US08613106B2

A method, operable on a processing device, for reducing the value of a browser fingerprint may include receiving, by the processing device, a request to provide a list of plugins installed on a browser. The method may also include generating, by the processing device, a fake list of plugins installed on the browser. The method may additionally include communicating, by the processing device, the fake list of plugins installed on the browser in response to the received request to provide a list of plugins installed on the browser.
US08613105B2

Techniques for securely storing confidential information associated with a transaction are disclosed. A method for securely storing confidential information may include storing a data set related to a first transaction in a first server, the data set configured to be searchable by an authorized administrator, storing a plurality of encrypted files that include confidential information related to a plurality of transactions in a second server, including a first encrypted file that includes confidential information related to the first transaction, storing an identifier for the first encrypted file, where the identifier is configured to include at least one key required to access the confidential information related to the first transaction, linking the data set to the identifier, and limiting the access to the plurality of encrypted files by the administrator.
US08613099B2

A system for and method of system for performing dynamic extension assignment is presented. In one exemplary embodiment, the method may comprise receiving, via a network, an extension assignment request associated with a network endpoint, identifying the network endpoint based on one or more properties of the network endpoint, applying one or more rules to identify an extension to be assigned to the network endpoint based on the one or more properties of the endpoint, and assigning the extension to the network endpoint.
US08613097B2

Embodiments of the present invention may detect an access attack by analyzing the passwords from successive access requests in an access session or by analyzing successive access attempts to determine patterns in the access information. For example, the analysis may consist of examining the access information to determine cycling in passwords of the access information. Cycling passwords may consist of password that are varied in a predictable or repetitive manner such as “aaaa”, “aaab”, “aaac”, “aaad”, etc. In addition, the usernames and passwords from successive access requests in an access session are analyzed to determine patterns in both the usernames and passwords. The analysis may consist of examining the access information to determine the use of identical passwords for various usernames. The analysis may also detect the cycling of passwords across multiple usernames.
US08613095B2

Embodiments include a system, an apparatus, a device, and a method. An embodiment provides a network device. The network device includes a network analyzer module operable to monitor a plurality of networked nodes for an indicium of an activity at each respective node. The network device also includes a dissemination module operable to facilitate distribution of a malware countermeasure to a first set of networked nodes of the plurality of networked nodes in a manner responsive to an indicium of an activity associated with the first set of networked nodes of the plurality of networked nodes. The network device may include a computerized networking device.
US08613091B1

A method and apparatus for providing portable end-point security are provided. In one embodiment, a PEPS system may include a PEPS processor having a memory operatively coupled thereto, the memory having stored therein instructions which when executed by the PEPS processor causes: an automatic loader to automatically trigger loading of the PEPS system; the PEPS system including a malicious software detector to scan a main memory of the computing system for malicious software; and wherein the malicious software detector performs a scan of the main memory of the computing system following triggering of the PEPS system by the automatic loader by comparing existing data in main memory of the computing system with indicia of malicious software.
US08613086B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide apparatuses and methods for identifying computer systems that pose a threat for potential dissemination of confidential information, and thereafter, scanning the computer systems for unauthorized activity related to potential dissemination of confidential information. Embodiments of the invention comprise compiling a list of user computer systems that are at risk of accessing, using, or disseminating confidential information; determining whether the computer systems on the list are available for scanning; and scanning the computer systems on the list to identify an incident related to potential or actual threats or breaches of confidential information.
US08613081B2

Various embodiments described herein relate to apparatus for executing software in a secure computing environment. A secure processor can be used and configured to request a context swap from a first context to a second context when switching execution from a first portion of software to a second portion of software. A context manager, which can be in communication with the secure processor, can be configured to receive and initiate a requested context swap. A trust vector verifier, which can be in communication with the secure processor and the context manager, can be configured to load a trust vector descriptor upon command from a context manager.
US08613074B2

Subject matter disclosed herein relates to memory devices and security of same.
US08613060B2

