval and the duration of the sleep interval of its cluster-head node. Reduction of the energy consumption is carried out under predetermined values of the probability of busy channel and of the probability of communication collision and under predetermined constraint for the probability of successful transfer of data packets within the cluster and for the average delay of transfer of data packets within the cluster.
US08243619B2
Methods and apparatus for efficiently allowing protection switch information to be communicated on bidirectional lines are disclosed. According to one aspect of the present invention, a method for communicating protection switch information from a first network element to a second network element across bidirectional links that include at least one working line and a protection line involves obtaining a generic framing procedure GFP frame at the first network element. The GFP frame has a payload area with a client payload field. The method also includes defining a command field associated with the GFP frame that is in the payload area but not in the client payload field, and storing protection switch information in the command field.
US08243617B2
A step-wise approach to automatically determining the bandwidth of a communication channel includes dividing the channel's potential bandwidth into a number of ranges. An initial range is then selected and a series of data packets specific to the selected range are transmitted from a first endpoint to a second endpoint, with the second endpoint determining one or more channel metrics based on the transmitted packets (e.g., measured transmission rates). If the metrics indicate the current range accurately reflects the channel's bandwidth, a measured transmission rate of the transmitted data packets is used as the channel's bandwidth. Otherwise, another range is selected and the process is repeated. The described approach rapidly determines channel bandwidth, even when the channel between the two endpoints is asymmetric. Techniques described herein are particularly beneficial when used in conjunction with multimedia conferencing applications.
US08243613B2
A method and apparatus for estimating a velocity of a Mobile Station (MS) in a mobile communication system are provided, in which a Base Station (BS) receives a Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) measured by the MS, calculates a decision metric by calculating variations in the CQI for a predetermined time period, and estimates the velocity of the MS based on the decision metric, referring to a velocity table in which decision metrics are mapped to mobile velocities.
US08243611B2
Method and system for configuring a device that has failed to obtain a network address. In one aspect of the invention, a method for remotely configuring a device includes attempting to obtain a network address from a network server over a network, and receiving a valid network address over the network from a remote device connected to the network in response to failing to obtain the network address from the network server.
US08243609B2
A method and apparatus for monitoring the operability status of nodes of a communication network determines first node status data at a first node by causing it to diagnose its own status and the status of at least one second node, and to send the first node status data to at least one second node. The first node receives second node status data from at least one second node, and determines node status evaluation data at the first node based on the determined first node status data and the received second node status data.
US08243606B2
A device includes a storage unit that stores in a predetermined unit an identifier acquired from a packet transmitted from a transmitting device in association with a source address. The transmitting device receives from each terminal device connected communicatable via a network a packet including a source address, an identifier generated by adding a numerical value every time a packet is sent by the terminal device, and a session ID, and converts and transmits the source address. The transmitting device and the terminal device are connected to the device via a different network. The device also includes a determining unit that determines whether the identifier stored has monotonically increased; and a detector that detects a source indicated by a certain source address to be the transmitting device, if the determining unit determines that the identifier for the certain source address has not monotonically increased.
US08243602B2
Methods and apparatus for dynamically configuring a parent circuit through a subscriber record on an authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) server responsive to an authorization event for the subscriber session on the network element. According to one embodiment of the invention, the AAA server accesses the subscriber record for a subscriber session on the network element. Based on this subscriber record, a set of one or more attributes for a subscriber circuit and a set of one or more attributes for a parent circuit of the subscriber circuit are determined. The network element applies the set of subscriber circuit attributes to the subscriber circuit and the set of parent circuit attributes to the parent circuit.
US08243601B2
A routing protocol, according to one embodiment of which a first station of a wireless network monitors its outgoing transmissions corresponding to a traffic flow for occurrence of multi-tier signals and for ability to achieve a specified minimum transmission rate. Based on the monitoring, the first station may transmit an outgoing solicitation message that identifies the monitored traffic flow as a candidate for rerouting. Upon receipt of the solicitation message, a second station of the wireless network evaluates whether rerouting of the monitored traffic flow through the second station is capable of increasing data throughput for that traffic flow without decreasing data throughputs for other traffic flows presently handled by the second station. Based on this evaluation, the second station may transmit to the first station an offer to reroute the monitored traffic flow. The first station, in turn, evaluates this offer, e.g., by comparing its benefits with those of alternative offers that the first station might have received from other stations of the wireless network in response to the solicitation message. Based on the latter evaluation, the first station may reroute the monitored traffic flow through the station whose offer is deemed preferable.
US08243597B2
A method, a system, and a computer program product implements traffic shaping by processing as a synchronous request, tasks representing one or more units of work contained within the request. Before a request is sent through the network, the request is inspected in order to derive the amount of work that the request would generate in the network. A traffic manager queries the amount of work in that request compared to the amount of work that the network can support and generates a number of traffic envelopes. Based on the results of this query, “task pruning” may be implemented to break the request into smaller manageable task that fit into the traffic envelopes. Task pruning may also enable only a subset of the work to be performed. Thus, a measure of the amount of work, rather than the amount of data, within a request is considered when scheduling the request.
US08243596B2
Methods and apparatus relating to distribution of intelligence across a network are described. In one embodiment, one or more content processors may be provided at the edge of a computer network (e.g., prior to a point where data is aggregated or routed by the network). Other embodiments are also disclosed.
US08243595B2
In one embodiment of the invention, a method for prioritizing network packets, includes: comparing a packet with at least one copy rule; and if the packet matches the copy rule, then buffering the packet in a queue. The method further includes: processing the packet after buffering the packet in the queue.
US08243592B2
Methods and systems are provided for automatically rerouting data. In accordance with a disclosed example method, congestion is identified in a logical circuit. The logical circuit comprises at least a first communication path in a first local access and transport area, a second communication path in an inter-exchange carrier, and a third communication path in a second local access and transport area. The example method also involves determining that the congestion is isolated to the second communication path in the inter-exchange carrier. Data associated with the logical circuit is rerouted without manual intervention using an alternate communication path to bypass the inter-exchange carrier. The rerouting comprises routing the data through the first local access and transport area, the alternate communication path, and the second local access and transport area.
US08243588B2
The present invention provides an active/standby data center that avoids the delay associated with a cached DNS entry to switch from the active data center to the standby data center. When the active data center becomes unavailable, the standby data center advertises the same address as the primary data center so the change over occurs quickly. When the IP address of the primary data center is no longer visible to the standby data center, the standby data center begins to advertise.
US08243584B2
A method and system are provided for rehoming a digital subscriber line access multiplexer between a first data port and a second data port on a data switch. The method includes establishing a physical loop-back circuit between the second data port and a temporary input port of the data switch, establishing an extension permanent virtual circuit between the temporary input port and the first data port, removing a permanent virtual circuit between a data switch servicing a network service provider and the first data port, establishing a permanent virtual circuit between the data switch servicing the network service provider and the second data port, and routing data between the network service provider and the digital subscriber line access multiplexer via the permanent virtual circuit between the data switch servicing the network service provider and the second data port, the physical loop-back circuit, and the extension permanent virtual circuit.
US08243575B2
A thin-type optical head, smaller in optic mounting spaces comprising to the conventional one, in an optic system enabling with BD including a 2-layers BD, DVD an CD, comprises a light source, for emit a light beam therefrom; an optical branch element for penetrating a predetermined amount of lights, therethrough, of an incident light beam thereon, and to reflecting remaining amount of lights thereupon; a light focusing element for focusing the light beam upon an optical information recording medium; a photo detector for receiving the light beam reflecting upon the optical information recording medium; and an optical path converter element for converting an angle of an optical path, on which the light beam propagates, wherein the optical path converter element is disposed on an optical path of the light beam between the optical branch element and the photo detector, or between the optical branch element and the light source, and has an incident surface, upon which the light beam enters, and an emission surface, from which the light beams emits, so that the light beam reflects at least two (2) times within the optical path converter element, during time when passing through between the incident surface and the emission surface.
US08243574B2
The invention relates to the writing and optical reading of high-density information. The higher energy density at the center of the reading laser beam is used for modifying the energy structure of an active layer in such a way as to make it capable of bearing surface plasmons. The coupling of the laser beam and the active layer thus modified can then excite surface plasmons in an interface between a dielectric layer and the active layer. These surface plasmons are disturbed by physical marks having very small dimensions and written in the optical storage medium; these disturbances generate a remote-field optical response which can be detected by a detector. The operation is carried out in super-resolution, the surface plasmons being generated only at the center of the laser beam and not at the periphery. It is therefore possible to write and to read again marks having dimensions of size smaller than the theoretical resolution of the optical reading system.
US08243573B2
If the read speed is increased while high-frequency modulated carrier is fixed at a constant frequency, it becomes difficult to separate the read signal from the carrier by using bandwidth limitation of the analog system because the upper limit of the read signal band nears to the carrier frequency. Moreover, if the separation between them is eased by raising the carrier frequency, a problem that write-waveform controls become difficult arises. However, the carrier amplitude can be suppressed simultaneously preventing leakage to the read signal band by converting the carrier frequency into the stop-band of the adaptive equalizer by making the use of aliasing that occurs at the A/D conversion.
US08243571B2
A reproduction signal evaluation method according to the present invention relates to adjustment of an edge portion between a shortest mark and a shortest space in a data sequence including marks and spaces in combination that is recordable on an information recording medium. In a pattern including a shortest mark and a shortest space adjacent before or after the shortest mark, a shift amount of an edge of the shortest mark is obtained from a differential metric calculated regarding one of a first pattern in which a space adjacent to the shortest mark and not adjacent to the shortest space is longer than the shortest space; and a second pattern in which a mark adjacent to the shortest space and not adjacent to the shortest mark is longer than the shortest mark.
