US08443450B1
Circuits and methods are provided for detecting, identifying and/or removing undesired content. According to one embodiment, a method for virus processing content objects is provided. A type associated with a content object is determined. Based on the type, a subset of instructions is read from a virus signature memory containing intermixed op-codes of a first instruction type associated with primitive instructions and of a second instruction type associated with Content Pattern Recognition (CPR) instructions. Then, instructions of the first instruction type are assigned for execution to a primitive instruction pipe of a virus co-processor and instructions of the second instruction type are assigned for execution to a CPR instruction pipe of the virus co-processor. An instruction is executed by the CPR instruction pipe, including accessing a portion of the content object from a system memory and comparing the portion of the content object against a string associated with the instruction.
US08443446B2
A system for identifying malicious messages transmitted over a mobile communication network includes: sentinel modules associated with respective mobile terminals in the network for monitoring messages passing therethrough, wherein the sentinel modules identify as a candidate malicious message, any message passing through the mobile terminals and failing to comply with a first set of patterns and issue a corresponding sentinel identification message; a set of probe modules for monitoring messages transmitted over the network, wherein the probe modules identify as a candidate malicious message any message transmitted over the network and failing to comply with a second set of patterns and issue a corresponding probe identification message; and preferably at least one client honeypot module for receiving and processing any messages sent thereto to produce corresponding processing results, wherein the client honeypot module identifies as a candidate malicious message any message producing a processing result failing to comply with a third set of patterns and issues a corresponding client honeypot identification message.
US08443444B2
A method includes determining, at a network routing device, an average packet drop rate for a plurality of aggregations of packet flows. The method also determines a threshold packet drop rate based on the average packet drop rate, a current packet drop rate for a select aggregation of the plurality of aggregations, and whether at least one packet flow of the select aggregation is potentially subject to a denial-of-service attack based on a comparison of the current packet drop rate to the threshold packet drop rate.
US08443440B2
A distributed and coordinated security system providing intrusion-detection and intrusion-prevention for the virtual machines (VMs) in a virtual server is described. The virtualization platform of the virtual server is enhanced with networking drivers that provide a “fast path” firewall function for pre-configured guest VMs that already have dedicated deep packet inspection security agents installed. A separate security VM is deployed to provide virtual security agents providing deep packet inspection for non pre-configured guest VMs. The network drivers are then configured to intercept the data traffic of these guest VMs and route it through their corresponding virtual security agents, thus providing a “slow-path” for intrusion detection and prevention.
US08443438B1
Systems and methods for deploying agents for a management system across IT infrastructure in an automated fashion are disclosed herein. Embodiments of the present invention allow agents to be substantially automatically deployed or configured in conjunction with previously unknown or newly added application components. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention may track traffic associated with application components to identify unknown application components. Agents may then be deployed to monitor these newly identified application components.
US08443417B2
Node authentication and node operation methods within service and access networks in NGN environment
Provided are node authentication and node operation methods within service and access networks for bundle authentication between the service and access networks in a next generation network (NGN). A method of authentication processing of a node (S-CSC-FE/I-CSC-FE (Serving Call Session Control Functional Entity/Interrogating Call Session Control Functional Entity)) within a service network for bundle authentication between service and access networks, the method including: receiving first authentication information about access authentication of a terminal from a first node within the service networks; requesting to receive second authentication information from a second node within the service network based on the first authentication information; and comparing the first authentication information with the second authentication information to authenticate the terminal.
US08443412B2
A digital broadcasting system and a data processing method are disclosed. A time zone identifier is inserted into program table information of a broadcasting signal and the broadcasting signal is transmitted/received. The digital broadcasting system can calculate a local time of a region, in which the digital broadcasting system is located, using the time zone identifier. Accordingly, although the position of the digital broadcasting system is changed, it is possible to process the broadcasting signal related to the local time without an error.
US08443410B2
At a user equipment a conditional bandwidth renegotiation method is provided for managing bandwidth renegotiations when the user equipment is engaged in an IPTV session with an IPTV network and a channel switch has been requested. When it is determined that the requested channel requires less bandwidth than the presently selected channel, a conditional bandwidth re-negotiation process is initiated wherein, upon having switched to the requested channel, a timer is started. If, a timeout of the pending timer is recognized prior to another channel switch request, a band-width re-negotiation procedure is initiated, while no bandwidth re-negotiation is to be executed if another channel switch request is recognized prior to timeout of the pending timer.
US08443409B2
A video controller selects a channel for premises broadcasting to a premises television based on a fast scan of signal strength in channels available over a premises media. The signal strength of certain filtered channel frequencies can be evaluated to determine if a channel is occupied. Unoccupied channels can be ranked in relation to nearby occupied or unoccupied channels. The nearby channels may be ranked in terms of the signal strength content in relation to the channel being evaluated. The video controller can select an unoccupied channel with an optimal ranking to permit premises broadcasting with reduced interference or conflict with other channels.
US08443408B2
A bandwidth management system, receiver, and method of managing bandwidth in a content delivery system are described. In one embodiment, the method includes: identifying two or more content items which are associated with at least some common content and which are temporally related; determining a relative priority of the least some of the identified content items; and allowing a receiver requesting the content associated with a lower priority content item to access a multicast associated with a higher priority content item.
US08443400B2
A digital television (DTV) signal for use in a DTV receiver includes an extended text table (ETT) which includes a header and a message body. The header includes a table identification extension field which serves to establish uniqueness of the ETT, and the message includes an extended text message (ETM). If the ETT is an event ETT, the table ID extension field includes an event identification which specifies an identification number of an event associated with the ETT. On the other hand, if the ETT is a channel ETT, the table identification extension field includes a source identification which specifies a programming source of a virtual channel associated with the ETT. A section-filtering unit included in the DTV receiver is able to use table identification extension fields of a plurality of ETTs for section-filtering a pertinent event or channel ETT from the ETTs.
US08443399B2
A digital broadcast transmitter includes a first de-multiplexing unit for separating video/audio data and real-time broadcast program information from a transport stream when a digital broadcast signal carries the transport stream; a first storage unit for storing the real-time broadcast program information; a second de-multiplexing unit for separating video/audio data and download broadcast content information from a download broadcast signal when the digital broadcast signal carries the download broadcast signal; a second storage unit for storing the download broadcast content information; a program guide generating unit for converting the download broadcast content information stored in the second storage unit into the real-time broadcast program information, forming electronic program guide display data together with the real-time broadcast program information stored in the first storage unit, and outputting the formed data.
US08443394B2
An apparatus, method and data structure for generating at least one table in a broadcast environment, are provided. The apparatus includes a generator to generate an event information table (EIT) and an extended text table (ETT). The ETT has program guide information for an n-hour span and has a transmission interval. The ETT has a transmission interval and program description information according to the EIT. The transmission interval of the EIT is shorter than the transmission interval of the ETT.
US08443393B2
An apparatus, method and data structure for generating at least one table in a broadcast environment, are provided. The apparatus includes a generator to generate an event information table (EIT) and an extended text table (ETT). The ETT has program guide information for an n-hour span and has a transmission interval. The ETT has a transmission interval and program description information according to the EIT. The transmission interval of the EIT is shorter than the transmission interval of the ETT.
US08443387B2
Techniques for transmitting multiple “slices” of information for a particular location of a user interface, which can be used to present more information to a viewer for a limited-size viewing area. Multiple slices can be associated with a particular slice location of a user interface. In a first slice delivery and presentation scheme, multiple slices for a particular location of an interactive program guide (IPG) page are transmitted from the head-end at different times, and the slices can be appropriately time stamped for presentation at the designated times. In a second scheme, multiple slices are concurrently transmitted for a particular location of an IPG page, and one of the multiple slices can be selected for processing and display. In a third scheme, one slice is transmitted for each slice location, and additional slices can be transmitted for a particular location upon receiving a request from the terminal.
US08443386B2
An information processing apparatus according to the present invention includes a content information acquisition unit that acquires content related information related to content data managed by a content management server from the content management server managing the content data, a selection unit that selects content from a content list which is a list of the content based on the content related information, and an externally connected device control unit that notifies, when the selected content is executed by an externally connected device connected externally, the externally connected device of location information of content data corresponding to the selected content and acquires reproduction state information representing a reproduction state of content when the externally connected device reproduces the selected content from the externally connected device.
US08443384B2
Methods of generating recommendations may include obtaining social network data from one or more network resources. Word relationships may be created between selected words in the social network data to produce relationship data. Advertisement or other asset recommendations may be generated for a target user by analyzing browse information of the target user to identify one or more words. Other words in the relationship data may be identified that are related to the words in the target user's browse information. One or more advertisements may be identified having at least one keyword that corresponds to the other words. At least a portion of these advertisements may be selected from a data repository to provide to the target user.
US08443382B2
A media client stores separate account settings for multiple user accounts, where each of the separate user accounts includes access time limits for use of devices associated with the media client. The media client also receives a login request for one of the user accounts, and retrieves, based on account settings for the active account, interactive content for the active account. The media client presents to a user of the active account the interactive content and receives user input responding to the interactive content. The media client adjusts the access time limits for the devices, based on the user input and the account settings for the active account, and monitors usage time of the devices by the user of the active account. The media client blocks access to one of the devices when a monitored usage time exceeds the adjusted access time limit for the corresponding device.
US08443379B2
A queue management system may store a queue of messages in a main queue. When a message is processed by an application, the message may be moved to a subqueue. In the subqueue, the message may be locked from other applications. After processing the message, the application may delete the message from the subqueue and complete the action required. If the application fails to respond in a timely manner, the message may be moved from the subqueue to the main queue and released for another application to service the message. If the application responds after the time out period, a fault may occur when the application attempts to delete the message from the subqueue. Such an arrangement allows a “peek and lock” functionality to be implemented using a subqueue.
US08443378B2
A method and apparatus for using rules in a distributed computing system. A message is generated. One or more rules are associated with the message, each of the one or more rules pertaining to an action to be performed. The message is sent to a destination with the associated rules.
US08443376B2
Techniques for configuring a hypervisor scheduler to make use of cache topology of processors and physical memory distances between NUMA nodes when making scheduling decisions. In the same or other embodiments the hypervisor scheduler can be configured to optimize the scheduling of latency sensitive workloads. In the same or other embodiments a hypervisor can be configured to expose a virtual cache topology to a guest operating system running in a virtual machine.
US08443375B2
A method for passing data from a first processing thread to a second processing thread, wherein the first processing thread produces data to be processed by the second processing thread. The data from the first processing thread may be inserted into objects that in turn are inserted into a queue of objects to be processed by the second thread. The queue may be a circular array, wherein the array includes a pointer to a head and a pointer to a tail, wherein only the first processing thread modifies the tail pointer and only the second processing thread modifies the head pointer.
US08443372B2
Techniques are disclosed for processing requests in a data processing system. While the principles of the invention are not limited to a particular domain, they are particularly suitable for use in an electronic trading system. By way of example of one aspect of the invention, a method for directing requests to at least one node in a system comprising multiple nodes and a plurality of requests comprises associating a number to each request, assigning at least one number to each node so as to balance a load across the nodes, and sending a request to a node based on the number associated to the request. Various other aspects are disclosed.
US08443369B1
Systems, methods, and computer readable medium for optimizing storage allocations based on system resources are disclosed. According to one aspect, the subject matter described herein includes a method for dynamic, policy-based allocation of system resources. The method includes specifying a plurality of system resource collections for representing sets of like system resources and their dependencies. An order in which the collections are to be evaluated during selection of a resource is also specified. A policy for determining the best resource within each collection is also specified. Statistics about the system resources in the collections are maintained. A request for a resource is received. In response to receiving the request, the collections are evaluated in the specified order. The best resource is selected from each collection based on the dependencies, prior selections, and statistics to implement the policy.
US08443351B2
The subject disclosure pertains broadly to parallelization of workflow loops. More specifically, loop containers and related elements are cloned several times to match a desired number of parallel iterations or threads. The cloned containers are communicatively coupled or connected to a single enumerator component and can interact therewith to facilitate acquisition of collection elements. This arrangement, among other things, ensures that the correct number of iterations are executed as if the loop was processed sequentially.
US08443344B1
Approaches for generating a hardware definition from a program specified in a high-level language. In one approach, a first set of blocks of instructions in the high-level language program is identified. Each block in the first set is bounded by a respective loop designation in the high-level language. For each block in the first set, an associated respective second set of one or more blocks of the program is identified. Each block in the second set is outside the block in the first set. A hardware definition of the program is generated and stored. For each block in the first set, the hardware definition specifies power-reducing circuitry for one or more blocks in the associated second set. The power-reducing circuitry is controlled based on a status indication from the hardware definition of the block in the first set.
US08443343B2
In one embodiment of the invention a method comprising (1) receiving an unstructured binary code region that is single-threaded; (2) determining a slice criterion for the region; (3) determining a call edge, a return edge, and a fallthrough pseudo-edge for the region based on analysis of the region at a binary level; and (4) determining a context-sensitive slice based on the call edge, the return edge, the fallthrough pseudo-edge, and the slice criterion. Embodiments of the invention may include a program analysis technique that can be used to provide context-sensitive slicing of binary programs for slicing hot regions identified at runtime, with few underlying assumptions about the program from which the binary is derived. Also, in an embodiment a slicing method may include determining a context-insensitive slice, when a time limit is met, by determining the context-insensitive slice while treating call edges as a normal control flow edges.
US08443340B2
A debugging tool is provided that is capable of recording code paths taken during a program's execution, and along the way capture the memory state at configurable points in time such as function exits or statements. The tool also records interactions with external systems like a database, and captures which statements resulted in interactions with these systems. An analysis of the output of the debugging tool enables a developer to understand which part of the code executed; what the value of relevant variables were at configurable points in time; and which code statements correlate to which interactions with external systems.
US08443337B2
In one embodiment, the present invention includes a method for associating and storing a code fragment for each cell of a table for a protocol specification in a semantic mapping corresponding to the table, and automatically generating a formal model for the protocol specification using the table and the semantic mapping. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US08443336B2
A method for model-based testing of an industrial system includes modeling functionality of an industrial system using a modeling computer language, enhancing the model by adding functionality or refining existing functionality, generating test suites from the system model, and executing the test suites. The modeling computer language is the Unified Modeling Language (UML), wherein modeling includes defining UML use case diagrams to describe relationships among use cases specified for the system and actors who interact with the system according to the use cases, defining UML activity diagrams to model process logic of each use case, wherein the activity diagrams comprise a sequence of activities and transitions, and defining UML class diagrams to specify data categories and attributes that are inputs to the activities of the activity diagrams, wherein data categories relevant for a use case are modeled as test variables in the activity diagram.
US08443332B2
A program calling system includes a memory, an interface establishing unit, a detecting unit, and a calling unit. The memory stores functions for PCB layout design. Each function corresponds to a path and a name, and can be accessed via the corresponding path and name. The interface establishing unit establishes a user interface. The user interface includes a first area for displaying the names of the functions. A one to one relationship exists between the names and the paths of the functions. The detecting unit detects whether a calling signal is generated, and obtains a name of a to-be-called function when the calling signal is generated. The calling unit responds to the calling signal to obtain a path of the to-be-called function according to the name of the to-be-called function and the one to one relationship, and call the to-be-called function according to the obtained path and name.
US08443329B2
A system and method that does trustworthy multi-objective structural synthesis of analog circuits, and extracts expert analog circuit knowledge from the resulting tradeoffs. The system defines a space of thousands of possible topologies via a hierarchically organized combination of designer-trusted analog building blocks, the resulting topologies are guaranteed trustworthy. The system can perform a search based on a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm that uses an age-layered population structure to balance exploration vs. exploitation, with operators that make the search space a hybrid between vector-based and tree-based representations. A scheme employing average ranking on Pareto fronts is used to handle a high number of objectives. Good initial topology sizings are quickly generated via multi-gate constraint satisfaction. To explicitly capture expert analog design knowledge, data mining is employed on the sized circuits to: automatically generate a decision tree for navigating from performance specifications to topology choice, to do global nonlinear sensitivity analysis, and to generate analytical models of performance tradeoffs.
US08443323B1
Disclosed are improved methods, systems, and computer program products for implementing an I/O ring structure to generate an I/O ring arrangement for an electronic design, and for performing chip planning and estimation based upon the I/O ring arrangement. Nodes in the I/O ring structure are used to track objects in the I/O ring.
US08443322B2
A method for using layout enumeration to facilitate integrated circuit development includes defining an initial set of design ground rules represented in a notation compatible with a coarse placement grid, for a given layer(s) of an integrated circuit device; defining an initial region of interest for the integrated circuit device; enumerating, according to the initial set of design ground rules, each legal design layout for a given layer of the integrated circuit device in the initial region of interest; running a manufacturing simulation of the enumerated legal design layout data and, responsive to determining one or more failing layouts resulting therefrom, further determining whether the failing layouts may be eliminated by changes in technology parameters and/or updated ground rules. Upon eliminating the one or more failing layouts for the initial region of interest, expanding the initial region of interest and repeating the enumerating, manufacturing simulation, and triage assessment.
US08443318B2
The junction comprising a stack of at least two magnetic layers, a first layer, for example a soft magnetic layer with controllable magnetization, and a second layer, for example a hard magnetic layer with fixed magnetization, the magnetization of the soft layer being described by a uniform magnetic moment, the dynamic behavior of the junction being modeled by an equivalent electrical circuit comprising at least two coupled parts: a first part representing the stack of the layers, through which a current flows corresponding to the polarized current flowing through said layers whose resistance across its terminals depends on three voltages representing the three dimensions of the magnetic moment along three axes, modeling the tunnel effect; a second part representing the behavior of the magnetic moment, comprising three circuits each representing a dimension of the magnetic moment by the three voltages, each of the three voltages depending on the voltages in the other dimensions and on the voltage across the terminals of the stack, modeling the torque effect exerted by the polarized current on the magnetization of the soft layer.
US08443317B2
A non-transitory computer readable storage media, a computer-implemented method and apparatus for electronic design automation are disclosed. A reference integrated circuit (IC) design and a remitted IC design are received. Instances of cells of the reference IC design and the retimed IC designed are replaced with replacement circuits based on a description of moves of retiming associated with the reference IC design and the synthesized IC design. A comparison of the reference IC design and the retimed IC designed is performed to determine whether the retimed IC design is equivalent to the transformed IC design.
US08443314B1
A logic design and synthesis program, method and system provides intelligibility and independence of separate blocks in digital logic designs at the synthesis level. The sequential and combinational logic are separated and the sequential logic is then mapped to flip-flop library components. State-retaining elements, i.e., flip-flops detected in the input hardware description language (HDL) are represented in the sequential logic HDL output. The combinational logic HDL and the sequential logic HDL are connected only by signals, so signals are introduced to represent the flip-flop signals and variables detected in the input HDL. The sequential and combinational logic HDL are then synthesized to produce the design.
US08443311B2
In a flare value calculation method according to an embodiment, an average optical intensity is calculated for each of mask patterns in a case where an exposure process is performed on a substrate using the mask patterns. Then, pattern correction amounts for the mask patterns corresponding to the average optical intensity and information about the dimensions of the mask patterns are calculated for each mask pattern. Then, post-correction mask patterns are prepared by performing pattern correction on each of the mask patterns using the pattern correction amount. Then, a flare value of an optical system of an exposure apparatus is calculated using a pattern average density of the post-correction mask patterns.
US08443307B2
The present invention relates to a method for tuning lithography systems so as to allow different lithography systems to image different patterns utilizing a known process that does not require a trial and error process to be performed to optimize the process and lithography system settings for each individual lithography system. According to some aspects, the present invention relates to a method for a generic model-based matching and tuning which works for any pattern. Thus it eliminates the requirements for CD measurements or gauge selection. According to further aspects, the invention is also versatile in that it can be combined with certain conventional techniques to deliver excellent performance for certain important patterns while achieving universal pattern coverage at the same time.
US08443303B2
A method includes detecting an area of a touch screen that is touched by an instrument and determining a gesture corresponding to the area touched. The method further includes performing a crossover operation when it is determined that the gesture corresponds to a crossover gesture and displaying on the touch screen a content that includes a first child content and a second child content that is associated with the crossover operation, where the crossover operation includes navigating between the first child content to the second child content in response to the crossover gesture. The first child content is accessible via a first parent content and the second child content is accessible via a second parent content, and when navigating between the first child content to the second child content, the first parent content and the second parent content is not displayed.
US08443300B2
Computerized methods and systems for three-dimensional (3-D) displaying and navigating of search results are provided. In embodiments, a criterion may be received from a user of a publication system. A database associated with the publication system may be searched based on the criterion. Search results retrieved from the database may be displayed on at least one side of a 3-D interface object. At least one control may be displayed proximate to the three 3-D interface object. The control may be used to navigate the 3-D interface object.
US08443292B2
In at least some embodiments, a computer system includes a processor and a computer-readable storage medium coupled to the processor and storing a scripting application. The scripting application, when executed, is configured to coordinate use of a browser engine privacy mode with emulation of user operations on a browser-hosted application.
US08443291B2
Provided are an apparatus and a method for creating a widget of a portable terminal. The method includes: determining a building block that a user selects on a widget creating screen including building blocks necessary for widget creation; generating a tag of data corresponding to the confirmed building block; and generating a widget code including the building block and the tag.
US08443285B2
Methods, systems and/or computer program products that help facilitate visual presentation composition may include, in one aspect, executing one or more processes executing on a computer system to present a user of a computer system with movie templates, each movie template having a corresponding theme and a sequence of shot placeholders, each shot placeholder including graphical indicia representing one or more desirable characteristics specific to that shot placeholder; receiving information from the user including a movie template selection and a selection of one or more video clips corresponding to desirable characteristics indicated by the shot placeholders; and generating a playable media file representing a movie based on the information received from the user.
US08443280B2
A method for sequenced document annotation is disclosed. The method includes linking a first annotation to a document, where the first annotation is defined by a first primary graphic and a first sequence identifier. Thereafter, a first value is assigned to the first sequence identifier, and the first primary graphic and the first sequence identifier are displayed. After incrementing the first value to a second value, a second annotation is linked to the document. The second annotation is defined by a second sequence identifier and a second primary graphic identical to the first primary graphic. The second sequence identifier is assigned an incremented second value, and the second primary graphic and the second sequence identifier are displayed.
US08443277B2
A computer-based system provides a user interface for displaying hyperlinked content (such as web content) and for enabling users to navigate the hyperlinks contained within such content. One benefit of various embodiments of the present invention is that they enable primary hyperlinked content to be rendered, and for associated content (i.e., content located at the destinations of hyperlinks within the primary content) to be rendered without replacing, overwriting, or otherwise obscuring the rendering of the primary content. As a result, the rendering of the primary content remains fully visible after the associated content is rendered and while the rendering of the associated content is visible. For example, the associated content may be rendered in an existing display area that does not overlap with the display area containing the rendering of the primary content.
US08443276B2
The present invention provides a system and method for enabling shared viewing and editing of time-based media with improved speed by avoiding manipulation and re-manipulation of a stored underlying video data format through the use of metadata processes and cross-linked multi-level metadata processes and systems for operating with a decision list tracking device.
US08443272B1
Methods, software, circuits and systems involving a low complexity, tailbiting decoder. In various embodiments, the method relates to concatenating an initial and/or terminal subblock of the serial data block and outputting decoded data from an internal block of the modified data block. The circuitry generally includes a buffer, logic configured to concatenate an initial and/or terminal subblock to the serial data block, and a decoder configured to decode the data block, estimate starting and ending states for the data block, and output an internal portion of the serial data block and the one or more sequences as decoded data. The invention advantageously reduces the complexity of a suboptimal convolutional decoder, ensures smooth transitions at the beginning and end of the serial data block during decoding, and increases the reliability of the starting and ending states, without adding overhead to the transmitted data block.
US08443270B2
A network controller receives data substantially simultaneously from multiple client nodes. The network controller assigns to each client node one or more sub-carriers of an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing access frequency spectrum. The client nodes transmit substantially simultaneously M LDPC codewords that are encoded in a parity check matrix so that the number of rows m′ depend on the code rate and are mapped on its assigned sub-carriers. The network controller computes a bit log-likelihood ratio for each received bit of the codewords and arranges the bit LLR by codeword to align with an equivalent parity check matrix. The network controller decodes the codewords with the equivalent parity check matrix.
US08443265B2
A Maximum A Posteriori (MAP) decoder and a MAP decoding method are provided. The MAP decoder includes a first metric operation unit, a first bit-width control unit, a second metric operation unit, a Log Likelihood Ratio (LLR) operation unit, and a second bit-width control unit. The first metric operation unit outputs a first metric data using an input data. The first bit-width control unit controls a bit-width of the first metric data according to a modulation scheme of the input data. The second metric operation unit outputs a second metric data using the first metric data having the controlled bit-width. The LLR operation unit outputs LLR data using the second metric data. The second bit-width control unit outputs decoding data by re-controlling the bit-width of the LLR data.
US08443263B2
The embodiments described herein provide a method and controller for performing a copy-back command. In one embodiment, a controller receives the data and error correction code associated with a copy-back operation from at least one flash memory device. The controller determines if the error correction code indicates there is an error in the data. If the error correction code does not indicate there is an error in the data, the controller sends a destination address and copy-back program command received from a host to the at least one flash memory device. If the error correction code indicates there is an error in the data, the controller corrects the data and sends the destination address, the corrected data, and a program command to the at least one flash memory device. Additional embodiments relate to modifying data during the copy-back operation.
US08443260B2
A method of storage and retrieval of data in a flash memory system, the flash memory system comprising a cache storage area of relatively high reliability, and a main storage area of relatively low reliability, the method comprising adding to data a level of error correction redundancy higher by a predetermined margin than that required for the cache storage area, writing the data to the cache storage area, and from the cache storage area copying the data directly to the main storage area, the predetermined margin being such as to allow subsequent error correction to compensate for errors accumulated from the cache storage area and the main storage area. In this way the memory die copy back operation can be used for copying the data from the cache to the main memory and two out of four transfers over the data bus to the flash controller are avoided.
US08443257B1
Encoding is performed by dividing a quasi-cyclic low-density parity-check (QC-LDPC) parity check matrix into a first sub-matrix and a second sub-matrix. The first sub-matrix includes a plurality of circulant vectors and the plurality of circulant vectors is associated with a circulant size. Input data is received having a length which is a product of an integer multiplier and the circulant size. A first stage of multi-stage LDPC encoding is performed using the input data and a subset of the plurality of circulant vectors; the number of circulant vectors in the subset equals the integer multiplier.
US08443250B2
Various embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for generating a code format. One method discussed includes: receiving a first matrix having a row width and a column height that is greater than one; incorporating a circulant into a first column of the first matrix; testing the first column for trapping sets, wherein at least one trapping set is identified; selecting a value to mitigate the identified trapping set; and augmenting the first matrix with a second matrix to yield a composite matrix. The second matrix has the selected value in the first column, and wherein the identified trapping set is mitigated.
US08443249B2
Various embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for encoding data. As an example, a data encoding circuit is disclosed that includes a first stage data encoder circuit and a second stage data encoder circuit. The first stage data encoder circuit is operable to provide a first stage output. The first stage data encoder circuit includes a first vector multiplier circuit operable to receive a data input and to multiply the data input by a first sparse matrix to yield a first interim value. The second stage encoder circuit includes a second vector multiplier circuit operable to multiply the first stage output by a second sparse matrix to yield a second interim value.
US08443245B2
A test system having a sub-system to sub-system bridge may be provided that utilizes the useful attributes of a plurality of circuit testing techniques, while reducing deficiencies associated with certain types of circuit testing. A bridged test system structure is utilized to facilitate circuit testing that is more effective and time efficient. The method analyzes performance data acquired by a first component for one or more circuits, and sends that performance data to a second test component. The second test component provides test signals to the circuits, using the performance date to enhance the use of the test signals, and also provides test response data for the circuits in response to the provided test signals.
US08443236B2
A test apparatus for testing an information processing apparatus includes a control unit connected to the control signal line through the connector unit to receive command information from the processing unit to execute the program, and a switching unit connected to the control unit to connect the second communication signal line and the fourth communication signal line under the control of the control unit.
US08443234B2
A BIOS refresh device includes a first socket, a second socket, and a jumper. The first socket includes a first elastic contact, a first voltage contact, and a first ground contact. The second socket includes a second elastic contact, a second voltage contact, and a second ground contact. The jumper includes a first pin, a second pin, a third pin, and a fourth pin. The first pin is electronically connected with the second elastic contact. The second pin is electronically connected with the first voltage contact or the second voltage contact. The third pin is electronically connected with the first elastic contact. The fourth pin is electronically connected with the second ground contact or the second ground contact.
US08443229B2
An asymmetric data mirroring method with a local storage device and a remote storage device being separated by large distances is disclosed. A server determines a predetermined time period associated with a round trip latency between the server and a remote storage device. The server submits a request to a local storage device, a remote storage device and a memory device disposed between the server and the remote storage device. The server submits additional requests to the local and remote storage devices during the predetermined time period. The server stores a copy of each request submitted by the server to the remote storage device in a memory disposed between the server and the remote storage device while the server waits for whether an acknowledgement associated with the request has been received from the remote storage device during the predetermined time period. The server resubmits the request and the additional requests to the remote storage device if the acknowledgement is not received. If an acknowledgement is received, the server continues submission of additional new requests to the local and remote storage devices.
US08443220B2
Information regarding a scheduled outage for a server associated with a cluster of servers is received at a voltage regulation system (VRS) for the cluster of servers. A work load increase is determined for each remaining server within the cluster of servers due to the scheduled outage for the server. A voltage adjustment is calculated for each remaining server based upon the determined work load increase for each remaining server. Voltage for each remaining server is automatically adjusted based upon the calculated voltage adjustment.
US08443211B2
This disclosure describes techniques for using a non-volatile-memory device such as flash memory to store memory data during hibernation or suspend. By so doing, hard drives and/or data are safer, and less power may be used.
US08443207B2
A method of accessing content includes installing a file system filter for a secure removable memory device on a host device. A challenge is sent from the file system filter to a software entity on the host device, and a software entity response is received at the file system filter in response to the challenge. A file system filter response is calculated at the file system filter using the challenge, and access to first content on the secure removable memory device is provided if the software entity response matches the file system filter response.
US08443196B2
A signing method, apparatus, and system, which relate to the information security field. The present invention overcomes the problem of signature counterfeit in prior art. The client host generates a transaction message and determines the key information of the message after receiving transaction information entered by a user, forms a data packet for signing, and transmits the data packet to the USB key, which will then extract the key information and output it for confirmation by the user, and if a confirmation is received, the USB key signs the data packet and transmits a signature to the client host; after receiving the signature and the transaction message from the client host, the server extracts the key information from the transaction message to form a data packet for signing and verifies the signature against the data packet. The embodiments of the present invention are mainly applicable to the field of information security.
US08443193B1
A hash module of a mail sender creates a hash data context structure. The hash module processes the headers and the body of an e-mail message in the order required, for example by the DKIM specification, until the data to be hashed has been input. The hash module converts the context structure into printable characters and the encoded structure is transmitted over the Internet or other network to the next participating system. The token authority's hash module decodes the context back into binary form. After ensuring business logic is satisfied, it generates additional headers required for signature, which are then added to the developing hash. The hash module finalizes the hash function and creates the hash value. The authorization module creates the signature and returns it to the e-mail module, which attaches the signature to the message and transmits it to the destination mailbox provider, which verifies the token.