The invention discloses a logon system and a method thereof, which relates to information security field. The invention solves the problems that the user can log on Windows by username and password only. In the invention, the Credential Provider module adapted to pop up a human-computer interactive interface when the Credential Provider module is called by the operating system of the computer; further adapted to collect the information needed for logging on the operating system and transfer the collected information to the operating system of the computer; the Cryptographic Service Provider module is adapted to perform authentication with the information received from the operating system of the computer; and, if the authentication is successful, to perform operation with the corresponding private key of the key device logon certificate to generate credential information needed for logging on the operating system. The embodiments of the invention are applied for logging on the Windows, which provide more alternative logon ways for the user.
US08613058B2

A communication network provides access to a network service by providing an additional level of authentication beyond device level authentication. Operations include receiving a message at a Bootstrapping Server Function (BSF) from User Equipment (UE) that additional authentication beyond UE authentication is required for UE access to a network service, and performing an authentication protocol between the BSF and a Home Subscriber System (HSS) to authenticate an identity associated with the UE responsive to receiving the message.
US08613055B1

In some embodiments, an apparatus includes an authorization module implemented in at least one of a memory or a processing device. The authorization module can receive from an application a request for an access token associated with the application that includes a scope identifier associated with a level of access to a resource module. The authorization module can select based on the scope identifier at least one authentication mode from a set of predefined authentication modes. The authorization module can also receive at least one credential assigned to at least one authentication mode. Additionally, the authorization module can send the access token to the application in response to authenticating a user of the application based on the at least one credential.
US08613049B2

The invention provides a network system which can prevent an illegal access to a network or the like set in a specific area and improve security of the network. The network system permits the entering of the user into a security area in accordance with security information (user ID) read out of a contactless IC in a carrying ID card by an entering/leaving room managing apparatus and registers an MAC address of a notebook computer carried by the user when he enters the security area to a managing server as ID information corresponding to the user ID. When a leaving request of the user is received through the entering/leaving room managing apparatus, the network system deletes the registered ID information and restricts connection between the notebook computer and the network on the basis of a registration situation of the ID information to the managing server.
US08613048B2

A method and apparatus for providing authorized remote access to one or more application sessions includes a client node, a collection agent, a policy engine, and a session server. The client node requests access to a resource. The collection agent gathers information about the client node. The policy engine receives the gathered information, and makes an access control decision based on the received information. The session server establishes a connection between a client computer operated by the user and the one or more application sessions associated with the user of the client node identified in response to the received information.
US08613037B2

Various embodiments of the invention provide methods and systems for managing the reception and/or recording of video content on a wireless digital video recorder. In certain embodiments, the wireless digital video recorder comprises a wireless phone with video reception and video recording capabilities. One set of embodiments provides a reception manager for managing the reception of video content by the wireless digital video recorder. Merely by way of example, embodiments of the present invention may provide for monitoring of the signal strength of broadcast video content, and certain embodiments may provide for receiving and displaying information concerning video content available to the wireless digital video recorder. Other embodiments of the present invention may provide for the management of recording and/or storing video content on the wireless digital video recorder e. Merely by way of example, in some embodiments, a storage processor may determine the video content to record or may associate values to stored video content.
US08613029B2

A wireless transmission system is provided that can minimize the control command transmission amount by operating a plurality of sink devices in conjunction with each other with respect to each group when performing a wireless AV transmission. The wireless transmission system includes: a bridge device (1) which wireless-transmits an AV content; and a plurality of wireless sink devices (5, 6) which reproduce the wireless-transmitted AV content. The bridge device (1) has a group identification table which stores a group identifier for identifying a group formed by the wireless sink device (5, 6). The bridge device (1) adds a group identifier extracted from the group identification table to a control command for controlling the sink devices (5, 6) and wireless-transmits the control command having the group identifier. The wireless sink devices (5, 6) receive a control command wireless-transmitted from the bridge device (1) if a corresponding group identifier is added to the control command.
US08613022B2

Method and apparatus to determine a preference of a user based on a content of a broadcast selected by the user and a content of a recording medium, so that the content of the broadcast can be selectively recorded and provided.
US08613020B2