US08243540B2
Example embodiments disclose a semiconductor memory device and a test method thereof. The semiconductor memory device includes a memory cell array that provides first and second data groups at a first data rate and an output circuit, in a normal mode of operation, serially outputs the first and second data groups at a first data rate on an external terminal. In a test mode of operation, the output circuit outputs the first data group or the second data group at a second data rate on the external terminal in response to control signals, without switching the test mode. The second data rate may be lower than the first data rate.
US08243538B2
Methods for small unit internal verify read operation and a memory device are disclosed. In one such method, expected data is programmed into a grouping of columns of memory cells (e.g., memory block). Mask data is loaded into a third dynamic data cache of three dynamic data caches. The expected data is loaded into a second data cache. After a read operation of programmed columns of memory cells, the read data is compared to the expected data and error bit indicators are stored in the second data cache in the error bit locations. The second data cache is masked with the mask data so that only those error bits that are unmasked are counted. If the number of unmasked error bit indicators is greater than a threshold, the memory block is marked as unusable.
US08243531B2
There is provided a reference potential generating circuit of a semiconductor memory, including: a first MOS transistor group that includes a plurality of first MOS transistors that are connected in series; a second MOS transistor that is connected in series to the first MOS transistor group; a third MOS transistor that is connected in parallel to the circuit in which the first MOS transistor group and the second MOS transistor are connected in series, has a gate connected to a connection point of the first MOS transistor group and the second MOS transistor, and corrects a reference potential from a connection point of the first MOS transistors; and a fourth MOS transistor that is connected to the gate of the third MOS transistor, and decreases the potential of the gate of the third MOS transistor when a permission signal to supply power to the semiconductor memory is input.
US08243530B2
A non-volatile memory device includes a feedback circuit and a precharge switching transistor. The feedback circuit generates a feedback signal based on a voltage level of a bitline during a precharge operation. The precharge switching transistor, in response to the feedback signal, controls a precharge current for precharging the bitline. The speed of the precharge operation may be increased and/or mismatch of the bias signals in precharging a plurality of bitlines may be reduced.
US08243524B2
A semiconductor storage device has a sense amplifier. The sense amplifier includes a first lower interconnection; a second interlayer insulation film formed on the first interlayer insulation film and top of the first interconnection; a contact interconnection formed in a direction perpendicular to a substrate plane of the semiconductor substrate so as to pass through the second interlayer insulation film, and connected to the first lower interconnection; a first upper interconnection formed on the second interlayer insulation film and connected to the contact interconnection disposed under the first upper interconnection; a dummy contact interconnection formed in a direction perpendicular to the substrate plane of the semiconductor substrate in the second interlayer insulation film, and adjacent to the contact interconnection; and a second upper interconnection formed on the second interlayer insulation film so as to extend in the first direction, and connected to the dummy contact interconnection disposed under the second upper interconnection.
US08243518B2
An integrated circuit includes a NAND string including a string selection transistor SST and a ground selection transistor GST disposed at either end of series-connected memory storage cells MC. Each of the memory storage cells is a memory transistor having a floating gate, and at least one of the string selection transistor SST and the ground selection transistor GST is a memory transistor having a floating gate. The threshold voltage Vth of programmable string selection transistors SST and the ground selection transistor GST is variable and user controllable and need not be established by implantation during manufacture. Each of the programmable string selection transistors SST and the ground selection transistors GST in a memory block may be used to store random data, thus increasing the memory storage capacity of the flash memory device.
US08243514B2
Methods of operating a multi-level non-volatile memory device can include accessing data, stored in the device, which is associated with read voltages and modifying the read voltages applied to a plurality of multi-level non-volatile memory cells to discriminate between states stored by the cells in response to a read operation to the multi-level non-volatile memory device. Related devices and systems are also disclosed.
US08243512B2
A semiconductor memory write method which, when writing data at a threshold voltage level in a memory cell, is configured to perform two write operations including a preliminary data write operation of writing temporary data at a threshold voltage level lower than that of the data at the threshold voltage level, and a final data write operation of additionally writing final data at the threshold voltage level, includes making at least one of a write time of the preliminary data write operation, a word-line waiting time of verify read, and a bit-line waiting time of verify read, shorter than that of the final data write operation.
US08243508B2
A nonvolatile memory device includes a plurality of memory banks, each including a plurality of nonvolatile resistive memory cells (e.g. PRAM cells). The device also includes a write global bitline shared by the memory banks and a read global bitline shared by the memory banks. The device further includes a control circuit configured to write data to a selected nonvolatile memory cell in a first memory bank using the write global bitline while reading data from a selected nonvolatile memory cell in a second memory bank using the read global bitline such that a discharge time period of the write global bitline is longer than a quenching time period of a write current which flows through the nonvolatile memory cell of the first memory bank.
US08243500B2
A semiconductor memory has a short transistor coupling complementary storage nodes of a latch circuit of a memory cell. A transfer transistor and the short transistor have a diffusion layer in common coupled to one of the storage nodes. The short transistor and a driver transistor have a diffusion layer in common coupled to the other storage node. The transfer transistor, the short transistor, and the driver transistor are continuously disposed via the diffusion layers in common, and thereby, variation of characteristics of the transfer transistor can be prevented. Accordingly, it may be possible to prevent that current supplying ability of the transfer transistor changes depending on a layout in the memory cell, and that an operation margin of the memory cell deteriorates.
US08243495B2
A phase-change random access memory (PRAM) device capable of reducing a resistance of a word line may include a plurality of main word lines of a semiconductor memory device or PRAM bent n times in a layer different from a layer in which a plurality of sub-word lines are disposed. The semiconductor memory device or PRAM may further include jump contacts for connecting the plurality of cut sub-word lines. In a PRAM device including the plurality of main word lines and the plurality of sub-word lines being in different layers, the number of jump contacts for connecting the plurality of main word lines to a transistor of a sub-word line decoder is the same in each sub-word line or the plurality of main word lines are bent several times so that a parasitic resistance on a word line and power consumption may be reduced, and a sensing margin may be increased.
US08243493B2
A resistance change memory device includes: a semiconductor substrate; a cell array so formed on the substrate as to have resistance-change memory cells three-dimensionally stacked and arranged; and a sense amplifier array formed on the substrate under the cell array, wherein the cell array includes first and second cell array blocks arranged in a bit line direction, and first and second bit lines are selected from the first and second cell array blocks, respectively, to constitute a pair and coupled to differential input nodes in the sense amplifier array.
US08243485B2
A semiconductor apparatus having a plurality of stacked chips includes: a plurality of latch units, each of which is disposed in a corresponding one of the plurality of chips and is configured to latch a clock signal and a frequency-divided signal at mutually different points of time to generate an chip identification signal of the corresponding one of the plurality of chips; and a plurality of chip selection signal generating units, each of which is disposed in the corresponding one of the plurality of chips and is configured to compare the chip identification signal of the corresponding one of the plurality of chips with a chip selection identification signal to generate a chip selection signal of the corresponding one of the plurality of chips, wherein the chip selection signal is configured to enable the corresponding one of the plurality of chips when the chip identification signal matches the chip selection identification signal.
US08243481B2
Techniques for using multiple 18-pulse rectifier circuits in parallel are described herein. In particular, each rectifier circuit may include an autotransformer having 15 inductors coupled in series, joined by 15 nodes interposed between pairs of the inductors. The inductors may be represented as a hexagon in which alternating sides of the hexagon have two and three inductors, respectively. Each rectifier circuit may also include three inputs for three-phase AC power coupled to alternating vertices of the hexagonal representation and nine outputs for AC power coupled between each node that is not a vertex of the hexagonal representation and a respective diode bridge. Outputs of the diode bridges for the rectifier circuits may be coupled to a DC bus. In addition, a means for reducing circulating current between the parallel rectifier circuits and for promoting load sharing between the parallel rectifier circuits is also provided.
US08243480B2
An example power supply controller includes a regulation circuit, a current sense circuit, and a response circuit. The regulation circuit is coupled to regulate a sense terminal to a voltage level. The current sense circuit is coupled to the sense terminal to sense a current through the sense terminal a measurement delay period after a magnitude of the current through the sense terminal reaches a first threshold current level. The response circuit is coupled to the sense circuit and is responsive to the current through the sense terminal only after the measurement delay period.
US08243466B2
A printed circuit board includes first and second layers, a control chip, bonding pads, and several electronic elements. The bonding pads can be selectively applied to interconnect the first and second layers, and the control chip with any of the electronic elements in a simple layout.
US08243458B2
A waterproof structure for a portable electronic device includes a housing, an interface member, a waterproof circuit board, a chamber, and a main circuit board. The housing has a bottom wall and a peripheral wall around the bottom wall, the bottom wall has an enclosure formed thereon, the peripheral wall defines a connecting hole through to the enclosure. The interface member has an interconnect inlet, the interface member is placed into a chamber, the interconnect inlet aligns with the connecting hole, the waterproof circuit board engages in the enclosure to prevent vapors or dust enter into the main circuit board, the waterproof circuit board also electronically connect the main circuit board.
US08243456B2
An ultrasonic weld is provided in a cover component, is formed protruding from the cover component, and is provided so that it can join the cover component and the body component together by being fixed to the body component with ultrasonic welding. A locking mechanism is provided so that it can join the cover component and the body component together via engaging portions that engage with each other. The locking mechanism includes a first engaging portion provided in the cover component, and a second engaging portion that is provided in another component fixed to the body component, and that can engage with the first engaging portion. Thus, it is possible to decrease the number of components, and also reduce equipment costs and production control costs.