US08443187B1
In one or more embodiments, attributes other than a supplicant's MAC address can be used for the user name in the authentication process in a network computing environment. In at least some embodiments, doing so utilizes an association structure, such as a table, that is already resident at the authentication server. By using attributes other than a supplicant's MAC address, various matching scenarios can be provided by the authentication server in which authentication or authorization takes place responsive to satisfying conditions defined in the authentication server's association or database. Furthermore, a variety of non-authentication scenarios can be supported using the authentication server's association.
US08443167B1
A data storage device is disclosed comprising a non-volatile memory comprising a plurality of memory segments. When a write command comprising a logical block address (LBA) is received, a number of consecutive memory segments to access in response to the write command is determined. When the number of consecutive memory segments to access is greater than a threshold, a new run-length mapping entry in a run-length mapping table (RLMT) is created. When the number of memory segments to access is not greater than a threshold, at least one new single address mapping entry in a single address mapping table (SAMT) is created.
US08443165B2
An exemplary method includes receiving a command for storing data to a plurality of data storage resources, storing the data in a set of buffer storage locations, defining a plurality of jobs for the command, each of the plurality of jobs having an associated data operation with at least one of the data storage resources, and reallocating a subset of the buffer storage locations that stored the data for a completed job prior to completion of at least one other job.
US08443152B2
A cache memory includes a write-back determination unit and a burst length determination unit. The write-back determination unit determines whether a block is a write-back block based on an n-bit dirty value of the block. The burst length determination unit determines a burst length of write-back data included in the write-back block based on the n-bit dirty value and an minimum burst length, when the block is the write-back block. J:\SAM\1309\subspecredline.doc
US08443144B2
A computing system and a memory device are provided. The memory device includes a first memory having a first storage capacity. A second memory is also provided having a second storage capacity greater than the first storage capacity. The memory device also includes a controller to provide an external host with an address space corresponding to a third storage capacity, the third storage capacity being less than a sum of the first storage capacity and second storage capacity. The controller transmits the requested data to the external host from the first memory where data requested from the external host is stored in the first memory, and where the requested data is not stored in the first memory, transmits the requested data to the external host from the second memory.
US08443141B2
Write caching for sequential tracks is performed by a processor device in a computing storage environment for destaging data from nonvolatile storage (NVS) to a storage unit. If a first track is determined to be sequential, and an earlier track is also determined to be sequential, a temporal bit associated with the earlier track is cleared to allow for destage of data of the earlier track. If a temporal bit for one of a plurality of additional tracks in one of a plurality of strides in a modified cache is determined to be not set, a stride associated with the one of the plurality of additional tracks is selected for a destage operation. If the NVS exceeds a predetermined storage threshold, a predetermined one of the plurality of strides is selected for the destage operation.
US08443139B2
A virtualization technique, in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, includes emulating the small computing system interface (SCSI) protocol to access a virtual SCSI storage device backed by a file stored on network attached storage (NAS).
US08443135B2
The Exhaustive Parameter Search (EPS) algorithm of this invention enables communicating devices to access to a large variety of NAND Flash memories. The EPS algorithm exploits the fact that the parameters needed for successful initial communication with NAND Flash memory (block Size and page Size) have only few possible values. The EPS algorithm tries all possible values to find a magic number stored in the NAND Flash memory. The correct parameters for the particular NAND Flash memory are read after detection of the magic number. This ensures that accurate parameters are used after successful detection of the magic number detection. The OEM must write the known parameters of the NAND Flash memory in a predetermined location following the magic number.
US08443128B2
An extension device for connecting one or more peripheral devices to a computer, comprising a first bus for connecting to the computer; a second bus for connecting to the computer; a hub coupled to the first bus for connecting the computer to one or more peripheral devices; a controller for connecting the computer to a high-bandwidth device, the controller being switchably coupled to the hub and the second bus; and a switch for switching the controller, from being coupled to the hub, to being coupled to the second bus, when a connection to the computer is detected on the second bus.
US08443121B1
A method and apparatus for handshaking using a 2-wire protocol is described. An electronic component may be divided into blocks, with the blocks performing one or more functions. The blocks may be in series with one another to form a pipeline. The blocks may use interface circuitry to transfer information upstream from or downstream to another block. The interface circuitry uses the 2-wire handshaking for the transfer including a transmit readiness wire configured to carry a signal indicative of readiness of the upstream circuit to output data and a receive readiness wire configured to carry a signal indicative of readiness of the downstream circuit to receive the data.
US08443118B2
In one embodiment, a direct memory access (DMA) controller comprises a transmit circuit and a data flow control circuit coupled to the transmit circuit. The transmit circuit is configured to perform DMA transfers, each DMA transfer described by a DMA descriptor stored in a data structure in memory. There is a data structure for each DMA channel that is in use. The data flow control circuit is configured to control the transmit circuit's processing of DMA descriptors for each DMA channel responsive to data flow control data in the DMA descriptors in the corresponding data structure.
US08443114B2
An information handling system includes a backplane, a storage drive, and a board management controller. The board management controller is configured to discover a physical drive status of the drive from a storage enclosure processor, to receive a logical drive status of the drive, to read a backplane bay identification for the drive from a peripheral connector interface express extender or serial attached small computer system interface chipset logical drive number, and to construct a routing table for the drive to map the logical drive status with the physical drive status of the drive.
US08443100B1
A server including a partitioning module and a transmit module. The partitioning module is configured to partition data at an application layer of the server, where the data is to be transmitted from the server to a handheld device concurrently via i) a first wireless link and ii) a second wireless link, and where the partitioning is performed in response to a rate of flow of data via i) the first wireless link or ii) the second wireless link. The partitioning module is configured to partition data, received from the application layer, at a session layer of the server into i) a first component and ii) a second component. The transmit module is configured to concurrently transmit from the server to the handheld device i) the first component via the first wireless link and ii) the second component via the second wireless link.
US08443097B2
The present invention relates to a queue management unit and method for streaming video packets in a wireless network. The method includes determining a type of frame from a header of a video packet received at a transmit buffer. The method further includes discarding the received frame if the received frame is dependent upon any previously discarded frame, otherwise storing the received frame in one of a plurality of sub-queues of the transmit buffer according to the type of frame, where each sub-queue of the plurality of sub-queues stores frames corresponding to one type of frame. Also, the method includes creating space in the transmit buffer if there is insufficient space for a higher priority frame by discarding lower priority frames, as well as discarding frames in the transmit if the received frame is delayed more than a maximum period of time.
US08443092B2
The adjustability of a watcher's level of access to a presentity's presence information is enhanced by providing for the filtering of the presence information based on information that is provided by a source other than the watcher.
US08443090B2
Methods for establishing a direct peer-to-peer (“P2P”) connection between two computers are disclosed. In particular, the methods are designed to work in cases where one or both of the computers are connected to a private network, such private networks being interconnected via a public network, such as the Internet. The connections between the private network and the public network are facilitated by network address translation (“NAT”).
US08443084B2
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for establishing upgrade paths. In one aspect, a method includes establishing an interim environment and platform, migrating the data from the legacy environment and platform to the interim environment and platform, and migrating the data from the interim environment and platform to the upgraded environment and platform.
US08443083B2
Multiple applications sharing common resources are arbitrated such that failures resulting from unavailable resources can be avoided. Whenever an application (e.g., a data application) desires to perform an operation (e.g., PPP resynchronization) that requires the use of a shared resource (e.g., an RF receiver), a determination is made as to whether that resource is available. The operation may be delayed while the resource is unavailable. The application may be assigned the resource if it is available or becomes available and may then start the operation. The resource is locked while the operation is pending to avoid assignment to another application. The resource arbitration allows applications to complete their operations without encountering failures due to other applications taking over the resources.
US08443076B2
A method of placing prefix hijacking detection modules in a communications network includes selecting a set of candidate locations. For each candidate location, a detection coverage ratio with respect to a target Autonomous System is calculated. Based on the relative size of the coverage ratios, proposed locations for the prefix hijacking detection modules are determined.
US08443064B2
A network device initially has no configuration data and is permitted only to query a known network address. From this address a server verifies the connection and authorizes another server to download to the network device the necessary configuration to carry out its purpose. This configuration may not be amended and is not retained on power loss. Any updates are carried out by a complete reload of configuration data.
US08443062B2
Systems and methods that restore a failed reconfiguration of nodes in a distributed environment. By analyzing reports from read/write quorums of nodes associated with a configuration, automatic recovery for data partitions can be facilitated. Moreover, a configuration manager component tracks current configurations for replication units and determines whether a reconfiguration is required (e.g., due to node failures, node recovery, replica additions/deletions, replica moves, or replica role changes, and the like.) Reconfigurations of data activated as being replicated from an old configuration to being replicated on a new configuration may be performed in a transactionally consistent manner based on dynamic quorums associated with the new configuration and the old configuration.
US08443053B2
Internet based software application that identifies the geographic location of each a website visitor by their IP address to provide geographically relevant content to each individual visitor in a customized web page. In an embodiment, content can be further customized by web page viewing patterns of users in similar geographic locations. In an embodiment the software application matches the visitor's location to likely travel departure points with offerings likely to interest a visitor from said location and displays likely attractive offers dynamically to that visitor.
US08443052B2
A content distribution network (CDN) comprising a hierarchy of content storage nodes (CSNs) or caches having storage space that is allocated between local space for storing locally popular content objects and federated space for storing a portion of the less popular content objects. Local space and federated space based upon changes in content object popularity and/or other utility factors. Optionally, parent/child (upstream/downstream) communication paths are used to migrate content between CSNs or caches of the same or different hierarchical levels to avoid utilizing higher price top hierarchical level communications channels.
US08443038B2
A network media device is described that pulls multimedia data from one or more sources (e.g., a multimedia website or a multimedia server computer) at a first time, stores it to long-term storage within the device and transmits the stored multimedia data to one or more designated multimedia playback devices at a second time.
US08443036B2
Techniques are described for exchanging data between software applications, such as project-related data between a project management software application (“PMSA”) and an unaffiliated organizational project tracking software application (“OPTSA”). A computing architecture with multiple interacting computer systems, such as a client-server architecture, can be used to allow users of remote computing systems to access project-related data and/or functionality from other computing systems, such as a thin client computing system with limited or no local capabilities to execute software applications and/or store associated application data accessing a remote central server computing system in order to interact with a PMSA executing on the server, to interact with an OPTSA executing on the server, and/or to invoke data exchange functionality available at the server for exchanging project-related data between the PMSA and OPTSA.
US08443033B2
A variable node processing unit with N+1 inputs, having at least a first bank of two-input adders and a separate last bank of two-input adders, where the banks of adders are disposed in series.
US08443032B2
A multiplication circuit generates a product of a matrix and a first scalar when in matrix mode and a product of a second scalar and a third scalar when in scalar mode. The multiplication circuit comprises a sub-product generator, an accumulator and an adder. The adder is configured to sum outputs of the accumulator to generate the product of the first scalar second scalar and the third scalar when in scalar mode. The sub-product generator generates sub-products of the matrix and the first scalar when in matrix mode and sub-products of the second scalar and the third scalar when in scalar mode. The accumulator is configured to generate the product of the matrix and the first scalar by providing save of the multiplication operation of the outputs from the sub-product generator.
US08443026B2
An apparatus for processing a plurality of real-valued subband signals using a first real-valued subband signal and a second real-valued subband signal to provide at least a complex-valued subband signal comprises a multiband filter for providing an intermediate real-valued subband signal and a calculator for providing the complex-valued subband signal by combining a real-valued subband signal from the plurality of real-valued subband signals and the intermediate subband signal.
US08443019B2
The invention pertains to a device such as a sensor, operator device, communication device, or a liquid level metering device, with a measured value input to apply a measured value. The device includes at least a first memory region to provide for an adjustment factor, and a computer, which is designed and/or controlled to multiply a first whole number by a floating-point number to obtain a product of the multiplication, while the first whole number corresponds either to the applied measured value or the provided adjustment factor; and, the floating-point number corresponds to the other measured value or to the adjustment factor. The computer has a second memory region for the storing of the floating-point number in a format of a second whole number, and the computer is designed and/or controlled to carry out a multiplication of the first whole number and the second whole number.
US08443017B2
A digital data processor which receives an N-bit input signal from a data source and converts the N-bit input signal into an M-bit output signal, the M-bit being larger than the N-bit. The digital data processor includes: an weighted addition circuit which is operable to perform weighted addition on at least the input signal and a signal being time-shifted with respect to the input signal and output as a weighted added input signal; an arithmetic shift circuit which is operable to perform an arithmetic rightward shift operation on the weighted added input signal for a predetermined number of shifts and output as a processed input signal; a bit extension circuit which is operable to attach a predetermined bits to an LSD side of the input signal to generate an intermediate signal of M bits; and an addition circuit which is operable to perform addition of the intermediate signal and the processed input signal so as to generate the M-bit output signal.
US08443016B2
A method for approximating an upper bound limit for the absolute value of a complex number or the norm of a two-element vector is disclosed. An upper bound approximation algorithm is used to minimize software implementation efforts and make the hardware implementation less expensive. The hardware implementation of the upper bound approximation algorithm only requires a multiplier element and an adder element. Therefore, this algorithm can be implemented anywhere in a digital signal processing apparatus without increasing cost significantly. Moreover, the hardware employing the present invention can be implemented in a pipeline architecture configuration to achieve a real time function in digital audio or digital video applications.
US08443008B2
A cooccurrence dictionary creating system includes: a language analyzing section which subjects a text to a morpheme analysis, a clause specification, and a modification relationship analysis between clauses, a cooccurrence relationship collecting section which collects cooccurrences of nouns in each clause of the text, modification relationships of nouns and declinable words, and modification relationships between declinable words as cooccurrence relationships, a cooccurrence score calculating section which calculates a cooccurrence score of the cooccurrence relationship based on a frequency of the collected cooccurrence relationship, and a cooccurrence dictionary storage section which stores a cooccurrence dictionary in which a correspondence between the calculated cooccurrence score and the cooccurrence relationship is described.
US08443002B2
A modular repository is described, where operational features may be implemented without the need to scan every resource included in the modular repository. A modular repository includes a dedicated set of database objects containing all information needed to access the resources in the repository. For example, the database objects of a modular repository may include those user identifier mappings and ACL mappings, etc., to which metadata in the modular repository refers. A database system may also include a mechanism through which a modular repository may be mounted under a subdirectory of a common directory in the database system. The resources of a modular repository that are mounted under the common directory may be accessed through the common directory. Further, a client may query the resources of any modular repository mounted under the common directory by making the federated repository, represented by the common directory, the context of the query.
US08443001B2
Techniques are disclosed for identifying and stashing all or portions of application data to a network accessible storage device or location. Identifying and stashing are accomplished in a fashion that is transparent to a user such that a user is not burdened by the process of managing and stashing a full or partial set of application data. The system, the application, or a combination of system components and the application persist and manage data locally and stash portions of the local data to one or more network accessible storage devices or locations. One or more links are provided in place of the stashed portions of data. The application uses the links in a same or similar fashion as handling local data while providing little to no loss of functionality due to all or portions of the local data being stashed.
US08442998B2
Some embodiments provide a method for storing a document. The method stores a content stream representation of the document that includes an ordered stream of code representations for primitive elements of the document. Each code representation of a primitive element has an index that indicates the order in the content stream of the primitive element representation. The method stores an object representation of the document that includes a set of object nodes arranged in a tree structure. Each object node references a range of indices in the content stream.
US08442996B2
The invention concerns a method for accessing a resource in a computer environment, the resource comprising a set of objects. The invention is characterized in that the computer environment is adapted to store in association with at least one object of said resource at least one modified object, in that said computer environment comprises means for storing in association with such an object information concerning degree of elaboration, and in that it includes the following steps: identifying, for each object of the resource to which corresponds at least one modified object, based on data concerning degree of elaboration, at least one most elaborated version of said object; assembling the objects thus identified for display in the resource. The invention also concerns other methods for accessing to resources as well as resources structured therefor.
US08442995B2
Embodiments are directed to providing a plurality of data provisioning tiers for datasets and to throttling access to dataset data based on the dataset's data provisioning tiers. In an embodiment, a computer system receives an input that specifies a maximum number of queries that a user is allowed to perform on a given dataset over a specified period of time. The computer system generates data provisioning tiers for the dataset based on the received input. Each data provisioning tier indicates a maximum number of queries that the user is allowed to perform on a given dataset over a specified period of time. The computer system also applies the generated data provisioning tiers to the dataset so that the user is limited to the maximum number of queries specified in the data provisioning tier.
US08442992B2
Embodiments of the present invention allow verification of query language by providing a natural language description for the query language. A natural language description is generated for each query component along with selectable text representing the query component. Upon selection of the selectable text, the query component is rendered for editing.
US08442982B2
Methods, program products, and systems implementing integrated repository of structured and unstructured data are disclosed. An integrated environment is provided for accessing structured data (e.g., data of a relational database) and unstructured data (e.g., data stored in a text or binary file), including creating, managing, modifying, and searching the structured data and unstructured data. The integrated environment can include an integrated user interface, a set of commands and application programming interface (API), and storage for a relational database and a document repository. The integrated environment can include a database abstraction layer that allows database operations on both the structured data and the unstructured data.
US08442973B2
A method and apparatus for utilizing user behavior to immediately modify sets of search results so that the most relevant documents are moved to the top. In one embodiment of the invention, behavior data, which can come from virtually any activity, is used to infer the user's intent. The updated inferred implicit user model is then exploited immediately by re-ranking the set of matched documents to best reflect the information need of the user. The system updates the user model and immediately re-ranks documents at every opportunity in order to constantly provide the most optimal results. In another embodiment, the system determines, based on the similarity of results sets, if the current query belongs in the same information session as one or more previous queries. If so, the current query is expanded with additional keywords in order to improve the targeting of the results.
US08442966B1
A method includes receiving, on an electronic device, one or more logical entities from a storage system having a universe of data. The one or more logical entities encapsulate data from the universe of data on the storage system. Each of the one or more logical entities belong to one of a plurality of logical-entity types defined by a universal representation format. The method additionally includes, for each of the one or more logical entities, rendering a representation of the logical entity on a spatial interface, the spatial interface comprising a plurality of spatial components.
US08442951B1
Processing archive content based on hierarchical classification levels is performed by indexing a first newly archived file of a current set of archive content at a first classification level defining a plurality of types of metadata to be derived, wherein the first classification level is selected from a hierarchy of classification levels having at least two classification levels, indexing a second newly archived file of the current set of archive content at a second classification level, wherein the second classification level includes fewer types of metadata than the first class of metadata, and flagging the second newly archived file of the current set of archive content. By classifying and flagging the second newly archived file differently than the first newly archived file, the system can easily retrieve such data at a later instance to update and/or change the data, re-index the data, and the like.
US08442947B2
A method of handling performance data comprising a set of events is described. An event record for each event is stored as a set of blocks, each block containing one or more attributes of the event. The storage space occupied by each event record in is then reduced in discrete steps, each step including a reduction process that reduces the size of one of the set of blocks. This enables the provision of intermediate records between events and counters so that new event records contain complete details of their event, older event records contain less information, and even older event records may contain only high-level (counter) information.
US08442941B2
To help a database administrator assess the impact of database server changes on applications, trace files are preprocessed into intermediate files with events sorted by generation order. Unused event classes and columns of a trace file are excluded, and pre-calculated data may be included. Intermediate files are then dispatched across a set of clients, and replay occurs in a synchronization mode or a stress mode. Synchronization mode releases events in submission order, whereas stress mode releases events in emulation of their original timing. Replay parameters include server idle time cap, query timeout value, a connect-time scaling factor for scaling time between trace start and connection login, and a think-time scaling factor for scaling the time between events on a replay client—database server connection. Each replay client generates a result file, which a replay controller aggregates for administrator analysis.
US08442927B2
A coprocessor and method for processing convolutional neural networks includes a configurable input switch coupled to an input. A plurality of convolver elements are enabled in accordance with the input switch. An output switch is configured to receive outputs from the set of convolver elements to provide data to output branches. A controller is configured to provide control signals to the input switch and the output switch such that the set of convolver elements are rendered active and a number of output branches are selected for a given cycle in accordance with the control signals.
US08442924B2
A method for determining the presence of a biological entity. The method may include entering into a digital computer, at least a plurality of first input values associated with a first genetic element (e.g., mecA), a plurality of second input values associated with a second genetic element (femA), and a plurality of third input values associated with a third genetic element (e.g., orfX) associated with a plurality of samples. Each sample includes a first input value in the plurality of first input values, a second input value in the plurality of second input values, and a third input value in the plurality of third input values. The method also includes determining a threshold value associated with the third genetic element, separating the samples using the threshold value into a first set of samples and a second set of samples, clustering the first set of samples in a feature space defined by the first genetic element and the second genetic element, defining a first boundary space using the first set of samples, and defining a second boundary space using the second set of samples. The first and second boundary spaces differentiate a biological entity from other biological statuses. Other embodiments may also include the use of a genetic element such as SCCmec.
US08442921B2
The present invention is in the field of computer systems and processes for managing real and personal property. One aspect of the invention is directed to capturing history of a (real) property, which may include a description of the property, the personal property located on the real property, the projects and maintenance performed or to be performed on the property and their impact on the owner's tax basis in the property. Another aspect of invention allows for sharing of this history with an online community and for transferring the history (or portions thereof) on sale to a buyer.
US08442911B1
A system for charging fees to a card holder of a credit card account may comprise at least one subsystem that calculates a prepaid interest amount and at least one subsystem that charges the prepaid interest amount to the credit card account in lieu of charging interest on the actual balance of the account.
US08442910B2
Digital information cards associated with verified information about users are described. The cards can be used to optimize a network communications experience or interaction for a user and a commercial entity, such as a website provider. The cards can be user-centric in that the user can control access to information associated with the card. A website can access the information claim using a link of the information card and can customize a user's website experience based on the verified information claim.
US08442907B1
A method for ranking relative risk of a plurality of transactions, wherein each of the transactions has associated therewith a plurality of variables. In one embodiment the method includes assigning a value to each of the variables associated with each of the transactions, aggregating the values assigned to each of the variables on a transaction by transaction basis to produce an aggregate risk level for each transaction, and ranking each of the transactions relative to one another based upon the aggregate risk level corresponding to each transaction. A corresponding software program and system are also disclosed.
US08442896B2
A system and method for risk analysis of a portfolio of derivative products is disclosed which is conducted based on a set of flexible rules. The system and method allow creating predefined sets of products for the purpose of future risk offsets. If a futures trade as a subset of that set of products that met a threshold level, then the subset is assigned the offset value (or a pro rata or other portion of the offset value) of the predefined set. For example, assume that the predefined set consists of one S&P 500 futures, one NASDAQ futures, one S&P Midcap 400 futures and one Russell 1000 futures and the threshold is three. If the futures trader holds any three of those four futures, the three futures can be grouped, assigned an offset value, and this group can be used as one asset for purpose of further risk offsets.
US08442885B1
Embodiments of the invention are directed to a computer-implemented system and method for facilitating electronic market participation of traders. The algorithmic trading management system may comprise an algorithm and/or sequence usage and construction module providing conditional user interface features for allowing traders to construct algorithms or sequences to structure trading orders. The system may additionally include sequence modification components for allowing traders to modify algorithms collected from external sources in order to customize trading orders. The system may further include operator intervention tools for allowing traders to manually influence sequence execution through a user interface.
US08442884B2
Disclosed are novel tools (including, without limitation, systems, methods and software) to facilitate the sale of items of property and/or for providing title transfer services that ensure that the purchaser of the items of property (real or personal) receives adequate title to the property. In an aspect, the tools can serve as a clearinghouse for the various components to the transaction (e.g., receiving payment from the buyer, confirming that any security interest in the property has been paid off, informing the various parties to the transaction of the transaction's status, etc.).
US08442883B2
A system for providing relationship management in an auction environment can include a relationship management system and an auction system. The relationship management system and the auction system are communicatively coupled to one another. The relationship management system is configured to provide a relationship management function in conjunction with access to the auction system.
US08442881B2
The present disclosure generally provides systems and methods of classifying financial transactions. In one embodiment, the present disclosure may generally include a system of classifying financial transactions. The system may include a processor coupled to a database. The processor may be programmed to receive transaction information and a source document associated with a financial transaction. The transaction information and source data associated with the source document may be stored in the database. The stored transaction information and the source data may be retrieved from the database and may form a basis for a determination of a code associated with the financial transaction.
US08442878B2
System(s) and method(s) for stock monitoring are provided. Stock monitoring system(s) may include, e.g., a housing, one or more doors disposed in or on the housing, a sensor for sensing the condition of the door(s) and providing a door closed signal indicative of the door(s) having been closed by a user; one or more containers for stock items, located within the housing, the or each container having associated therewith a weight sensor for providing a weight signal indicative of the current weight of the container, and control circuitry, coupled for communication with the weight sensor(s). Method(s) may include, e.g., receiving a door closed signal; receiving one or more weight signals; and determining, for the or each container, the number of stock items removed from the container(s) by the user, from the weight signal(s) occurring during a predetermined sensing period, the predetermined sensing period being dependent upon the door closed signal.
US08442877B2
A simplified inventory management method. The method employs a plurality of stock-keeping unit labels, with each of the plurality of stock-keeping unit labels having a same stock-keeping unit number. Individual ones of the plurality of stock-keeping unit labels are utilized to track individual items of a plurality of items. A sale price of individual ones a first set of the plurality of items is different from a sale price of individual ones of a second set of the plurality of items.
US08442875B1
A system for maintaining gift lists for other persons is presented. The system includes a data store and a computing device. The data store stores at least information related to items available for purchase. The computing device is in communication with and has access to the data store. Moreover, the computing device is configured to create a gift list. The gift list includes references to items that are available for purchase by a user, and that are selected by a user as potential gifts for another. Additionally, access to the gift list is controlled by the user that created the gift list. The computing device is further configured in such a way as to add a reference to an item to the gift list while the user browses the items available for purchase.
US08442862B2
A system for tracking telephone calls made in response to advertising campaigns in electronic or other media is provided. The system permits an advertiser to associate specific and distinct telephone numbers with associated advertising campaigns. The system further modifies advertiser-provided information in response to the advertising campaign to which a potential customer responds, and includes the associated telephone number in the modified advertiser information. The system processes telephone calls made to the selected telephone numbers, and provides reports to advertisers of call data associated with the respective advertising campaigns.
US08442859B1
Systems, methods, and computer program products are provided for optimizing liquidity that an Audience Producer can access for the sale of audience profile access rights by having each individual audience profile access right listed using symbology that can gamer the highest price discovery and depth of market. This is accomplished, in part, by providing multiple listing symbologies for a single asset, allowing for a determination of an optimized or improved symbology for obtaining a best purchase or sale price for a structured advertising asset.
US08442852B2
A system and method of modeling and evaluating workflows that provides workflow auto generation and Hierarchical Dependence Graphs for workflows. Modeling and evaluation of workflows is accomplished by accessing a knowledge database containing service descriptions, generating valid workflows models, simulating workflow and obtaining customer requirements through a Graphical User Interface. This system and method generate and display workflows that satisfy a users requirements. In addition, Hierarchical Dependence Graphs provide abstract views that provide additional analysis and control of workflow.
US08442851B2
A system for providing feedback to a chairperson in an electronic meeting scheduling system to enable improved meeting resource management, in which a chairperson can indicate the attendance modes that are permitted for specific invitees to a meeting. The meeting invitations indicate to the invitees the attendance modes they are permitted to use. Meeting invitees are presented with user interface options allowing them to select from potentially multiple attendance modes, determined in response to inputs from the chairperson, and/or in response to information describing resources. As meeting resources are allocated to accepting invitees, those resources become unavailable for selection by subsequently accepting invitees. Meeting acceptances are collected such that indications of how accepting attendees will attend the meeting are made available in a chairperson interface so that the chairperson can adjust resources allocated for the meeting to reflect how accepting attendees are planning to attend.
US08442850B2
Methods and apparatus, including systems and computer program products, for a services architecture design that provides enterprise services having accounting functionality at the level of an enterprise application. The design includes a set of service operations, process components, and optionally deployment units. Suitable business objects are also described.
US08442848B2
The invention discloses a method and system for real-time automatic optimal dispatching of a plurality of taxicabs to passenger pick-up locations. The system uses optimization model to optimally dispatch taxicab vehicles in order to minimize total clients waiting time and to maximize taxicab business profitability. The optimization is performed based on the data on currently available taxicabs and their location, and based on the data on new clients orders and clients' pick-up locations, wherein the data on available taxicabs and their locations is obtained by the cell phone/GPS means from taxicab in-car devices and the data on clients' pick-up locations is obtained from clients cell phones/GPS-based devices.
US08442838B2
A hybrid audio encoding technique incorporates both ABR, or CBR, and VBR encoding modes. For each audio coding block, after a VBR quantization loop meets the NMR target, a second quantization loop might be called to adaptively control the final bitrate. That is, if the NMR-based quantization loop results in a bitrate that is not within a specified range, then a bitrate-based CBR or ABR quantization loop determines a final bitrate that is within the range and is adaptively determined based on the encoding difficulty of the audio data. Excessive bitrates from use of conventional VBR mode are eliminated, while still providing much more constant perceptual sound quality than use of conventional CBR mode can achieve.
US08442834B2
Disclosed is a method for training a spoken dialog service component from website data. Spoken dialog service components typically include an automatic speech recognition module, a language understanding module, a dialog management module, a language generation module and a text-to-speech module. The method includes selecting anchor texts within a website based on a term density, weighting those anchor texts based on a percent of salient words to total words, and incorporating the weighted anchor texts into a live spoken dialog interface, the weights determining a level of incorporation into the live spoken dialog interface.
US08442830B2
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for initializing language models for automatic speech recognition. In one aspect, a method includes receiving logged speech recognition results from an existing corpus that is specific to a given language and a target context, generating a target corpus by machine-translating the logged speech recognition results from the given language to a different, target language, and estimating a language model that is specific to the different, target language and the same, target context, using the target corpus.
US08442828B2
A conditional model is used in spoken language understanding. One such model is a conditional random field model.
US08442820B2
The present invention provides a combined lip reading and voice recognition multimodal interface system, which can issue a navigation operation instruction only by voice and lip movements, thus allowing a driver to look ahead during a navigation operation and reducing vehicle accidents related to navigation operations during driving. The combined lip reading and voice recognition multimodal interface system in accordance with the present invention includes: an audio voice input unit; a voice recognition unit; a voice recognition instruction and estimated probability output unit; a lip video image input unit; a lip reading unit; a lip reading recognition instruction output unit; and a voice recognition and lip reading recognition result combining unit that outputs the voice recognition instruction
US08442818B2
An audio encoder capable of implementing a plurality of encoding functions, wherein an adaptation controller adjusts the implementation of the encoding functions in response to feedback received by the adaptation controller during use. The adjustment may involve adapting encoding algorithms or selecting alternative encoding algorithms. The encoder may also include an operations scheduler to adjust the order in which the encoding functions are applied. The feedback may be received from internally of the encoder, for example from the currently implemented encoding functions, or from externally of the encoder. A corresponding decoder is also provided.
US08442813B1
A set of ordered characters is received in association with information specifying the locations of the characters within the image of the document. Language-conditional character probabilities for each character are determined based on a set of language models and the ordering of the characters. Neighbor characters associated with a target character are identified based on the locations of the characters. Language-conditional character probabilities associated with the neighbor characters and language-conditional character probabilities associated with the target character are combined to generate a local language-conditional likelihood associated with the target character, the local language-conditional likelihood representing a concordance of the target character to a language model.