An interactive television program guide is provided in which advertisements may be displayed in program listings display regions on program guide screens. The program listings display regions may be browse displays or flip displays. The program guide screens contain video for the current channel to which the user is tuned. The program listings display regions containing the advertisements may be overlaid on top of the current channel. Alternatively, the video for the current channel may be provided in a reduced-size video window. The advertisements may contain video. The advertisements may be used to promote television programs and conventional goods and services. Advertisements may be selectable. When a user selects an advertisement, the program guide provides the user with an opportunity to order products or services, request information, set reminders for upcoming programs, view program descriptions, record programs, or take other such actions.
US08613017B2

A remote control and method of programming a remote control for controlling components in an entertainment system are disclosed. The remote control may operate in multiple modes including a limited mode that prevents the remote control from sending predetermined commands to one or more components, even when instructed to do so by the user. In addition, the remote control may issue one or more commands to each component in response to a single user input.
US08613013B2

In one embodiment an apparatus for splicing an ad into a data stream includes an ad segmenter, an ad variant generator coupled to the ad segmenter, and an ad variant selector coupled to the ad variant generator. The ad segmenter designates end portions, including beginning and ending portions, of the ad and designates an intermediate portion between the end portions. The ad variant generator generates a plurality of variants of at least one end portion. Each variant corresponds to a unique bit-rate. The ad variant selector selects at least one variant for splicing into the data stream based on a buffer level of a data stream buffer.
US08613005B2

Embodiments of the invention can provide systems and methods for providing a service-oriented user interface integration bus. According to one embodiment, a system can be provided having a memory for storing computer executable instructions and a processor in communication with the memory via a computer interface. The processor can be adapted to execute computer executable instructions and configured to receive a user interface service request from an application module associated with a first platform. The processor can also be adapted to transform the user interface service request from the application module to a user interface service request for a host platform. The processor can also be adapted to match the transformed user interface service request to a platform service to provide a visual interface with the application module to a user on the host platform.
US08613003B2

A display apparatus and a method of controlling the same are provided. The display apparatus includes: a signal processing unit which processes an image signal; a display unit which displays an image thereon corresponding to the processed image signal; a communication unit which communicates with a server which stores a plurality of application programs; and a controller which requests information about the plurality of application programs from the server, determines whether the application programs can be properly performed in the display apparatus based on the information received corresponding to the request, and controls the communication unit to receive only at least one application program that can be performed properly among the application programs. Accordingly, a display apparatus is capable of receiving only at least one application program that can be performed in the display apparatus from a server.
US08612999B2

In accordance with embodiments, there are provided mechanisms and methods for publishing an application-independent format event. These mechanisms and methods for publishing an application-independent format event can enable optimized data communication, improved scalability, increased operational efficiency, etc.
US08612998B2

Systems and methods of managing break events may provide for detecting a first break event from a first event source and detecting a second break event from a second event source. In one example, the event sources can include devices coupled to a platform as well as active applications on the platform. Issuance of the first and second break events to the platform can be coordinated based on at least in part runtime information associated with the platform.
US08612994B1

A computer-implemented method may include identifying an action associated with a software program. The computer-implemented method may also include determining that the software program is located in a virtualization layer. The computer-implemented method may further include changing an activation state of the virtualization layer in response to the action. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.
US08612988B2

A method, for monitoring resources of a system for performing a first task and a second task, includes calculating a first completion count of the first task; calculating a second completion count of the second task; and determining whether the resources of the system are exhausted according to the first completion count and the second completion count.
US08612986B2

A computer program product for scheduling threads in a multiprocessor computer comprises computer program instructions configured to select a thread in a ready queue to be dispatched to a processor and determine whether an interrupt mask flag is set in a thread control block associated with the thread. If the interrupt mask flag is set in the thread control block associated with the thread, the computer program instructions are configured to select a processor, set a current processor priority register of the selected processor to least favored, and dispatch the thread from the ready queue to the selected processor.
US08612980B2

A method, system and computer program product is disclosed for providing a distributed computing environment in which an arbitrary job manager or scheduler is able to be employed. In the distributed computing environment, a job is created in a host or client to include one or more technical computing tasks and submitted to the arbitrary scheduler in a portable format. Since the portable format of the job is independent of the platform structure of the scheduler, the schedule can handle the job regardless of the platform structure of the scheduler. The scheduler then transfers the job in the portable format to one or more remote workers. The present invention utilizes a portable format to submit the job to a scheduler and to distribute the job to remote workers so that any scheduler can receive and distribute the job to the remote workers.
US08612979B2