US08243448B2
An electronic apparatus includes a casing that includes a vent, with the vent venting dust inside the casing, a heat radiating fin that is housed in the casing and includes an edge portion, a cooling fan that is housed in the casing and cools the heat radiating fin, with the cooling fan including an edge portion that faces the edge portion of the heat radiating fin. The electronic apparatus has a clearance between the edge portion of the heat radiating fin and the edge portion of the cooling fan becomes narrower the further it is from the vent.
US08243443B2
A filter 101 of the present application has flexibility. The filter 101 includes a left protruding portion 102, a right protruding portion 103, a lower protruding portion 104a, a lower protruding portion 104b, and an upper protruding portion 105. The electronic equipment of the present application includes a main portion 2 and a display portion 3. The display portion 3 includes a left groove 11a, a right groove 11b, a lower groove 12a, and a lower groove 12b. The left protruding portion 102 can be inserted in the left groove 11a. The right protruding portion 103 can be inserted in the right groove 11b. The lower protruding portion 104a can be inserted in the lower groove 12a. The lower protruding portion 104b can be inserted in the lower groove 12b. When the filter 101 is mounted on the display portion 3, the upper protruding portion 105 is positioned on the display frame 9. When the filter 101 is attached/detached with respect to the display portion 3, the upper protruding portion 105 is held, and hence, fingerprints can be prevented from adhering to the display surface of the filter 101.
US08243431B2
According to one embodiment, an electronic device includes a first body, a second body, a hinge mechanism, and a contact portion. The hinge mechanism connects the first body and the second body such that the first body and the second body can relatively rotate about a rotation axis and relatively move in a direction along the rotation axis. In the contact portion, the housing of the first body and the housing of the second body are in contact with each other while the first body and the second body are relatively rotating about the rotation axis to guide one of the first body and the second body to move spirally about the rotation axis relative to another one of the first body and the second body.
US08243430B2
A cradling device of a portable electronic apparatus, which includes a first housing, and a second housing which is slid from the first housing and then is cradled with a slant on the first housing. The second housing can rotate relative to the first housing. The cradling device includes a first member provided in the first housing; a slidable second member capable of sliding, which is provided in the second housing and faces the first member; and at least one cradling module provided in the first housing and the first member, which rotates the first member together with the second member on a rotation axis and cradles the second housing after sliding movement of the slidable second member.
US08243426B2
One embodiment may take the form of a system for reducing the appearance of optical effects in a display. The system may include an enclosure with a first surface and a second surface. Furthermore, the system may include spacers that may be deposited on the bottom face of the first surface and/or the top face of the second surface, where the first surface may be a touch panel and/or cover lens and the second surface may be a display module. The spacers may be deposited in one layer with an anti-reflection coating. The thickness of the coating may be less than the diameter of the spacers.
US08243423B2
An improved gangable meter center for distributing electric power to and measuring electric power consumption by a plurality of individually measured units in a complex comprises: a plurality of meters for measuring the electric power consumption by the plurality of individually measured units in the complex; and a plurality of feeder buses electrically coupled between at least one utility line supplying power to the plurality of individually measured units in the complex, wherein the plurality of meters are included within the meter center without use of a meter socket. Ganged meter centers comprise at least two such gangable meter centers.
US08243410B2
A transient voltage compensation system is provided. The transient voltage compensation system includes a processor and a first voltage regulator coupled to the processor, wherein the first voltage regulator is to deliver a load current to the processor at an output voltage. The transient voltage compensation system also includes a second voltage regulator coupled to the first voltage regulator, wherein the second voltage regulator is to regulate the output voltage in response to transient loads of the processor.
US08243406B2
The present invention provides an ESD protection device and the like having improved durability against repeated use. An ESD protection device includes a base having an insulating surface, electrodes disposed on the insulating surface and facing but spaced apart from each other, and a functional layer disposed on at least between the electrodes. The electrodes have a multistage structure in which a gap between the electrodes is narrower toward the base.
US08243402B2
The present invention is directed to an electrical wiring system for use in an AC electrical power distribution circuit including at least one first AC power conductor disposed between an upstream AC power element and a device box and at least one second AC power conductor disposed between the device box and a downstream AC power element. The at least one first AC power conductor and the at least one second AC power conductor are routed into an interior portion of the device box and accessible via a front open face of the device box. The system includes a connector device including a connector housing having a plurality of connector contacts disposed therein. The plurality of connector contacts are coupled to termination structures configured to couple the at least one first AC power conductor and the at least one second AC power conductor to corresponding contacts of the plurality of connector contacts. An electrical wiring device includes a device housing having a front portion and a rear portion. The front portion includes at least one user-accessible control element disposed thereon. The at least one user-accessible control element is coupled to an electrical switch mechanism disposed in the device housing and coupled to a plurality of device contacts. The plurality of device contacts are accessible by way of a device connection arrangement formed in the rear portion of the device housing. The plurality of device contacts are configured to mate with the plurality of connector contacts when the connector device is coupled to the device connection arrangement.
US08243401B2
A tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) read sensor with a Co—Fe—B lower sense layer and a Co—Hf upper sense layer is disclosed. In order for the dual sense layers to exhibit a negative saturation magnetostriction (λS), their Fe contents are either substantially reduced or even eliminated, instead of adding a conventional Ni—Fe film as an additional sense layer. By optimizing compositions and thicknesses of the dual sense layers, the dual sense layers indeed exhibit a negative λS, while the TMR sensor exhibits a TMR coefficient (ΔRT/RJ) of greater than 80% at a junction resistance-area product (RJAJ) of less than 2 Ω-μm2.
US08243397B2
The present disclosure is directed to a micromachined rotary actuator constructed of a central portion and an outer portion at least partially surrounding the central portion and separated from the central portion by an in-plane gap. A plurality of arms are each connected at one end to the central portion and at another end to the outer portion so as to span the in-plane gap. The arms are constructed of a plurality of horizontally stacked materials positioned to enable the arms to bend in-plane when heated. Conductors are positioned within the actuator for heating the arms. Because of the rules governing abstracts, this abstract should not be used to construe the claims.
US08243396B2
A tape drive system according to one embodiment includes a support for engaging a tape; and a head directly opposing the support such that a tape engaging the support is positioned between the head and the support, the head being for performing at least one of reading from a tape and writing to a tape, wherein, during an operation period when the head is reading from or writing to a tape, the head is positioned such that at least one of the following occurs: the head does not contact the tape for a majority of the operation period; the head does not contact the tape for at least a portion of the operation period; and the head engages the tape for at least a portion of the operation period, the head pressing the tape towards the support when engaging the tape.
US08243394B2
A slit is formed between two opposite side portions of a metal base made of an electrically conductive material. The slit penetrates the metal base thicknesswise and extends longitudinally relative to the metal base. An insulating layer is formed on the metal base. A first conductor is formed within the slit. The first conductor extends longitudinally relative to the metal base along the slit. A second conductor is formed on the insulating layer. The second conductor faces the first conductor across the insulating layer. The second conductor extends longitudinally relative to the metal base along the first conductor. The metal base and the first conductor consist of a common base material, such as a stainless-steel plate. The first conductor is formed by etching the base material.
US08243393B2
A flexure includes a metal base and a wiring portion. The wiring portion is constituted of an insulating layer, a conductor group, and others. A tongue portion is formed to a main portion of the metal base. A slider including an attached electronic unit is disposed to the tongue portion. The conductor group includes conductors electrically connected to the slider and conductors electrically connected to the attached electronic unit. Island-shaped electrical circuit portions are formed on the metal base. The electrical circuit portions are electrically independent from the main portion of the metal base. The conductors for the attached electronic unit are electrically conductive with respect to the electrical circuit portions through conductor coupling portions piercing the insulating layer. The electrical circuit portions are connected to terminal portions of the attached electronic unit.
US08243388B2
Provided is a heat-assisted magnetic recording head constituted of a light source unit and a slider, which can be easily joined to each other with sufficiently high accuracy of joining position. The slider comprises a head part including a waveguide having an incident center on its end. The surface including an emission center of the light source is protruded from a joining surface of the unit substrate. And a step is provided on an end surface of the head part. The protruded portion of a lower surface of the light source has a surface contact with a wall surface of the step. Further, the distance between the wall surface of the step and the incident center of the waveguide is set to be equal to the distance between the emission center of the light source and the protruded portion of the lower surface of the light source.
US08243387B2
The present invention relates to a perpendicular recording magnetic head. A perpendicular recording element includes a main magnetic pole film for emitting a perpendicular magnetic field and is supported by a slider. The main magnetic pole film includes an electrode film and a plated film, the electrode film is an alloy film of at least one element selected from the platinum group and Ni, and the plated film is a magnetic film grown on the electrode film.
US08243384B2
Inner circumferential surfaces of a rotor holder and a turntable are in contact with an outer circumferential surface of a shaft. This stabilizes coaxiality of both the rotor holder and the turntable with respect to the shaft. An upper cover portion of the rotor holder includes fixing holes. The turntable includes fixing projections arranged to extend through the fixing holes to be in contact with a lower surface of the upper cover portion. A base end portion of each fixing projection is arranged at a level higher than that of an upper end portion of a corresponding one of the fixing holes. Therefore, even if dimensional errors of the rotor holder and the turntable cause a radial displacement between any fixing projection and a corresponding one of the fixing holes, the rotor holder and the turntable can be fixed to each other while maintaining coaxiality therebetween.
US08243375B2
An optical assembly includes a light path and at least one optic to be positioned in the path. A support arrangement supports the optic having a foot arrangement including at least one foot that receives a direct manipulation with the foot slidingly engaged against a support surface to move the optic relative to the light path. Movement of the foot may move the optic along a predetermined path. The foot defines a footprint for engaging the support surface and receives the direct manipulation in a way which changes the footprint on the support surface to move the optic responsive to changes in the footprint. A movement arrangement may selectively bias the foot against the support surface during a movement mode, intended to permit movement of the foot against the support surface, and in a locked mode, intended to lock the foot against the support surface.