US08442807B2
Systems, methods, and computer program products are for estimating crowd size at a location. An exemplary method includes determining, at a crowd size analyzer, a number of wireless service users at the location, and estimating, at the crowd size analyzer, a total number of people at the location based upon the number of wireless service users determined to be at the location.
US08442805B2
The Voronoi diagram is a decomposed region X made into cells, the decomposition being induced by a set of generators (Pk)k-K, and a distance function, and involves finding for each generator Pk a cell, which is a set of all the points in X satisfying the condition that the distance to the current generator P=Pk is not greater than the distance thereof to the union A of the other generators. For each generator, and for each point p in this generator, the method selects a set of directions, then for each direction recursively tests a ray in that direction, until a certain interval on the ray is shorter than or equal to a given error parameter. A point corresponding to the interval on the ray is then selected as an end point, and cells are defined from the end points, thus forming the Voronoi diagram.
US08442797B2
A directional tap detection algorithm and a single tri-axis accelerometer are employed to extend the number of unique button less input commands available for a small mobile electronic device. The algorithm analyzes acceleration data from the tri-axis accelerometer to detect the direction and number of taps imparted to any of the six sides of a housing of the device, yielding 12 unique inputs. The algorithm employs a parameter referred to as the performance index (PI) to identify tap induced movements. The PI is determined by calculating the time derivative of each acceleration signal for each axis and then calculating the sum of the absolute values of the calculated acceleration derivatives. A tap is determined to have occurred if the sum exceeds a threshold value for a predetermined amount of time. If a second tap is detected within a predetermined time after the first tap, then a double tap is determined to have occurred.
US08442794B2
An appliance development toolkit includes an editor configured to create one or more test scripts having steps with each step being separated from its adjacent steps by a transition condition. The transition condition includes a logic expression resolvable to a boolean transition value, and one or more command statements that instruct what should happen so that a test engine can execute the command statement contemporaneous with the transition from one step to another. The toolkit also includes information associated with a message element in a message data payload. The message data payload is uniquely identifiable within a universe of pre-defined message data payloads for an appliance. The toolkit also includes a converter for placing the test script into a form for use in diagnosing an appliance.
US08442792B1
A method and apparatus for measuring and calibrating the power consumption reporting by intelligent AC outlets, sub outlets and sockets including optoport and RFID antenna using a hand held loader and propagating optical signals via a lightguide or fiber optic cable and via RFID signals and tags, including the setting up of location, AC outlet identification and appliance particulars. Simpler loaders or calibrators communicate standard power consumption values to the AC outlet for self-calibration using the received values. The appliance particulars are introduced via the loader keys or a touch screen and via the reading of a RFID tag attached to the plug of an appliance and processed via the loader for propagation through an optical grid of a residence automation system via current drain or power consumption receivers.
US08442787B2
An apparatus is described, including: a signal processing circuit adapted to process an input signal to obtain an output signal; a sensor element for sensing a predetermined physical quantity, wherein the sensor element is adapted to generate a sensor signal in response to the predetermined physical quantity; wherein the signal processing unit is adapted to process the input signal to obtain the output signal depending on the sensor signal; and wherein the apparatus further comprises an evaluation circuit adapted to evaluate the sensor signal and to generate an indication signal indicating an abnormal operating condition in case the sensor signal does not fulfill a predetermined normal operation criterion.
US08442785B2
One or more example diagnostics may be implemented as part of an intelligent luminaire manager or other radio frequency (RF) device that is in communication with an equipment or fixture such as a luminaire. Example diagnostics can determine a status such as a fixture malfunction, a cycling condition, a miswiring configuration, or another condition. The determined status can be wirelessly transmitted from the intelligent luminaire manager or other radio frequency device to a network server via a network. The network may be a network of intelligent luminaire managers and/or RF devices.
US08442778B2
Generally, a system and method consistent with the present disclosure may provide a relatively low cost, relatively robust data acquisition and analysis system useful for condition-based maintenance. The system may be useful for condition-based maintenance in industrial applications, e.g., of equipment and/or machinery. The industrial monitoring system may be used, for example, to monitor a condition of rotating machinery, e.g., a wind turbine. The system and method may include data analysis that may be useful for anticipating a need for maintenance, repair and/or replacement of one or more components.
US08442766B2
Marking information relating to use of a marking device to perform a marking operation may be acquired from one or more input devices, logged/stored in local memory of a marking device, formatted in various manners, processed and/or analyzed at the marking device itself, and/or transmitted to another device (e.g., a remote computer/server) for storage, processing and/or analysis. In one example, a marking device may include one or more environmental sensors and/or operational sensors, and the marking information may include environmental information and operational information derived from such sensors. Environmental and/or operational information may be used to control operation of the marking device, assess out-of-tolerance conditions in connection with use of the marking device, and/or provide alerts or other feedback. Additional enhancements are disclosed relating to improving the determination of a location (e.g., GPS coordinates) of a dispensing tip of the marking device during use, a group/solo mode, and tactile functionality of a user interface.
US08442765B1
A method for collaborative navigation comprises initializing a conditionally independent filter on a local platform, propagating the conditionally independent filter forward in time, and when a local measurement has been made, updating the conditionally independent filter with the local measurement. When a common measurement has been made, the conditionally independent filter is updated with the common measurement, and a determination is made whether a remote conditioning node has arrived from a remote platform. If a remote conditioning node has arrived, a determination is made whether the remote conditioning node needs to be fused with a local conditioning node of the conditionally independent filter. If the remote conditioning node needs to be fused, a node-to-node fusion is performed in the conditionally independent filter to merge the remote conditioning node with the local conditioning node to produce a merged conditioning node. A conditional update of the conditionally independent filter is then performed.
US08442762B2
In order to provide a method for the three-dimensional representation of a digital roadmap, which makes greater use of areas near the horizon of the visual representation and provides the user with supplementary information, a provision is made to draw in these areas navigation or orientation-related information as image elements.
US08442758B1
Systems and methods for a vehicle smart calendar are described. One embodiment includes obtaining information related to a user preference, a user schedule, and third party information and receiving a communication directly from a vehicle computing device of a vehicle, the communication including authenticating information for a user. Some embodiments include, in response to authenticating the user, automatically providing, by a remote computing device, a reminder for an event on the user schedule to the vehicle computing device, a predetermined time prior to the event.
US08442752B2
A climate control system having a control head including a display providing at least one comfort level indicator and a fuel economy indicator is provided. The comfort level indicator displays a plurality of comfort level settings corresponding to relative thermal comfort in all weather conditions. Each comfort level setting corresponds to a range of temperatures so that once a comfort range is obtained, the climate control system will be reluctant to consume additional energy, thereby maintaining or improving the current fuel economy state. The fuel economy indicator provides for direct communication of the impact of comfort level settings on fuel economy.
US08442749B2
The present disclosure teaches a software and hardware system capable of operating on a signal controller platform which detects and records individual vehicle data including but not limited to dangerous driving behavior such as red light running and speeding. The disclosure teaches sharing of the computing platform and infrastructure of the traffic control system. The disclosure also teaches receiving, interpreting, and organizing data collected through the traffic control system's vehicle detection infrastructure, and driving cameras, video, or other recording devices to provide additional evidence of an individual vehicle's behavior.
US08442743B2
A system includes: a cylinder head for a multi-cylinder internal combustion engine where the cylinder head includes, per cylinder, a first exhaust valve and a corresponding first exhaust port and a second exhaust valve and a corresponding second exhaust port and where, for simultaneous control of the first exhaust valve and the second exhaust valve of a cylinder, for that cylinder, the cylinder head delivers a quantity of exhaust via the first exhaust port and a different quantity of exhaust via the second exhaust port; a first exhaust turbine in fluid communication with the first exhaust ports of the cylinder head; and a second exhaust turbine in fluid communication with the second exhaust ports of the cylinder head. Various other devices, assemblies, controllers, etc., are also disclosed.
US08442740B2
In order to regulate a power plant (105) having a gas generator (1) and a free turbine (3) to drive a rotary wing, a first speed of rotation (NTL) of the free turbine (3) is regulated on a first setpoint value (NTL*) equal either to a regulation term (NRc) or to a predetermined setpoint threshold (NTL*). The regulation term (NRc) is a function of a third speed of rotation (NR) of said rotary wing in accordance, where NRc=NR*(1−d), “d” representing a non-zero constant lying in the range 0 to 1.
US08442730B2
A controller of a construction machine includes a target command value computing unit generating a speed target command value for normal motion of a working equipment based on a manipulating signal, a target command value correcting unit correcting the command value, and a command signal output unit outputting a command signal to a driving device based on the corrected speed target command value. The target command value correcting unit includes a vibration suppressing unit generating a speed target command value for vibration suppression to suppress generation of vibrations in the working equipment based on the command value, a peak value recognizing unit recognizing a peak value of the command value based on the command value sequentially generated by the target command value computing unit, and a target command value compositing unit compositing the command values according to the peak value to correct the command value.
US08442728B2
A vehicle control system for an automatically opening and/or automatically closing flap, includes a programmable operating switch and a programmable electronic control device. The operating switch is a proximity sensor that is actuatable in a non-contact manner and, after the actuation occurs, generates an operation request signal as an input signal to the control device. In the presence of the operation request signal and, as required, of at least one further condition, the control device emits a command to a closing mechanism for opening or closing the flap. The control device and/or the operating switch is programmed such that the operation request signals are counted as long as at least a first defined condition has not yet been met, and that, when a defined maximal counter reading has been reached, the operation request signals will be ignored until at least a second defined condition has been met.
US08442727B2
When an accumulated charge amount of a first slave battery reaches a preset accumulated charge amount or less, the first slave battery is set as a used secondary battery, and when a master battery and a second slave battery are connected to sides of motors, accumulated charge amount differences of the master battery and the second slave battery are respectively set as allowable discharge electric energies E1 and E3, value 0 is set as an allowable discharge electric energy E2, and a sum of these allowable discharge electric energies is set as an EV priority allowable electric energy that is an electric energy that is allowed to be discharged as a whole of the master battery, and the two slave batteries.
US08442722B2
A corner unit guidance control system for use with a corner unit that is part of a center pivot irrigation system includes a primary antenna, a secondary antenna, a receiver, and a controller. The primary antenna and the secondary antenna may receive signals from at least one external positional information source. The receiver may be in communication with the antennas and operable to process the signals to produce position data corresponding to a current position of a wheel and altitude data about the height of the antennas. The controller may be in communication with the receiver and may be programmed to steer the wheel to a heading corresponding to a difference between the current position of the wheel and a point along the path and further programmed to calculate a tilt angle from the altitude data and adjust the heading based on the tilt angle.
US08442719B1
Wireless communications between a vehicle base station and transponder is authenticated. Two or more antennas including at least one within a vehicle are respectively driven using driving currents multiplied by different superposition factors for at least two iterative cycles. Separate vector components of the respective fields emitted by the antennas are used for calculating superposition factors. For each cycle, each antenna is concurrently driven using the same phase respectively using the driving currents multiplied by the superposition factors, and superposed vector components are detected for a superposed signal including signals from both antennas. Communications are authenticated via the detected superposed vector components for each for the superposed signal of each cycle being within a system error-based range of the sum of the vector components for each of the antennas as multiplied respectively by the superposition factors for the antenna from which the vector components are received.
US08442713B2
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for steering a vehicle, and more particularly to an apparatus and a method for steering an autonomous vehicle. One aspect of the present invention provides a method of steering a vehicle in an apparatus for steering the vehicle, the method comprising: (a) determining a first path by using a starting point and a destination of the vehicle; (b) generating an obstacle position signal when a plurality of obstacle sensors mounted on the vehicle detect an obstacle during an operation of the vehicle; (c) generating a parallax information using the obstacle position signal received from the plurality of the obstacle sensors; and (d) determining a second path avoiding the obstacle by using the parallax information. According to the method and the apparatus for steering a vehicle of the present invention, a vehicle may avoid obstacles in real-time in complex environments.
US08442698B2
Methods and systems for energy management are disclosed. An example system includes a first port connected to an energy storage device for bidirectional flow of energy, a second port connected to an energy source device for unidirectional flow of energy, a third port connected to a utility grid for bidirectional flow of energy, and a unified control system with control logic configured to simultaneously control energy flow between the first, second, and third ports based on at least two factors from the group consisting of: a state of charge of the energy storage device, a state of the energy source device, and a state of the utility grid. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US08442679B2
An object handling method for determining the positions of the arm of a handling system with the aid of a location method which is based on a reference system predetermined by an associated location system. A handling system having a moveable arm. The arm is operational within a fixed reference system using a location system.
US08442676B2
A medication storage for storing medications while cooling down them is constituted so as to allow a medication based on prescription data to be certainly taken out. The medication storage cools down inside a storeroom for storing the medications to a predetermined temperature by a cooling unit. The medication storage, includes: a plurality of shelves rotatably provided in the storeroom; a plurality of storage partitions which are respectively constituted on each shelf and store the medications; a motor for rotating the shelves; a plurality of openings provided respectively for being arranged to correspond to each of the shelves thereby allowing only medication in any one of the storage partitions to be taken out; a plurality of doors for openably closing each opening, respectively; a plurality of lock solenoids for locking each door, respectively; and a control unit for controlling the motor and the lock solenoid. The controller permits the shelves to be rotated based on the prescription data so as to bring a predetermined storage partition to a position corresponding to the opening and then to permit the lock solenoid to be unlocked.
US08442675B2
An apparatus and method is provided for coordinating automated package and bulk dispensing at a remote site. A hopper apparatus includes a series of storage compartments and access doors. The compartments and doors are linked to a PLC that is further linked to an inventory provider. The inventory provider takes product orders from an end-user. The end-user is provided an end-user access code. The inventory provider communicates with the PLC and reserves for the ordered product(s) a vacant storage compartment(s). The inventory provider delivers the product(s) ordered by the end-user to the hopper apparatus. Upon delivery, the inventory provider enters the appropriate end-user access code(s), causing the PLC to open the storage compartment(s) previously reserved by the inventory provider for the products ordered by the end-user. The inventory provider loads the appropriate storage compartment(s) with the end-user product(s). The end-user subsequently picks up product(s) previously ordered by entering in his or her access code(s).
US08442673B2
The invention relates method for controlling a machine for treating containers (12) as well as for controlling processing and/or treatment stations located downstream from it, wherein the machine has a plurality of turntables (42) that are each driven by a motor and that serve to orient and/or position the containers (12), in which method the motor drives (44) of the turntables (42) are each monitored separately, so that, if an error occurs with one or more of the turntable drives (44), the affected defective turntable drives (44) are deactivated while the machine and/or the stations located downstream continue to be operated.
US08442671B2
A system (1), a method and an operating unit (62) for the creation of mixed layers for pallets (81, 82, 83, 84) are disclosed. A storage (10) is provided in which at least two different pack types are stored on a plurality of pallets (81, 82, 83, 84), including a plurality of layers of homogenous packs. The packs are intermediately stored in a plurality of individual, parallel conveyors (301, 302, . . . 30N) in a homogenous state. Based on the input of a user (5) on a touch panel (62), the packs are supplied to a grouping table (50) via a supply conveyor (40) in a predetermined sequence. A controller (60) is associated with the system (1) so that, in the grouping table (50), individual different pack types are allocated to the predefined positions of the different pack types as a function of predefined positions of the different pack types in a layer pattern (14) of a layer (24) of a production pallet (12).
US08442670B2
Automated treatment operations for preparing the inner surface of a tire for patch application is provided. One exemplary method includes the steps of locating the tire on a tire support, identifying a target area for preparing that is located on the inner surface of the tire, scanning the target area so as to acquire data regarding the inner surface of the tire at the target area, determining a treatment path using the data regarding the inner surface of the tire, treating the inside of the tire by removing material using a treatment tool, and positioning the treatment tool along the treatment path during the treating step.
US08442668B2
A handling system able to efficiently process information relating to a plurality of conveyed articles, the handling system provided with a conveyer for conveying workpieces, a visual sensor for detecting positions of workpieces by acquiring images of a plurality of tracking ranges obtained by dividing a belt into sections, an encoder for detecting an amount of movement of the belt, a tracking manager for monitoring amounts of movement of the plurality of tracking ranges based on the amount of movement detected by the encoder and specifying the tracking range passing through a workpiece detection area, a workpiece manager for selecting the article in the tracking range specified by the tracking manager, and a controller for controlling operations of robots so as to hold the workpiece selected by the workpiece manager.
US08442666B2
A dynamic maintenance planning apparatus including a maintenance planning device and a priority calculating device is provided. The maintenance planning device determines a maintenance date and time on and at which the throughput of a manufacturing system is maximum from among possible maintenance dates and times based on a simulation result in which a specific manufacturing apparatus on a manufacturing system is stopped at a specified maintenance date and time, and, for the maintenance at the determined maintenance date and time, specifies a lot whose completion is predicted to be delayed. The priority calculating device calculates a priority of the lot whose completion is predicted to be delayed so as to prevent waiting time of the lot during the maintenance.
US08442665B2
A system is disclosed including a three-dimensional object having a non-conforming region, and a photogrammetry device adapted to scan the three-dimensional object. The system further includes optical reference targets and a controller structured to perform functions of repairing the three-dimensional object. The controller commands the photogrammetry device to scan the three-dimensional object, and calculates a nominal surface location and contour for the three-dimensional object. The controller further commands the photogrammetry device to scan the non-conforming region of the three-dimensional object, and calculates a material removal tool path comprising a path adapted to remove material from the object located beyond the nominal surface location and contour. The controller generates a solid model of the damaged region of the object based on the nominal surface location and contour, and computes a material addition tool path according to the solid model.
US08442661B1
Systems and methods are provided for projecting a stabilized laser beam from a robot being controlled through a human interface. The laser beam can be stabilized through the use of optics that continuously adjust the aim of the laser beam in response to measurements of the orientation of the robot. The human interface allows the operator to both observe the visual environment of the robot and also to aim the laser beam. The projected laser beam allows the operator to communicate from the perspective of the robot by pointing to objects or locations within the robot's visual environment, creating symbols with the laser beam, and make gestures with the laser beam.
US08442659B2
A rotary actuator position sensor comprises a target with a target surface coupled to a rotatable shaft and a sensor positioned to face the target surface. The target surface is configured to vary the distance between the target surface and the position sensor as the shaft is shifted from one rotational position to another. The sensor provides an analog output signal that corresponds to distance to the target and therefore to the rotational position of the shaft. A controller processes a signal corresponding to the sensor output signal to determine the rotational position. The controller can control the rotation of the shaft from one rotational position to another. The position sensor can be used in a wafer processing system with the controller also controlling movement of a wafer cassette holder into and out of wet tanks and between tanks. The controller can also control an optional agitator and front to back and back to front movement of the shaft.
US08442646B2
An inner surface of a coupling component sidewall forms first and second portions of a cavity of the coupling component. A conductive coupling between an electrode and a conductor of a medical electrical lead may be formed by inserting a segment of the conductor into the first portion of the cavity, crimping the sidewall of the coupling component around the inserted segment, inserting a segment of the electrode into the second portion of the cavity, and welding an edge of the sidewall to the inserted electrode segment. The edge of the sidewall may define a slot, extending between first and second portions of the cavity, or a hole extending through the sidewall. The electrode may be part of an electrode assembly, mounted around an inner insulation layer of the lead, and the conductor may be part of a conductor assembly extending between inner and outer insulation layers of the lead.
US08442643B2
A programmer for a medical device, such as a neurostimulator, includes a reduced-noise power supply that converts dc power provided by a battery source to power for components within the programmer. The power supply includes a pulse-skipping dc-dc boost converter. The programmer provides an input circuit for selectively inhibiting pulse-skipping to reduce switching noise that could otherwise undermine wireless telemetry performance between the programmer and a medical device.
US08442636B2
A connector for an electrostimulation lead includes a connector housing defining a fastener aperture, a septum disposed over the fastener aperture, and a fastener for mating with the fastener aperture to secure a received lead to the connector housing so that at least one terminal disposed on the received lead electrically couples with at least one conductor contact disposed in the connector housing. The septum includes a septum flap and an attachment cuff. The septum flap is configured and arranged for extending over the fastener aperture and for receiving a tool for folding the septum flap open to expose the fastener aperture. The attachment cuff is configured and arranged for coupling the septum flap to the connector housing. The fastener is configured and arranged to be disposed in the fastener aperture and to be tightened against the lead to hold the lead within the connector housing.
US08442635B2
This document discusses, among other things, systems and methods for automatic electrode integrity management. Interelectrode impedance is measured for various electrode combinations of an implantable cardiac function management device. The impedance data is processed, such as at an external remote server, to determine whether an electrode is failing or has failed, to select an alternate electrode configuration, to alert a physician or patient, to predict a time-to-failure such as by using population data, or to reprogram electrode configuration or other device parameters of the implantable cardiac function management device.
US08442630B2
A method discriminates between ventricular arrhythmia and supraventricular arrhythmia by determining the direction of an electrical signal conducted through the atrioventricular node. An implantable cardiac defibrillator provides atrioventricular and ventriculoatrial pacing bursts to determine if an arrhythmia with a 1:1 atrial to ventricular relationship is due to ventricular tachycardia or supraventricular tachycardia. This discrimination capability reduces the incidence of inappropriate shocks from dual-chamber implantable cardiac defibrillators to near zero and provides a method to differentially diagnose supraventricular tachycardia from ventricular tachycardia.
US08442624B2
A system for heart performance characterization and abnormality detection processes a heart electrical activity signal in determining multiple first signal characteristic values over multiple heart cycles. A first signal characteristic value substantially comprises a time interval between a peak of a P wave to a peak of a succeeding R wave representing a repolarization time interval in an individual heart cycle and the signal processor uses a peak detector and time detector for identifying the peaks and detecting a time difference between the identified peaks. A comparator compares at least one of the multiple first signal characteristic values or a value derived from the multiple first signal characteristic values with a threshold value to provide a comparison indicator. A patient monitor in response to the comparison indicator indicating a calculated signal characteristic value exceeds the threshold value, generates an alert message associated with the threshold.
US08442623B2
Various embodiments of a site marker are disclosed that comprise a body portion and a marker element. The body portion is constructed of a bioabsorbable material and defines at least one cavity therein. The marker element is captured within one of the cavities. The marker element is constructed of a material that may be imaged under at least one imaging modality.
US08442620B2
A lead implantation system with an introducer, a lead configured to engage with the introducer such that the introducer can convey the lead to a desired internal target location, and at least one sensor. The sensor is adapted to generate an indicator of desired engagement of the system with the desired target tissue location prior to engagement of the lead with the target tissue. Also a method of implanting an implantable patient lead including advancing a lead implantation assembly towards a desired target location along an introduction axis and monitoring at least one indicator of lead implantation assembly position along the lead introduction axis. At least one indicator can be generated by the lead implantation assembly. Advancing of the lead introduction assembly can be halted when the monitoring indicates contact with the desired target tissue. The patient lead can then be advanced towards the target tissue and fixed to the target tissue.
US08442618B2
A system and method are provided for delivering a medical device on a catheter to a selected position within a lumen of the body. A medical positioning system (MPS) acquires MPS data for points within the lumen using an MPS sensor on the catheter. Each of the points is associated with a three-dimensional coordinate system and an activity state of an organ of the patient. A user interface receives position data for the selected position. The position date is associated with an MPS representation associated with one of the points. A processor determines a plurality of temporal three-dimensional trajectory representations based on the MPS data and corresponding to the respective activity states of the organ. The processor superimposes the temporal three-dimensional trajectory representations on a two-dimensional image according to the activity states of the organ thereby enabling an operator to visually navigate the medical device toward the selected position.
US08442613B2
An embodiment of a mapping probe assembly includes a body frame with a lumen therein. The body frame includes a catheter shaft region, a loop section and a transition region between the catheter shaft region and a loop section. A plurality of mapping electrodes are attached around the loop section. Electrical conductors extend through the lumen of the body frame to the mapping electrodes. In some embodiments, the loop section is skived, where a portion of the body frame is removed toward the interior of the loop section. The loop section has a generally planar loop, and further has a loop center. In some embodiments, the catheter shaft has an alignment generally perpendicular to the loop section where the alignment of the catheter shaft is along a line that intersects the planar loop proximate to the loop center.
US08442605B2
The invention relates to power cable comprising, at least one HTS-tape and a cooling system comprising a fluid cooling medium for cooling the at least one HTS-tape. The at least one HTS-tape being at least partly surrounded by a cooling layer comprising said fluid cooling medium and an electrical insulation at least partly impregnated with said fluid medium.The power cable of the invention has shown to reduce the risk of fault current and electrically breakdown. When extra cooling is needed for stable operation the cooling medium may evaporate in the cooling layer for providing the cooling.
US08442598B2
A portable terminal with a camera lens assembly is disclosed. The portable terminal includes a receiving groove, a lens housing rotatably disposed in the receiving groove, a frictional piece provided in the lens housing, and a frictional projection provided at an end of the frictional piece. The frictional projection contacts and rubs against an inside wall of the receiving groove when the lens housing rotates.
US08442595B2
The present invention relates a method and a mobile communication device for generating an adaptive ring signal level in the mobile communication device in response to the surrounding environmental condition of said mobile communication device and also in response to the way the mobile communication device is stored away. By comparing a transfer that is determined based on the relation between an emitted signal from the loudspeaker and a response recorded by the microphone and an ideal transfer function a calculated response function is obtained. The calculated response function is compared with predefined response functions stored in a look up table to find a match that is then selected. The ring signal is thereafter adjusted to a level that corresponds to the values associated with and stored together with the selected predefined response function.
US08442584B2
Provided are a method and an accessory apparatus for receiving and reproducing DMB data. The DMB accessory apparatus receives DMB data, converts data formats of the received DMB data into multimedia data formats which can be reproduced by a typical mobile terminal, and transmits 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.
US08442582B2
A mobile communication terminal and method of controlling a broadcast output thereof are discussed, by which the broadcast output can be controlled by terminating the broadcast output in case that a call signal is received by the mobile communication terminal in the course of a broadcast viewing. An embodiment of the present invention includes receiving a call signal in the course of a broadcast program output and ending the broadcast program output in response to the received call.
US08442580B2
In a telecommunications device a number or address is selected from a stored list for initiating a call or sending a message from the telecommunications device to the number or address. The list includes names and one or more numbers and/or addresses corresponding to each name. At least some of said stored names are displayed, and one of the displayed names is highlighted. The highlighted name is displayed together with a default one of the one or more numbers and/or addresses corresponding to the highlighted name.
US08442565B2
A method for indicating discontinuous data scheduling includes receiving discontinuous reception (DRX) indication information on an Iur interface; and sending discontinuous scheduling indication information to a base station according to the DRX indication information. A communication system and a radio network control device for implementing the method are also provided.
US08442559B1
Disclosed herein is a method of operating a communication system, wherein the method comprises receiving entity historical performance information including a paging delay value and a paging cost value for each of a plurality of past call periods; receiving target performance information indicating a paging delay goal and a paging cost goal; processing the historical performance information and the target performance information to determine a past call period wherein the past call period comprises one of the plurality of past call periods having a paging delay value that is within a predetermined proximity of the paging delay goal and a paging cost value that is within a predetermined proximity of the paging cost goal; processing call history information associated with the entity to determine a plurality of locations where the entity was located during the past call period; receiving a call for the entity; and in response to the call, transferring a plurality of paging messages to page the entity at the plurality of locations.
US08442552B2
A method and system for predicting radio frequency (RF) coverage in a multi-level wireless network is described herein. The multi-level wireless network includes the network management server and a plurality of wireless devices, where each of the wireless devices includes an RF transmitter. A two-dimensional wireless network configuration model of a vertical level of the multi-level wireless network is determined. A path loss in a propagation path of an RF signal from an RF transmitter of a wireless device to a grid point in the vertical level is determined. The path loss may be based on a plurality of path loss exponents. A signal strength loss due to one or more obstacles that intersect the propagation path is determined. A strength of the RF signal is predicted based on the path loss and the signal strength loss.
US08442550B2
A system and method for providing position information using a three-dimensional based grid is provided. The position information may be relayed to an electronic device by providing location information to a database and receiving location-centric information at the electronic device. The system may include a network for continuously updating the database in real-time.
US08442544B2
Aspects of a method and system for mitigating interference among femtocells via intelligent channel selection are provided. In this regard, signals which may interfere with cellular communications between a femtocell and a cellular communication device may be detected via the femtocell. Based on the detection, the femtocell may be configured to transmit and/or receive signals on one or more frequencies and/or channels. The one or more frequencies and/or channels may be determined in the femtocell and/or in a network management entity. Detecting interfering signals and configuring the one or more femtocells may occur periodically, upon installation of a femtocell, upon power-up of a femtocell, and/or upon command from a network administrator. The results of the detection may be communicated to one or more other femtocells and/or to a network management entity.
US08442543B2
Provided are a mobile station that may determine a Precoding Matrix Index (PMI) of a serving channel, generate Channel State Information (CSI) based on only interference channels, and feed back the PMI and the CSI to a serving base station, a base station that may design a precoding vector based on the PMI and the CSI, and an operation of the mobile station. Also, provided are a mobile station that may determine a PMI based on only interference channels, generate CSI of a serving channel, and feed back the PMI and the CSI to a serving base station, a base station that may design a precoding vector based on the PMI and the CSI, and an operation method of the mobile station.
US08442541B2
Systems and methods are provided for a distributed inter-cell interference avoidance (ICIA) technique for avoiding co-channel interference between femtocell networks and macrocell networks. At the macrocell, user equipments sense the downlink (DL) spectrum and detects whether there are any nearby interfering femtocells. If there is any interference, a macrocell base station appropriately re-schedules the DL resources and also uses a mapping function to re-schedule uplink (UL) resources based on the re-scheduled DL resources. At the femtocell, a femtocell base station senses the UL spectrum to detect for interference from nearby macrocell users. If there is interference, femtocell gives priority for use of the resources to the macrocell by releasing UL resources. Femtocell may also use the same mapping function to obtain the DL resources used by the macrocell and to re-schedule DL and UL resources of the femtocell to avoid using the DL and UL resources of the macrocell.
US08442538B2
For Wireless Communications Networks (WCNs) that support soft handover, cooperator receiver selection for a TDOA, AOA, TDOA/AOA, or hybrid network-based or network-overlay Wireless Location System (WLS) must contend with one or more network base stations as a serving cell. When the active set contains more than one member, two techniques for determining a set of cooperating and demodulating receivers to use in the signal collection for location estimation is disclosed. In one embodiment, the active set members are constructively reduced to a single member that is used as a proxy serving cell. In another embodiment, the information contained in the active set membership is retained and a new set of demodulating and cooperator receivers are generated based on the entire membership of the active set.
US08442537B2
Disclosed is a mobility management method for use in a cellular mobile communication system. The mobility management method is configured to save radio resources and provide a stable service by detecting a cell in which a dwell time of user equipment (UE) is short as an island cell and performing a direct handover (HO) to an appropriate cell without handing over the UE to the island cell. There are provided three methods including a base station-based method, a UE measurement-based method, and a UE history-based method according to how to measure a dwell time in which the UE stays in a cell, a component in which obtained information is received within a network, and how to process an HO using the information.
US08442535B2
A method, a system and a device for maintaining user service continuity are provided in an embodiment of the present invention. The method includes prohibiting a UE from accessing a forbidden network before handover is complete when the UE needs to perform network handover if the UE adopts a SIM access technology, thus avoiding service interruption of a SIM user due to access to an incorrect network. A system and a device for maintaining user service continuity are provided in an embodiment of the present invention.