An information processing apparatus includes: a reliability determination unit that determines reliability required for processing a processing target based on the processing target; a processing determination unit that makes a comparison between the reliability determined by the reliability determination unit and reliability of a processing main body and determines whether or not the processing main body can be caused to process the processing target; a processing target change unit that changes the processing target so as to change the reliability of the processing target if the processing determination unit determines that the processing main body cannot be caused to process the processing target; and a processing request unit that requests the processing main body to process the processing target changed by the processing target change unit.
US08612977B2

A wake-and-go mechanism is provided for a data processing system. When a thread is waiting for an event, rather than performing a series of get-and-compare sequences, the thread updates a wake-and-go array with a target address associated with the event. Software may save the state of the thread. The thread is then put to sleep. When the wake-and-go array snoops a kill at a given target address, logic associated with wake-and-go array may generate an exception, which may result in a switch to kernel mode, wherein the operating system performs some action before returning control to the originating process. In this case, the trap results in other software, such as the operating system or background sleeper thread, for example, to reload thread from thread state storage and to continue processing of the active threads on the processor.
US08612972B2

Systems and methods for running add-on components in virtual environments are described. An add-on component can be executed in a virtual environment by setting up a communication link between a component proxy in the host operating system and a server process running in the virtual environment. The server process executes the add-on component based on commands forwarded by the component proxy forwards the commands from the operating system.
US08612961B2

A method of upgrading a first software file stored at a wireless communication device so that the wireless communication device is provided with a second software file that is an upgraded version of the first software file, and also a wireless communication device and system, are disclosed. In at least one embodiment, the method includes receiving a software upgrade file, where the software upgrade file includes second-order difference information. The method also includes storing the upgrade file in a memory portion associated with the wireless communication device, and generating the second software file based upon the upgrade file, the first software file, and additional information. The additional information includes at least one of a pattern file representative of assumed differences between the first and second software files and at least some first-order difference information representative of at least some actual differences between the first and second software files.
US08612958B2

A compiler, which corresponds to a recent processor having a multithread function, that enables execution of efficient instruction scheduling and allows a programmer to control the instruction scheduling includes: an instruction scheduling directive receiving unit which receives, from a programmer, a directive for specifying an instruction scheduling method; and an instruction scheduling unit which executes, conforming to one of instruction scheduling methods, instruction scheduling of rearranging intermediate codes corresponding to the source program. The instruction scheduling unit selects one of instruction scheduling methods according to the directive received by the instruction scheduling directive receiving unit, and executes instruction scheduling conforming to the selected instruction scheduling method.
US08612957B2

A computer implemented method for scheduling multithreaded programming instructions based on the dependency graph wherein the dependency graph organizes the programming instruction logically based on blocks, nodes, and super blocks and wherein the programming instructions could be executed outside of a critical section may be executed outside of the critical section by inserting dependency relationship in the dependency graph.
US08612950B2

A method and apparatus for dynamic optimization of strong atomicity barriers is herein described. During runtime compilation, code including non-transactional memory accesses that are to conflict with transactional memory accesses is patched to insert transactional barriers at the conflicting non-transactional memory accesses to ensure isolation and strong atomicity. However, barriers are omitted or removed from non-transactional memory accesses that do not conflict with transactional memory accesses to reduce barrier execution overhead.
US08612945B2

Provided is an XML processing device capable of describing, using conventional XML processing language, a method of processing also an asynchronously inputted XML. The XML processing device converts, according to a predetermined rule, the XML inputted asynchronously from outside and outputs the XML. The XML processing device is characterized by including an XML conversion module which performs XML conversion of the XML inputted according to the rule, an output destination interpretation module which interprets an output destination described in the converted XML, and an output distribution module which allows the XML to be outputted to the output destination interpreted by the output destination interpretation module.
US08612937B2