US08243366B1
A wind shield is provided for a projection screen or imaging surface wherein a sheet of material is included behind the projection screen to reduce the impact of wind on the projection screen.
US08243365B2
A microscope includes a main body, a transmitted light source, and a transmitted-light illumination optical system. The main body has a substantially C-shape when viewed from side, and is composed of a lower horizontal portion, an upper horizontal portion, and a brace portion. The brace portion connects between the lower horizontal portion and the upper horizontal portion on their rear side. The transmitted-light illumination optical system brings an illumination light from the transmitted light source to a specimen supported by the main body, and illuminates the specimen with the illumination light transmitted therethrough. The transmitted-light illumination optical system and the transmitted light source are removably attached to the lower horizontal portion of the main body.
US08243355B2
An optical unit for dynamically shaping a wavefront is disclosed, having light modulation cells disposed regularly in cell fields, and locally influencing partial light waves in a propagating light wavefront. Each cell field is connected to a cell controller separately adjusting the optical behavior of the light modulator cells. Serially-disposed fields, each having modulator cells, are located in the light path of the light wavefront. Cell control means adjust the modulator cells in a first cell field such that the modulator cells discretely implement a phase shift having a continuous phase value, and in a second cell field such that the modulator cells implement a prism function having a continuous directional value for the partial light waves. A focusing means for the emitted wavefront is also located in the light path of the optical unit, guiding the partial light waves at an output pupil of the optical unit.
US08243353B1
A system and related method for coded aperture sensing, comprising: passing at least one scene wavefront from a target scene through at least one original coded aperture mask onto a focal plane array, producing a diffracted projection of the target scene; and processing the diffracted projection into a representation of the target scene by correlating a function of the diffracted projection with a function of a known array pattern of the at least one original coded aperture mask and by using at least one reconstructing wavefront for holographic reconstructing.
US08243347B2
An image processing apparatus includes: a platen; a document cover mounted to be opened/closed on the platen; a document reader provided in relation to the platen, for reading an image of a document placed on the platen; an opening/closing detector provided in relation to the platen and the document cover, for detecting opening/closing of the document cover; an operation panel designating how the read document is to be arranged at the time of output; a document output device arranging and outputting the document images read by the document reader, in accordance with the arrangement designated by the operation panel; and a reading operation controller inhibiting document reading, when a specific arrangement of document images is designated by the operation panel and opening/closing operation of the document cover is not detected by the opening/closing detector.
US08243340B2
Embodiments herein provide for a pre-processing stage or mechanism for enhancing data compression of an image by splitting or separating the color channels for pixels into planar data sources. Typically, image data is displayed as an interleaved set of channel types for a color space such that each pixel within an image (such as a bitmap) has one component for each color channel. By separating the interleaved bitmap into a planar representation, each plane can be compressed independently and often times achieve higher compression ratios. This is especially true for channels that are expected to stay fairly constant throughout the bitmap most of the time. The utilization of the above embodiment can be further enhanced through manipulation of channel data or through converting the color space from one form to another.
US08243337B2
For (CMYK) (x,y) data, a target-pixel checking unit calculates a target-pixel integrated value a(x,y) from CMYK binary data of a target pixel and a surrounding-pixel checking unit calculates a maximum surrounding pixel integrated value n(x,y) from respective CMYK binary data of surrounding pixels that are adjacent to the target pixel. Based on the target-pixel integrated value and the maximum surrounding pixel integrated value, a comparison determining unit estimates a higher toner pile height. The comparison determining unit adds transparent image data W(x,y) to the input data CMYK(x,y) and outputs output image data CMYKW(x,y) such that the toner pile heights become even.
US08243334B2
Systems and methods for printing a 3D object on a three-dimensional (3D) printer are described. The methods semi-automatically or automatically delineate an item in an image, receive a 3D model of the item, matches said item to said 3D model, and send the matched 3D model to a 3D printer.
US08243330B2
An apparatus includes an obtaining part for obtaining image data of a document and a processing part for performing a color material saving process on the image data. The image data includes an edge part and a non-edge part. The apparatus includes a determining part configured to determine whether the document includes a low line-screen ruling area. When the document is determined not to include the low line-screen ruling area, the processing part is configured to perform a first process so that an amount of color material reduced for forming the non-edge part is greater than an amount of color material reduced for forming the edge part. When the document is determined to include the low line-screen ruling area, the processing part is configured to perform a second process so that the amounts of color material reduced for forming the edge part and the non-edge parts are uniform.
US08243327B2
Disclosed is a method for generating a basic template utilized to form a screening mask. The method includes adjusting lines per inch or minimum pattern (such as cluster size or density) of a testing template, printing the adjusted testing template by an outputting device, determining if the gray level of the printing result matches a specific gray level, and continuously adjusting the setting of the lines per inch or the minimum pattern when it does not match the specific gray level, otherwise selecting the adjusted testing template as a basic template. The basic template is optimized according to the printing ability of the outputting device, so the printing performance of the outputting device when using the screening mask formed from the basic template can also be optimized, and the minimum color points can be printed faithfully thereby avoiding dropping of the carbon powder.
US08243313B2
A method is disclosed. The method includes identifying a received object to be cached, calculating a time to rasterize the object, determining if the rasterize time is greater than a time to reuse a rasterized image of the object, caching the object if the reuse time is greater than the rasterize time and caching the rasterized image of the object if the rasterize time is greater than the reuse time.
US08243308B2
A first image-data processing unit unifies characteristics of input image data so that the image data is usable in an image writing unit and an external device, stores characteristic-unified image data in a storing unit, and changes an attribute of supplemental information according to an image input condition. When converting target image data into image data with characteristics suitable for outputting to the image writing unit and an external interface unit, a second image-data processing unit makes the stored image data be reusable in the image writing unit and the external device by performing an image processing based on the supplemental information.
US08243300B2
A printing system can suppress an increase in the processing load of a printer, and facilitate print management. To accomplish this, a printing system includes an authentication unit with which a printer authenticates a user based on account information the user inputs using a host device, a token generating unit with which the printer generates, after the user has been authenticated by the authentication unit, a token containing print function restriction information by referring to information in which the user, and application and the print function restriction are associated with one another, and transmits the token to the host device, a command generating unit with which the host device receives the token to generate a command containing the print function restriction information, and transmits the command to the printer, and a printing unit with which the printer receives the command and executes printing subject to print function restrictions.
US08243280B2
A laser ultrasonic measurement system includes a first and a second laser source configured to generate a first and a second laser beam, respectively. A movable mechanical link is arranged to transmit the first laser beam. The movable mechanical link is formed by a plurality of rigid sections interconnected by rotating joints. A robot is configured to support and control the movement of at least a section of the mechanical link to transmit the first laser beam to an object. An optical scanner is positioned proximate to the mechanical link. The optical scanner is configured to direct the first and second laser beams onto the object. An interferometer is optically coupled to the optical scanner. The interferometer is configured to receive reflected light from the object and in response generate an electrical signal. The first laser source is kinematically mounted in a housing assembly.
US08243276B2
A surface plasmon resonance sensor system including a high refractive index prism, a sensor chip, a light source having multiple wavelengths over a broad range of wavelengths, optical lenses, a photodetector, a data acquisition unit, and as defined herein. The sensor chip can include, for example, a thin layer of silicon and gold on one face of a transparent substrate and the prism adjacent to the opposite face of the transparent substrate. Such an arrangement provides variable penetration depths up to about 1.5 micrometers with a dynamic range for sensing index of refraction changes in a sample that are several times greater than that of a conventional SPR sensor. The disclosure provides methods for using the surface plasmon resonance sensor system for cell assay or chemical assay related applications.
US08243272B2
A particle detection system uses a camera to produce a picture based on the scattered light generated by a particle in a liquid medium, when a laser beam is incident on the particle. These pictures are then automatically analyzed through the use of a processing system (e.g., a computer). The processing system is configured to record the forward scattering intensity (e.g., amplitude) and the picture of the scattered light rays to generate a classification of the particle causing the scattering. Count rate and trends of the classified particles are monitored to detect a change that is representative of the overall health safety of the water or by knowing the levels of bacteria in process water, such as Reverse Osmosis (RO) feed water, reject brine, and product water, the operator may better monitor the life and condition of the RO membrane.
US08243269B2
Apparatus and methods for determining, in-vivo, characteristics of sub-surface tissues or fluids in the human or animal body are disclosed. Incident radiation is supplied at one or more entry regions on a surface, and light is collected from one or more collection regions spaced from the entry regions. Raman features are detected in the collected light and depth related information derived therefrom.
US08243267B2
A system for the detection of compounds, including a target biological organism or component from a sample, using one or more reactant that will bind to the biological organism or compound forming a Raman active product, concentrating the Raman active product, and detecting the Raman active product using Raman light scattering.
US08243254B2
An exposure apparatus comprises: a first detection apparatus, which detects the temperature of a liquid after the liquid contacts a prescribed object; and a processing apparatus that detects the relationship between the temperature of the liquid and the temperature of the object based on the detection result of the first detection apparatus.
US08243250B2
A unit including lenses and a liquid crystal optical element located inside a lens barrel frame, an optical image-electric signal converting element located on a converting element holder, a driving mechanism relatively driving the holder to a board on a base of the barrel frame in directions perpendicular to an optical axis of the lenses, and a holder fixed to the barrel frame and holding the optical element by first and second facing portions of two retention members. The first facing portion includes a first surface and a second surface crossing the first surface, these surfaces contact with a first side and a second side crossing the first side of at least one transparent electrode plate of the optical element to position the optical element perpendicular to the optical axis. The second facing portion presses and positions the optical element on the first facing portion in an optical axis direction.