US08442532B2
A system and method for facilitating the efficient operation of a mobile station as it transfers from communicating via one wireless data network to another. A session control node is coupled to the mobile node in such a manner that it selectively buffers data being transmitted to the mobile node, at least while the network transfer is being executed. When the mobile node had dropped its communication session with a first wireless network and established a new communication session with a second wireless network, the buffered data is read out and transmitted to the mobile node. The session control node may be coupled with a home network associated with the mobile node or a control node may be associated with the mobile node on an ad hoc basis.
US08442530B2
The present invention relates to a device that includesa radio network control device operable to control a plurality of radio base stations. Also included is a grouping processing unit operable to group into a same group many mobile devices that perform handover to a specific radio base station in a predetermined period. Furthermore, the device includes an identification information notifying unit operable to, when a mobile device performs handover to the radio base station, notify the radio base station of identification information of the mobile device and identification information of one or more other mobile devices belonging to the same group.
US08442526B1
An application server provides communication services via a packet-switched network to mobile nodes based on their respective registrations in a registry, such as a home subscriber server (HSS) or domain name server (DNS). A registration proxy may be used to effect a registration in the registry on behalf of a mobile node when the mobile node lacks sufficient capability to effect the registration itself. The registration proxy may perform this function after receiving a notification that the mobile node is connected to the packet-switched network and after querying a capabilities server to determine that the mobile node lacks sufficient registration capability. To effect a registration in an HSS, the registration proxy may emulate either a serving call state control function (S-CSCF) or user equipment (UE).
US08442512B1
A method of operating a call duration analysis system comprises receiving a plurality of call detail records (CDRs) comprising information associated with a plurality of calls over a wireless communication network, processing the CDRs to determine an average call duration for the wireless communication network, processing the CDRs with the average call duration for the wireless communication network to determine at least one wireless access node associated with a below-average call duration, processing the CDRs associated with the wireless access node to determine a first set of the CDRs associated with the wireless access node exhibiting a good RF status and a second set of the CDRs associated with the wireless access node exhibiting a bad RF status, and processing the first set of the CDRs to determine a wireless communication device type associated with the below-average call duration.
US08442509B2
Systems and methods for managing a wireless device from removable media with processing capability are described. One aspect may include a system for operating the radio hardware of a wireless device from a media device, comprising a media device, including a processor; a memory, coupled to said processor; and a radio host side peer layer, adapted to run on said memory and said processor, and adapted to communicate with the radio hardware of said wireless device.
US08442494B2
When a user interface is scrolled, data requests are made. If the data is not found in cache, the data is retrieved from a remote server by asynchronously placing data requests to a server starting with the last added data request. Through a relaxed loader, the mobile device does not bombard the remote server with requests. By removing older data requests, the mobile application fetches data more in line with the current display. After receiving the data from the remote server, the data is decoded and compressed. The data is placed within cache. When multiple entries exist, the data within cache is associated and processed. Instead of the interface decoding data from the cache for each entry, the processed data is provided to the interface removing processing and required memory for each entry.
US08442490B2
A system for restricting uses of moving phones used by drivers, but not passenger phones, and sometimes interrupting voice calls, including: (a) Provide for more than one level or state of restriction. (b) When a caller calls a person driving, play to the caller a query whether the call is important enough to put through, and put it through only if the caller responds affirmatively. (c) The phone is restricted in functionality when the vehicle is determined to be experiencing acceleration greater than a threshold. The restricting may be to play an alert sound to be heard by people listening to a voice conversation on the phone. The restricting may be to suspend a voice conversation on the phone.
US08442483B2
A method for communicating location to an emergency service system. A wireless communication device (WCD) such as a cell phone attains a GPS location fix when outdoors and then uses dead reckoning to determine its direction(s) and distance(s) of travel reaching a position inside a building. When a user of the WCD places an emergency call, the WCD conveys an indication of its indoor location in a signaling message to an emergency service center, and an intermediation system such as an IMS system translates the indoor location indication to a textual description of a portion of the building (e.g., room, cubicle, zone, etc.) that encompasses the indicated location. An emergency service operator can thus receive the building portion description, to facilitate emergency service response. Further, a similar process can then be repeated during the call, to provide an updated building portion description to the operator.
US08442479B2
A network component is provided that includes a processor configured, upon the network component receiving an IMS (Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem) emergency call from a user equipment (UE) 110, to detect in the emergency call an indicator requesting the network component to restrict presentation of private information related to the UE 110. The processor is further configured, when the indicator is present, to transmit the emergency call without at least some of the private information to a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) 130.
US08442477B2
An apparatus for providing power and information to an electronic device housed in a first housing. The apparatus may generally comprise a coupling element, a receiver operable to wirelessly receive information, and a cable. The coupling element is housed within a second housing that is operable to be at least partially inserted into an automobile cigarette lighter socket to acquire power therefrom. The cable extends from the second housing and is operable to couple with the electronic device or a mount associated with the electronic device to provide power from the coupling element and information from the receiver to the electronic device. The cable may generally include a first portion for housing an antenna that is operable to electrically couple with the receiver and a second portion for housing one or more wires. The one or more wires are operable to provide the power and the information to the electronic device or the mount associated with the electronic device.
US08442476B2
According to some embodiments, an analog radio receiver circuit is configured alternatively in a full-power mode when the receiver is situated in a cradle and connected to an external power source, and in a power-saving mode when the receiver is not connected to the external power source. In the power-saving mode, a scaled-down power level is supplied to an analog radio signal processing circuit component such as an amplifier, filter, oscillator, or mixer. Scaling down the power supplied to analog circuit components allows reducing their power consumption, at the expense of degraded circuit performance (e.g. increased non-linearity and intermodulation, decreased filter selectivity). Switching between full-power and power-saving modes may be achieved by controlling the connection of internal nodes of the signal processing circuit to a power source, and/or inserting circuit components (e.g. resistors, active devices, filter poles) into the signal processing circuit.
US08442475B2
A power conservation scheme is provided for conserving power in an access terminal that includes a dedicated proxy circuit, a receiver/transmitter chain, and/or a baseband processor. The baseband processor is adapted to determine when a wireless communication link with an access network has been inactive for at least a threshold amount of time. If such inactivity is ascertained, the baseband processor sends a proxy request to the proxy circuit. Upon receiving such proxy request, the proxy circuit monitors a data, control, and/or paging channel on behalf of the access terminal while the baseband processor is powered down. If a signal is received for the access terminal over the monitored channel, then a wake-up signal is sent to the baseband processor to cause it to power up and monitor a data channel. Upon receiving a response from the baseband processor, the proxy circuit may stop operating as a proxy.
US08442474B2
An apparatus and method for demodulating an FM RF signal is presented. An Adaptive Differentiate Cross Multiply (ADCM) system in which the energy estimate of the desired on-channel RF is generated using adaptive filtering. The adaptive filter includes low pass filtering of the instantaneous energy estimate. The bandwidth of the LPF is adjusted in real time based on the received signal strength energy estimate, the periodicity of any changes in the energy estimate, AGC setting for the receiver, and/or the type of sub-audible signaling applied to the RF signal if known. After the bandwidth is set, the optimum filtered energy estimate is applied to the system to demodulate the received information free from distortion artifacts associated with IQ imbalance. A normalized signal in the ADCM system is clipped by a limiter whose clipping threshold is equal to a maximum gain of differentiators in the ADCM system.
US08442472B2
A frequency divider with a twenty-five percent duty cycle is disclosed. A frequency divider may include an input configured to receive a clock signal, each cycle of the clock signal including a first phase and a second phase, a plurality of latches, and a plurality of three-state circuits wherein a first of the plurality of three-state circuits is configured to drive a first twenty-five percent duty cycle signal from within the first three-state circuit high during a first phase of a first of two clock cycles.
US08442469B2
Signal quality of a composite received signal in a radio communication network is optimized by adjusting a phase offset between received and/or transmitted signals based on signal quality parameters of the received and/or transmitted signals. The phase offset is adjusted by varying the phase offset between the received or transmitted signals such that that the composite signal is circularly, elliptically, or linearly polarized. The phase offset between the received or transmitted signals is continually adjusted based on the received signal quality parameters.
US08442464B2
A low noise amplifier (LNA) system with controllable linearity and noise figure versus power consumption is provided. The system comprises two control inputs for tuning. One input controls an effective transistor width, and the other input controls bias current. Changes to the effective transistor width alter a gain that is applied to a signal, and changes to the bias current alter a power consumption of the system. For more stringent signal specifications, an impedance matched inductive degeneration variation of the LNA is provided.
US08442457B2
A system may include a modifiable mobile device having at least two antennas coupled to fractional amplifiers, with returned power detectors. A beamformer unit provides adaptive beam shaping pattern, and a baseband processor provides beam pattern requirements, wherein the beamformer unit modifies the beam pattern requirements with return loss sampling information to shape the adaptive beam pattern so that a transmitted beam pattern minimizes transmitted power reflected back to the mobile device. A method may include regularly measuring a return power level, if output power is greater than a specific absorption rate level, comparing the return power level to a first threshold, else implementing mobile transmit diversity (MTD), and repeating. If the return power level is greater than the first threshold, implementing a MTD combined with reflection-based beamforming that modifies beam pattern requirements of the mobile device with return loss sampling information to create an adaptive beam pattern.
US08442455B2
A mobile terminal including a body having a battery configured to be mounted on a cradle, a first connection port disposed at one surface of the body to be electrically connected to power supply terminals of the cradle if the body is mounted on the cradle, a second connection port disposed at another surface different from the one surface of the body to be covered by at least part of the cradle if the body is mounted on the cradle, and a power supply path for electrically connecting the battery to the first and the second connection port respectively to charge the battery if power is supplied to the first and the second connection port.
US08442454B1
A system includes radio communications equipment that is configured to transmit and receive communications over a number of different frequencies. The system also includes a battery configured to supply power to the radio and a power generation system configured to charge the battery. The system may further include a portable electromagnetically shielded container configured to house the radio, the battery and the power generation system and provide protection from electromagnetic radiation related damage.
US08442435B2
A method controls a functional element of an ear-level device of a type including a functional element, a memory, a microphone and a speaker, each coupled to a processor. Communication between the ear-level device and a companion device, such as a mobile phone, is established. A functional element for control is selected through the user interface of the companion device. A control instruction for controlling the selected functional element is chosen using the user interface and is transmitted from the companion device to the ear-level device to provide instruction to the ear-level device to control the selected functional element in the chosen way.
US08442431B2
A broadcast message transmission method of a relay station in a multi-hop relay network, which can be applied to a non-transparent centralized scheduling multi-hop relay network, includes that a base station transmits a message to be broadcasted to the relay station, the relay station returns an acknowledgement header to the base station after it has received the message, the base station transmits a message indicating the bandwidth allocation of the downlink to the relay station periodically after it has received the acknowledgement header for indicating the downlink bandwidth that the base station initiatively allocates to the relay station, and the relay station transmits broadcast messages to a terminal or a lower relay station in the downlink bandwidth.
US08442427B2
An apparatus is provided for viewing full content on a display screen. The apparatus includes a portable device adapted to allow viewing of full content on a nearby display screen which is not physically connected to the portable device. The portable device includes a memory that stores the full content; a display screen that displays only a portion of the full content; a button which facilitates communication of the full content between the portable device and a local control device connected to the nearby display screen; and a wireless transmitter that communicating the full content from the portable device to the local control device via a signal sent by the wireless transmitter upon selection of the button. The signal is received by the local control device which provides the full content to the nearby display screen for display thereon.
US08442425B2
Long time interleaver and listenable audio performance enhancements for a satellite receiver are presented. One enhancement includes comparing a correlation and a predetermined threshold value and blocking satellite signal data transmission from entry into long time interleaver (LTI) device circuitry and forward error correction (FEC) circuitry when the correlation value is the same as, or less than the predetermined threshold value. Another enhancement includes using Reed-Solomon codeword error checking to prevent erroneous baseband signal data from being accepted as good baseband signal data. A further enhancement includes storing symbol timing and frequency data during a strong signal condition of the satellite receiver and using this stored data when the satellite receiver encounters a weak signal condition. Another enhancement includes mitigating DC offset noise in a satellite receiver having a zero-IF tuner.
US08442419B2
In full-color printing, one of first and second rotary members is activated with a time lag after the other of the first and second rotary members is activated such that the phase difference between the first and second rotary members is an adjusted phase difference. In addition, every time monochrome printing is performed, the time lag is changed.
US08442409B2
There is provided an image forming apparatus including a rotation member used for image forming and a detector for detecting light from the rotation member. First waveform data of an image-formed surface used to form an image on the rotation member is acquired by the detector. Second waveform data of the image-formed surface used to form an image on the rotation member is acquired. The second waveform data includes at least part of a detected section of the first waveform data. Information on the actual circumference of the rotation member is calculated based on matching between the acquired first and second waveform data. The acquired first waveform data and second waveform data are compared to determine whether or not to use the calculated information on the circumference. When it is determined not to use the calculated information on the circumference, information on the circumference of the rotation member is recalculated.
US08442408B2
A sensor system includes an LED configured to emit light to a recording medium and a light-receiving sensor configured to receive a transmitted light that has passed through the recording medium after having been emitted from the LED to the recording medium. An emitting optical axis of the LED is away from a perpendicular receiving optical axis of the light-receiving sensor.
US08442401B2
A system, an unbundling optical line terminal (OLT), and a method are described herein that allow at least two service providers (SPs) to use individual fibers of an optical distribution network (ODN). In one embodiment, the unbundling OLT includes one or more wavelength division multiplexing-passive optical network (WDM-PON) line cards and one or more SP uplink cards that enable multiple SPs to each utilize one uplink port to access individual wavelengths of one or more passive optical networks (PONs). In another embodiment, the unbundling OLT includes one or more point-to-point line (p2p) line cards (e.g., p2p fiber Ethernet line cards) and one or more SP uplink cards that enable multiple SPs to each utilize one uplink port to access one or more individual fibers.
US08442381B2
With this invention, at least one of a video file containing video information, a still picture file containing still picture information, and an audio file containing audio information and a management file having management information on a control method of reproducing the information in the file are recorded on an information storage medium. This realizes a data structure that causes the recording and deleting places on the information storage medium to correspond spuriously to places on a single tape, such as a VTR tape. Use of the data structure provides users with an easy-to-use interface.
US08442376B2
An image data recording/playback device, including a decoder that decodes image data encoded in a first format; and a transcoder capable of encoding image data, supplied from the decoder and encoded in the first format, into a second format whose compression rate is higher than the compression rate of the first format and outputting the image data encoded into a second format to the decoder and, of decoding image data supplied from the decoder and encoded in the second format, outputting it to the decoder, and alternately carrying out the encoding processing and the decoding processing, wherein: the decoder inputs/outputs image data encoded in the first and second format; and the decoder simultaneously inputs or outputs image data encoded in the first format when inputting or outputting image data encoded in the second format.
US08442375B2
An assembly tool for installing an optical fiber in an optical connector includes a base and a protrusion setting station. The base includes a connector mount disposed in the base. The connector mount can be configured to receive and secure the optical connector on the base where the connector has a housing and a connector ferrule. The protrusion setting station enables the craftsperson to set distance (or protrusion) that a terminal end of the optical fiber extends from an end face of the connector ferrule. The protrusion station includes a light source to illuminate the terminal end of the optical fiber, at least one black body absorber to eliminate unwanted reflected light and a window to visualize the terminal end of the optical fiber protruding from the end face of the connector ferrule.
US08442371B2
An optical fiber cable and a tight-buffered optical fiber which suppress an increase in transmission loss in a humid and hot environment and have good manufacturability are disclosed. The tight-buffered optical fiber of the present invention comprises a glass fiber surrounded by a first coating layer and a second coating layer, the second coating layer comprising two or more layers; wherein a pull-out force is 15 N/20 mm or less in at least one pair of layers between the first coating layer and the second coating layer, or between any two layers of the second coating layer.
US08442369B2
Methods of using an optical device capable of distributing the optical power presented at an input to specified ratios in two output ports. The devices and methods described herein have the ability to broaden the range of wavelengths over which the splitting ratio is even, or substantially even. Methods involve achieving a desired splitting ratio over a broad or ultra-broad wavelength range.
US08442366B2
Provided are an optical waveguide for a touch panel which has high light-gathering power on a light-emitting side and which may materialize a touch panel having excellent position detection performance, and a touch panel using the optical waveguide. The optical waveguide for a touch panel includes: cores; and an over cladding layer covers the cores, the cores including light-emitting cores each formed as a lens portion having a shape in plan view including a tapered portion whose width gradually increases toward an end surface on the light-emitting side and an elliptical arc portion which bulges outwardly a tip side of the tapered portion having the gradually-increasing width so as to be in a shape of an elliptical arc, the elliptical arc portion having a major axis direction aligned in a longitudinal direction of the tapered portion.
US08442362B2
An optical coupling structure that interfaces between optical devices mounted on a substrate and optical waveguides formed in the substrate. A manufacturing method includes preparing a wafer formed on an inorganic solid material on a dicing tape and cutting the back surface of the wafer to form substantially angled portions using a dicing blade having a point angle. The dicing tape is stripped from the wafer and the wafer is separated at the valleys between the substantially angled portions to obtain an optical coupling element. The obtained optical coupling element is a three-dimensional polyhedral light-reflecting member having a mirror surface corresponding to a surface of the wafer. The obtained optical coupling element is inserted into a trench that opens, substantially perpendicular to an optical waveguide of an optical transmission substrate, in the main surface of the optical transmission substrate to provide a structure for optical coupling with the outside.
US08442361B1
An optical modulator apparatus and linearization method are disclosed. The optical modulator may include a buffer layer disposed proximate the electro-optical material substrate. The optical modulator may also include physically asymmetric waveguide elements, which may have physically asymmetric waveguide arms or physically asymmetric hot electrodes. The waveguide arms may include first and second waveguide arms having different dimensions, and the hot electrodes may include first and second hot electrodes having different dimensions. Modulator linearization may be achieved by the above-described modulator structure. Modulator linearization may also be achieved by asymmetric external driving of electric fields applied to the waveguide elements, where the waveguide or electrode dimensions may or may not be symmetric.
US08442358B2
High depth grayscale images, (e.g. <8 bits per pixel) are losslessly cross channel encoded to multi-channel image formats for transformation and display by display devices not capable of displaying high depth grayscale. DICOM and other images may be encoded and provided to web browser based client image viewers that leverage native code for handling multi-channel images. Transformations are applied to reconstitute the high depth grayscale images.
US08442347B2
An information processing apparatus includes an acquisition section and a correction section. The acquisition section acquires information of lightness distribution of a first image captured by an imaging section capable of capturing an image of an observed area provided on an optical path of an optical system of an optical microscope, the image of the observed area being obtained by the optical microscope, the first image being an image of the observed area in a state where no sample is placed therein, the lightness distribution resulting from the optical system of the optical microscope. The correction section corrects, based on the information of lightness distribution acquired by the acquisition section, lightness unevenness of a second image captured by the imaging section, the second image being an image of the observed area in a state where the sample is placed therein.
US08442338B2
Visually optimized quantization is described herein. Specifically, the visually optimized quantization is for arbitrary block-based transforms such as Mode-Dependent Directional Transform (MDDT). The compression method involves the process of taking a discrete cosine transform of an MDDT basis function, obtaining the frequency weights, and computing the contrast sensitivity function for each of the frequency components. The overall effect of the distortion is calculated by error pooling and the quantization matrix is the inverse proportional of the overall effect.
US08442337B2
Techniques and tools are described for encoding animation video. In some embodiments, a video encoder designates animation video for encoding as animation content, which typically involves changing one or more encoder settings or rules to improve encoding performance for the animation content. When the encoder encodes the animation video, the encoder detects edges in the animation video using texture and changes settings for areas that include detected edges so as to improve encoding quality for the areas. In some embodiments, a video encoder adjusts differential quantization rules and quantizes animation video according to the adjusted differential quantization rules.
US08442336B2
Disclosed is an image processing apparatus comprising an image compression conversion unit to quantize an image having attribute data for each pixel, wherein when a region has the attribute data of a photographic image, the image compression conversion unit quantizes the region by a BTC method, wherein when a region has the attribute data of other than the photographic image, and the region is a halftone region, the image compression conversion unit quantizes the region by the BTC method, and wherein when a region has the attribute data of other than the photographic image, and the region is a high resolution region, the image compression conversion unit generates a density pattern for the region to quantize the region according to the generated density pattern.
US08442335B2
A method for modifying a reference block of a reference image, the method includes transforming the reference block into a first set of coefficients, modifying the first set of coefficients by help of one or more weights and inverse transforming the modified first set of coefficients wherein the weights are determined by help of one or more further pixels of the current image and by help of one or more further reference pixels of the reference image.
US08442334B2
Provided is an image coding method for performing intra prediction achieving higher coding efficiency. The method for coding image data on a block-by-block basis includes: generating a predicted block by predicting a current block; computing a difference between the current block and the predicted block; coding the difference computed in the computing; decoding the difference coded in the coding; and adding the difference decoded in the decoding to the predicted block to generate a decoded block, wherein the generating includes: detecting an edge in a previously decoded block corresponding to a block adjacent to the current block; and extrapolating or interpolating previously decoded image data corresponding to a pixel included in the block adjacent to the current block, along a direction of the edge detected in the detecting to generate the predicted block.
US08442332B2
Bit plane encoding/decoding system and method for reducing spatial light modulator image memory size
A bit plane generating system, a method of generating a bit plane and an integrated circuit incorporating the system or the method. In one embodiment, the bit plane generating system includes: (1) a memory configured to store pixel data pertaining to an image to be displayed and (2) bit plane decoding circuitry coupled to the memory and configured to transform the pixel data into at least a portion of a bit plane in accordance with a signal received from a sequence controller.
US08442320B2
A pattern inspection apparatus includes: an optical image acquiring unit configured to acquire optical image data of a target object on which each of a plurality of identical patterns is respectively formed at a respective corresponding position of a plurality of forming positions with distortion; a cut-out unit configured to cut out a plurality of partial optical image data from the optical image data; a correction unit configured to correct positions of the plurality of partial optical image data by using distortion information from which each amount of distortion of the plurality of identical patterns respectively formed at the respective corresponding position of the plurality of forming positions on the target object can be acquired; and a comparison unit configured to compare a plurality of corrected partial optical image data against each other on a pixel to pixel basis.
US08442310B2
One or more techniques and/or systems are disclosed for compensating for affine distortions in handwriting recognition. Orientation estimation is performed on a handwriting sample to generate a set of likely characters for the sample. An estimated affine transform is determined for the sample by applying hidden Markov model (HMM) based minimax testing to the sample using the set of likely characters. The estimated affine transform is applied to the sample to compensate for the affine distortions of the sample, yielding an affine distortion compensated sample.
US08442309B2
A system and method are disclosed for learning a random multinomial logit (RML) classifier and applying the RML classifier for scene segmentation. The system includes an image textonization module, a feature selection module and a RML classifier. The image textonization module is configured to receive an image training set with the objects of the images being pre-labeled. The image textonization module is further configured to generate corresponding texton images from the image training set. The feature selection module is configured to randomly select one or more texture-layout features from the texton images. The RML classifier comprises multiple multinomial logistic regression models. The RML classifier is configured to learn each multinomial logistic regression model using the selected texture-layout features. The RML classifier is further configured to apply the learned regression models to an input image for scene segmentation.
US08442307B1
A method and system are provided for image matching using an appearance augmented 3-D point cloud that includes receiving a first and second posed image, extracting image features from the first and second posed image, and comparing the extracted image features from the first posed image with the extracted image features from the second posed image. Next, a comparison is done to identify one or more matched features of the first and second posed images based on a feature appearance, where a grouping of the matched features of the first and second posed images is performed where the grouped matched features are associated with a first three-dimensional point. A position of the first three-dimensional point is identified based on a positional triangulation of the grouped matched features associated with the first three-dimensional point, and the first three-dimensional point is then augmented with the grouped matched features.
US08442305B2
A three-dimensional (3D) pose of a 3D object in an environment is determined by extracting features from an image acquired of the environment by a camera. The features are matched to a 3D model of the environment to determine correspondences. A camera reference frame of the image and a world reference frame of the environment are transformed to a corresponding intermediate camera reference frame and a corresponding world reference frame using the correspondences. Geometrical constraints are applied to the intermediate camera reference frame and the intermediate world reference frame to obtain a constrained intermediate world reference frame and a constrained world reference frame. The 3D pose is then determined from parameters of the constrained intermediate world reference frame and the constrained world reference frame.
US08442300B2
A specified position in an array structure in which a reference pattern is displayed repetitively through reference pattern counting is identified. In an array structure image, the pattern detection estimating area generated from a starting point, the address of the starting point, and a unit vector are compared with a pattern detected position found in pattern matching with the reference pattern image, to execute pattern counting while determining correct detection, oversights, wrong detection, etc. Array structure images are photographed sequentially while moving the visual field with the use of an image shifting deflector to continue the pattern counting started at the starting point to identify the ending point specified with an address. If the ending point is not reached only with use of the image shifting deflector, the visual field moving range of the image shifting deflector is moved with use of a specimen stage.
US08442293B2
A method is disclosed for reconstructing image data of an examination subject from measured data, wherein the measured data was acquired in the course of a relative rotational movement between a radiation source of a computed tomography system and the examination subject. A limited area between the radiation source and a detector represents a field of view in respect of which measured data can be acquired, and parts of the examination subject were located at least temporarily outside the field of view in the course of the measured data acquisition. In at least one embodiment, first image data is reconstructed from the measured data, and a boundary of the examination subject is determined with the aid of the first image data. The first image data is subsequently modified using the determined boundary, and projection data is calculated from the modified first image data. The measured data is modified using the projection data, and finally second image data is reconstructed from the modified measured data.
US08442287B2
System and method of determining whether a component of a radiation therapy system is operating within a dosimetric tolerance. The method can include the acts of generating a treatment plan for a patient, the treatment plan specifying a radiation amount to be delivered to the patient, delivering radiation to the patient according to the treatment plan, obtaining feedback during the delivery of radiation, the feedback related to one of a position, a velocity, and an acceleration for one of a multi-leaf collimator, a gantry, a couch, and a jaws, generating a mathematical model based on the feedback for one of the multi-leaf collimator, the gantry, the couch, and the jaws, calculating a delivered dose amount based on the mathematical model and treatment plan information, calculating a deviation in dose between the radiation amount specified in the treatment plan and the delivered dose amount, and determining whether the deviation in dose is within a dosimetric tolerance for the one of the multi-leaf collimator, the gantry, the couch, and the jaws.
US08442273B2
A method for detecting the course of a traffic lane, including the following steps:measuring structures of the traffic lane; evaluating the homogeneity of the measurements; and determining the course of the traffic lane on the basis of the evaluated homogeneity.
US08442270B2
An object detecting method includes dividing a standard pattern into two or more areas radially from a central point; selecting, in each divided area of the standard pattern, a standard pattern pixel position at the maximum distance from the area dividing central point as a standard pattern representative point; dividing a determined pattern into two or more areas; selecting, in each divided area of the determine pattern, a determined pattern pixel position at the maximum distance from the area dividing central point as a determined pattern representative point; determining a positional difference between the standard pattern representative point and the determined pattern representative point in the corresponding divided areas; and determining the determined pattern as a target object when the positional differences in all of the divided areas are within a predetermined range.
US08442263B2
A method for determining heat and/or energy loss from a building using a thermographic image of the building, the image of the building being captured at a pre-determined angle, preferably perpendicular to the building, the method comprising analyzing automatically the image to determine the temperature of areas of the image, determining the real size of the scene associated with the image areas that are above a pre-determined temperature and using this to determine heat and/or energy loss from the building.
US08442258B2
A headphone including a headband, an ear cup attached to the headband, a baffle plate fixed to the ear cup and having a rib wall at its periphery, an ear pad engaged with the baffle plate, and a gas permeable buffer between the ear cup and the baffle plate, wherein the buffer and the rib wall prevent a reduction in volume of a front air chamber caused by lateral pressure.
US08442254B2
A portable electronic device that provides compact configurations for audio elements are disclosed. The audio elements can be drivers (e.g., speakers) or receivers (e.g., microphones). In one embodiment, an audio element can be mounted on or coupled to an intermediate structure (e.g., a flexible electrical substrate) having an opening therein to allow audio sound to pass there through. In another embodiment, an audio chamber can be formed to assist in directing audio sound between an opening an outer housing and a flexible electronic substrate to which the audio element is mounted or coupled thereto. In still another embodiment, a barrier, such as a mesh barrier, can be provided in an opening of an outer housing so that undesired foreign substances can be blocked from further entry into the opening in the outer housing.
US08442250B2
A hearing aid includes a signal path for receiving at least one audio input signal and an autocorrelation index (ACI) estimator (4). The ACI includes a down-sampler for producing a sampling-rate reduced signal of the audio input signal, a sign extractor for extracting a sign signal of the sampling rate reduced signal, a memory and delay for producing and storing delayed versions of the sign signal, a comparator for comparing a subset of the delayed versions of the sign signal with a version of the non-delayed audio input signal, and an averager for averaging the outputs of the comparator to extract delay specific estimates of the audio signal self-resemblance. An autocorrelation estimator obtains an estimated autocorrelation index by determining summarized features from the delay specific estimates of the audio signal self-resemblance. Also disclosed is a method and a computer program for controlling signal processing in a hearing aid.
US08442244B1
A surround sound system acquires a set of original channel signals as picked up or modeled by a set of microphones, located in a real or virtual acoustic space. Two microphones, mounted on or near the front of a head that may be real or artificial, are oriented to pick up the sounds emanating from the front. Two additional microphones are located near the ear canals of the head configured to emulate a human head in a manner that encodes the surround sound signals with a head-related transfer function (HRTF) that, in reproduction, enhances the accuracy and realism with which a listener perceives the various source locations. The head can be augmented, e.g. with small baffles strategically configured and located to modify the HRTF for overall accuracy and realism. Surround sound channels, so originated, may be transmitted for real-time reproduction or may be recorded, filtered, delayed, or otherwise processed and stored in memory for later reproduction. In an exemplary 4.0 surround sound listening system the listener is located facing a L/R pair of front loudspeakers and fitted with a L/R pair of small earbud loudspeakers located one at each ear near the canals in an aurally transparent manner that preserves normal hearing, e.g. with regard to the front channels. The listener experiences realistic perception of XY locations of various sound sources reproduced as originally located.
US08442236B2
A server communicates a set of entitlement data representative of the entitlement of a client to access corresponding contents data by using a set of keys and a non-invertible cryptographic function. The cryptographic function is applied to a set of candidate bit strings using the set of keys to find a selected bit string that produces the set of entitlement data as a result of the application of the non-invertible cryptographic function by using the keys in the set. The server and the client share the cryptographic function as well as the set of keys (or the selected bit string). The server transmits to the client the selected bit string (or the set of keys). In either case, the client is thus in a position to apply the cryptographic function to the selected string of bits by using the set of keys, thereby reconstructing the set of entitlement data.
US08442235B2
Security device objects can be utilized to support a stack of components of computer-executable instructions that are directed to managing the security functionality represented by the security device object. In the case of hardware encrypting storage devices, a security device object can represent the self-encrypting capabilities of those devices and the attendant stack can comprise drivers directed to band and key management. A default band management driver can support a band-centric set of input/output controls that can be redirected to the band management driver. It can cache band authentication keys or provide callback mechanisms for key providers to register themselves to provide keys on-demand. Key provider identifiers can be stored on the storage device and utilized to dynamically load, install or upgrade key providers when the band authentication key is required. The band management driver can also prevent the powering-down of the storage device in an unlocked state.