Methods, apparatuses, and computer program products for synchronously debugging a software program using a plurality of virtual machines are provided. Embodiments include controlling, by a master debugging module operating on a first virtual machine, execution of the software program within the first virtual machine; controlling, by a slave debugging module operating on a second virtual machine, execution of the software program within the second virtual machine including delaying execution of the software program within the second virtual machine relative to the execution of the software program within the first virtual machine; detecting, by the master debugging module, an error in the execution of the software program within the first virtual machine; and in response to the detection of the error, capturing, by a hypervisor, a snapshot of the second virtual machine.
US08612933B1

A cross-platform software development kit and related services supports the use of platform-generic mobile applications across a variety of mobile platforms. These generic applications may consist of and be developed in a purely content-based format, without requiring any binary files to be distributed alongside a generic content application. Such applications may access platform-specific resources of a mobile device using generic device resource request tags. A platform-specific native shell running on a mobile device accesses a generic content application and identifies device resource request. In response, the platform-specific native shell performs platform-specific functionality associated with the requested device resource.
US08612930B2

Methods and apparatus for dynamic class reloading and versioning that allow developers to change and recompile classes and to have running programs adopt the new versions of the classes dynamically, without redeploying the application. A dynamic class reloading component detects if the environment supports dynamic class redefinition and uses it if supported but does not require it. As the component loads a managed class, it modifies the bytecode of the class and generates additional classes and interfaces to support type-safe class versioning. Unique names are generated for successive versions of a managed class. A separate interface may be generated for each distinct method name and signature implemented on managed classes. Each generated class may implement all the generated interfaces that correspond to its methods. The same class loader that would load each managed class without the component loads the component-generated classes and interfaces.
US08612922B2

Techniques are provided to allow users of Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools to define constraint template types for efficiently associating constraints with design objects to specify design intent. Processes for creating and validating the constraints are provided by user-defined plug-ins, thereby allowing users to annotate circuit designs with constraints for proprietary layout and fabrication processes without exposing the constraints to tool vendors or competitors. The constraints are re-created from the template types whenever the circuit design is loaded into the EDA tool, so that the constraints are based upon the latest version of the template type. The constraints are also re-created when validation fails. Constraint groups are reusable in different designs, technology nodes, and processes because they automatically expand to provide the specific constraints to achieve a goal. The specific constraints in a template type can be modified as technology changes, and the modification will automatically be applied to the design objects.
US08612919B2

An analog design-rule-check tool analyzes a microdevice design, such as an integrated circuit design, to identify occurrences of geometric elements that share a specified relationship. When the tool identifies such an occurrence of these geometric elements, it will associate or “cluster” these geometric elements together into an identifiable unit. For specified “clusters” of geometric elements, the analog design-rule-check tool will then determine the value of a measurement or measurements required by a user. Once the analog design-rule-check tool has determined the necessary measurement values, it will use those values to evaluate the function describing a model.
US08612917B2

A method for selecting gate sizes for a logic network of an integrated circuit, wherein the logic network is defined by a plurality of logic paths that includes nodes, gates and interconnect, includes assigning, at one or more computers, gate sizes to gates adjacent to timing path end nodes of the logic network, determining an n-tuple of performance/loading parameters for each of the assigned gate sizes based on gate and interconnect delay models, and determining whether two or more logic paths share a descendent gate. Two or more logic paths that share a descendent gate are coupled. The method also includes grouping the n-tuples of parameters of coupled logic paths into bins based on gate sizes of the shared descendent gate, recursively propagating, node by node, the bins of n-tuples of parameters along the coupled logic paths, detecting whether any of the bins of n-tuples of parameters are suboptimal for all of the coupled logic paths based on a comparison of the n-tuples of parameters in bin-pairs, and eliminating all n-tuples of parameters of the suboptimal bins along the coupled logic paths to prune gate sizes associated with the suboptimal bins.
US08612906B2

An apparatus for aiding a design of a semiconductor device including a plurality of wirings, the apparatus has a display, a memory that stores information corresponding to the wirings, and a processor that obtains a power consumption value of each wiring in reference to the information about the wirings stored in the memory, and displays each of the wirings on the display in a manner that each wiring is distinguishable as to the obtained power consumption value of the each wiring.
US08612905B1