US08243249B2
A method of manufacturing a liquid crystal device provided with a liquid crystal layer held between a pair of substrates opposed to each other, and an oriented film disposed between at least one of the substrates and the liquid crystal layer, includes: (a) providing an inorganic oriented film to the one of the substrates; (b) forming a first organic film with a first silane-coupling agent, the first organic film randomly covering a surface of the inorganic oriented film with a predetermined coverage factor smaller than 1; and (c) forming, after step (b), a second organic film with a second silane-coupling agent having a carbon number different from a carbon number of the first silane-coupling agent, the second organic film covering the surface exposed from the first organic film, thereby forming the oriented film composed mainly of the first organic film, the second organic film, and the inorganic film.
US08243247B2
A liquid crystal display that can suppress an irregularity in temperature in planes of a liquid crystal cell and polarizers, which is caused by heat radiated from a backlight and can suppress depolarization caused by the temperature irregularity, in which, as compared with a conventional liquid crystal display, appearance defects are reduced. The liquid crystal display of the present invention includes a first polarizer 10, a liquid crystal cell 11, a second polarizer 12, a thermal control element 14 with a thermal conductivity of 0.3 W/(m·K) or higher, an air layer 15, and a backlight 13, which are arranged in this order.
US08243245B2
A BSC macrostructure for three-dimensional wiring includes a BSC (boundary scan cell) and an aperture electrode for electrode connection which is connected to the BSC.
US08243244B2
A liquid crystal display device for preventing a vertical line defect includes sub-pixels arranged repeatedly in order of red, green, and blue along an N-th (where N is a natural number) horizontal line, and sub-pixels formed in a staggered structure with the N-th horizontal line and arranged repeatedly in order of green, blue, and red along an (N+1)-th horizontal line. Gate lines are formed along the horizontal lines. Data lines are formed to cross the gate lines with a gate insulating layer disposed therebetween and formed to be bent along the sub-pixels of the staggered structure. Thin film transistors are connected to the gate lines and to the data lines and pixel electrodes are connected to the thin film transistors. Storage electrodes overlap the pixel electrodes with the gate insulating layer and a passivation layer disposed therebetween to form storage capacitors. The capacitance of a red storage capacitor of the (N+1)-th horizontal line is greater than the capacitance of a red storage capacitor of the N-th horizontal line.
US08243239B2
The present invention relates to an in-plane switching (IPS) mode liquid crystal display. More particularly, the IPS mode liquid crystal display according to the present invention comprises 1) a first polarizing plate; 2) a liquid crystal cell; 3) a retardation film comprising a positive biaxial acryl-based film and a negative C plate; and 4) a second polarizing plate. Accordingly, a contrast property can be improved at a front side of the IPS mode liquid crystal display and at an inclining angle.
US08243234B2
A color filter substrate has a transparent substrate; a color filter layer, disposed on the transparent substrate; an inorganic layer, disposed in a predetermined spatial relationship with the color filter layer; and a patterned conductive layer, disposed with the inorganic layer, wherein the patterned conductive layer has a plurality of slits exposing a portion of the inorganic layer.
US08243232B2
An object of the present invention is to provide a backlight for a liquid crystal display device which is easy to repair and prevents the brightness from lowering on the screen, and thus can provide high-quality images, where the region where point light source elements are aligned is divided into a number of smaller regions, and backlight units are provided so as to correspond to the respective smaller regions, as well as a liquid crystal display device using the same. The present invention provides a backlight for a liquid crystal display device where a number of point light source elements 2 are aligned in a plane, having: a number of backlight units, each of which is formed of a support substrate 31, 32 for supporting point light source elements 2 and point light source elements 2 arranged on the support substrate, the region in which the point light source elements are aligned being divided into a number of smaller regions, each of which having a backlight unit; and a reflective sheet provided on the support substrates of the backlight units, having openings created at points where the point light source elements are located, characterized in that the reflective sheet is formed of a number of sheets 41, 42 and covers the entire region.
US08243231B2
A backlight unit may be provided that includes a substrate, light sources, a light guide plate, at least one reflecting member, and an optical sheet. The light sources may be on the substrate. The light guide plate may include a light incident part having a light incident surface to which streaks of light respectively emitted from the light sources are laterally incident, and a light emitting part emitting the incident streaks of light upward. The reflecting member may be disposed on a lower surface of the light guide plate, and may reflect the incident light. The optical sheet may be disposed above the light guide plate. The reflecting member may include a first region having a first reflectance and a second region having a second reflectance.
US08243229B2
A low profile display enclosure system for enclosing a display device for viewing that protects the display device from environmental effects and is configured to dissipate heat generated within the display enclosure. The substantially sealed display enclosure comprises a rigid bezel, a substantially transparent front cover coupled to the bezel, and a rear cover assembly that includes a heat sink portion. The thickness of the bezel is minimized to provide the enclosure with a low profile about the periphery of the display device enclosed therein. Thermal control devices may be mounted within the enclosure to modulate a temperature within the enclosure.
US08243220B2
It is an object to provide a highly reliable display device. It is a feature an IC is over a substrate and a material layer having the same height is thereover. An IC is provided on one side of the substrate, and a material layer having the same height as the IC is provided on at least another side. Further, an IC is provided on one side of the substrate, and material layers having the same height as the IC are provided on the other sides. Further, an IC is provided on one side of the substrate, and a material layer having the same height as the IC is provided at a corner of the substrate.
US08243217B2
A system for selectively revealing indicia to an observer comprises a transitioning window having a receiving surface and a viewing surface. The receiving surface is positioned in optical communication with an indicia holder that is configured to removably retain indicia, such as information content. During operation, the transitioning window transitions from a substantially opaque state to a substantially transparent state so as to reveal or otherwise display the indicia to an observer via the viewing surface.
US08243216B2
A display device for displaying an image includes a display cell with a first cell wall and a second cell wall opposed to the first cell wall. The cell walls enclose a layer of a display medium that includes a liquid crystal material having finely-divided pigment particles dispersed therein. Each cell wall includes an electrode for applying an electric field across the display medium. A method for recording an image is also provided.
US08243208B2
An audio/video apparatus such as a television apparatus includes two or more auxiliary audio inputs (AUX1, AUX2, and AUX3) for receiving respective audio signals, an audio output, and a switch arrangement for selecting one of a broadcast audio signal and the auxiliary audio input signals. The audio/video apparatus operates in two modes. In the first mode where the audio/video apparatus is turned on, the switch arrangement selects one of the auxiliary audio input signals and a broadcast audio signal in response to a user command, and in the second mode where the audio/video apparatus is turned off, the switch arrangement selects a pre-determined one of the auxiliary audio input signals.
US08243202B2
Aspects of a method and system for a generalized multi-dimensional filter device are provided. A corresponding luma component and a corresponding chroma component of a sample of a composite video baseband signal for each of a plurality of filtering modes may be determined. A similarity level of the sample corresponding to each of the plurality of filtering modes may be determined. A corresponding coefficient for each of the plurality of filtering modes may be generated based on the determined similarity levels. A luma component and a chroma component of the sample of the composite video baseband signal may be generated based on the generated corresponding coefficients and the determined corresponding luma components and the determined corresponding chroma components for each of the plurality of filtering modes.
US08243189B2
An image sensor includes: a plurality of imaging pixels disposed two-dimensionally in rows and columns to capture an image; a plurality of first focus detection pixels for focus detection and a plurality of second focus detection pixels for focus detection being disposed in a row in place of the imaging pixels; a row selection circuit that selects in turn a row; a column selection circuit that selects in turn a column; and an output circuit that outputs pixel signals from the pixels selected by the column selection circuit, out of the pixels in the rows selected by the row selection circuit, wherein the column selection circuit selects a column according to whether or not the row selected by the row selection circuit includes the first and the second focus detection pixels.
US08243188B2
An imaging apparatus of the invention comprises a camera body and a lens unit which can be mounted on and removed from the camera body. The focusing lens of the lens unit is moved along the optical axis. The position of the focusing lens on the optical axis is detected by a position detection section in response to a synchronization signal according to the photographic timing of the imaging device. A second transmission section transmits position data on the focusing lens detected by the position detection section to the camera body.
US08243187B2
A photographing apparatus including an in-focus position detector for detecting an in-focus position of a focusing lens to focus an image of a subject on an image pickup surface, a driving controller for controlling the driving of the focusing lens, a reflective member that opens and closes on a path of a light that is irradiated onto the image pickup surface, and an optical measuring unit measuring a brightness of the subject image that is reflected by the reflective member in a closed state when a preliminary light emission operation is performed with respect to the subject before performing a main exposure operation. In the preliminary light emission, the driving controller drives the focusing lens to a position nearer the subject or a position nearer the image pickup surface, rather than to the in-focus position of the focusing lens detected by the in-focus position detector.
US08243181B2
A digital image processing apparatus and a method of controlling the same. The digital image processing apparatus includes a multi-direction button as a shutter release button which can move an auto focus (AF) region while a first shutter release signal is being applied. The multi-direction shutter release button is operable along the first direction which is an up and down direction, and is operable in the multiple directions which include back, front, right, and left directions. Specifically, the multi-direction shutter release button is operable to apply a first shutter release signal when moved down along the first direction to a first position, to allow for auto focusing operations in accordance with movement in any of the multiple directions, and is operable to apply a second shutter release signal when moved down along the first direction to a second position to control the digital image processing apparatus to operate a shutter to capture an image.