US08442234B2
Systems and methods for updating status of digital certificate subkeys. A request is made to a key server to verify if a given key is revoked. If it is not, then the key with its subkeys is acquired from the key server. If one or more subkeys or signatures of the subkeys are different in the acquired key, then the key is replaced.
US08442230B1
A light-weight resilient mechanism is used to synchronize server secure keying data with member devices in a highly-scalable distributed group virtual private network (VPN). A server device generates an initial secure keying data set, for the VPN, that includes a first version identifier, and sends, to member devices and via point-to-point messages, the secure keying data set. The server device sends, to the member devices, heartbeat push messages including the first version identifier. The server device generates an updated secure keying data set with a second version identifier and sends, to the member devices, a key push message that includes the updated data set. The server device sends, to the member devices, heartbeat push messages including the second version identifier. Member devices may use the first and second version identifiers to confirm that secure keying data sets are current and quickly identify if updates are missed.
US08442226B2
An encrypted program received in an MPEG transport stream is decrypted by receiving an address in the MPEG transport stream, reading a key from a memory in accordance with the received address, and decrypting the encrypted program based on the key.
US08442222B2
A job ticket issuing device includes: a document encryption processing unit for encrypting document data with a document data encryption key; and a job ticket encryption processing unit for encrypting a job ticket, including information about a content of job processing with respect to the document data, with a job ticket encryption key which is different from the document data encryption key.
US08442221B2
An image encryption method is described for encrypting an images using an encryption key. The encryption method includes dividing the image into pixel groups and shifting the location of the pixel groups according to an encryption key, and reordering the bits of the pixel values of the image according to an encryption key. Each shifting and reordering is done according to a shifting patterns that is defined by a shifting rule and the bit values of a bit sequence generated from the encryption key. The encrypted image is embedded in a cover image using less significant bits of the cover image for transmission or storage. Corresponding decryption method is also provided. Also described are various applications of image encryption methods in secure handling of digital images, including secure scanning, secure printing, secure ID scanning, secure check reading, remote picture ID verification, and remote document submitting and receiving systems.
US08442220B2
A base station generates a unicast channel, a MBMS channel, and a pilot channel, that are multiplied by a scrambling code specific to a particular cell. The pilot channel is replicated as necessary. The unicast channel and the MBMS channel are time-multiplexed. For data in a unit transmission frame, a same frequency component is multiplied by a same scrambling code.
US08442213B2
A line card includes a plurality of subscriber line interface circuits, a plurality of interface lines, and a first overvoltage protector. The subscriber line interface circuits each have a first input terminal operable to receive power at a first positive reference voltage. The interface lines are each coupled to one of the subscriber line interface circuits for interfacing with subscriber lines external to the line card. The first overvoltage protector is coupled to the interface lines and referenced to the first positive reference voltage to provide overvoltage protection responsive to a voltage on at least one of the interface lines exceeding the first positive reference voltage.
US08442211B2
A method and system for implementing an interactive Ring Back Tone service are disclosed, and the method includes: obtaining (S101), when connecting a call, subscription information of an interactive Ring Back Tone service subscribed by a user; issuing (S102), when a called terminal is idle, to the called terminal a first subscription identifier for identifying an interactive Ring Back Tone service subscription of the user, where the first subscription identifier is for instructing the terminal to wait for playing of an interactive Ring Back Tone; and playing (S103), according to the interactive Ring Back Tone service subscribed by the user, the interactive Ring Back Tone to the called user.
US08442209B2
A system and method for processing out-of-order caller responses during automated call processing is provided. A call session of a caller into a call center is monitored. The call session includes a non-sequential dialogue between the caller and the call center. An interaction with the caller is based on a script. Ordered information-gathering queries, including automated voice prompts are sent to the caller by executing the script. Responses from the caller are evaluated against a topic of conversation addressed in the script through call disposition criteria. A determination is made as to whether an affect on the ordering by the call disposition criteria is met through the responses. The ordering of the information-gathering queries is dynamically modified prior to selecting a next of the information-gathering queries to send.
US08442206B2
A system and method of responding to an incoming voice call are described. The method may comprise receiving the incoming call at a voice communication device, monitoring a user input via the voice communication device and generating a user control signal in response to the user input. The user control signal may identify that termination of ring functionality associated with the incoming call is at least to be delayed. Further, a system and method are described of processing a voice call to a voice communication device. The method may comprise communicating the voice call to a voice communication device and receiving from the voice communication device a user control signal in response to a user input. Termination of ring functionality may be at least delayed in response to the user control signal. The invention extends to a device to process a voice call to a voice communication device.
US08442198B2
Techniques for multi-party conferencing are provided. A plurality of audio streams is received from a plurality of conference-enabled devices associated with a conference call. Each audio stream includes a corresponding encoded audio signal generated based on sound received at the corresponding conference-enabled device. Two or more of the audio streams are selected based upon an audio characteristic (e.g., a loudness of a person speaking). The selected audio streams are transmitted to each conference-enabled device associated with the conference call. At each conference-enabled device, the selected audio streams are decoded into a plurality of decoded audio streams, the decoded audio streams are combined into a combined audio signal, and the combined audio signal is played from one or more loudspeakers to be listened to by a user.
US08442195B2
The present invention discloses a method for controlling a process of establishing a call, comprising: setting group codes in a called terminal; sending a calling number and a corresponding group code to the called terminal; the called terminal determining whether the received group code is one of the group codes set in the called terminal, if the received group code is one of the group codes set in the called terminal, allowing a call to be established between the calling terminal corresponding to the calling number and the called terminal, otherwise, refusing the call. According to one aspect of the invention, the called user enables a function of group code call when he does not want to be disturbed by frequent calls. So the called user will not be disturbed by unimportant calls or harassing calls while simultaneously the called user will not miss any important call.
US08442181B2
An apparatus for inspecting and testing a startup range neutron monitoring system for a nuclear reactor. The apparatus includes: a neutron-flux detector; a preamplifier that amplifies an electric signal output from the neutron-flux detector; a pulse measurement unit that counts times when electric signal output from the preamplifier exceeds a discrimination voltage; a discrimination-voltage setting unit that applies the discrimination voltage to the pulse measurement unit; a voltage-setting unit that applies a voltage to the neutron-flux detector; an arithmetic processing unit that calculates an output power of the reactor based upon an output signal of the pulse measurement unit; an output unit that outputs data representing the output power of the reactor, calculated by the arithmetic processing unit; and an inspecting/testing unit that sets the discrimination voltage and the voltage to be applied by the voltage-setting unit.
US08442179B2
A method and apparatus for identifying and tagging a target, such an individual or an item, are described that provide an improved mechanism for identifying the target without alerting the target. In this regard, a method and apparatus can irradiate the target so as to create a radioisotope signature for the target. By thereafter monitoring the radioisotope signature, the target can be identified and tracked in a covert manner.
US08442167B2
A multistage channel estimation method and apparatus is provided. The multistage channel estimation method includes: receiving a data frame to compensate for a distortion of the data frame based on a first channel estimation value associated with a corresponding section of the data frame; a first step of changing the corresponding section to calculate a second channel estimation value associated with the changed section; a second step of updating the first channel estimation value based on the calculated second channel estimation value; a third step of compensating for the distortion of the data frame based on the updated first channel estimation value to count a number of compensations; and repeating the first step through the third step, when the counted number of compensations does not match a predetermined numerical value.
US08442162B2
A method for QR-maximum likelihood detection (QR-MLD) demodulation is provided. The method includes determining a transmission reception mode, receiving symbols represented by a received symbol vector, generating a channel matrix, and performing QR decomposition on the channel matrix to compute a unitary matrix and an upper triangular matrix. The method further includes the steps of processing the received symbol vector by multiplying the received symbol vector by the Hermitian of the unitary matrix, determining whether a conjugate calculation will be required to set a conjugate flag, computing a first distance metric by performing a conjugate or non-conjugate first distance metric calculation depending on the conjugate flag, and computing an estimated symbol by performing a conjugate or non-conjugate estimated symbol calculation depending on the conjugate flag. The method provided is less complex than existing demodulation methods, and it may be used to at least demodulate data transmitted via different modes.
US08442160B2
Time filtering channel estimates in a wireless communication system, such as an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM) system, can be used to improve the quality of channel estimates. The characteristics of an optimal channel estimate time filter can depend on the manner in which the channel estimate is determined as well as the time correlation of channel estimates. A receiver can implement an adaptive time filter for channel estimates in which the time filter response can vary based on channel estimate parameters. The channel estimate parameters can include the manner of determining channel estimates, a time correlation of channel estimates, and an estimated Doppler frequency. The time filter response can be varied continuously over a range of responses or can be varied discretely over a predetermined number of time filter responses.
US08442144B2
A method includes receiving from a first station at a second station at least two space-time coded signals in respective formed beams of a multi-beam antenna array associated with the first station; receiving from the first station, in a signaling channel, a value representing a transmit power level; determining power control coefficients for each of the space-time coded signals; and transmitting the power control coefficients to the first station, wherein the control coefficients are for in part adjusting transmit power.
US08442139B2
Apparatuses and methods for transmitting and receiving in a multi-antenna system are provided. A receiver for reducing a quantization error of channel information feedback in a multi-antenna system includes a restore vector generator for selecting a codeword ck and d determining a real part wkreal and an imaginary part wkimag of a restore vector corresponding to the codeword; and a post-processor for performing post-processing by multiplying the real part wkreal of the restore vector by a first reception signal and multiplying the imaginary part wkimag of the restore vector by a second reception signal.
US08442137B2
The present disclosure presents a predictive signal producing method that effectively levels transmitter output power in a multi-carrier communication system and results in approaching amplifier performance normally associated with constant carrier waveforms. Embodiments of the disclosed solution offers >10 dB reduction in the peak-to-average power required to support the transmission of, for example, orthogonal frequency division modulation (“OFDM”) modulation techniques. Embodiments of the novel system and method maximize peak-to-average power ratio (“PAPR”) reduction with selective mapping and soft clipping, which may include filtering, combined. This novel approach also minimizes overhead, bit error rate, retransmissions, and increases latency as well as implementing processing cycles with a number of iterations. The disclosed system and method improves the total system DC power efficiency and provides an optimal solution for PAPR reduction in multi-carrier communication systems such as, for example, OFDM.
US08442129B2
A method includes accepting input values u and v, respectively identifying a uth root Zadoff-Chu sequence whose length is a prime number, and a vth cyclic shift for the sequence. Elements of a Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) of the vth cyclic shift of the uth root Zadoff-Chu sequence are computed using processing circuitry, by evaluating a single respective exponent depending on u and v in computing each of the elements.
US08442103B2
A method and transceiver for processing a signal in a communication system are provided. The method includes identifying a Channel Impulse Response (CIR) of the signal as of minimum phase, maximum phase, or mixed phase, processing the signal without performing prefiltering when the CIR is identified as minimum phase and performing all pass prefiltering of the signal when the CIR is identified as maximum phase or mixed phase. The transceiver includes a computation block and an all pass filter. The computation block identifies CIR of a signal as minimum phase, maximum phase, or mixed phase, performs root identification when the CIR of the signal is identified to be mixed phase and enables all pass filtering of the signal when the CIR of the signal is identified as mixed phase or maximum phase. The all pass filter transforms the signal to its minimum phase equivalent.
US08442090B1
A method and apparatus recycle residual energy in an optical parametric burst source.
US08442089B2
[Object] An object of the invention is to provide a laser device having high optical amplification efficiency.[Solving Means] A laser device 100 includes: an optical fiber 20 which includes a core 21 and a clad 22 and through which seed light and pumping light propagate; and a glass rod 50 which is doped with rare earth elements, has a diameter larger than that of the core 21, wherein the seed light and the pumping light output from the optical fiber 20 are input to the glass rod 50 to have increased diameters, and output light including at least the amplified seed light is output from the glass rod 50.
US08442085B2
By forming upper-bank patterns made of Au with a thickness of 1.5 μm or larger on bank portions, a solder material on a submount and a surface of a conductive layer in an upper part of a ridge portion of a laser chip are separated so as not to be in contact with each other, thereby preventing the stress generated in a bonding portion when bonding the laser chip and the submount from being applied to the ridge portion.
US08442078B1
The laser includes an optical fiber including a cavity containing a microfluidic gain medium bounded by a composite structure of alternating layers of high and low index materials forming an axially invariant, rotationally symmetric photonic bandgap cavity. The optical fiber also includes at least one microfluidic channel containing liquid crystal modulators in the fiber cladding extending in an axial direction and further includes a pair of electrodes flanking the microfluidic channel. An electrical potential across the pair of electrodes will rotate the liquid crystal molecules to rotate the linearly polarized state of light emitted from the cavity. An external linear polarizer is disposed around the fiber to modulate azimuthal laser intensity distribution.
US08442069B2
Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate resource management in a wireless communication system. Various techniques described herein can enable a network cell in a wireless communication system (e.g. a macro cell) to mitigate the effects of interference on other surrounding network cells (e.g., femto cells embedded within the coverage of the macro cell). For example, a network cell can allocate control resources that overlap control resources of a nearby cell and assign resources within the region of overlap only to users that will not cause substantial interference to the nearby cell. As another example, a network cell can utilize a control channelization that partially coincides with a control and/or random access channelization of a nearby cell. The network cell can subsequently elect not to use the control resources in the coinciding region in order to enable the nearby cell to control the effects of interference though data scheduling.
US08442060B2
Signaling-only access may be established with an access node under certain circumstances such as, for example, upon determining that a node is not authorized for data access at the access node. A node that is not authorized for data access at an access node may still be paged by the access node through the use of signaling-only access. In this way, transmissions by the access node may not interfere with the reception of pages at the node. A first node may be selected for providing paging while a second node is selected for access under certain circumstances such as, for example, upon determining that the second node provides more desirable service than the first node.
US08442058B2
A wireless system including a first network protocol, a second network protocol, and an interoperability node. The interoperability node operable on the system to locate one or more stations within one or more of the first and second network protocols.
US08442057B2
A node in a mobile ad-hoc network or other network classifies packets (a) in accordance with a first set of priority levels based on urgency and (b) within each priority level of the first set, in accordance with a second set of priority levels based on importance. The node: (a) queues packets classified at highest priority levels of the first and/or second sets in high-priority output queues; (b) queues packets classified at medium priority levels of the first set in medium-priority output queue(s); and (3) queues packets classified at low priority levels of the first and/or second set in low-priority output queue(s). Using an output priority scheduler, the node serves the packets in order of the priorities of the output queues. In such manner, orthogonal aspects of DiffServ and MLPP can be resolved in a MANET or other network.
US08442046B2
In one embodiment, a method includes setting a re-flood time to a non-zero first value. Update data that indicates a change to link data is received over a network interface from an updating node of multiple nodes on a multi-access segment connected to the interface. The change is to link data that indicates links on the updating node. It is determined whether an acknowledgment message is not received within the re-flood time from a particular node of the multiple nodes. If an acknowledgment message is not received within the re-flood time, then a multicast packet directed to the multiple nodes and including the change to the link data is sent over onto the segment. This method enables rapid response to failure of a primary node designated to ensure reliable flooding of link data.
US08442026B2
A mobile communication method according to the present invention includes the steps of: establishing a first radio link between the “LTE-AS” and the eNB in response to the “Service Request” received from the “EMM”; transmitting, from the “UMTS-AS” to the “MM/GMM”, the “reconnect request”, after the completion of the switching process from the mobile communication system of the LTE scheme to the mobile communication system of the UMTS scheme, when the “LTE-AS” detects RLF within a first predetermined period after receiving the switching command instructing performance of the switching process; and not transmitting, from the “MM/GMM” to the “UMTS-AS”, the “Service Request” responding to the “reconnect request”, when the mobile station UE has not performed a packet communication in the mobile communication system of the LTE scheme before a start of the switching process.
US08442024B2
An Access Point (AP) advertises the availability of notifications, and this advertisement may be received and interpreted by stations (STAs), both by associated STAs and by non-associated STAs. Upon being informed of the availability of the notification message, a STA may take action in order to receive the notification message from the AP. Alternatively, the STA may be able to identify the notification message by analyzing the advertisement. If the contents of the notification message comprise a control message, the STA may act on the control message in a way that influences the STA's behavior. If the contents of the notification message indicate restrictions imposed by the AP, the STA may determine, in view of the restrictions, not to attempt association with the AP.
US08442023B2
A node in a wireless communication network comprises a processor that receives information regarding a first plurality of packets to be transmitted in an epoch, a first path of nodes for the first plurality of packets, and a first flow rate. The processor receives information regarding a second plurality of packets to be transmitted in the epoch, a second path of nodes for the second plurality of packets, and a second flow rate. The processor determines weights for the paths based on the flow rates. The processor assigns pipelines for the paths and creates groups of pipelines based on the weights. The groups may be assigned to a schedule.
US08442014B2
A wireless base station apparatus for performing wireless communication with a plurality of wireless communication apparatuses includes a communication processing unit for allocating wireless resources to the wireless communication apparatuses to perform wireless communication, a statistics processing unit for obtaining information related to communication status of the wireless communication apparatuses in wireless communication, and an intermittent arrangement determination unit for detecting a wireless communication apparatus to be allocated with wireless resource at intervals of a predetermined number of communication frames based on the information obtained. The communication processing unit intermittently allocates the same time slot to a plurality of wireless communication apparatuses detected by the intermittent arrangement determination unit at intervals of a predetermined number of communication frames.
US08442006B2
A method of performing hand-off of a Mobile Node from a previous Access Point to a new Access Point within a WLAN domain, where the previous and new Access Points are connected respectively to previous and new Access Routers. The method comprises, following a MAC authentication exchange between the Mobile Node and the new Access Point, sending a MAC Reassociation Request from the Mobile Node to the New Access Point, forwarding said Reassociation Request to said new Access Router, and sending the Reassociation Request from said new Access Router to said previous Access Router within an IP hand-off request, and authenticating the Reassociation Request at the previous Access Router and initiating the tunnelling of IP packets received at the previous Access Router and destined for said Mobile Node, towards said new Access Router.
US08442005B2
In a telecommunications network in which a mobile handset is capable of communicating in both an IP domain and a non-IP domain, the handoff of an existing communications session between the mobile handset and a fixed user is facilitated by a handoff controller implemented in a service control point. The handoff controller implements different handoff methods depending on the status of the fixed user and the transition of the mobile user. Additionally 802.21 Media Independent Handover Function in conjunction with SIP is used to facilitate handover between IP and Non-IP points in the system.
US08442004B2
A method, a mobile system, and a home network base station are disclosed. A mobile management entity 502 may generate a local network access disable notification message element 650 to provide available options to a mobile system 104 for establishing packet data network connectivity upon an access loss to a home network base station 110. The mobile management entity 502 may send the local network access disable notification message element 650 to the mobile system 104 upon an imminent local network access loss event.
US08441997B2
A method for initialization of a remote femto base station by a remote management system in a radio access network, the method comprising: powering on the femto base station; transmitting an initial configuration file from the remote management system to the femto base station; initializing the femto base station with the initial configuration file; scanning neighbor femto base stations; transmitting the results of the scanning of neighbor femto base stations and transmitting the femto base station location information to the remote management system; the remote management system setting a neighbor list and radio frequency parameters in response to receipt of the transmission from the femto base station; generating an updated configuration file based on the generated neighbor list and radio frequency parameters; transmitting the updated configuration file to the femto base station; and applying the updated configuration file at the femto base station and starting operation.
US08441988B2
Methods and systems for providing redundancy in servicing packet data communications within wireless mobile data networks are disclosed. More particularly, the method and system provide a redundant Home Agent with the ability to assume the role of the primary Home Agent in the event of a primary Home Agent network, software, or other failure. The redundancy allows the Home Agent services to remain functional even in the event of a failure of one of the Home Agents in the redundant group, which may be composed of one or more Home Agents. The Home Agents can use a service redundancy protocol which is composed of messages that are sent between the redundant group of Home Agents. The messages allow the Home Agents to, for example, back up call session information, check on the status of one another, and share priority information.
US08441985B2
Disclosed is a method for determining Idle mode Signaling Reduction (ISR) activation in a mobile communications system.When a mobility management node decides to activate an ISR feature in an IMS network environment where hetero mobile communications networks (e.g., E-UTRAN and UTRAN/GERAN) interwork with each other, considered are not only whether an ISR feature can be supported, and whether a UE can use IMS voice, but also conditions (information) on whether IMS voice over PS domain can be supported. This may allow a voice call transferred to the UE from the network to be delivered to a domain (PS or CS domain) selected with consideration of an access network state without delay.
US08441984B2
Embodiments of a mobile station and a method performed by a base station for transmitting a paging message to an idle-mode mobile station are disclosed herein. In some embodiments, a multicarrier paging information (MC-PAG-Info) message is transmitted to indicate a time-slot and paging carrier for a subsequent transmission of a paging message to an idle-mode mobile station. The idle-mode mobile station may monitor the indicated paging carrier during the indicated time-slot of a paging listening interval for receipt of a paging message directed to the idle-mode mobile station. In some embodiments, the indicated time-slot and the paging carrier are determined by the idle-mode mobile station using a device identifier of the idle-mode mobile station and hash modulo parameters provided within the paging information message.
US08441979B2
A communication control apparatus that performs wireless communication with a plurality of communication apparatuses, the communication control apparatus comprises: a grouping unit adapted to group the plurality of communication apparatuses based on the relative positions of each of the plurality of communication apparatuses; a notification unit adapted to notify each of the plurality of communication apparatuses of the group to which that communication apparatus belongs and of a communication slot allocated to that group; and a transmission unit adapted to transmit transmission data at a predetermined timing.
US08441978B2
A relay device includes a receiver that receives a wireless signal and outputs the received signal; a regenerator that restores original data from the received signal, and generates a regeneration signal from the original data; a non-regenerator that generates, using the received signal, a non-regeneration signal; a switching controller that selects and outputs the non-regeneration signal when the received signal is a multicast signal, and that selects and outputs the regeneration signal when the received signal is a unicast signal; and a transmitter that transmits a signal output from the switching controller as a transmission signal.
US08441972B2
A WCDMA enabled user equipment device configured to have functions collectively or selectively idle to conserve power. A discontinuous receiver is used to detect and read network messages and report the messages to the host processor within the WCDMA enabled user equipment device. The host processor then activates functions previously powered down to receive incoming messages for the user of the WCDMA device. The discontinuous receiver is also used when the WCDMA device is active to read network messages, freeing a modem of the device to operate on user messaging; and therefore, enhancing user related performance.
US08441959B2
A method of establishing a wireless multi-hop network where devices establish a physical wireless connection to at least another device of the network in a self-organizing process. In the self-organizing process, a seeking device intending to join the network listens for beacon signals, emitted by candidate parent devices already in the network, that include a network identifier and a device identifier of the emitting devices. Then, in a parent selection process, the seeking device selects a parent device from among the candidate parent devices, according to given selection rules, based on the network identifiers, acceptance capabilities of the candidate parent devices, and link quality parameter values relating the device and the candidate parent devices. In this parent selection process, application-level connection data of the seeking device and/or the candidate parent devices are applied. The seeking device connects physically, and preferably also logically, via the selected parent device to the network.
US08441955B2
Video data packets transmitted through a wireless network are captured by a network monitoring system. Video data sessions are detected from the video data packets. Key parameters are identified within the video data packets, such as video bit rate, resent or failed video packets, and video session duration. A Quality of Experience (QoE) is determined for some or all users associated with the video sessions based upon the key parameters. A header extension is added to the video data packets by a transcoding system. The header extension includes data associated with original and transcoded video data packets. The network monitoring system monitors the header extension and evaluates the effect of video transcoding upon the overall QoE for users. The monitoring system provides feedback to a transcoding policy engine based upon the effect of transcoding upon QoE.
US08441943B2
An information processing apparatus for performing communication with another information processing apparatus via a network includes an instruction section instructing a transmission of a first packet in order to obtain a response from the other information processing apparatus; a first generation section generating a first time stamp containing a time when the first packet generated on the basis of instructions by the instruction section is sent out to the network; a second generation section generating a second time stamp containing a time when a second packet that is transmitted as a response for the first packet from the other information processing apparatus is obtained from the network; and a computation section computing a round trip delay between the information processing apparatus and the other information-processing apparatus on the basis of the first and second generated time stamps.
US08441940B2
Apparatus, processes, and computer readable storage media for processing received packets. A session memory, coupled to and shared by a plurality of packet processors, may store configuration and statistics information for a plurality of communication sessions. A session active memory may store session identifiers corresponding to packets currently being processed by the plurality of packet processors. A comparator may compare a session identifier extracted from a received packet with the stored session identifiers to determine if another packet belonging to the same session as the received packet is currently being processed. Forwarding logic may distribute received packets among the plurality of packet processors. In the case that another packet belonging to the same session as the received packet is currently being processed, the forwarding logic may wait until the processing of the another packet is complete before sending the received packet to one of the packet processors.
US08441934B2
An apparatus for wireless communication includes a processing system. The processing system is configured to perform a first set of functions in a first thread. The first set of functions includes obtaining second data from a second thread and providing first data to the second thread to facilitate construction of an uplink packet in the second thread. The processing system is further configured to perform a second set of functions in the second thread. The second set of functions includes obtaining the first data, constructing the uplink packet based on the first data, and providing the second data to the first thread to facilitate the performing of the first set of functions.
US08441920B2
A method includes receiving information at an interface circuit and providing the information from the interface circuit to a processing circuit through a direct communications path between the interface circuit and a processing circuit, which processes the information received from the interface circuit. The method further includes providing the information from the interface circuit to the processing circuit via a crosspoint switch in response to a failure of the direct communications path, wherein the direct communication does not pass through the crosspoint switch.
US08441917B2
Systems and methods for transmitting and receiving OFDM symbols are provided which enable the otherwise wasted transmission time normally used as a prefix for each OFDM symbol to contain useful information. At the receiver, the received signal is processed to convert received OFDM symbols from a linear convolution with the channel to a cyclic convolution.
US08441914B2
A method and apparatus for controlling a primary cell search operation including generating a profile of correlation peaks, determining if magnitudes of the correlation peaks vary, synchronizing a signal acquisition process to one of the identified correlation peak having a greatest magnitude if the magnitudes of the correlation peaks remain relatively constant and synchronizing the signal acquisition process to a peak whose magnitude is increasing if the magnitudes of the correlation peaks are changing. The method and apparatus further include identifying an index and a magnitude of a largest correlation peak of the correlation peaks, determining if other correlation peaks exist in the profile, synchronizing the signal acquisition process to the largest correlation peak originally identified if other correlation peaks do not exist, storing indices and magnitudes for all other correlation peaks located and comparing changes in correlation peak magnitudes for all previously identified peaks.
US08441912B2
A first device receives a first signal transmitted over a transmission line from a second device. The first signal is processed and information is generated that is related to crosstalk from other transmission lines. The information is modulated onto at least one carrier of a plurality of carriers of a second signal to be transmitted from the first device to the second device.
US08441910B1
In one embodiment the present invention includes a qualification circuit that controls a read channel in a data storage device. The qualification circuit includes a first circuit and a second circuit. The first circuit receives a first signal and generates a second signal based on a signal quality of the first signal. The second circuit receives the second signal, an envelope-derived error signal resulting from performing envelope derived error detection, and a decision-aided error signal resulting from performing decision aided error detection. The second circuit modifies the envelope-derived error signal and the decision aided error signal according to the second signal. The second circuit generates a control signal that controls the read channel according to the envelope-derived error signal and the decision-aided error signal having been modified.
US08441901B2
An optical disc apparatus includes an optical pickup, a signal generation section which generates a total reflection signal and a focus error signal, and a servo control section which controls optical pickup. The optical disc apparatus further includes a main control section which binarizes the track cross signal by using a predetermined threshold value and, by using the binarized track cross signal, checks the tracing state of a track. The main control section controls the servo control section to check, by tracing one turn of the track of an optical disc, whether or not a tracking servo deviation occurs. When a tracking servo deviation occurs during the tracing, the main control section controls the servo control section to make the check once again. When, in the check made once again, a tracking servo deviation is found to occur again, the main control section increases the threshold value used in binarization.
US08441900B2
Provided is an objective lens that allows securing of a long working distance for a laser beam with a long wavelength and has a predetermined thickness or larger, and an optical pickup apparatus including the objective lens. In an objective lens of the present invention, a first region that focuses laser beams of a BD, DVD, and CD standards, a second region that focuses the laser beams of the DVD and CD standards, and a third region that focuses the laser beams of the BD and the DVD standards are provided in this order from a center portion of the objective lens. An optical super resolution with the laser beam of the BD standard is achieved by preventing a portion of the laser beam of the BD standard transmitted through the second region from contributing to spot formation.
US08441899B2
An apparatus and a method for compensating periodic signal in an optical disc drive are described. The control apparatus includes an amplitude processing unit, a phase processing unit, a wave generator, a first switch module and a second switch module. The amplitude processing unit processes the amplitude of the input signal based on a reference signal for generating an amplitude signal. The phase processing unit processes the phase of the input signal based on the reference signal for generating a phase signal. The first switch module switches the amplitude signal to select one of the amplitude value and a predetermined amplitude value. The second switch module switches the phase signal to select one of the phase value and a predetermined phase value. The wave generator generates a compensated wave signal based on the selected amplitude value and the selected phase value, and outputs the compensated wave signal.
US08441896B2
A method and system for providing energy assisted magnetic recording (EAMR) heads are described. The method and system include providing a substrate, at least one EAMR transducer, an overcoat layer and at least one laser. The substrate has a leading edge and a substrate trailing edge. The EAMR transducer(s) reside in a device layer and on the substrate trailing edge. The overcoat layer includes a plurality of contacts. The device layer is between the overcoat layer and the substrate trailing edge. The laser(s) provide energy to the EAMR transducer. The overcoat layer is between the substrate trailing edge and the laser(s). The laser(s) are electrically coupled to at least a first portion of the contacts. The contacts provide thermal connection through the overcoat layer and the device layer. At least a second portion of the contacts is electrically insulated from the substrate.
US08441892B2
A sound source includes a tubular resonator configured to be filled with a gas. The exterior of the resonator includes rigid and elastomeric portions. The interior of the resonator includes a first volume and a second volume. The volumes are separated by a rigid tubular wall containing at least one orifice. The at least one orifice enables a flow of gas between the volumes. The resonator also includes at least one rigid tubular member configured to move along the rigid tubular wall. The position of the at least one rigid tubular member regulates at least one dimension of the path between the volumes. The sound source also includes a volume velocity actuator disposed within the resonator. The sound source also includes a processing circuit configured to provide a control signal to cause the volume velocity actuator to perturb the gas within the resonator at a defined frequency.
US08441889B2
An apparatus for estimating a property in a borehole penetrating the earth, the apparatus having: a carrier configured to be disposed in the borehole; and an acoustic transducer disposed at the carrier and configured to at least one of transmit and receive an acoustic wave used to estimate the property, the acoustic transducer comprising an acoustic diaphragm; wherein the acoustic diaphragm includes a surface in communication with a plurality of structural members configured to increase the rigidity of the surface, the surface being configured to interface with a medium that propagates the acoustic wave.