A method and apparatus for producing a vacuity detection report to reduce false positive verification results for digital circuits provided. In an exemplary embodiment, a design description of the digital design is generated. From the design description, a vacuity detection problem is derived by introducing an assertion into the design description. By introducing an assertion into the design description, the vacuity detection problem is solvable by formal assertion based verification engines. A verification engine is then used to solve the vacuity detection problem and produce a vacuity detection report. This Abstract is provided for the sole purpose of complying with the Abstract requirement rules that allow a reader to quickly ascertain the subject matter of the disclosure contained herein. This Abstract is submitted with the explicit understanding that it will not be used to interpret or to limit the scope or the meaning of the claims.
US08612904B1

Embodiments of the invention provide approaches for optimizing illumination and polarization for advanced optical lithography. Specifically, an illumination pupil plane of an illumination source is bisected into a plurality of elements. Preferred elements of the illumination pupil plane are selected for a set of integrated circuit (IC) design features. An imaging performance of the set of IC design features for the preferred elements is evaluated at different polarization states to determine an optimal illumination and polarization condition for each IC design feature. Imaging performance of the combined IC design features, evaluated at various optimal illumination and polarization outcomes synthesized at different intensity ratios, is reviewed against a set of design tolerance requirements to finalize optical illumination and polarization conditions for the entire IC design. An optimal illumination and polarization solution is identified for an off-contact pattern with a plurality of sub-resolution assisted features connecting line-line-end portions of main mask features.
US08612895B2

A mobile terminal and controlling method thereof are disclosed, which facilitates a terminal to be used in further consideration of user's convenience. The present invention includes if a user having a prescribed ID logs in to an instant message server, receiving and displaying a pre-registered buddy list from the instant message server, setting a communication block for a first buddy in the buddy list not to inform the first buddy that the ID user has logged in, setting a communication grant for a second buddy in the buddy list to inform the second buddy that the ID user has logged in, displaying a dialogue window for an instant message communication with the first buddy, and receiving/transmitting an instant message from/to the first buddy despite that the communication block has been set for the first buddy. Accordingly, even if a user does not set a communication grant or block per a buddy in a buddy list in advance, it is able to effectively prevent a request for initiating an instant message communication with the user from being made by an unwanted buddy. Once one buddy is communication-blocked, it is able to receive an instant message from the communication-blocked buddy even before the communication block is released.
US08612884B2

A method for resizing a currently selected user interface object includes simultaneously displaying on a touch-sensitive display the currently selected user interface object having a center, and a plurality of resizing handles for the currently selected user interface object. The method also includes detecting a first contact on a first resizing handle in the plurality of resizing handles, and detecting movement of the first contact across the touch-sensitive display. The method further includes, in response to detecting movement of the first contact, when a second contact is detected on the touch-sensitive display while detecting movement of the first contact, resizing the currently selected user interface object about the center of the currently selected user interface object.
US08612880B2

Systems and methods for uploading documents to a document database by using an efficient drag and drop interface is provided. The drag and drop interface includes a persistent and movable drop box rendered on an operating system. The drop box is preconfigured to access a document database to upload documents. Furthermore, the drop box is persistently available on a desktop of the operating system, wherein one or more objects can be dragged and dropped for upload to the document database from any other interface or from the desktop, whereupon documents corresponding to the one or more objects are uploaded to the database based on preconfigured destination locations to which to upload.
US08612878B2

In general, this disclosure describes techniques for selecting alternate keyboard characters via motion input provided by a user. One example method comprises displaying a graphical keyboard via a user interface and receiving, via the user interface, initial user input specifying a selection of a key on the graphical keyboard, wherein the initial user input comprises an initiation of a contact with the user interface. The method further includes displaying alternate characters via the user interface, wherein each alternate character is displayed to indicate at least one corresponding selection direction that is associated with that alternate character, and receiving, via the user interface, additional user input specifying a selection of at least one of the alternate characters, wherein the additional user input comprises motion in the at least one selection direction corresponding to the at least one selected alternate character, and a release of the contact from the user interface.
US08612877B2