US08243179B2
A solid-state image capturing apparatus according to the present invention includes a pixel area in which pixels for generating a signal charge by a photoelectric conversion on an incident light are arranged in a two dimensional matrix; a row selection section for selecting each pixel row of the pixel area; a plurality of column signal lines, to which an analog pixel signal from each pixel of a pixel row selected by the row selection section is readout; and a signal processing circuit for generating a digital pixel value from the analog pixel signal of each pixel that is read out to each of the column signal lines, where the signal processing circuit includes at least two or more AD conversion circuits for simultaneously converting the analog pixel signal of each pixel of the selected pixel row into a digital pixel value.
US08243174B2
A defect pixel detection apparatus includes an image sensor which includes an effective pixel configured to have a photoelectric conversion element and an output unit configured to output a pixel signal generated by the photoelectric conversion element, a first reference pixel configured to have the same pixel configuration as the effective pixel and be optically shielded, and a second reference pixel configured to have a pixel configuration different from that of the effective pixel, a defect level acquiring unit configured to acquire a defect level of a target pixel in the image sensor, and a defect pixel determination unit configured to determine whether the target pixel is a defect pixel by comparing a defect level of the target pixel with a defect detection threshold according to a type of the pixel.
US08243161B2
A repetitive object detecting device includes data-retention and difference-calculation units, an adding unit, a horizontal direction accumulating unit and a small and large comparing unit. Each data-retention and difference-calculation unit carries out, with respect to a plurality of lines, a process for setting as reference pixel data pixel data located at an end of a plurality of pieces of pixel data, and calculating a difference between the reference pixel data and pixel data separated from the reference pixel data by k pixels (2≦k≦maximum number) to obtain difference data by each separated pixel number k. The adding unit adds the difference data in the plurality of lines by each separated pixel number k. The horizontal direction accumulating unit accumulates the added data by each separated pixel number k in a horizontal direction. The small and large comparing unit carries out a small and large comparison with respect to the horizontal accumulated value by each separated pixel number k to decide whether or not the reference pixel data is pixel data which is located in a repetitive object including a certain repetitive pattern.
US08243158B2
An image processing device including a storing unit storing the position of a focus detecting pixel of an image-capturing sensor containing plural pixels having spectroscopic characterizations corresponding to respective plural color components with the focus detecting pixel, a pixel interpolating unit generating an interpolation pixel value of the focus detecting pixel by using pixel values of pixels neighboring to the focus detecting pixel, neighborhood-pixel estimating unit calculating an estimation pixel value corresponding to a pixel value when the pixels neighboring to the focus detecting pixel have the same spectroscopic characterization as the focus detecting pixel, a high-frequency component calculating unit calculating a high frequency component of the image by using a pixel value of the focus detecting pixel and the estimation pixel value, and a high frequency component adding unit adding the interpolation pixel value with the high frequency component to calculate a pixel value of the focus detecting pixel.
US08243148B2
An image processing device that produces a restored image that gives people natural feeling when a shot image with longer exposure time on the way to image blurring due to hand jiggling or an end portion is restored. The image processing device comprises an image processing unit that produces a restored image approximated to an original image from an object image to be processed, which is fluctuated against the original image due to movement of an image shooting device during exposure. The image processing unit produces the restored image while making the restored image correspond to a position having the longest exposure time for an object image to be processed.
US08243137B2
A device that has the double function of opening a lock upon actuation of a handle, and as the need may arise, of capturing the exterior of the vehicle in an image via a camera. A hole is provided in the back wall of a support shell receiving the handle, and the housing of a module is mounted on the hole. The camera is supported in a pivoting and translatory manner in the module housing via a camera mount between a retracting position and an extending position. Furthermore, a drive and a gear are mounted on the module housing for a rotational-translatory displacement of the camera.
US08243132B2
There is provided an image output apparatus including an image-capturing section that captures an image of the observed person, an observer's point of sight measuring section that measures a point of sight of the observer when the image-capturing section captures the image of the observed person, an output section that outputs the image of the observed person which is captured by the image-capturing section, and a point of sight output control section that causes the output section to output information indicating the point of sight of the observer which is measured by the observer's point of sight measuring section, together with the image of the observed person which is captured by the image-capturing section.
US08243129B2
An objective lens includes, in order from an object side, a front group having negative refractive power, an aperture stop, and a rear group having positive refractive power, wherein the front group includes, in order from the object side, a first lens which is a negative meniscus lens with a convex surface turned to the object side and a second lens which is a negative lens with a concave surface turned to the object side; the rear group includes, in order from the object side, a positive third lens and a fourth lens made up of a positive lens and a negative lens cemented together, and the objective lens satisfies conditional expression (1) below: −0.8
US08243128B2
An electronic endoscope has a video-scope with an image sensor, and a signal processor that generates digital component video signals from image-pixel signals that are read from the image sensor. The electronic endoscope has, further, a color-reverse detector that determines whether a color-reverse occurs in the digital component video signals, and a color correcting processor that changes color signal data associated with the color-reverse so as to correct the color-reverse when the color-reverse occurs.
US08243126B2
A representative display device for displaying a first and a second view (V1, V2) incorporates a color generating layer a barrier layer, and a light source. The color generating layer includes a plurality of color elements arranged in a two-dimensional array extending in a plurality of rows in a horizontal direction (X) and a plurality of columns in a vertical direction (Y). The color elements include at least red, green and blue color. The light source is arranged such that, during use, light generated by the light source may pass through an arrangement of the barrier layer and the color elements of the color generating layer. The barrier layer is a straight barrier including a barrier pattern of blocking structures and openings, and is arranged for providing the viewing angle of the first view and the viewing angle of the second view. The color generating layer exhibits a row-rotation arrangement of the color elements.
US08243125B2
An image display device capable of detecting an object in a space where a 3D visualized image is formed without feeling the existence of a mechanism for position detection. The image display device includes: display unit (11) for displaying a 2D image (1); an optical panel (12) arranged in front of an image display plane (15a) of the display unit (11) and forming a 3D visualized image (2) based on the 2D image (1) in a forward space (3) spreading in front of the optical panel (12); recognition unit arranged behind the optical panel (12) for optically recognizing the an object (5) coming into the forward space (3) via the optical panel (12); and position detection elements (14) for detecting the coming position of the object (5) into the forward space (3) according to the recognition result by the recognition unit.
US08243111B2
A thermosensitive recording printer is provided with semiconductor lasers 1a to 1c, a polygon mirror 7 for condensing laser light emitted from the semiconductor laser 1a to 1c as condensed spots on a recording medium 10 to perform scanning in a main scanning direction, and a control unit 9 for controlling the output of the laser light. If a ratio of a spot diameter D1 of the condensed spots in the main scanning direction and a spot diameter D2 in a sub scanning direction satisfy a relationship of D1/D2≦½ at the time of forming an image composed of a plurality of pixels on the recording medium 10 using laser light, high-speed thermosensitive recording and a recording method with an uncomplicated power control are realized without reducing the power density of the condensed spots.
US08243105B2
The display device of an embodiment of the present invention includes a display section which includes a pixel having a plurality of sub pixels and displays an image whose luminance is based on a luminance gradation of an inputted display signal, wherein the display section is arranged so that an integral value obtained by carrying out the following steps (a) to (d) is not more than 0.0202, the step (a) of measuring surface luminance of the display section and oblique luminance of the display section viewed at 60° from a front direction of the display section, the step (b) of standardizing the front luminance and the oblique luminance so as to calculate front standardized brightness x and oblique standardized brightness, the step (c) of determining n of x^(n/2.2) so that an integral value of a difference between x^(n/2.2) and the front standardized brightness x is equal to an integral value of a difference between the oblique standardized brightness and the front standardized brightness x, the step (d) of integrating an absolute value of a difference between x^(n/2.2) and the oblique standardized brightness, from minimum luminance to maximum luminance of the front standardized brightness x, so as to obtain an integral value.
US08243099B2
The present invention relates to a method and system for haptic interaction in augmented reality that can effectively remove noise from real images captured by an image capturing device and minimize discontinuity of force generated in the haptic interaction for the stable and smooth haptic interaction in the augmented reality. The augmented reality system comprising: a marker detecting unit that detects a markers in images; a marker position extracting unit that extracts the positions of the detected markers; a noise removing unit that removes noise from positional information of the markers; a visual rendering unit that augments virtual objects; a motion estimating unit that estimates the motion of the markers over a time; a collision detecting unit that detects collision between the virtual objects and an end point of the haptic device; and a haptic rendering unit that calculates reaction force to be provided through the haptic device.
US08243094B2
The present invention is related to a gray-scale data bit processing method applied in a driving integrated circuit device of light-emitting diode (LED), and more particularly to a separating and recombining method applied to reduce the bit numbers of data to be processed to indicate the brightness of light-emitting diode, and thus a set of weight values and more updating rates are generated to obtain an identical sum of gray-scale weight values compared to the original one processed at a higher bit numbers of data operation.
US08243080B2
A method for interactively viewing a vector animation sequence, including receiving an indexed look-up table that stores a plurality of local vector objects associated with tile regions of a first vector image, indicating a request for a desired portion of a second vector image, for display at a specified resolution, determining tile regions of a pre-processed vector image, wherein the pre-processed vector image includes a plurality of tile regions and a plurality of local vector objects, each local vector object being associated with one of the tile regions, requesting at least one tile region of the pre-processed vector image from a server computer, receiving local vector objects and local vector object indices, extracting local vector objects from the indexed look-up table according to the local vector object indices, and generating the desired portion of the second vector image using the received local vector objects and the extracted local vector objects.
US08243076B2
A system and method for comic creation and editing utilizes pre-drawn comic objects arranged in comic panels. Comic panels include pre-drawn comic objects with articulatable parts which may be manipulated by a user of a networked user computer such as by use of a web browser. Comic panels created or edited by a user can be stored and retrieved from a central comic server. A system and method for translating text in comic panels is also provided. Additionally a system and method for linking comic objects in a comic panel to other web resources is disclosed.