US08441877B2
A semiconductor memory device includes a memory cell array including a first memory cell coupled to a first bit line and a word line, and a second memory cell coupled to a second bit line and the word line and disposed adjacent to the first memory cell. A controller circuit is configured to provide first and second precharge voltages to the first and second bitlines, respectively. The first precharge voltage is provided as a positive power supply voltage and the second precharge voltage is provided as a negative stress voltage during a burn-in test operation. Related methods of operation are also discussed.
US08441873B2
Methods and apparatus for synchronizing a delay locked loop, such as delay locked loops used with NAND memories are disclosed. In at least one embodiment, one or both of a clock and the delay locked loop are stopped for energy savings. A synchronization start signal can be provided by the NAND memory or a controller to start the clock and/or delay locked loop, and to synchronize the delay locked loop to the clock before competing the read operation.
US08441872B2
A method of operation in a memory controller comprising generating a mode control signal to specify at least one of a first and second mode is disclosed. In the first mode, the memory controller is configured to operate by issuing a memory access command to initiate a first data transfer between the memory controller and a first memory device, and generating a strobe signal to accompany data associated with the first data transfer. In the second mode, the controller is configured to operate by issuing a memory access command to initiate a second data transfer between the memory controller and at least first and second memory devices involving a full width that includes data widths of both the first and second memory devices, and issuing first and second strobe signals that accompany respective data transfers associated with each of the data widths of the first and second memory devices.
US08441870B2
A data strobe signal output driver includes a trigger block, a predriver block, and a main driver block. The trigger block is configured to receive a first signal, a second signal, a first clock and a second clock, and to output a predrive signal based thereon. The predriver block is configured to receive the predrive signal, a driver off signal and a termination enable signal, and to output a first main drive signal and a second main drive signal based thereon. The main driver block is configured to output a data strobe signal based on the first and second main drive signals.
US08441868B2
The semiconductor device includes the read circuit which reads data written to a memory cell. The read circuit includes a first transistor, a second transistor, a first switch, and a second switch. A first terminal of the first transistor is electrically connected to a gate of the first transistor, and a second terminal of the first transistor is electrically connected to an output from the read circuit via the first switch. A first terminal of the second transistor is electrically connected to a gate of the second transistor, and a second terminal of the second transistor is electrically connected to the output from the read circuit via the second switch. A channel formation region of the first transistor can be formed using an oxide semiconductor, and a channel formation region of the second transistor can be formed using silicon.
US08441867B2
A circuit for generating a pumping voltage in a semiconductor memory apparatus includes a control signal generation block configured to generate a first control signal obtained by level-shifting a voltage level of a test signal to a first driving voltage level, a voltage application section configured to supply an external voltage to a first node in response to a first transmission signal, a first charge pump configured to raise a voltage level of the first node by a first predetermined level in response to an oscillator signal, and a first pumping voltage output section configured to select at least one of a first connection unit and a second connection unit in response to the first control signal, and to interconnect the first node with a second node using the selected connection unit when a second transmission signal is enabled, wherein a first pumping voltage is output through the second node.
US08441852B2
A stacked semiconductor memory device comprises a semiconductor substrate having a functional circuit, a plurality of memory cell array layers, and at least one connection layer. The memory cell array layers are stacked above the semiconductor substrate. The connection layers are stacked above the semiconductor substrate independent of the memory cell array layers. The connection layers electrically connect memory cell selecting lines arranged on the memory cell array layers to the functional circuit.
US08441851B2
The present invention provides a semiconductor storage circuit that may suppress a data read characteristic from being deteriorated due to influence of characteristic change of a sense amplifier, in a multi-bit-type memory cell. The semiconductor storage circuit includes a memory cell array that has plural multi-bit-type memory cells, two multiplexers, and two sense amplifiers. The first multiplexer connects a main bit line connected to an R-side electrode of the even-numbered memory cell in a row direction to the first sense amplifier, and connects a main bit line connected to an L-side electrode of the odd-numbered memory cell to the second sense amplifier. The second multiplexer connects a main bit line connected to an L-side electrode of the even-numbered memory cell to the first sense amplifier, and connects a main bit line connected to an R-side electrode of the odd-numbered memory cell to the second sense amplifier.
US08441846B2
A semiconductor memory device includes a memory cell array configured to include a plurality of memory cells, a plurality of bit lines respectively coupled to the plurality of memory cells, a first power-supply voltage supplying circuit configured to provide a first power-supply voltage to the memory cell array through the plurality of bit lines, a second power-supply voltage supplying circuit configured to provide a second power-supply voltage to the memory cell array through the plurality of bit lines, a first address selection circuit configured to couple a bit line selected by a first selection address to the first power-supply voltage supplying circuit, and a second address selection circuit configured to couple a bit line selected by a second selection address to the second power-supply voltage supplying circuit.
US08441845B2
A semiconductor memory device substantially prevents a faulty operation from being generated in a read operation, and increases the operation reliability. The semiconductor memory device includes a cell array configured to include a memory element having a different resistance value in response to data, a sense-amp configured to sense and amplify the data, a global bit line configured to couple the sense-amp to a cell array, and a discharge unit configured to discharge the global bit line prior to execution of a read operation.
US08441844B2
A method of writing in a memory device comprising a plurality of MRAM cells, each cell including a magnetic tunnel junction having a resistance that can be varied during a write operation when heated at a high threshold temperature; a plurality of word lines connecting cells along a row; and a plurality of bit lines connecting cells along a column; the method comprising supplying a bit line voltage to one of the bit lines and a word line voltage to one of the word lines for passing a heating current through the magnetic tunnel junction of a selected cell; said word line voltage is a word line overdrive voltage being higher than the core operating voltage of the cells such that the heating current has a magnitude that is high enough for heating the magnetic tunnel junction at the predetermined high threshold temperature. The memory device can be written with low power consumption.
US08441841B2
An object is to provide a semiconductor device with a novel structure, which can hold stored data even when not powered and which has an unlimited number of write cycles. A semiconductor device includes a memory cell including a widegap semiconductor, for example, an oxide semiconductor and the semiconductor device includes a potential conversion circuit which functions to output a potential lower than a reference potential for reading data from the memory cell. With the use of a widegap semiconductor, a semiconductor device capable of sufficiently reducing the off-state current of a transistor included in a memory cell and capable of holding data for a long time can be provided.
US08441827B2
A power converter assembly includes a housing and at least one transistor module. The housing has a liquid cooled heat transfer surface. The at least one transistor module is mounted directly to the liquid cooled heat transfer surface and positioned at least partially within the housing.
US08441825B2
The configurations of an H-bridge circuit and a controlling method thereof are provided in the present invention. The proposed circuit includes an H-bridge having a first and a second bridge arms, each of which has a middle point, and a bidirectional switch connected to the two middle points, a bootstrap circuit providing a bootstrap voltage, a driving circuit receiving the bootstrap voltage and driving the bidirectional switch, and an energy compensation circuit coupled to the H-bridge, the bootstrap circuit and the driving circuit, and providing a compensation energy to the bootstrap circuit.
US08441823B2
Switches perform switching at a timing when a first phase voltage and a second phase voltage outputted from a three-phase voltage source have a phase difference of 90°. Then, a three-phase/two-phase conversion inductor outputs a pair of AC currents, and a rectification and a single-phase pulse-width modulation are performed on each of AC currents. Modulated currents obtained as a result of the rectification and the single-phase pulse-width modulation are synthesized, to generate an output current, which is supplied to a circuit in which a capacitor and a load are connected in parallel with each other.
US08441820B2
A control system for a multilevel converter includes a differential mode current regulator, a neutral point (NP) controller and a PWM controller for generating switching pulses for the multilevel converter. The differential mode current regulator generates reference voltage command signals based on a difference between reference current command signals and actual current command signals, and the NP controller determines a modified neutral point current signal in response to a DC link voltage unbalance. The NP controller utilizes the modified neutral point current signal to generate a common mode reference voltage signal. The switching pulses are generated by the PWM controller based on the reference voltage command signals and the common mode reference voltage signal.
US08441817B2
An HVDC network including a first station including a first converter, a second station including a second converter, each converter including non-extinguishable semiconducting elements. A first transmission conductor and a second transmission conductor. The first station includes a first switching arrangement.
US08441814B2
A blocking-oscillator-type converter circuit works with a transformer that has only one primary winding and one secondary winding. The transformer contains no reaction coupling winding for the blocking oscillator.The control voltage for the oscillator is derived from the primary voltage of the transformer, that is, during the free-running phase.Furthermore, a voltage monitoring circuit is provided that works independent of the oscillator, inhibiting the output voltage of the oscillator when the voltage on the output of the blocking-oscillator-type converter is too large.A current monitoring circuit works independent of the oscillator and the voltage monitoring circuit and inhibits the pulses for the power transistor when the current on the output side exceeds a specified amount.
US08441810B2
A cascade power system comprises a non-isolated converter in a cascade configuration with an isolated converter and a controller that is coupled with the output of the isolated converter and the switching element of the non-isolated converter. The non-isolated converter steps-down the input voltage to a lower regulated voltage. The isolated converter converts the regulated voltage to a square wave signal that is output to a transformer and the controller. Thus, a the resulting feedback loop comprising the isolated converter, controller and non-isolated converter is completely independent from the output of the system. As a result, a feedback relation can be derived in the form of a feedback algorithm that can effectively regulate/adjust the output of the non-isolated converter and therefore the isolated converter output as well. Further, because the non-isolated converter steps down the voltage and the isolated converter operates on this low stepped down voltage, the system is able to be highly efficient.
US08441802B2
A base for an electronic card includes at least one slot adapted for accommodating an electronic card with an extraction lever installed rotatably in relation thereto and adapted for pivoting between a first position and a second position. The lever has a support end adapted for coming to rest on a support element of the base in order to extract the electronic card from the base when the lever changes from the first to the second position. The support element has a first state in which the extraction lever does not bear on the support element when changing from the first position to the second position, and a second state, in which the lever bears on the support element when changing from the first to the second position. This creates a movement for extraction of the card through the support end along a support direction.
US08441801B2
A user panel assembly includes a printed circuit board (PCB), a panel element, a flexible connector and a mounting element. The flexible connector is configured to enable electrical communication between the panel element and the PCB. The mounting element includes a plurality of slots on which the panel element can be mounted. An overlay is configured to conceal a subset of the plurality of slots.
US08441794B2
A liquid cooler including a heat sink. A hollow body is produced by extrusion having at least one flat outer surface between a first and a second end. At least one elongated cavity passes through the body from the first to the second end. The hollow body includes a plurality of parallel fins directed into and along the at least one cavity. An insert housed in the at least one cavity connects the tops of the fins in a fluid-tight manner thereby forming liquid channels for a coolant liquid between the insert and the hollow body. A lid is attached at both ends of the hollow body for forming a liquid cooling system.
US08441784B2
A housing includes a bottom shell, a support frame and protection blocks. The support frame is fixed on the bottom shell. The protection blocks are fixed between the bottom shell and the support frame. The support frame includes reinforcement side walls and receiving portions. The receiving portions are defined in the connecting portions of the adjoining reinforcement side walls. The protection blocks are received in the corresponding receiving portions. The bottom shell includes a bottom plate and four side plates extending from a periphery of the bottom plate. The support frame resists the four side plates.
US08441780B2
In one embodiment, an enclosure for electronic circuit boards and components is disclosed. The enclosure has a closable, weather-resistant housing that is sized and shaped to receive mounted circuitry in an enclosed space that is defined by a back wall and side walls extending outwardly from the back wall. The housing includes a detachable cover for covering and sealing the enclosed space. In one embodiment, the circuitry includes a planar electronic circuit board that is mounted within the enclosed space. The planar electronic circuit board has a subsection of power supply circuitry that is operative to receive electrical power from outside of the enclosure. The circuitry further includes power supply transformers and capacitors that operate from power received from outside the housing, and data processing and communications components that include a data processor and a data bus. The data bus is coupled to electronic circuit connectors. The enclosure is configured such that the electronic circuit board is exposed to an external environment when the cover is detached.
US08441778B1
A modular substation feeder assembly comprising a substantially rigid and collapsible support frame is presented. In particular, the support frame of the present invention comprises a plurality of at least two members disposed in a movable or removable relation to one another and structured to dispose the support frame between the collapsed position and into the operative expanded position. The feeder assembly comprises a support stand cooperatively structured to support or house a recloser or circuit breaker. When the support frame is disposed in the collapsed position, the support stand is oriented at least partially within a internal clearance zone which is defined as an area free of electrical components, including insulators, cross bars, etc.
US08441777B2
A solid electrolytic capacitor that contains a capacitor element that includes an anode body, dielectric layer, and solid electrolyte is provided. The capacitor also contains an anode lead that is electrically connected to the anode body by a refractory metal paste (e.g., tantalum paste). The use of such a refractory metal paste allows the anode lead to be sinter bonded to a surface of the anode body after it is pressed. In this manner, a strong and reliable connection may be achieved without substantially decreasing the surface area of the lead that is available for connection to a termination. Furthermore, because the lead is not embedded within the anode body, the capacitor may be configured so that little, if any, portion of the lead extends beyond the anode body. This may result in a highly volumetrically efficient capacitor with excellent electrical properties.
US08441773B2
Driving is made possible in a moving range equivalent to or wider than the conventional range, with a driving voltage having a range smaller than a pull-in voltage. An electronic element includes a fixed portion provided with a first driving electrode and a first signal electrode, and a movable portion provided with a second driving electrode and a second signal electrode, movable with respect to the fixed portion and provided to generate a spring force to make restoration to a predetermined position. An electrostatic force is generated between the first and second driving electrodes by a voltage applied therebetween so that the electrostatic force resists against the spring force; and the first and second driving electrodes and the first and second signal electrodes are arranged so that the electrostatic force is generated in a direction in which a spacing distance between the first and second signal electrodes is widened.
US08441767B2
An overcurrent protection circuit includes a load driver for driving a load, a controller for turning ON and OFF the load driver, a current sensor for measuring a load current flowing through the load, and an add/subtract circuit for performing both an addition operation and a subtraction operation on a previous calculation result or for performing only the subtraction operation on the previous calculation result so as to produce a present calculation result. The addition operation uses an added value depending on the presently measured current. The subtraction operation uses a subtracted value depending on the presently measured current. The controller turns OFF the load driver, when the present calculation result of the add/subtract circuit exceeds a predetermined determination value.
US08441762B2
In a magnetic head suspension according to the present invention, each of paired right and left connecting beams that are positioned on both sides of an open section, with which paired piezoelectric elements are at least partially overlapped in a plan view, in a suspension width direction and connect a proximal end section that is directly or indirectly connected to a main actuator and a distal end section to which the load bending part is connected includes proximal-side and distal-side beams. The distal-side beam is inclined with respect to the proximal-side beam in a plan view such that a connection point between the proximal-side and distal-side beams is located closer to a suspension longitudinal center line relative to a virtual line connecting the proximal end of the proximal-side beam and the distal end of the distal-side beam.
US08441745B2
An optical lens assembly comprises, in order from an object side to an image side, a front lens group, a stop, and a rear lens group. The front lens group comprises a first lens element with negative refractive power having a concave object-side surface. The rear lens group comprises a second lens element with positive refractive power having a concave object-side surface and a convex image-side surface, a third lens element with positive refractive power, a fourth lens element with negative refractive power having a concave object-side surface and a convex image-side surface. At least one of two surfaces of the fourth lens element is aspheric. By adjusting the curvature radii of the object-side and the image-side surfaces of the first lens element and the focal lengths of the third lens element and the optical lens assembly, the length of the optical lens assembly is reduced, the aberration is corrected.
US08441742B2
A lens barrel includes lens units movable in an optical axis direction, a driving unit including an annular actuator in which an optical axis serves as a rotation center, a first cam cylinder disposed inwardly of the annular actuator and including a circular cylindrical base portion and a large-diameter portion, a second cam cylinder configured to drive at least one of the lens units by rotating at an outer-peripheral side of the large-diameter portion, and a rotation transmitting portion provided at the large-diameter portion and transmitting rotation of the first cam cylinder to the second cam cylinder, wherein, in a state in which the length of the lens barrel is shortest, a portion of the second cam cylinder and the rotation transmitting portion overlap in the optical axis direction a lens unit holding frame that is closest to an object side.
US08441739B2
A zoom optical system includes, in order from its object side along its optical axis, a first lens group G1 having a positive refracting power, a second lens group G2 having a negative refracting power, a third lens group G3 having a positive refracting power, and a fourth lens group G4 having a positive refracting power, wherein at least one of the first, second, third and fourth lens groups G1, G2, G3, G4 comprises a front group having a positive refracting power including at least two lenses and a rear group having a negative refracting power, and during zooming from the wide angle end state W to the telephoto end state T, the distance between the front group and the rear group does not change, and during focusing onto an object, the front group moves along the optical axis.
US08441735B2
An optical element comprises a body having opposed planar major surfaces with a plurality of open-mouthed inclusions (grooves) formed on its light output surface. Each groove has a closed apex with an included apex angle. The body is formed from a material having an index of refraction of at least 1.3 and an induced absorbance rate ΔAbs/Dose less than or equal to about 0.4. The apex angle is selected such that light incident upon the body is conveyed the light output surface by the mechanism of total internal reflection from the boundary walls of the grooves and/or without retro-reflection toward the incident surface.
US08441732B2
The present invention comprises methods and apparatuses for causing a single imaging lens system to simultaneously form multiple high resolution images on multiple imaging sensor planes. The images are preferably substantially identical, with no parallax error, except for different light levels so that the multiple images are of sufficient quality and similarity that they may be compared and/or combined (typically pixel-by-pixel) to create a single instantaneous high dynamic range (HDR) image. The invention may be used to create high-resolution HDR snapshots of moving subjects, as well as high-resolution HDR moving pictures (e.g. cinematographic films, movies, or other video) in which the subject and/or camera is moving. Alternatively, the images are substantially identical, or substantially identical except for different focuses.
US08441727B2
A security Device comprises a zero order diffractive microstructure (5) buried within a substrate (3). One or more further optical structures, such as microlenses (1), may be formed on a surface (2) of the substrate (3). The further optical structures modify the optical characteristics of the zero order diffractive microstructure (5).Various alternatives or additional optical structures and methods of producing them are described in additional embodiments.
US08441718B2
Fiber-laser light is Raman shifted to eye-safer wavelengths prior to spectral beam combination, enabling a high-power, eye-safer wavelength directed-energy (DE) system. The output of Ytterbium fiber lasers is not used directly for spectral beam combining. Rather, the power from the Yb fiber lasers is Raman-shifted to longer wavelengths, and these wavelengths are then spectrally beam combined. Raman shifting is most readily accomplished with a “cascaded Raman converter,” in which a series of nested fiber cavities is formed using fiber Bragg gratings.
US08441714B2
A multi-color electrophoretic medium contains first, second and third species of particles, the particles having substantially non-overlapping electrophoretic mobilities and bring of three different colors. The particles are dispersed in a fluid having a fourth color. A method for driving such a display is also described.
US08441704B2
A multibeam scanning device, comprising: a plurality of first optical systems, each of the plurality of optical systems including a light source unit configured to emit a non-collimated light beam, and an optical element having a predetermined power and having an optical effect on the laser beam; a second optical system arranged on a downstream side of the plurality of first optical systems, including a first deflector on which light beams emitted by the plurality of first optical systems are incident, the first deflector being to deflect the laser beams, and a common optical system configured to change degree of divergence of each of the plurality of light beams; and an optical path shifting system configured to translate an incident optical path of the light beam which is emitted by the light source and incident on the optical element is provided.
US08441701B2
An image processing apparatus includes an obtaining unit, a determination unit, a setting unit, and a processing unit to perform an image edge intensifying processing. The obtaining unit obtains image data by reading a document. The determination unit determines an image edge direction. The setting unit sets an edge intensifying processing intensity based on the image data and a processing intensity determined corresponding to a difference between resolution in a main scanning direction and resolution in a sub-scanning direction. The processing unit performs the image edge intensifying processing according to the set intensity. In response to the resolution of the image data being higher in the sub-scanning direction than in the main scanning direction, the setting unit sets a higher intensity of the edge intensifying processing in response to the edge direction being along the sub-scanning direction than in response to the edge direction being along the main scanning direction.
US08441692B2
An image processing apparatus includes a binarization section, a determination section and an area setting section. The binarization section binarizes a given image. The determination section determines whether or not a pixel to be determined is effective in accordance with the number of pixels of one value of a binary value in each of determination areas. Each of the determination areas are placed so as not to contain the pixel to be determined in the binarized image and so as not to overlap in a predetermined direction of the pixel to be determined. The area setting section sets an area including the pixel determined effective in the determination section.
US08441690B2
A multi-value code image generation part generates a multi-value code image by assigning first code information, which is obtained by encoding a dot pattern in a specific area, to each growth core. A multi-value code image affine transformation part performs affine transformation on the multi-value code image. A multi-value code image assignment part assigns second code information to each of the growth cores before the affine transformation according to the first code information of at least one growth core after the affine transformation, which growth core neighbors close to the growth core before the affine transformation. A dot pattern development part develops the dot pattern for the specific area at each of the growth cores before the affine transformation according to the second code information.
US08441672B2
An information processing system including an information processing apparatus that selects between transferring data and obtaining data, and controls transferring data or obtaining data based on the selection. The system also includes a server that stores data transferred from the information processing apparatus, and controls transferring data to the information processing apparatus based on a request for transferring data received from the information processing apparatus.
US08441670B2
The present specification discloses a printer in which the printer performs a first analysis of a print job data to identify a page description language and if no page description language is identified by the first analysis, performs additional processing activities, including but not limited to spooling and parsing, concurrent to a second analysis of the entire print job data to identify a page description language.
US08441664B2
A detection system includes: an acquiring unit that acquires document data representative of a document which includes a plurality of pages; a selector that selects, for each page of the document, a first printing sheet which contains a detected element or a second printing sheet which does not contain the detected element such that the first printing sheet is selected for at least one page; a supplier that supplies the first or the second printing sheet selected by the selector; a printer that sequentially prints the document acquired by the acquiring unit on the printing sheets supplied by the supplier; a detector that detects a detected element contained in a printing sheet on which the document is printed by the printer; and a reporter that reports detection of the detected element in a printing sheet by the detector.
US08441663B2
An apparatus information obtaining apparatus for obtaining apparatus information including model information of an image output apparatus from the image output apparatus via a network is disclosed. The apparatus information obtaining apparatus includes: an image output apparatus list database storing a list of image output apparatuses from which the apparatus information is obtained; an apparatus information send instruction sending unit for instructing the image output apparatus included in the image output apparatus list to send the apparatus information; and an apparatus information receiving unit for receiving the apparatus information from the image output apparatus that is instructed to send the apparatus information.
US08441650B2
A grazing incidence interferometer includes: a beam splitting section configured to split a beam from a beam source section into a measuring beam emergent to a measurement surface and a reference beam serving as a measurement reference, and configured to cause the measuring beam to emerge obliquely to the measurement surface; a beam combining part configured to combine the reference beam and the measuring beam reflected at the measurement surface, to obtain a combined beam; a detecting section configured to detect a profile of the measurement surface based on an interference fringe formed by the combined beam; and an image inverting part configured to invert an orientation of a wave front of the measuring beam or the reference beam, the image inverting part being provided in an optical path of the measuring beam or the reference beam leading from the beam splitting section to the beam combining section.
US08441646B2
A sensor device and method for detecting the turbidity of wash liquor. The sensor device includes an optical transmitter; an optical receiver, wherein the wash liquor to be tested flows between the transmitter and the receiver; and an electronic control and evaluation device to (a) carry out a reference measurement by means of the optical transmitter and receiver in order to determine a reference measured value; (b) carry out a turbidity measurement on the wash liquor to be measured by means of the optical transmitter and receiver in order to determine a test measured value; (c) relate the reference measured value to the test measured value; and (d) determine a characteristic value for a determined turbidity of the wash liquor therefrom and transmit the characteristic value as a measurement signal. The determination of the reference measured value and the test measured value include determining a gradient of the turbidity.
US08441641B1
The present disclosure is directed to a method for producing color spectral data of an article illuminated with lights emitted from one or more light emitting units, such as light emitting diodes (LEDs). The method is useful for obtaining accurate color spectral data of the article and for matching the color data produced from another color measuring instrument. The method is particularly useful for obtaining color spectral data using light emitting diodes as light source for color measurement. This disclosure is also directed to a color measuring system using the method disclosed therein.
US08441632B2
Biological and chemical materials often contain many molecular bonds that connect carbon (C) hydrogen (H) atoms. These bonds covalently share electrons that can be optically activated by light. The incident light interaction with the C—H molecular bond spectrally shifts of the incident light proportional to the vibrational, or more precisely polarizability, constant of the electrons that bind the C—H atoms. This process is called Raman scattering. For C—H, C—H2 and C—H3 bonding schemes, the spectral shift is approximately 3000 cm−1 lower in energy from the incident light energy. Using this fundamental spectral shift coupled with optical microscopy, the ability to detect materials that possess C—Hx (where x=1, 2 or 3) is possible.
US08441631B2
An integrated chemical separation device includes a single device body, a chemical separation unit configured to separate a chemical from a fluid, a Raman sensor substrate comprising one or more surfaces configured to be adsorbed by molecules of the chemical from the fluid, and a Raman scattering spectrometer unit that can emit a laser beam to illuminate the Raman sensor substrate and to detect the chemical from the light scattered from the Raman sensor substrate. The chemical separation unit, the Raman sensor substrate, and the Raman scattering spectrometer unit are held in or mounted to the single device body.
US08441626B2
An OAOA measurement system uses optical elements to converge incoming light from multiple sources onto an FPA as respective crosshair patterns made from lines which are oblique with respect to the FPA's axes, such that each pattern's location indicates the angular position of its corresponding source. The optical elements are arranged such that each crosshair's center point is at least twice as bright as the lines which form the crosshair's arms. The position of each crosshair is interpolated by defining regions around each arm of one of the crosshairs, determining the points of peak intensity in each row or column within each region, and curve-fitting the points to define each arm. Multiple crosshair patterns are accommodated by assigning a small magnitude value to each pixel of a defined arm, and then repeating the interpolation process for another crosshair.
US08441623B2
The invention is a method for detecting the diameter of a single crystal grown by the Czochralski method, wherein the diameter of a single crystal is detected by both a camera and a load cell, the diameter detected by the camera is corrected based on a difference between the diameter detected by the camera and the diameter calculated by the load cell and a correction coefficient α obtained in advance according to a growth rate of the single crystal, and a value obtained by the correction is set as the diameter of the single crystal, and a single crystal pulling apparatus including both a camera and a load cell for detecting the diameter of a single crystal to be pulled upwardly. As a result, it is possible to improve the measurement accuracy of the diameter of a large-diameter, heavy crystal and achieve the enhancement of yields and a reduction in variations in quality.
US08441611B2
A lithographic apparatus is disclosed that is configured to project a patterned beam of radiation onto a target portion of a substrate, the lithographic apparatus including an illumination system configured to condition a beam of radiation, the illumination system having a uniformity correction system located in a plane which, in use, is illuminated with a substantially constant pupil by the illumination system.
US08441610B2
An assembly including a conditioning system and an object moveable into and/or out of an area to be conditioned is disclosed. The conditioning system has fluid outlet passages to supply conditioning fluid to the area to be conditioned and is configured to adjust outflow of the conditioning fluid from the fluid outlet passages depending on a position of the object.
US08441601B2
A display apparatus includes a first substrate, a second substrate facing the first substrate, and pixels disposed between the first and second substrates to display an image. Each pixel includes a red sub-pixel for displaying a red color, a green sub-pixel for displaying a green color, a blue sub-pixel for displaying a blue color, a yellow sub-pixel for displaying a yellow color, and a white sub-pixel for displaying a white color. The blue sub-pixel has an area substantially equal to or larger than an area of each of the red, green, yellow, and white sub-pixels.
US08441595B2
A light emitting device includes a vacuum vessel, a recess portion, a cathode electrode, an electron emission region, a gate electrode, and a gate terminal portion. The vacuum vessel includes a first substrate, a second substrate facing the first substrate, and a sealing member disposed between the first substrate and the second substrate. The recess portion is formed to be depressed along a direction on a surface of the first substrate facing the second substrate, and the cathode electrode is formed in the recess portion and extending along the one direction. The electron emission region is formed on the cathode electrode within the recess portion. The gate electrode includes a metal plate on the surface of the first substrate along a direction crossing the cathode electrode at an inner side of the sealing member. The gate terminal portion is formed on the surface of the first substrate on inner and outer sides of the sealing member, traversing under the sealing member and is electrically connected with the gate electrode. The gate terminal portion includes a conductive film having a thickness smaller than a thickness of the gate electrode.
US08441593B2
A receiving container includes a frame member and a first reinforcing member. The frame member is formed of a plastic material. The frame member includes a bottom part of which a center portion is opened and sidewalls respectively extending from peripheral edges sides of the bottom part. The first reinforcing member is separably disposed internally within at least one of the sidewalls, and disposed substantially parallel to a length direction of the at least one of the sidewalls, the first reinforcing member reinforcing a strength of the at least one of the sidewalls.
US08441591B2
A pixel array substrate includes a pixel region and a circuit region adjacent to the pixel region. A plurality of display pixel units are disposed in the pixel region and a plurality of dummy pixel units are disposed in the circuit region. Each of the dummy pixel units includes a data line, a scan line, a plurality of switching elements and a plurality of pixel electrodes. The switching elements are electrically connected to the scan line and data line. The pixel electrodes are electrically connected to the switching elements. Particularly, electrostatic currents in the pixel region can be dissipated by the dummy pixel units in the circuit region. The dummy pixel units preserve the continuity of electricity in the pixel array substrate and function as an inner short ring. Therefore, the area of the circuit region on the pixel array substrate is larger.
US08441587B2
A display substrate includes a data line disposed on a base substrate, a first pixel electrode disposed at a first side of the data line, a second pixel electrode disposed at a second side of the data line and a storage electrode overlapping with the data line. The storage electrode overlaps with the first pixel electrode by a first overlapping width, and overlaps with the second pixel electrode by a second overlapping width larger than the first overlapping width.
US08441586B2
An LC-based optical device compensates for differences in optical path lengths of polarization components of input beam. As a result, PDL and PMD of the optical device are reduced. The compensation mechanism may be a glass plate that is disposed in an optical path of a polarization component so that the optical path length of that polarization component can be made substantially equal to the optical path length of the other polarization component that traverses through a half-wave plate. Another compensation mechanism is a birefringent displacer that has two sections sandwiching a half-wave plate, wherein the two sections are of different widths and the planar front surface of the birefringent displacer can be positioned to be non-orthogonal with respect to the incident input light beam.
US08441584B2
A stereoscopic image displaying apparatus is provided. The stereoscopic image displaying apparatus, including: an image generation section having a plurality of pixels for a plurality of colors arranged in a two-dimensional matrix and adapted to drive the pixels for the colors to generate a color image; and a parallax applying section adapted to apply a parallax to the image to allow color display of a three-dimensional image and capable of changing over a parallax direction between a first direction of the color image and a second direction perpendicular to the first direction. The parallax applying section has a first parallel state and a second parallel state. The image generation section and the parallax application section are configured so that the rates of the colors at the pixels for the colors corresponding to light transmission regions between adjacent ones of the parallax barrier regions are uniform or got closer in both of the parallel states.