A menu and application utilizing the menu is provided that provides a sub-list of outcomes associated with a list of options directly in the menu to avoid multiple sub-menus and/or navigation through multiple screens. The menu is particularly beneficial with mobile devices where screen area is at a premium and navigation through multiple screens can be confusing. The outcomes may be folders in which an application stored on the mobile device can be moved, and/or a list of applications that can be unhidden. When moving an application into a folder, a moving mode feature is preferably initiated that enables the user to move the application within the selected folder without having to choose such an option.
US08612868B2

Computer method and apparatus persists portions of group conversations in a virtual environment. A group conversation is formed of group member communications. Indications or illustrations, such as chat bubbles, are displayed to end users to represent the group member communications. The invention system enables a user to persist a portion of the group conversation by selecting respective indicators (e.g., chat bubbles) corresponding to one or more of the group member communications. The processor (persist engine) also enables any user to interact with persisted conversation portions. Interactions supported include moving, arranging, tagging with metadata and saving snapshots of the persisted conversation portions, in the virtual environment.
US08612860B2

Systems for coordinating the presentation of media with an event are provided, the systems comprising: at least one processor that: receives media characteristic data associated with an event and target media; identifies presentation media as being target media based on the media characteristic data; determines a timing of a presentation of the presentation media; and presents the presentation media with the event according to the timing. Similar methods, and computer readable media containing instructions that perform such methods, are also provided.
US08612857B2

A display mode can be selected by identifying a plurality of display modes supported by a media client, wherein the plurality of display modes comprise safe modes; sequentially selecting a display mode from the plurality of display modes, wherein the plurality of display modes are ordered according to one or more of resolution, timing, and popularity; generating an output signal based on the selected display mode, wherein the generated output signal is provided to a display device; and selectively repeating the sequential selection of a display mode and generating an output signal based on the selected display mode until an input is received from a user indicating that the selected display mode is compatible with the display device. Further, the media client can be configured to utilize the selected display mode. Additionally, the plurality of display modes can be identified based on extended display identification data from the display device.
US08612841B2

An error code pattern generation circuit includes a first storage unit configured to store at least one bit of an error code, and output error data for a first time period; and a second storage unit configured to store at least one remaining bit of the error code and output the error data for a second time period which is different from the first time period.
US08612827B2

A computer includes an interface and a processing module. The processing module receives, over time and via the interface, requests to playback recorded broadcast data, wherein a single copy of the recorded broadcast data is dispersed error encoded to produce a plurality of sets of encoded data slices that is stored in a dispersed storage network (DSN). In response to the playback requests, the processing module identifies unique combinations of at least a threshold number of encoded data slices for sets of the plurality of sets of encoded data slices to produce unique copies of the recorded broadcast data. For a particular playback request, the processing module retrieves a unique copy of the unique copies of the recorded broadcast data from the DSN and outputs, via the interface, the retrieved unique copy to a device associated with the particular playback request.
US08612813B2

A circuit and method of testing a memory and calculating a repair solution for a given address location includes pausing a built in self test (BIST) operation on detection of a failing memory output data of an integrated circuit. During the pause, the circuit and method analyzes “n” number of groups of the failing memory output data during “n” cycles using analysis logic and calculating a repair solution. Normal operations can be resumed.
US08612808B2

Detection of degradation of a touch-based user input device may allow for notifying a user of an impending failure of the touch-sensitive user input device so that the device may be taken out of service or repaired. Systems for detecting degradation of a touch-based user input device may carry out one or more operations including, but not limited to: determining that a signal indicative of a user touch is erroneous; providing a user notification indicative of a degradation of the touch-based user input device in response to determining that a signal indicative of a user touch is erroneous.
US08612806B2

A method includes executing instructions recorded on a non-transitory computer-readable storage media using at least one processor. The method includes receiving a notification of a selection of an user interface (UI) element within a UI of a target application, generating a request for an element listener instance, notifying multiple test recorder hooks of the request for the element listener instance, where each of the test recorder hooks is associated with a specific UI format having multiple different element listeners depending on a type of selected UI element, creating the element listener instance by one of the test recorder hooks based on the UI format and the selected UI element, registering, by the element listener instance, for events associated with the UI element and recording the events.
US08612805B2