US08243072B2
The method is for rendering an object. An object to be rendered is identified. An outline of the object is defined. A front plate of the object is identified. A back plate that is shifted relative to the front plate is created. A beveled side extending between the front plate and the back plate is identified. A beveled contour of the beveled side from a series of segments of edges is created. A boundary line between visible and non-visible segments of surfaces is identified.
US08243070B1
A method, system, and computer-readable storage medium are disclosed for generating a triangulation of a polygon comprising a plurality of vertices. In one embodiment, the plurality of vertices of the polygon are pushed onto a stack. It may be determined that the depth of the stack is divisible by 2. In response to determining that the depth of the stack is divisible by 2, at least one triangle in the triangulation may be generated. The at least one triangle may comprise a subset of the plurality of vertices pushed onto the stack.
US08243064B1
A physics software development kit (PSDK) provides scalable physics content as a “vertical” that defines one or more physics simulations for a graphics asset in a graphics scene. The vertical and the graphics asset may be provided in a verticals library associated with the PSDK or generated using the PSDK. The PSDK integrates the vertical into an existing graphics application to generate physically-realistic graphics content. The vertical may be scaled by a user according to the capabilities of a computer system that executes the PSDK or, alternatively, may be scaled by the PSDK based on received hardware capabilities information. The PSDK selectively offloads the physics simulations associated with the vertical to a physics processing unit to optimize usage of processor resources. In addition, the PSDK provides a technique to extract a graphics asset based on an existing 3D model of the object. The graphics asset may then be simulated with a vertical to provide a physical simulation of the 3D model of the object.
US08243062B2
A method of designing a consumer-selected surface includes the steps of displaying a representation of a surface, displaying one or more patterns that may be applied to the representation of the surface, and receiving a selection from a user of a pattern selected from the one or more patterns. The method also includes the steps of allowing the user to locate on the selected pattern at a position on the representation of the surface, the position being independent of a size or shape of the selected pattern, and allowing the user to modify the positioned pattern by altering at least one characteristic thereof to develop a modified representation of the surface. Further, the method includes the steps of generating a three-dimensional view of a room that includes a rendering of the modified representation of the surface and providing the generated three-dimensional view to the user.
US08243057B2
An organic electroluminescent display and driving method thereof. The organic electroluminescent display includes a demultiplexer for outputting signals provided by a data driver to a plurality of data lines according to on/off operation of analog switches. The driving method divides a frame into two parts, and drives them. Data signals are applied to pixels which are not adjacent among the pixels of each row during the former ½ frame, and the data signals are applied to the pixels to which no data signal has been applied in the former ½ frame during the latter ½ frame.
US08243054B2
A liquid crystal display (LCD) includes a graphic processor, a number of sensors, an optical signal collecting unit, a property saving unit, a property comparing unit, and a property setting unit. The optical signal collecting unit receives optical analog signals generated by the number of sensors, and converts the received optical analog signals into optical digital signals. The property saving unit saves a number of predetermined display properties and a number of predetermined optical signal ranges. The property comparing unit receives the optical digital signals and compares the optical digital signals with the plurality of predetermined optical signal ranges, and correspondingly selects corresponding predetermined display properties. The property setting unit receives the selected display properties and outputs the selected display properties to the graphic processor to adjust display properties of the LCD.
US08243045B2
The present disclosure generally relates to a touch-sensitive LED display device with a number of shared circuits having measurement circuitry electrically coupled to display circuitry. A processor receives signals from the measurement circuitry and may compare the signals to determine a location of the touch on the touch screen.
US08243044B2
Systems and methods for detecting a position of an object in a sensing region are disclosed. One system includes a position sensor having an opaque capacitive proximity sensor, a light source, and a light conductor coupled to the light source and at least partially disposed over the opaque sensor, the light conductor configured to transmit at least a portion of the light from the light source to generate driven light effects in the sensing region. The system further includes a processor configured to control production of the light, and a display configured to illustrate a digital representation based on the position. A method includes the steps of sensing a position of an object in the sensing region based on a conductive property of the object, controlling light produced by a light source, and generating driven light effects in the sensing region using at least a portion of the light.
US08243041B2
Techniques for identifying and discriminating between different types of contacts to a multi-touch touch-screen device are described. Illustrative contact types include fingertips, thumbs, palms and cheeks. By way of example, thumb contacts may be distinguished from fingertip contacts using a patch eccentricity parameter. In addition, by non-linearly deemphasizing pixels in a touch-surface image, a reliable means of distinguishing between large objects (e.g., palms) from smaller objects (e.g., fingertips, thumbs and a stylus) is described.
US08243035B2
An information processing apparatus comprising a touch screen which detects a touch input by a user detects the position and pressure of each of a plurality of pressed points corresponding to a plurality of touch inputs existing at the same time on a touch screen. Then, the front/rear overlap relationship of the plurality of objects displayed on the touch screen is changed based on the difference in pressure between the detected plurality of pressed points.
US08243031B2
In order to restrict a decrease in processing speed due to an increase in bit length of a digital signal, a mobile telephone (1001) receives an input of a digital signal having a predetermined bit length indicating a coordinate of a user-specified position on an input surface of a touch panel (1300) in a predetermined resolution from the touch panel (1300) and converts the received digital signal into a digital signal having a bit length shorter than the predetermined bit length indicating the coordinate of the user-specified position on the input surface in a resolution lower than the predetermined resolution. The digital signal after conversion is used for a process of acquiring the user-specified position.
US08243030B2
A touch panel includes a first conductive layer, a second conductive layer and a capacitive sensing member. The first conductive layer includes a plurality of first conductive lines. The second conductive layer separated from the first conductive layer includes a plurality of second conductive lines. One of the plurality of conductive lines is located above the other plurality of conductive lines. The capacitive sensing member is connected to the first conductive lines. At least one of the first and second pluralities of conductive lines includes carbon nanotube wires. The carbon nanotube wires each include a plurality of carbon nanotubes. Further, a display device using the above-described touch panel is also included.
US08243025B2
A virtual user interface including: a display screen; a masking means for concealing at least part of said screen and revealing at least one preselected display area; at least one user-actuated control; and control means responsive to said user-actuated control for displaying information on said display area operatively associated with said user-actuated control.
US08243017B2
A video device displays video in one of a plurality of contexts in an onscreen display area. In response to the menu command, the video device generates a menu overlay within the onscreen display area while maintaining the video within the menu overlay, and generates within the menu overlay a context icon based on the selected context.
US08243013B1
The disclosure relates to waveforms, circuits and methods for driving bistable displays.
US08243004B2
An imaging and display apparatus for passive displays evaluates the illumination of an input scene and incorporates data representative of such input scene within a transfer media. The transfer media may be a broadcast or transmission of image data, illumination data and gamma information that can be received by a display system, which includes a passive display illuminated by incident light, to display images while adjusting the incident light and/or gamma based on the received data. The transfer media may be a storage medium storing image data, illumination data and gamma information for delivery to a passive display system. The data controls the optical characteristics of the illumination source for the passive display and the gamma and tends to minimize energy requirements, to maximize contrast or shades of gray in the displayed image, and to optimize light source operation for color fidelity. The data provided the media and/or display as a video signal, modulated video signal, s-video signal, digital signal, or other signal that can be used by a passive display system to display images.
US08242984B2
An organic light emitting display includes pixels positioned at crossing regions of scan lines, emission control lines, and data lines. Each of the pixels positioned on an ith horizontal line includes an organic light emitting diode (OLED), a first transistor coupled between a corresponding one of power source lines and an anode electrode of the OLED for controlling current supplied to the OLED, a second transistor turned on when a scan signal is supplied to an ith scan line for supplying the data signal from a corresponding one of the data lines to a gate electrode of the first transistor, a third transistor coupled between the first transistor and the corresponding one of the power source lines and having a gate electrode coupled to an ith emission control line, and a storage capacitor coupled between the gate electrode of the first transistor and the anode electrode of the OLED.
US08242976B2
In a display driving device which performs scan driving of a PDP or similar, to enable rapid scan operation, reduction of the chip size, and lowering of costs, as well as elimination of coupling problems. The display driving device is provided with a pull-up switching element Nu connected to a first driving voltage (VDH) supply line and common to all bits; diodes D1 to DN for each bit, connected between the pull-up switching element Nu and driving voltage output terminals for each bit; pull-down switching elements Nd1 to NdN for each bit, connected between a second driving voltage (GND) supply line and the driving voltage output terminals for each bit; and resistance elements R1 to RN for each bit, connected between the first driving voltage supply line and the pull-down switching elements Nd1 to NdN.
US08242974B2
In a structure in which six active matrix regions 103 to 108 are integrated on one glass substrate, horizontal scanning control circuits 101 and 102 are commonly disposed for the respective active matrix regions 103 to 105 and 106 to 108. Then the horizontal scanning control circuits 101 and 102 are operated at different timings, and images formed by the active matrix regions 103 to 105 and 106 to 108 are synthesized and projected. With this operation, the horizontal scanning frequency required for one horizontal scanning control circuit can be made half of the horizontal scanning frequency of the display screen.
US08242972B2
A method of performing a multi-step medical procedure requiring the operation of a plurality of separate computer systems, each accepting inputs and providing a visual display, the method including displaying the displays from the separate computer controlled systems on a composite display; and based in part from information from one of the separate computer systems, automatically selecting the next step from a plurality of possible next steps, and displaying a prompt for the automatically selected next step, and automatically reconfiguring the composite display for the automatically selected next step.