US08441582B2
An image displaying apparatus, comprising: a first light modulator unit, which is configured to modulate a light incident thereon, responding to a first video signal, thereby to form a first image; one or a plural number of second light modulator units, which is/are configured to modulate a light from a light source, responding to a second video signal; and an enlarged image forming unit, being disposed on a light incidence side of the first light modulator unit, upon which a light modulated within the second light modulator unit is projected, enlargedly, thereby to form a second image thereon, wherein upon the first light modulator unit is incident the light of the second image formed on the enlarged image forming unit, and the first image is formed through modulation of the light of the second image responding to the first video signal.
US08441581B2
At least two turbo decoding apparatuses are used in a receiver for concatenated convolutional coding transmissions imbedded in 8-VSB digital television signals. This permits turbo decoding procedures for the M/H Groups in any Parade consisting of eight or fewer M/H Groups to be interleaved so at least one M/H Slot interval after each of those M/H Groups has been received is available for decoding that M/H Group.
US08441569B2
A reproducing apparatus, an image data reproducing method, a program, and a storage medium each detects an attitude state of the reproducing apparatus, extracts a part of an area of image data obtained by an image pickup device, and reproduces the part of the area of the extracted image data. According to the detection result, the part of the area of the image data is changed to another part of the area and rotation processing of another part of the area is performed, thereby reproducing the another part of the area which was subjected to the rotation processing.
US08441567B2
A digital photographing apparatus and a method of controlling the digital photographing apparatus prevent a touch malfunction from occurring while holding the digital photographing apparatus by having a touch protection area in the digital photographing apparatus. The digital photographing apparatus includes a large-sized touch screen on one surface thereof, wherein the touch screen includes: a touch area which inputs a touch from a user and executes icons corresponding to the touch; and a touch protection area which is not activated by the touch when the touch from the user is input on the touch screen.
US08441559B2
An imaging apparatus is provided for reducing noise which is derived from random noise contained in a correction signal used for correcting an image data and is newly generated on correction of the image data. The imaging apparatus drives vertical transfer registers with no signal charge from photoelectric transducers read out to the vertical transfer registers to obtain and store a correction signal into a field memory. The apparatus subtracts the correction signal from the image data by a subtractor.
US08441558B2
An solid state image pickup device including a plurality of photoelectric conversion regions (PD1, PD2) for generating carriers by photoelectric conversions to accumulate the generated carriers, an amplifying unit for amplifying the carriers, being commonly provided to at least two photoelectric conversion regions, a first and a second transfer units (Tx-MOS1, Tx-MOS2) for transferring the carriers accumulated in the first and the second photoelectric conversion regions, respectively, a first and a second carrier accumulating units (Cs1, Cs2) for accumulating the carriers flowing out from the first and the second photoelectric conversion regions through a first and a second fixed potential barriers, respectively, and a third and a fourth transfer units (Cs-MOS1, Cs-MOS2) for transferring the carriers accumulated in the first and the second carrier accumulating units to the amplifying unit, respectively.
US08441554B2
An image capturing apparatus includes: a first image capturing unit that captures a subject existing image; a first nonflatness calculating unit that calculates nonflatness of a peripheral portion of the subject existing image; a first determination unit that determines whether the nonflatness of the peripheral portion of the subject existing image is higher than a threshold value; a background generating unit that generates an extracting background image from the peripheral portion of the subject existing image when the first determination unit determines that the nonflatness is not higher than the threshold value, the extracting background image serving to extract a subject region containing the subject in the subject existing image; and a subject extracting unit that extracts the subject region from the subject existing image based on difference information of each corresponding pixel between the extracting background image and the subject existing image.
US08441542B2
Provided is a digital photographing apparatus and method, and more particularly, provided is a self-timer photographing apparatus and method involving checking the number of persons using an image capturing device having a self-timer function. The self-timer photographing apparatus involving checking the number of persons as a digital image processing device, the apparatus includes a digital signal processing unit detecting a change in the number of faces of a live view image, detecting positions of faces of the live view image, and, when there is no change in the positions of faces during a predetermined period of time, controlling to perform self-timer photographing.
US08441536B2
A vehicle periphery displaying apparatus for a vehicle is disclosed. The apparatus includes: an imaging device for capturing a periphery image; a storage medium for storing history data comprising one of the periphery image and information on an object-in-periphery, the storage medium pre-storing a vehicle image; a display screen having a real-time displaying part for displaying thereon the periphery image with distortion of the periphery image being uncorrected, and a history displaying part for displaying thereon the vehicle image and a history image being produced based on the history data; and a drawing section configured to superimposingly draw the vehicle image and the history image provided with the distortion that the periphery image has, such that the object-in-periphery shown in the history image is continuously connected to that shown in the periphery image.
US08441535B2
An image sensing systems supports independently setting sensor parameters in two or more different regions of interest. In one implementation resolution, exposure time, and gain are independently selectable in each region of interest. Independently setting exposure time and gain in different regions of interest improves image recognition when there are large differences in the illumination of objects within an image. Independently setting resolution permits the resolution to be selectively increased in regions of interest requiring high resolution in order to reduce the pixel data bandwidth and processing requirements.
US08441528B2
A stereoscopic image display includes: a display device that time-division displays left-eye image data and right-eye image data; shutter glasses comprising a left-eye shutter and a right-eye shutter alternately turned on and off in synchronization with the display device; and a backlight unit that irradiates light to the display device and is periodically turned on and off such that the backlight unit is turned on when a predetermined time determined according to a response time of liquid crystal lapses from a start point of a frame period.
US08441521B2
Provided is a method and apparatus for determining stereo views of a stereoscopic image. The method includes: selecting a pair of first and second images from a pair of frames of the stereoscopic image, the pair of frames including a base view image and an additional view image. The method further includes determining which of the first image and the second image is the base view image and which of the first image and the second image is the additional view image based on a parallax between the pair of first and second images.
US08441515B2
Embodiments of the present disclosure generally include a method and apparatus for minimizing acoustic echo in video conference. In one embodiment, a computer implemented method for minimizing acoustic echo in video conferencing comprises determining position information wherein the position information is derivable from a video stream and processing the position information using a computer to identify at least one direction wherein the one direction minimizes acoustic echo.
US08441498B2
The present invention relates to a video processing device comprising a luminance and saturation detector (LSHD) for detecting the luminance values (lum) and the saturation values (sat) of pixels of an input video signal (IN); and a white-point, saturation and hue modulator (WSH) for transforming luminance and saturation properties (lum, sat) of the pixels of the input video signal (IN) into white-point, saturation and hue correction factors (W, Wc; S, Sc; H, Hc). The video device also comprises a color gamut matrix generating unit (CGMG) for generating a color gamut matrix in the perception domain based on the white-point, saturation and hue correction factors (Wc, Sc, Hc) of the white-point, saturation and hue modulator (WSH); a color gamut mapping unit (20) for multiplying the pixels of the input video signal (IN) with a color gamut matrix generated by the color gamut matrix generating unit (CGMG); and a clipping unit (31) for clipping the results of the a color gamut mapping unit (20) which are out of a predefined range.
US08441497B1
Vertex data can be accessed for a graphics primitive. The vertex data includes homogeneous coordinates for each vertex of the primitive. The homogeneous coordinates can be used to determine perspective-correct barycentric coordinates that are normalized by the area of the primitive. The normalized perspective-correct barycentric coordinates can be used to determine an interpolated value of an attribute for the pixel. These operations can be performed using adders and multipliers implemented in hardware.
US08441491B2
One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a technique for performing undo operations on a graphics processing unit. The graphics processing unit is configured to copy a current buffer prior to performing modifications to the current buffer. The copy of the buffer is subtracted from the modified current buffer to generate a difference buffer. An undo operation is performed by subtracting the difference buffer from the modified current buffer. A sequence of difference buffers may be generated to provide multiple undo levels. Adding a subsequent difference buffers to the current buffer, generated by performing an undo operation, has the effect of performing a redo operation. The difference buffers are compressed for efficient storage and transmission between memory local to the graphics processing unit and system memory.
US08441489B2
A method is to implement a Scale Invariant Feature Transform algorithm in a shared memory multiprocessing system. The method comprises building differences of Gaussian (DoG) images for an input image, detecting keypoints in the DoG images; assigning orientations to the keypoints and computing keypoints descriptors and performing matrix operations. In the method, building differences of Gaussian (DoG) images for an input image and detecting keypoints in the DoG images are executed for all scales of the input image in parallel. And, orientation assignment and keypoints descriptions computation are executed for all octaves of the input image in parallel.
US08441482B2
Aspects include systems, methods, and media for implementing methods relating to detection of invalid intersections during ray tracing. Invalid intersections can arise from imprecision in computer-based number representation, causing ray origins to be located inappropriately. In some aspects, a ray can be associated with information relating to an expected angle between the ray's direction and a normal for a to-be-identified primitive intersected by that ray. If the angle between the ray's direction and the normal of an intersected primitive is within expectations, then that information can be used in predicting whether the intersection is valid. Such expectation information can be presented as a single bit determined by a shader performing a dot product of the ray and a normal of a primitive intersected by a parent ray, or can be obtained as a by-product of ray/primitive intersection testing. Such information also can be based on whether the shader is emitting to have reflection or refraction type ray behavior.
US08441467B2
High-resolution, scalable multi-touch sensing display systems and processes based on frustrated total internal reflection employ an optical waveguide that receives light, such as infrared light, that undergoes total internal reflection and an imaging sensor that detects light that escapes the optical waveguide caused by frustration of the total internal reflection due to contact by a user. The optical waveguide may be fitted with a compliant surface overlay to greatly improve sensing performance, minimize the affect of contaminants on and damage to the contact surface, to generally extend system life and to provide other benefits. The systems and processes provide true multi-touch (multi-input) and high-spatial and temporal resolution capability due to the continuous imaging of the frustrated total internal reflection that escapes the entire optical waveguide. Among other features and benefits, the systems and processes are scalable to large installations and are well suited for use with rear-projection and other display devices.
US08441461B2
In a touch panel, upper conductive layers on a bottom surface of an upper substrate and lower conductive layers on a top surface of a lower substrate are formed in belt shapes and extend in directions intersecting each other. End portions of the upper conductive layers are connected by an upper resistive layer, and end portions of the lower conductive layers are connected by a lower resistive layer. Then, a voltage is applied between ends of the lower resistive layer and the upper resistive layer sequentially, and voltages at the end portions of the upper resistive layer and the lower resistive layer are detected. Pressed positions can be detected with such a simple configuration.
US08441457B2
A sensor device includes: one or more sensor elements each including first and second diode elements connected in series and a sensor driving section. The cathode of the second diode element is connected to the anode of the first diode element. The sensor driving section controls on-off state of the first diode element through changing a gate voltage under a fixed cathode voltage, and controls on-off state of the second diode element through changing a gate voltage under a fixed anode voltage. The sensor driving section drives the second diode element, maintaining a relationship of Vg2(off)
US08441455B2
An exemplary touch control device includes a main body, a touch panel configured for generating a signal based on a user's touch instruction, and a display unit configured for displaying an image in response to the signal. The touch panel is adjacent to the main body. Light of the displayed image is viewable by the user without the light passing through the touch panel.
US08441454B2
An enhanced text entry system uses word-level analysis to correct inaccuracies automatically in user keystroke entries on reduced-size or virtual keyboards. One or more alternate textual interpretations each sequence of inputs detected within a designated auto-correcting region. Actual interaction locations for keystrokes may occur outside the boundaries of specific keyboard key regions associated with actual characters of the word interpretations proposed or offered for selection, where the distance from each interaction location to each corresponding intended character may increase with the expected frequency of the intended the language or in a particular context. In a virtual keyboard system, keys actuated may differ from keys actually associated with letters of the word interpretations. Each such sequence corresponds to a complete word, and the user can select the intended word from among generated interpretations.
US08441450B2
An input device is disclosed. The input device includes a movable touch-sensitive track pad capable of detecting an object in close proximity thereto so as to generate a tracking control signal. The input device also includes a movement indicator capable of detecting the movements of the movable track pad so as to generate one or more other control signals (e.g., button signals). The control signals can be used to perform actions in an electronic device operatively coupled to the input device.
US08441446B2
A wireless input device integrable with a mobile device which includes a wireless keyboard, a carrier and a retracting plate. The wireless keyboard has a top surface provided with a plurality of keys and two opposite sides each provided with a first rail element. The carrier has a top surface concavely provided with a receiving cavity so that the mobile device can be placed and secured in position in the receiving cavity. The retracting plate is movably embedded in a bottom surface of the carrier, and provided with a second rail element at each of two opposite positions for engaging with the first rail elements respectively, so that both the carrier and retracting plate are movable along the rail elements to a position where the wireless keyboard is completely covered by the carrier or where all the keys are exposed outside the carrier.
US08441442B2
An acceleration data acquisition means obtains acceleration data repeatedly. An acceleration determination means determines whether an acceleration represented by the acceleration data acquired by the acceleration data acquisition means is an acceleration at the time of accelerating, which is applied when a housing is moved and accelerated in a predetermined direction, or an acceleration at the time of decelerating, which is applied when the housing is moved and decelerated in the predetermined direction. A moving direction calculation means calculates a direction in which the housing is moved, by using the acceleration at the time of decelerating determined by the acceleration determination means. A processing means performs a predetermined process based on the moving direction calculated by using the moving direction calculation means.
US08441441B2
A mobile user interface suitable for mobile computing devices uses device position/orientation in real space to select a portion of content that is displayed. Content (e.g., documents, files or a desktop) is presumed fixed in virtual space with the mobile user interface displaying a portion of the content as if viewed through a camera or magnifying glass. Data from motion, distance or position sensors are used to determine the relative position/orientation of the device with respect to the content to select the portion for display. Content elements can be selected by centering the display on the desired portion, obviating the need for cursors and pointing devices (e.g., mouse or touchscreen). Magnification can be manipulated by moving the device away from or towards the user. 3-D content viewing may be enabled by sensing the device orientation and displaying content that is above or below the display in 3-D virtual space.
US08441439B2
A method for changing a value displayed on a screen is provided. In response to receiving a user input indicating motion in a particular direction, changing the value independent of where the position of a cursor is on the screen. The value being changed may comprise of a series of segments, and each segment value can be changed individually. In addition, a different user input device that does not indicate motion in a particular direction may be used to change segment values and to select other segment values. Methods for automatically formatting a segmented values and calculating a base time rate based on two different frame rates are also provided.
US08441429B2
A PLL as a clock generation circuit that generates a PWM clock based on a reference clock, which PWM clock is used for controlling, in a pulse width modulation method, a lamp on time and a lamp off time of a light source illuminating a liquid crystal panel by synchronizing with a video signal that performs display in a set period on the liquid crystal panel, includes a configuration that generates a PWM clock that can maintain a fixed ratio of the lamp on time to the lamp off time within one period even if the set period is changed, by changing a pulse interval of the reference clock in conjunction with the change in the set period.
US08441427B2
A gate driver includes a shift register, a logic control circuit, and an output enable control circuit. The shift register generates a plurality of scan signals according to a vertical synchronous signal and a vertical clock signal. The output enable control circuit generates a second output enable signal according to the vertical synchronous signal, the vertical clock signal, and an output enable signal. After the vertical synchronous signal and the vertical clock signal are both triggered together for two times, the second output enable converts from a high level to a low level. The logic control circuit outputs the plurality of scan signals when the second output enable signal is at the low level.
US08441426B2
A driving apparatus for driving a liquid crystal display panel includes a timing controller, a plurality of pairs of transmission lines, a plurality of source driving circuits, a plurality of terminal resistors, and a plurality of auxiliary resistors. The timing controller functions to generate a plurality of differential signals outputted via a plurality of output ports. Each output port includes two output ends for outputting a corresponding differential signal. Each pair of transmission lines is coupled to the timing controller for receiving a corresponding differential signal. Each source driving circuit is coupled to the pairs of transmission lines for receiving the differential signals so as to generate a plurality of data signals. Each terminal resistor is coupled between two terminals of a corresponding pair of transmission lines. Each auxiliary resistor is coupled between two output ends of a corresponding output port of the timing controller.
US08441417B2
A pixel circuit having a function of compensating for characteristic variation of an electro-optical element and threshold voltage variation of a transistor is formed from a reduced number of component elements. The pixel circuit includes an electro-optical element, a holding capacitor, a sampling transistor, a drive transistor, a switching transistor, and first and second detection transistors. The sampling transistor samples and supplies an input signal from a signal line so as to be held into the holding capacitor. The driving transistor drives the electro-optical element with current in response to the held signal potential. The first and second detection transistors supply a threshold voltage of the drive transistor into the holding capacitor in order to cancel an influence of the threshold voltage in advance.
US08441416B2
Provided is an active matrix electroluminescent display apparatus in which a short circuit between a power line and data line in adjacent sub-pixels can be substantially prevented. The active matrix electroluminescent display apparatus includes: a power line; a first transistor positioned on a side of the power line and connected to the power line; a second transistor positioned on the other side of the power line and connected to the power line; and electroluminescent devices respectively connected to the first transistor and the second transistor.
US08441414B2
The present invention is directed to luminance enhancement structure for reflective display devices. The structure not only can enhance the brightness of a display device, but also can reduce the Moiré effect of the display device. The present invention is also directed to a display device comprising an array of microcups and a luminance enhancement structure.
US08441407B2
The present invention is related to a mobile communication device. The device comprises a dielectric substrate, a first ground plane, an antenna element, a second ground plane, and an equivalent band-stop circuit. The first ground plane is disposed on the dielectric substrate. The antenna element is disposed on the dielectric substrate or nearby the dielectric substrate and is connected to a signal source disposed on the dielectric substrate. The second ground plane is disposed nearby one edge of the first ground plane and is connected to the first ground plane through a metal strip. The equivalent band-stop circuit is disposed on the second ground plane and includes a slit and a capacitive element. The open end of the slit is near the metal strip. The capacitive element is mounted across the slit.
US08441399B2
A three-dimensional slot antenna includes a loop conductor, a first conductor arm, a second conductor arm, and a third conductor arm. The first radiator section, the second radiator section and the third radiator section are disposed on a same plane. The second radiator section cooperates with the first and third radiator sections to form a first slot segment. The first radiator section further cooperates with the third radiator section to form a second slot segment. The first and second slot segments form a substantially T-shaped slot.
US08441397B2
A monostatic multibeam radar sensor device for a motor vehicle, including a directional characteristic of an antenna unit having at least one transceiving channel and at least one receiving channel, and including a mixer system, which has an at least approximately isolating mixer for at least one of the receiving channels. The at least approximately isolating mixer includes a Gilbert cell mixer, which, due to a non-ideal isolation between an input of the local oscillator signal and the corresponding receiving channel, emits a transmission power via this receiving channel, using an overcoupling signal, the transmission power influencing the directional characteristic of the antenna unit and the directional characteristic being switchable by controlling the phase position of the overcoupling signal.
US08441392B2
A method and system for locating a target, of azimuth Aestimatedtarget and of elevation angle Sestimatedtarget, in space by a carrier uses at least one first antenna array with electronic scanning ARRAY_H and at least one second antenna array with electronic scanning ARRAY_B. The target emits a signal in response to an interrogation from the carrier, each of said antenna arrays includes at least one antenna and the total number of antennas used is at least equal to three.
US08441389B2
Methods, systems, and products disclose a remote control device that controls multiple consumer electronics devices based on orientation.
US08441381B2
A method and apparatus is disclosed to compensate for gate leakage currents of thin oxide devices that have very thin oxide layers in a current mirror of a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). The DAC converts a digital input signal from a digital representation in a digital signaling domain to an analog representation in an analog signaling domain to provide an analog output signal. The DAC uses one or more transistors to convert the digital input signal from the digital representation to the analog representation. These transistors are typically implemented using thin oxide devices that have very thin oxide layers and corresponding gate leakage currents that are associated with these very thin oxide layers. The current-steering DAC provides these gate leakage currents independent of its corresponding reference source without any substantial affect upon its full scale output.
US08441374B2
A traveling support device includes: a road-vehicle communication portion that receives first current-signal information relating to a signal displayed by a traffic signal at a first clock time, from a road side transmitter installed on a road; an inter-vehicle communication portion that receives second current-signal information relating to a signal displayed by the traffic signal at a second clock time, from another vehicle that receives the second current-signal information from the road side transmitter; and a signal cycle estimating portion that estimates signal cycle information relating to transition of the signal on the traffic signal on the basis of the first current-signal information received by the road-vehicle communication portion and the second current-signal information received by the inter-vehicle communication portion.
US08441361B2
A system and method for monitoring and/or detecting the flow of one or more fluids in a fluid system including leak detection system integral to the fluid system (e.g., at any point along a conduit, at a connection between conduits such as at a fitting assembly, etc.) configured to detect incipient, early stage levels of the leak. Based on one or more factors related to the fluid and/or the leak, the methods, devices, and systems disclosed herein can provide an indication of a suitable action or process in response to the fluid or the leak including performing preventative maintenance or providing an indication of the need of maintenance in response to the leak.
US08441351B2
The present invention provides a system and method for tracking an interrogator relay unit disposed on a shopping cart within a store. The method comprises emitting an RF interrogation signal using the IRU; receiving, at the IRU, location data from an RFID tag in response to the RF interrogation signal; transmitting the location data, an identification information of the IRU, and timestamp data to a remote server using the IRU; and generating a behavior report using the transmitted location data, the identification information, and the timestamp data.
US08441348B2
A system is disclosed that enables multiple electronic devices to be tracked in the case of theft or loss without the need for monitoring or tracking the devices prior to the loss or theft. The system operates by sending bulk status information regarding the lost/stolen statuses of multiple devices to one of these devices. The receiving device then decodes the bulk status information to determine its own lost/stolen status. If the status reveals that the device is currently reported as lost or stolen, the device initiates an appropriate security action, such as the transmission of its location to a monitoring center.
US08441345B2
A hydraulic pressure warning system for an internal combustion engine including a hydraulic pressure sensor that is prevented from being influenced by the heat of the engine and by the pulsation of an oil pump. A hydraulic pressure sensor detects hydraulic pressure in a lubricating oil passage of the engine and issues a warning based on hydraulic pressure detected by the hydraulic pressure sensor when the hydraulic pressure drops. The hydraulic pressure sensor is provided on a wall surface of a water jacket of a rear cylinder block so as to project therefrom.
US08441343B1
A pitch recognition and optimization angle detector is integrated into a portable handheld electronic device, such as a text messaging device, to alert the user of an incorrect pitch to avoid excessive neck strain and potential injury. The pitch detector determines the angle in which the messaging device is currently oriented and compares the angle to an acceptable angle range. The detection system communicates information pertaining to the pitch to the user via either a pitch level indicator or an alert when the device is held outside of the acceptable angle range. The alert can be an icon, a color-coded display, a tactile alert, and an audible alert. The user can select the alert type or types. The acceptable angle range can be a default or user programmable.
US08441340B2
A contactless tag reader device comprises upper and lower electrodes which together define a tag location zone between them in which multiple tags can be placed. The lower electrode and the upper electrode are offset from each other such that they substantially do not overlap. This structure is used to sandwich tags vertically between two horizontally (laterally) offset reader electrodes. This enables power coupling and data transfer using capacitive coupling.
US08441337B2
A method and system is provided for file accessing and data transferring to secure online voting using a multilayered security system where all contents of the data may be delivered to users of varied electronic devices. The data transferring occur as an external communication between separate computers which themselves are distinguishable processing entities, such as a voter processing center, online voting station, registration station, and calling station. The system includes (i) requesting at least one voter and biometric information based on a security level; (ii) receiving the at least one voter and biometric information from the user; (iii) verifying the at least one voter and biometric information against the stored voter and biometric information; (iv) in response to acceptable verifications, sending a voting ballot; and (v) receiving and storing the voting ballot with a vote selection. The security level may depend on the type of ballot.
US08441330B2
Systems and methods for magnetic shielding are described. A magnetic shield formed of a material having a high magnetic permeability may be degaussed using a toroidal degaussing coil. The toroidal degaussing coil may enclose at least a portion of the shield. Magnetic field gradients may be actively compensated using multiple magnetic field sensors and local compensation coils. Trapped fluxons may be removed by an application of Lorentz force wherein an electrical current is passed through a superconducting plane.
US08441326B1
An electronic circuit and method for designing an electronic circuit is provided that includes a first source element, a second source element, a first matching network, and a second matching network. The first matching network and the second matching network are designed by means of a method using the Poincaré distance, in which the second source element is designed to output a signal with a center frequency, in which the load has a load impedance, in which the second matching network has line-like series elements that carry the signal. The line-like series elements only have line impedances less than the load impedance or a sum of the electrical lengths of the line-like series elements, each of which has a line impedance greater than the load impedance, is less than one quarter of a wavelength associated with the signal.
US08441322B1
An amplifier device includes an initial amplifier stage configured to receive a differential input signal at a first leg and a second leg; a final amplifier stage coupled to outputs of the initial amplifier stage, the final amplifier stage including a primary signal amplifier and an error amplifier in each of the first and second legs; and wherein an output of the error amplifier of the first leg is combined with an output of the primary signal amplifier in the second leg, and an output of the error amplifier of the second leg is combined with an output of the primary signal amplifier in the first leg.
US08441315B2
The invention provides an analog circuit that decreases an effect of variation of a transistor. By flowing a bias current in a compensation operation, a voltage between the gate and source of the transistor to be compensated is held in a capacitor. In a normal operation, the voltage stored in the compensation operation is added to a signal voltage. As the capacitor holds the voltage according to the characteristics of the transistor to be compensated, the effect of variation can be decreased by adding the voltage stored in the capacitor to the signal voltage. Further, an analog circuit which decreases the effect of variation can be provided by applying the aforementioned basis to a differential circuit, an operational amplifier and the like.
US08441302B2
A circuit including a first transistor group and a second transistor group. The transistor groups are connected such that they are arranged to be fed with at least one input signal, and such that they are arranged to output at least two currents. At least two transistors are arranged to be biased in such a way that desired signal paths are obtained in the circuit, such that a desired output current ratio is obtained.
US08441301B2
A cascoded level shifter is subdivided into a first voltage section and a second voltage section, the first voltage section having a lower voltage supply than the second voltage section, and a combined voltage across the first voltage section and the second voltage section corresponding to the high voltage range. The shifter includes an input node receiving an input signal, a cascoded device disposed in one of the first voltage section and the second voltage section, the cascoded device includes a driver switch connected in series with a cascode switch at a midpoint node, the cascode switch switching in dependence on a reference voltage of a reference node and the input signal, and reference voltage perturbation circuitry configured to cause a transient perturbation to the reference voltage in response to a transition of the input signal to cause the cascode switch to switch.
US08441296B2
A timing generator that outputs a timing signal obtained by delaying an input signal, comprising first and second period delay sections that each output a rate signal obtained by delaying the input signal by a delay amount corresponding to an integer multiple of a period of an operation clock supplied thereto; a first high-accuracy delay section that outputs the timing signal obtained by delaying a signal input thereto by a delay amount that is less than the period of the operation clock; and a mode switching section that switches between a low-speed mode, in which the rate signal output by the first period delay section is input to the first high-accuracy delay section, and a high-speed mode, in which a signal obtained by interleaving the rate signals output by the first period delay section and the second period delay section is input to the first high-accuracy delay section.
US08441294B2
A data holding circuit including a first input terminal through which data is inputted; at least one delay element for delaying the data inputted through the first input terminal; and a first element for holding data, wherein, when the data inputted through the first input terminal and the data delayed by the delay element are equal to each other, the first element holds data corresponding to the data inputted through the first input terminal and wherein, when the data inputted through the first input terminal and the data delayed by the delay element are different from each other, the first element continues to hold the data presently held by the first element.
US08441281B2
A differential buffer circuit having increased output voltage swing includes a differential input stage including at least first and second transistors, the first and second transistors being operative to receive first and second signals, respectively. The buffer circuit further includes a bias stage connected between the differential input stage and a first voltage source. The bias stage is operative to generate a quiescent current as a function of a third signal supplied to the bias stage. A load circuit is connected between a second voltage source and the differential input stage, first and second differential outputs of the buffer circuit being generated at a junction between the load circuit and the differential input stage. The load circuit includes first and second switching elements coupled with the first and second transistors, respectively. The first switching element is operative to electrically connect the first differential output to the second voltage source when the first transistor is turned off. The second switching element is operative to electrically connect the second differential output to the second voltage source when the second transistor is turned off.
US08441278B2
A stacked semiconductor device includes a first semiconductor device equipped with a first semiconductor chip 14 having a transistor circuit and protection diodes, and a second semiconductor device equipped with a second semiconductor chip 24 having a transistor circuit and protection diodes, and stacked on the first semiconductor device via a connection portion, wherein a power supply line connected to the first and second semiconductor chips is used in common, and a forward ON voltage of the protection diodes of the first semiconductor chip is set higher than a forward ON voltage of the protection diodes of the second semiconductor chip 24. When a connection test is executed, the forward ON voltage of the protection diodes of the first semiconductor chip or the second semiconductor chip is detected and then normal/open is judged.
US08441265B2
A method for screening electrolytic capacitors places a capacitor in series with a resistor, applying a test voltage and following the charge curve for the capacitor. A high voltage drop across the capacitor indicates high reliability and a low voltage drop is used to reject the piece. The leakage current is not adversely affected during the test.
US08441260B2
A transmit-receive switching circuit is offered which is for use in an NMR spectrometer that employs a solid-state NMR probe using a cooled detection coil. The switching circuit is cryogenically cooled to reduce thermal noise in use. The switching circuit has a first terminal for applying high-power RF pulses sent in from the power amplifier of the NMR spectrometer, a second terminal for sending the RF pulses applied from the first terminal to the NMR detector via crossed-diodes and for receiving and entering a low-power NMR signal detected by the NMR detector, and a third terminal for sending the NMR signal entered from the second terminal toward a preamplifier. Plural stages of shunts are connected to the transmission line connecting the second and third terminals such that one stage of shunt corresponds to a 90° phase shift in the RF radiation.
US08441256B2
A magnetic resonance based apparatus capable of measuring, without using time-of-flight measurements, flow regimes of multi-phase fluids in a pipe, comprises a magnetic resonance module through which the fluid phases flow, wherein the magnetic resonance module includes a radiofrequency coil for transmitting and detecting a signal and means for generating inside the module a homogenous constant magnetic field Bx that is thermally compensated and a transverse magnetic field gradient Gx that is superposed on Bx; and at least one pre-polarization module through which the fluid phases flow before entering the magnetic resonance module.
US08441252B2
The object of the invention is to provide a rotational angle measurement apparatus that is capable of correcting an error due to pin-angle error with a small amount of calculation operation. The rotational angle measurement apparatus includes a magnetic sensor 301 and a signal processing unit 303M. The magnetic sensor includes two bridges comprising magneto-resistance elements each having a pinned magnetic layer. A ratio-calculation unit 381 of the signal processing unit 303M calculates a ratio Vy/Vx of output signals Vx and Vy. A parameter correction unit 382 subtracts a predetermined correction parameter β from the ratio Vy/Vx calculated by the ratio-calculation unit. An a tan-processing unit 383 conducts arctangent processing on the value calculated by the parameter correction unit and calculates an angle of magnetic field θ.
US08441242B2
A fully integrated DC-DC converter utilizes digitally controlled dual output stages to achieve fast load transient recovery is presented. The DC-DC converter includes a main converter output stage connected in parallel with an auxiliary output stage. The main output stage is responsible for steady-state operation and is designed to achieve high conversion efficiency using large inductor and power transistors with low on-resistance. The auxiliary stage is responsible for transient suppression and is only active when a load transient occurs. The auxiliary output stage performs well with inductor and power transistors much smaller than those of the main switching stage and thus achieves well balanced power conversion efficiency and dynamic performance with a much smaller area penalty than previously described dual-output-stage converters.
US08441236B2
There is provided a method for operating a lead acid storage battery in order to compensate for fluctuations in the amount of power generated by a solar power generation apparatus, a wind power generation apparatus, or another natural energy power generation device, the lead acid storage battery being charged by a power generation device and discharged to a load. The state of charge of the lead acid storage battery is maintained in a range of 30 to 90% where the fully charged state of the lead acid storage battery is 100%; and the lead acid storage battery is charged and discharged while the battery voltage is kept in a specified range of 1.80 to 2.42 V per cell to extend the service life of the battery. A reference temperature of 25° C. is established, and when the ambient temperature has risen above or fallen below the reference temperature, the upper and lower limit values of a specified range are corrected within a range of −4 mV/° C. to −6 mV/° C. per cell according to the amount by which the temperature has increased or decreased so that a corrected voltage range is obtained. The storage battery is charged and discharged while the battery voltage is kept in the corrected voltage range, and the battery is operated.
US08441235B2
A digital controlled battery charger comprises a power converter, a voltage sensor, a current senor, a mode selector and a digital controller. The voltage sensor and current sensor detect the voltage of a rechargeable battery and the current flowing through the rechargeable battery respectively. The mode selector selects a feedback signal from either the output of the voltage sensor or the output of the current sensor. The digital controller receives the selected feedback signal and generates a pulse width modulated signal for the power converter. Additionally, the digital controller is capable of dynamically adjusting its coefficients so that the control loop can maintain a stable system when the battery charger operates in different battery charging phases.
US08441232B2
The electronic apparatus allows a user to arbitrarily set a display of a remaining battery level. The apparatus includes a detector which detects a remaining battery level of a battery, and a threshold-value-setting part which is operated by a user to set a threshold value for performing a display relating to the remaining battery level. The apparatus further includes a controller which displays in a display device an image representing the remaining battery level in accordance with the result of a comparison between the remaining battery level detected by the detector and the threshold value set with the threshold-value-setting part.
US08441231B2
A novel switching hysteretic bidirectional power converter is presented. The converter includes the generation of a synthetic ripple signal and feedback networks to hysteretically control the power converter both when the converter operates as a boost converter with the flow of power in one direction, and when the converter operates as a buck power converter with the flow of power in the opposite direction.The presented approach provides a switching converter with a much simpler control method with respect to conventional inductive bidirectional power converters. The hysteretic control provides stable operation in all conditions with excellent load and line transient response. Furthermore this allows the operation of the bidirectional power converter with much higher switching frequencies with respect to state of the art conventional approaches, thus reducing the cost and size of the passive components storing energy during the conversion.Since bidirectional switching power converters are used mainly when the flow of power is bidirectional, the typical application involves the charging and discharging of batteries, and as part of this novel approach, an hysteretic battery charger including hysteretic constant current and constant voltage control is introduced as part of a larger bidirectional switching power converter.
US08441215B1
Apparatus and a method for operating high intensity discharge (HID) lamps at a predetermined substantially constant luminous flux output. A power-time characteristic is developed using a test lamp of similar type and rating to the HID lamps. This characteristic defines the power required at different times, which may be regularly spaced intervals of for example 20 hours, during the operating life of the HID lamps to operate the lamps at the predetermined luminous flux output. The power time characteristic is then “played back” in real time via a microprocessor based master controller for the HID lamps. The communications to the HID lamps may be wireless or hard wired. The result is that the HID lamps are operated at substantially constant lumens resulting in significant energy savings and improved lamp performance.
US08441212B2
Disclosed herein is a system for driving light emitting devices. The system for driving light emitting devices includes a main light emitting device and at least one sub-light emitting device. The main light emitting device includes a first communication unit for exchanging information with a central monitoring server and a close sub-light emitting device using a wireless communication module, a first light emitting unit having at least one light emitting element, and a first control unit for controlling the light emission of the first light emitting unit, and transmitting a command signal for controlling the sub-light emitting device to the sub-light emitting device. The sub-light emitting device includes a second communication unit for exchanging information with the main light emitting device, a second light emitting unit having at least one light emitting element, and a second control unit for controlling the light emission of the second light emitting unit.
US08441211B2
The present invention is to provide an electronic ballast connected in parallel to two filaments of a fluorescent light tube, which comprises a controller for generating two output signals, two power switches being switched according to the output signals, a resonant circuit oscillating according to switching of the power switches and thereby causing a resonant capacitor thereof to generate a voltage, a voltage sensor connected in series to the resonant capacitor and connected in parallel between the two filaments so as to sense an AC voltage proportional to a voltage across the fluorescent light tube, and a regulator connected separately to the voltage sensor and controller so as to convert the AC voltage into a DC voltage and deliver the DC voltage to the controller. Upon determining that the DC voltage exceeds a preset voltage level, the controller generates an interruption control signal for immediately stopping operation of the controller.
US08441197B2
A method of striking a gas discharge lamp involves the steps of generating a high-frequency square-wave voltage having an operating frequency, generating a sinusoidal voltage from the high-frequency square-wave voltage, controlling the operating frequency to a low-end frequency, and increasing the amplitude of the sinusoidal voltage during successive pulse times and then decreasing the amplitude of the sinusoidal voltage towards the low-end amplitude at the end of each of the successive pulse times until the lamp has struck, where the length of each of the successive pulse times being greater than the length of the previous pulse time. A maximum amplitude of the sinusoidal voltage during each pulse time may be greater than a maximum amplitude of the sinusoidal voltage during the previous pulse time.
US08441192B2
The present invention provides an energy efficient replacement for a standard incandescent lamp using LED devices which direct their light output into a light transmissive medium which is also capable of radiating the transmitted light outwardly in a plurality of directions. More particularly, the present invention provides an incandescent lamp replacement which is virtually identical in external form factor to the standard incandescent lamp.
US08441187B2
A radiation-emitting device having comprising: a substrate (1); a first electrode (2) and a second electrode; (9), at least one emitter layer (5) arranged between the first and second electrodes and emitting light in the violet or blue spectral range, wherein the emitter layer comprises a matrix material and, relative to the matrix material, 0.1%-5% by weight of a fluorescent, radiation-emitting emitter and 1-30% by weight of a phosphorescent exciton trap; and wherein the emission maximum of the fluorescent emitter and that of the phosphorescent exciton trap being situated in the blue, violet or ultraviolet spectral range.
US08441158B2
To further reduce force ripple of a linear motor, a primary part has a plurality of windings sequentially arranged in an axial direction and subdivided in the axial direction into groups having an identical number of windings. The sequence of the association of the windings with the phases of a multi-phase system is not repeated at least in a group of windings within the primary part as long as the winding sense of the corresponding windings in the group is maintained.
US08441157B2
A power supply system includes a transformer for converting an external AC power into an external DC power, a battery for providing a battery power, a selection module for outputting the external DC power or the battery power, a first-stage DC conversion module for converting power provided by the selection module into a first DC power, a plurality of second-stage DC conversion module, each for converting an input power into a second DC power, and a switching module for switching to output the battery power or the first DC power of the first-stage DC conversion module as the input power of each of the plurality of second-stage DC conversion module according to the external DC power.
US08441142B2
The present invention relates to a wind turbine nacelle. This nacelle comprises a body, and a head. The body comprises a base which is designed to be fastened to the upper end of a wind turbine tower, and a tubular chamber which upwardly extends said base along a vertical axis. The head comprises a cavity which is designed for rotationally mounting blades and for accommodating a generator, and by a shroud which is secured to the cavity and arranged along a vertical axis so as to be pivotally mounted on the tubular chamber. Furthermore, the nacelle comprises pivot connection means which are arranged between the shroud and the tubular chamber and allow the head to be pivotally mounted on the body. Another aspect of the present invention concerns a wind turbine equipped with such a wind turbine nacelle.
US08441140B2
A new and useful concept is provided for utilizing an air flow in connection with a primary function, that is not a waste function and uses the flow of air for a useful purpose to produce electricity. A fluid driven turbine is located in the path of the flow of air, the turbine having turbine blades rotatable about an axis of rotation, the turbine blades located in the path of the air flow, and the axis of rotation of the turbine oriented transverse to the flow of air, to rotate the turbine from the flow of air in the primary system, and generating electricity from the rotation of the turbine.
US08441133B2
A semiconductor device including a first substrate having first and second surfaces, multiple first mounting pads formed on the first surface of the first substrate and for mounting a first semiconductor element on the first surface of the first substrate, multiple first connection pads formed on the first surface of the first substrate and positioned on the periphery of the multiple first mounting pads, a second substrate formed on the first substrate and having first and second surfaces, the second substrate having a second penetrating electrode which penetrates through the first and second surfaces of the second substrate, multiple second mounting pads formed on the first surface of the second substrate and for mounting a second semiconductor element, and a conductive member formed on one of the first connection pads and electrically connecting an end portion of the second penetrating electrode and the one of the first connection pads.
US08441129B2
A semiconductor device includes a first structural body having first electrode pads; a second structural body disposed in a face-up type over the first structural body in such a way as to expose the first electrode pads, and having first connection members with at least two protrusions; and a third structural body disposed in a face-down type over the second structural body, and having second connection members with at least two protrusions, on a surface thereof facing the second structural body, wherein some of the protrusions of the second connection members are electrically connected with the exposed first electrode pads, and at least one of remaining protrusions of the second connection members is electrically connected with the first connection members.
US08441123B1
A semiconductor device has a first semiconductor die having at least one metal pillar formed along an inner perimeter and at least one bond pad formed along an outer perimeter. A second semiconductor die has at least one metal pillar. A conductive bump connects the at least one metal pillar of the first semiconductor die to the at least one metal pillar of the second semiconductor die. At least one metal dam is formed on the first semiconductor die between the at least one metal pillar of the first semiconductor die and the at least one bond pad.
US08441115B2
A semiconductor package includes a print circuit part, a lower chip, an upper chip, a thermal conductivity part, and an encapsulation resin. The lower chip and the upper chip are mounted on the print circuit part through wire bonding connection. The thermal conductivity part efficiently dissipates heat from the chips to the outside of the package. The encapsulation resin entirely seals the package while exposing the thermal conductivity part. A adhesive sheet is hardened to form a bonding layer between the thermal conductivity part and the upper chip, a bonding layer between the semiconductor chips, and a bonding layer between the semiconductor chip and the wired component. The configuration contributes to miniaturization, high integration, and heat resistance reduction of a semiconductor package using high-heat-generating ICs.
US08441114B2
To improve manufacture of an electronic circuit, the electronic circuit is composed of modules of sub-circuits arranged on a common substrate, such as a cooling body, and that are electrically interconnected by a planar electrical contact element.
US08441112B2
A layered chip package includes a main body, and wiring that includes a plurality of wires disposed on a side surface of the main body. The main body includes: a main part including first and second layer portions; and a plurality of first and second terminals that are disposed on the top and bottom surfaces of the main part, respectively, and are electrically connected to the plurality of wires. The first and second terminals are formed by using electrodes of the first and second layer portions. The layered chip package is manufactured by fabricating a layered substructure by stacking two substructures each of which includes an array of a plurality of preliminary layer portions, and then cutting the layered substructure. The layered substructure includes a plurality of preliminary wires that are disposed between two adjacent pre-separation main bodies and are to become the plurality of wires.
US08441107B2
An apparatus includes a first device. The first device includes a first projection and a first gate structure, the first projection extending upwardly from a substrate and having a first channel region therein, and the first gate structure engaging the first projection adjacent the first channel region. The first structure includes an opening over the first channel region, and a conformal, pure metal with a low resistivity disposed in the opening. The apparatus also includes a second device that includes a second projection and a second gate structure, the second projection extending upwardly from the substrate and having a second channel region therein, and the second gate structure engaging the second projection adjacent the second channel region. The second structure includes a silicide disposed over the second channel region, wherein the silicide includes a metal that is the same metal disposed in the opening.
US08441099B2
An ID tag capable of communicating data wirelessly, the size of which is reduced, and where the size of an IC chip is reduced, a limited area of the chip is effectively used, current consumption is reduced, and communication distance is prevented from decreasing. The ID tag of the invention includes an IC chip having an integrated circuit, a resonance capacitor portion and a storage capacitor portion, and an antenna formed over the IC chip so as to overlap at least partially with an insulating film interposed therebetween. The antenna, the insulating film and wirings or semiconductor films forming the integrated circuit are stacked, and one or both of capacitors in the resonance capacitor portion and the storage capacitor portion are formed by this stacked structure.
US08441096B2
A fuse of a semiconductor device comprises: a fuse pattern formed on a semiconductor substrate; an insulating film covering one side of the fuse pattern and including a trench; a conductive line disposed on the insulating film including the trench. The fuse of the semiconductor device prevents generation of cracks in a fuse box by thermal and physical stress, thereby improving reliability of the semiconductor device.
US08441093B2
A thermopile sensor array is provided. The thermopile sensor array may include multiple pixels formed by multiple thermopiles arranged on a single common shared support membrane. A separation between the edge of the shared support membrane and the outermost thermopile(s) may be included to provide additional thermal isolation between the thermopile and an underlying silicon substrate.
US08441085B2
An electronic apparatus having a substrate with a bottom gate p-channel type thin film transistor; a resist pattern over the substrate; and a light shielding film operative to block light having a wavelength shorter than 260 nm over at least a channel part of said thin film transistor.
US08441081B2
One aspect of the invention relates to an ultrathin micro-electromechanical chemical sensing device which uses swelling or straining of a reactive organic material for sensing. In certain embodiments, the device comprises a contact on-off switch chemical sensor. For example, the device can comprises a small gap separating two electrodes, wherein the gap can be closed as a result of the swelling or stressing of an organic polymer coating on one or both sides of the gap. In certain embodiments, the swelling or stressing is due to the organic polymer reacting with a target analyte.
US08441078B2
An integrated circuit (IC) includes a substrate having a top semiconductor surface including at least one MOS device including a source and a drain region spaced apart to define a channel region. A SiON gate dielectric layer that has a plurality of different N concentration portions is formed on the top semiconductor surface. A gate electrode is on the SiON layer. The plurality of different N concentration portions include (i) a bottom portion extending to the semiconductor interface having an average N concentration of <2 atomic %, (ii) a bulk portion having an average N concentration >10 atomic %, and (iii) a top portion on the bulk portion extending to a gate electrode interface having an average N concentration that is ≧2 atomic % less than a peak N concentration of the bulk portion.
US08441075B2
A power semiconductor apparatus which is provided with a first power semiconductor device using Si as a base substance and a second power semiconductor device using a semiconductor having an energy bandgap wider than the energy bandgap of Si as a base substance, and includes a first insulated metal substrate on which the first power semiconductor device is mounted, a first heat dissipation metal base on which the first insulated metal substrate is mounted, a second insulated metal substrate on which the second power semiconductor device is mounted, and a second heat dissipation metal base on which the second insulated metal substrate is mounted.
US08441066B2
A semiconductor device according to the present invention comprises a first transistor and a second transistor, and functions as an inverter. The first transistor includes an island semiconductor layer, a first gate insulating film surrounding the periphery of the island semiconductor layer, a gate electrode surrounding the periphery of the first gate insulating film, p+-type semiconductor layers formed in the upper and lower part of the island semiconductor layer, respectively. The second transistor includes the gate electrode, a second gate insulating film surrounding a part of the periphery of the gate electrode, an arcuate semiconductor layer contacting a part of the periphery of the second gate insulating film, n+-type semiconductor layers formed in the upper and lower part of the arcuate semiconductor layer, respectively. A first contact electrically connects the p+-type semiconductor layer in the first transistor and the n+-type semiconductor layer in the second transistor.
US08441062B2
Nonvolatile memory devices include a plurality of nonvolatile memory cell transistors having respective channel regions within a semiconductor layer formed of a first semiconductor material and respective source/drain regions formed of a second semiconductor material, which has a smaller bandgap relative to the first semiconductor material. The source/drain regions can form non-rectifying junctions with the channel regions. The source/drain regions may include germanium (e.g., Ge or SiGe regions), the semiconductor layer may be a P-type silicon layer and the source/drain regions of the plurality of nonvolatile memory cell transistors may be P-type germanium or P-type silicon germanium.
US08441060B2
A nonvolatile memory element includes a first electrode (103) formed on a substrate (101), a resistance variable layer (108) and a second electrode (107), wherein the resistance variable layer has a multi-layer structure including at least three layers which are a first transition metal oxide layer (104), a second transition metal oxide layer (106) which is higher in oxygen concentration than the first transition metal oxide layer (104), and a transition metal oxynitride layer (105). The second transition metal oxide layer (106) is in contact with either one of the first electrode (103) and the second electrode (107). The transition metal oxynitride layer (105) is provided between the first transition metal oxide layer (104) and the second transition metal oxide layer (106).
US08441048B2
The present invention provides a horizontally depleted Metal Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (MESFET). A drain region, a source region, and a channel region are formed in the device layer such that the drain region and the source region are spaced apart from one another and the channel region extends between the drain region and the source region. First and second gate contacts are formed in the device layer on either side of the channel region, and as such, the first and second gate contacts will also reside between opposing portions of the source and drain regions. With this configuration, voltages applied to the first and second gate contacts effectively control vertical depletion regions, which form on either side of the channel region.
US08441047B2
An object is to provide an n-channel transistor and a p-channel transistor having a preferred structure using an oxide semiconductor. A first source or drain electrode which is electrically connected to a first oxide semiconductor layer and is formed using a stacked-layer structure including a first conductive layer containing a first material and a second conductive layer containing a second material, and a second source or drain electrode which is electrically connected to a second oxide semiconductor layer and is formed using a stacked-layer structure including a third conductive layer containing the first material and a fourth conductive layer containing the second material are included. The first oxide semiconductor layer is in contact with the first conductive layer of the first source or drain electrode, and the second oxide semiconductor layer is in contact with the third and the fourth conductive layers of the second source or drain electrode.
US08441046B2
This invention discloses an insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) device formed in a semiconductor substrate. The IGBT device has a split-shielded trench gate that includes an upper gate segment and a lower shield segment. The IGBT device may further include a dummy trench filled with a dielectric layer disposed at a distance away from the split-shielded trench gate. The IGBT device further includes a body region extended between the split-shielded trench gate and the dummy trench encompassing a source region surrounding the split-shielded trench gate near a top surface of the semiconductor substrate. The IGBT device further includes a heavily doped N region disposed below the body region and above a source-dopant drift region above a bottom body-dopant collector region at a bottom surface of the semiconductor substrate. In an alternative embodiment, the IGBT may include a planar gate with a trench shield electrode.
US08441044B2
Methods and apparatus relating to very large scale FET arrays for analyte measurements. ChemFET (e.g., ISFET) arrays may be fabricated using conventional CMOS processing techniques based on improved FET pixel and array designs that increase measurement sensitivity and accuracy, and at the same time facilitate significantly small pixel sizes and dense arrays. Improved array control techniques provide for rapid data acquisition from large and dense arrays. Such arrays may be employed to detect a presence and/or concentration changes of various analyte types in a wide variety of chemical and/or biological processes. In one example, chemFET arrays facilitate DNA sequencing techniques based on monitoring changes in hydrogen ion concentration (pH), changes in other analyte concentration, and/or binding events associated with chemical processes relating to DNA synthesis.
US08441041B2
An integrated circuit memory device, in one embodiment, includes a substrate and first and second inter-level dielectric layers successively disposed on the substrate. One or more contacts in the peripheral extend through the first inter-level dielectric layer to respective components. One or more vias and a plurality of dummy vias extend through the second inter-level dielectric layer in the peripheral area. Each of the one or more peripheral vias extend to a respective peripheral contact. The peripheral dummy vias are located proximate the peripheral vias.
US08441038B1
A nano-electric switch includes a cavity base, a confinement wall, and a cavity top defining a cavity. A floating conductive bridge movable within the cavity completes an electrical circuit between a first electrical contact and a second electrical contact in a first selectable position, and breaks the electrical circuit in a second selectable position.
US08441032B2
A system and method providing for the detection of an input signal, either optical or electrical, by using a single independent discrete amplifier or by distributing the input signal into independent signal components that are independently amplified. The input signal can either be the result of photoabsorption process in the wavelengths greater than 950 nm or a low-level electrical signal. The discrete amplifier is an avalanche amplifier operable in a non-gated mode while biased in or above the breakdown region, and includes a composite dielectric feedback layer monolithically integrated with input signal detection and amplification semiconductor layers.
US08441030B2
A III-nitride power semiconductor device that includes a plurality of III-nitride heterojunctions.
US08441028B2
A light emitting device comprising a heat sink, a dielectric layer arranged on the heat sink, a heat conductive layer arranged on the dielectric layer, an undercoating arranged on at least a part of the heat conductive layer, and a light emitting chip attached to the heat conductive layer by means of the undercoating.
US08441027B2
Disclosed are a light emitting device and a light emitting device package. The light emitting device includes a substrate including a plurality of patterns, each pattern including three protrusion parts, a plurality of spaces formed between the patterns, and a light emitting device structure over the patterns and the spaces. Each space includes a medium having a refractive index different from a refractive index of the light emitting device structure.
US08441025B2
A light emitting device is provided. The light emitting device may include a reflective layer having a prescribed pattern of at least one shape having prescribed thickness, width and periodicity. The light emitting device may also include a light emitting layer formed on the reflective layer. The prescribed periodicity may be based on 0.75λ/n to 5λ/n, where λ is the wavelength of the light emitted from the light emitting layer, and n is the refractive index of the light emitting layer.
US08441020B2
Several embodiments of light emitting diode packaging configurations including a substrate with a cavity are disclosed herein. A patterned wafer has a plurality of individual LED attachment sites, and an alignment wafer has a plurality of individual cavities. The patterned wafer and the alignment wafer are superimposed with the LED attachment sites corresponding generally to the cavities of the alignment wafer. At least one LED is placed in the cavities using the cavity to align the LED relative to the patterned wafer. The LED is electrically connected to contacts on the patterned wafer, and a phosphor layer is formed in the cavity to cover at least a part of the LED.
US08441013B2
The present invention provides a method of manufacturing a TFT substrate, in which method a data signal line is separated into upper and lower regions at a separating point(Q) that is not around above a scan signal line but in a region where an i-layer and an n+ layer formed on a gate insulating film are removed away in a flattened region of a gate insulating film.
US08441007B2
A display device includes a first wiring functioning as a gate electrode formed over a substrate, a gate insulating film formed over the first wiring, a second wiring and an electrode layer provided over the gate insulating film, and a high-resistance oxide semiconductor layer formed between the second wiring and the electrode layer are included. In the structure, the second wiring is formed using a stack of a low-resistance oxide semiconductor layer and a conductive layer over the low-resistance oxide semiconductor layer, and the electrode layer is formed using a stack of the low-resistance oxide semiconductor layer and the conductive layer which is stacked so that a region functioning as a pixel electrode of the low-resistance oxide semiconductor layer is exposed.
US08441001B2
A flat organic photodetector has a structured first electrode that forms several sub-electrodes, a second electrode, at least one first organic layer, and a second organic layer. The organic layers are situated between the two electrodes and are structured in conformity with the structuring of the first electrode, so that the two organic layers are subdivided into multiple active regions respectively corresponding to the sub-electrodes of the first electrode. An x-ray detector has such a flat organic photodetector and an x-ray absorbing layer applied thereon.
US08440997B2
A 1D nanowire photodetector device includes a nanowire that is individually contacted by electrodes for applying a longitudinal electric field which drives the photocurrent. An intrinsic radial electric field to inhibits photo-carrier recombination, thus enhancing the photocurrent response. Circuits of 1D nanowire include groups of photodetectors addressed by their individual 1D nanowire electrode contacts. Placement of 1D nanostructures is accomplished with registration onto a substrate. A substrate is patterned with a material, e.g., photoresist, and trenches are formed in the patterning material at predetermined locations for the placement of 1D nanostructures. The 1D nanostructures are aligned in a liquid suspension, and then transferred into the trenches from the liquid suspension. Removal of the patterning material places the 1D nanostructures in predetermined, registered positions on the substrate.
US08440995B2
A light emitting device is provided that includes a light emitting structure including a first conductive semiconductor layer, an active layer on the first conductive semiconductor layer, a second conductive semiconductor layer on the active layer, a superlattice structure layer on the second conductive semiconductor layer, and a third conductive semiconductor layer on the superlattice structure layer; a light transmission electrode layer on the light emitting structure; a first electrode connected to the first conductive semiconductor layer; a second electrode electrically connected to the light transmission electrode layer on the light emitting structure; and an insulating layer that extends from a lower portion of the second electrode to an upper portion of the second conductive semiconductor layer.
US08440993B2
A reconfigurable device and a method of creating, erasing, or reconfiguring the device are provided. At an interface between a first insulating layer and a second insulating layer, an electrically conductive, quasi one- or zero-dimensional electron gas is present such that the interface presents an electrically conductive region that is non-volatile. The second insulating layer is of a thickness to allow metal-insulator transitions upon the application of a first external electric field. The electrically conductive region is subject to erasing upon application of a second external electric field.
US08440990B2
Embodiments of the invention generally relate to a resistive switching nonvolatile memory device having an interface layer structure disposed between at least one of the electrodes and a variable resistance layer formed in the nonvolatile memory device, and a method of forming the same. Typically, resistive switching memory elements may be formed as part of a high-capacity nonvolatile memory integrated circuit, which can be used in various electronic devices, such as digital cameras, mobile telephones, handheld computers, and music players. In one configuration of the resistive switching nonvolatile memory device, the interface layer structure comprises a passivation region, an interface coupling region, and/or a variable resistance layer interface region that are configured to adjust the nonvolatile memory device's performance, such as lowering the formed device's switching currents and reducing the device's forming voltage, and reducing the performance variation from one formed device to another.
US08440977B2
The object of the invention is to realize a light radiation-detecting apparatus including a step of preparing a matrix array including a substrate, an insulating layer arranged on the substrate, a plurality of pixels arranged on the insulating layer, wherein the pixel includes a conversion element converting an incident radiation into an electric signal, and connection electrode arranged at a periphery of the plurality of pixels, fixing a flexible supporting member for covering the plurality of pixels to the matrix array at a side opposite to the substrate, and releasing the substrate from the matrix array.
US08440974B2
A system and method of performing acoustic thermography in which invalid data is filtered from data used to detect defects on a structure. An ultrasonic sound input signal is provided to a structure to produce a thermal image output. A sensor senses an input energy corresponding to the sound input signal and produces an input energy signal. The input energy signal is transformed to a test spectrum and is compared to a reference spectrum. The comparison of the test spectrum to the reference spectrum is used to determine whether to include the thermal image output in an analysis for detecting defects in the structure.
US08440970B2
The present invention relates to methods and systems for 4D ultrafast electron microscopy (UEM)—in situ imaging with ultrafast time resolution in TEM. Single electron imaging is used as a component of the 4D UEM technique to provide high spatial and temporal resolution unavailable using conventional techniques. Other embodiments of the present invention relate to methods and systems for convergent beam UEM, focusing the electron beams onto the specimen to measure structural characteristics in three dimensions as a function of time. Additionally, embodiments provide not only 4D imaging of specimens, but characterization of electron energy, performing time resolved electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS).
US08440956B2
A light receiving detection circuit has a light receiving element configured to receive light emitted from a corresponding projection element, a current/voltage conversion circuit that converts a current signal passing through the light receiving element into a voltage signal, and a filter portion that has a plurality of stages. The filter portion has a high-pass filter and an amplifying circuit. The high-pass filter is able to be switched such that a time constant of the high-pass filter increases when the light receiving element receives light emitted by the corresponding projection element such that the time constant decreases when other projection elements except for the corresponding projection element emit the light.
US08440943B2
A heating resistor element component has a substrate and an adhesive layer provided on the substrate and including an adhesive and gap members arranged substantially uniformly in the adhesive. A heat storage layer is laminated on the substrate through intermediation of the adhesive layer so that the gap members maintain a distance between surfaces of the substrate and the heat storage layer constant. At least one heating resistor formed on the heat storage layer has a heating portion that generates heat. A cavity is provided in a region of the adhesive layer and interposed between the surfaces of the substrate and the heat storage layer. The cavity functions as a heat insulating layer for regulating an inflow of heat from the heat storage layer to the substrate.
US08440941B2
Provided is a heat treatment apparatus in which a large-sized substrate can be rapidly heated and rapidly cooled with high uniformity, and a heat treatment method using the heat treatment apparatus. The heat treatment apparatus includes: a first chamber of which one side is opened; a second chamber of which one side is opened; a device for moving the first and the second chambers; a heating device; a gas introduction port; a gas exhaust port; and a jig for longitudinally fixing a substrate, in which the substrate is rapidly heated while the first and the second chambers are connected, and rapidly cooled by separating the chambers to move the substrate away from a heat storage portion of the heating device or the like. Further, the heat treatment method includes the heat treatment apparatus, and a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device using an oxide semiconductor is included.
US08440931B2
A method of manufacturing an electrode for electrical-discharge surface treatment includes kneading a first electrode material composed of at least one of metal powder and insulating powder and a second electrode material composed of conductive organic bonding agent in which a conductive resin is dissolved or dispersed in a solvent, to fabricate a slurry; molding the slurry, to form a compact; and desiccating the compact at a temperature below a thermal decomposition initiating temperature at which a thermal decomposition of the conductive organic bonding agent starts.
US08440927B2
An enhanced returning elasticity micro switch includes a base and a cap mounted thereon to form a housing compartment therebetween. The base is run through by a first pin and a second pin. The first pin has an anchor portion in the housing compartment to couple with a conductive member. The conductive member has a lower contact portion and swings when being pressed. The second pin has a first contact in the housing compartment. The first contact has an inclined surface connected to the lower contact portion during swing of the conductive member. The inclined surface is located at an elevation tapered towards the anchor portion. Hence the contact area between the conductive member and second pin increases, and adhesion force between the conductive member and second pin during power transmission decreases. Returning elasticity of the conductive member increases, and resistance against depression of the conductive member decreases.
US08440924B2
A switch unit includes a switch cover having an opening; a knob for operating a switch, the knob being provided within the opening in such a manner as to oscillate or rotate; and a parting line is set on a circumferential edge portion of the opening of the switch cover. The switch cover includes a first resin layer which is molded of a resin material having a property in which a plate layer does not adhere thereto, in which the opening is formed and which defines a rear side of the switch cover; a second resin layer which is molded of a resin material having a property in which a plated layer can adhere thereto and which is provided on a surface side of the first resin layer in such a manner as to be integral with the first resin layer; and a plated layer which is provided to cover a surface of the second resin layer.
US08440920B2
A two-dimensional capacitive sensor device comprises a sensor substrate with a plurality of wedge shaped sensor cells arranged in a single-layer circular pattern proximal to the substrate. The plurality of wedge shaped sensor cells are arranged in a rotationally symmetric pattern about a center of the single-layer circular pattern. A sensor cell of the plurality of wedge shaped sensor cells comprises a first sensor electrode and a second sensor electrode separated by a border. The first and second sensor electrodes are configured for detecting changes in capacitance caused by one or more input objects. The first and second sensor electrodes become substantially thinner in width approaching the center of the single-layer circular pattern than at a distance further from the center. A sensor circuitry is communicatively coupled with the sensor electrodes of the sensor cell and the sensor circuitry is configured to interpret the changes in capacitance.