US08242964B2
A helical antenna includes a ground plate, a first helical portion spirally wound perpendicular to the plate, a second helical portion spirally wound perpendicular to the plate and surrounding the first helical portion radially outward of the first helical portion, and a feeder circuit. The circuit includes an oscillator, a divider connected to the oscillator, a first phase shifter connected between a first output terminal of the divider and a feeding point of the first helical portion, and a second phase shifter connected between a second output terminal of the divider and a feeding point of the second helical portion. Length of one turn of the first helical portion is equal to a result of multiplication of a wavelength of oscillation of the oscillator by N. Length of one turn of the second helical portion is equal to a result of multiplication of the wavelength by M (M>N).
US08242952B1
Presented is a system and method for eliminating spurious data in radar cross section (RCS) data. The system and method receives RCS data, and determines an expected number of scattering centers for an object of interest in said RCS data. The RCS data is processed to remove a plurality of frequency components in said RCS data based at least in part upon said expected number of scattering centers, and the RCS data is reconstructed without said plurality of frequency components to produce a reconstructed RCS data for the object of interest. In an embodiment, the TLS-Prony transform is used to transform the RCS data into a set of damped frequency components and coefficients, which are then constrained to the expected number of scattering centers in the known object using a TLS-Prong linear prediction order, and the order of the frequency components is varied until the order yields a least-error approximation.
US08242948B1
Methods and systems for generating a raster file in a raster file format for use in a Digital Radar Landmass Simulator (DRLMS). A file in the raster file format defines synthetic aperture radar (SAR) scenery for use in generating a runtime database. The raster file contains a plurality of texture elements (texels) that define the SAR scenery. Each texel may have a material identifier, which identifies a material composition of a respective surface region of the SAR scenery; a surface height identifier, which identifies a surface height with respect to a bare earth elevation (BEE) value of the respective surface region; and a BEE identifier, which identifies a BEE of the respective surface region. A method for determining surface height identifiers based on digital surface model (DSM) elevation data is also provided.
US08242945B2
A successive approximation type analog-to-digital (AD) converter includes: a converting and comparing section configured to compare an input analog signal and an analog signal as an analog conversion result of a digital data; and a successive approximation section configured to change the digital data based on the comparison result by the converting and comparing section. The converting and comparing section includes: a DA (digital-to-analog) section configured to perform an analog conversion on the digital data of a predetermined number of bits in an ordinary mode, and on the digital data of bits smaller than the predetermined number of bits in a test mode.
US08242942B2
A method includes receiving digital audio data at an audio adjustment system. The method includes converting a portion of the digital audio data to an analog audio signal with a digital-to-analog converter of the audio adjustment system to form a sample analog audio signal. The method includes determining a dynamic range of the sample analog audio signal with the audio adjustment system. The method also includes modifying a metadata parameter of the digital audio data with the audio adjustment system when the dynamic range of the sample analog audio signal is below a threshold. The metadata parameter is a dialog normalization parameter.
US08242941B2
The invention relates to an A/D converter comprising an input and an output, a D/A converting feedback and a pulse width modulating forward path, the D/A converting feedback comprising at least one feed-back path, the feed-back path establishing a D/A conversion based on at least two D/A conversions subject to uncorrelated errors.The invention further relates to a jitter consequence reducing D/A-converter comprising a jitter-robust intermediate signal established on the basis of a digital input signal.The invention further relates to a method for jitter consequence reduction in a pulse width modulated A/D-converter feedback, comprising establishing at least two D/A-conversions subject to uncorrelated errors, and combining, preferably by summing, said at least two D/A-conversions.
US08242940B2
A sink may be to used to process multimedia digital data. The sink may include a plurality of input ports, an output port, a switchably-enabled selector to select an input port from a plurality of HDMI input ports to couple to an output port, a control circuit to detect encrypted data in a channel of the input ports; and a plurality of decryption engines. Each of the decryption engines may be coupled to respective input ports to synchronize with a corresponding encryption engine of a data source after the control circuit detects encrypted data in the channel of the respective input port. Additional circuitry may be included to operate the sink in a power saving mode. Also, methods for processing the data in both power saving and non-power saving modes.
US08242935B2
Systems and methods are disclosed for automated notification systems. A representative system, among others, can be summarized as follows. A host computer system, or base station, is designed to monitor travel data corresponding to a mobile thing and to initiate a notification communication to a personal communications device (PCD) indicating travel status of the mobile thing (MT) to a remote computer system. The remote computer system, within or associated with the PCD, is designed to detect a failure to receive the notification communication and to cause one or more tasks to be performed based upon the notification communication failure.
US08242934B2
A light control system identifies in the processing that discriminates light sources in the acquired image as either luminous objects or reflective objects, each pixel obtained that constitutes the acquired image being classified into a plurality of groups according to the brightness of each pixel, and generates a histogram showing the relation of the brightness and the number of pixels of each group that are matched with each group. Then, when the number of pixels corresponding to the brightest group is less than the number of pixels corresponding to the other groups, the existence of the luminous object in the acquired image is determined, and when the number of pixels corresponding to the brighter group is more than the number of pixels corresponding to the other groups, the existence of the reflective object in the acquired image is determined.
US08242931B2
A method, collection device, and automatic meter reading (AMR) system for locating stolen utility meters use a set of identifiers, such as transponder serial numbers, to build a route of utility meters that have been reported as having been stolen. When each mobile collection device's daily routes are prepared, the route of stolen utility meters is added to the other routes for which the mobile collection device is ordinarily tasked with collecting meter read data. As the mobile collection device traverses its daily routes, it collects meter read data for the stolen utility meters along with the meter read data for its other routes. The route of stolen utility meters is unloaded from the mobile collection device along with the other daily routes when the read process is finished. The route of stolen utility meters may contain information that may assist the utility company in locating the stolen utility meters.
US08242912B2
The invention relates to a method for determining of at least an order of objects O1,O2 transported by a conveyor 1 along a conveyor path 2, wherein each of the objects O1,O2 carries an assigned transponder T1,T2 having a characterizing code.At least a first radio frequency identification reader R1—having at least a first reader-antenna A1 for generating a first reading field F1—is arranged with respect to the conveyor 1 and built for identifying the transponders T1,T2 of the transported objects O1,O2 passing along or through the first reading field F1. The following steps are performed: reading out the codes of the transponders T1,T2 by the first reader R1 and generating detection-signals as long as the respective transponder T1,T2 is detectable by the first reader R1, saving the detection-signals linked with a time information, deriving a mean first point of time for each detected transponder T1,T2 from the saved detection-signals and the time information linked therewith by an assessment method—wherein the first points of time indicate an estimated discrete point of time for each transponder of passing the first reader R1—and determining the order of the objects O1,O2 on the conveyor 1 according to the first points of time of each transponder T1,T2.
US08242908B2
In embodiments of the present invention improved capabilities are described for a Radio Frequency ID (RFID) tag that contains multiple Radio Frequency (RF) network nodes that may include memory storage for the RFID tag, the memory storage may include one time programmable (OTP) memory and many time programmable (MTP) memory and the storage of the information may be within the OTP and MTP memory.
US08242901B2
At least one embodiment of the invention relates to a fieldbus system, in particular for use in an explosion-hazard area. The fieldbus system, in at least one embodiment, has a plurality of bus line sections with bus lines; an isolating element, by which in each case two of the plurality of bus line sections are coupled to one another and which galvanically isolates the bus lines of the two bus line sections from one another such that this prevents any direct current flowing between the bus lines of the two bus line sections and communication signals are transmitted between the two bus line sections; and a supply source for each of the bus line sections, in order to provide an electrical power supply for field devices which can be connected to the respective bus line section.
US08242900B2
A home automation and security system is provided in which a home automation and security controller in a customer premises is coupled with a remotely located central control facility using a continuous connectivity access line providing a data channel separate from a voice channel. The controller at the customer premises is responsible for monitoring and applying control signals to devices in the home and for supporting a human interface. The remotely located central control facility is responsible for providing the computational and database resources to the controller. By redistributing functionality, the network-based structure of this home automation and security system can overcome the disadvantages of conventional home automation and security systems.
US08242897B2
A vehicle environment monitoring apparatus is equipped with a monitored object detecting unit 26 which detects an object having possibility of contact by applying an object detecting algorithm for short range when the distance calculated from data on one disparity by the first distance calculating unit 24 is equal to or less than a predetermined distance, and detects the object having possibility of contact by applying an object detecting algorithm for long range when the distance is longer than the predetermined distance, using the distance between the object and the vehicle calculated from a disparity gradient by the second distance calculating unit 25.
US08242896B2
A vehicular exterior rearview mirror system includes an exterior rearview mirror assembly that includes a mirror reflective element fixedly attached to a mirror back plate attached to a mirror actuator. The mirror back plate includes a display indicator, fixedly secured thereto, having a light source that is activatable to emit light. The display indicator is associated with a blind spot detection system of the vehicle and the light source is activated responsive to sensing by the blind spot detection system of an object in a blind spot at a side of the vehicle at which the exterior mirror assembly is mounted. During daytime operation of the vehicle and when the light source is activated and with the exterior mirror assembly mounted at a side of the vehicle, the display indicator, as viewed by the driver of the vehicle, is operable to have a luminance of at least about 5,000 nits.
US08242892B2
A system, method and program product for communicating a privacy policy associated with a RFID tag. The method includes defining in an tag a first identifier for uniquely identifying the object and a second identifier for uniquely identifying a privacy policy that indicates a proper and intended use and level of protection to be afforded data/information transmitted by the identification tag coupled to the object, associating the second identifier with the first identifier, each of the first identifier and the second identifier being coupled to the identification tag, and responsive to detection of a communication signal received from a receptor, transmitting the first identifier and the second identifier, which includes an accept-reject provision for controlling dissemination and usage of the data/information transmitted by the identification tag, where based on a response received to the accept-reject provision, the data/information is either transmitted or not transmitted to the recipient.