In order to enable the optimization of a processor system without relying upon knowhow or manual labor, an apparatus includes: information obtainment unit for reading, from memory, trace information of the processor system and performance information corresponding to the trace information; information analysis unit for analyzing the trace information and the performance information so as to obtain a performance factor such as an idle time, a processing completion time of a task, or the number of interprocessor communications as a result of the analysis; and optimization method output unit for displaying and outputting a method of optimizing the system in response to a result of the analysis.
US08612802B1

A system, method, and computer readable medium for statistical application-agnostic fault detection of multi-process applications. The computer readable medium includes computer-executable instructions for execution by a processing system. A multi-process application runs on a host. Interceptors collect statistical events and sends said events to a statistical fault detector. The statistical fault detector creates one or more distributions and compares recent statistical event data to historical statistical event data and uses deviation from historical norm for fault detection. The present invention detects faults both within the application and within the environment wherein the application executes, if conditions within the environment cause impaired application performance. The invention also teaches consensus fault detection and elimination of cascading fault notifications based on a hierarchy of events and event groups. Interception and fault detection is transparent to the application, operating system, networking stack and libraries.
US08612798B1

A hybrid drive is disclosed comprising a head actuated over a disk comprising a plurality of data sectors, a volatile semiconductor memory (VSM), and a non-volatile semiconductor memory (NVSM). A first write command is received from a host, the first write command comprising first data. The first data is stored in the VSM and written to a first data sector on the disk. The first data is read from the first data sector at least once during a first read operation, and when the first read operation fails, the first data is written to the NVSM. The first data sector is read at least once during a second read operation, and when the second read operation fails, the first data sector is mapped out.
US08612797B2

System and methods of selectively managing errors in memory modules. In an exemplary implementation, a method may include monitoring for persistent errors in the memory modules. The methods may also include mapping at least a portion of the memory modules to a spare memory cache only to obviate persistent errors. The method may also include initiating memory erasure on at least a portion of the memory modules only if insufficient cache lines are available in the spare memory cache.
US08612795B1

One embodiment relates to a clocking network interconnecting an array of transceivers. The clocking network includes first and second series of multiplexers, each multiplexer in the first and second series being adjacent to a transceiver. The first series of multiplexers selectively transmits clock signals in a first direction of the array, and the second series of multiplexers selectively transmits clock signals in a second direction of the array. Another embodiment relates to an integrated circuit with a programmable interface. The integrated circuit includes an array of physical media attachment circuits, phase-locked loop circuits, and a clock distribution network. The clock distribution network is arranged to be programmed into multiple segments. Each segment distributes a clock signal to a bounded range of the physical media attachment circuits in the array. Another embodiment relates to a method of distributing clock signals in an integrated circuit. Other embodiments and features are also disclosed.
US08612793B2

A method for dynamic power and performance calibration of a data processing system is provided in the illustrative embodiments. A synthesized program loaded in the data processing system is executed responsive to detecting an event in the data processing system. The synthesized program is configured to generate a set of data that is indicative of the data processing system's power-performance characteristics under varying conditions of operation. Using the set of data, a determination is made of a performance limit on an operation of the data processing system under present operating conditions of the data processing system. A parameter of the data processing system is calibrated to operate the data processing system within the performance limit.
US08612771B2

One embodiment of the invention sets forth a mechanism for verifying the authenticity of a device before transmitting digital content to the device. In operation, the device stores a device key that is generated at manufacture-time using a pre-determined cryptographic key and the device identifier. In operation, the device generates a proof of possession from the application data and the stored device key. When verifying the device authenticity, a device key is derived from the master key and the device identifier then a proof of possession is derived from the derived device key and the application data obtained from the device. If the derived proof of possession matches the received proof of possession, then the authenticity of the device can be verified.
US08612769B2

An electronic signature method uses a signature generation unit with a memory that is spatially separated from a data processing device. At least one biometric trait of a person who will electronically sign an electronic dataset is captured, and an electronic biometric dataset is generated based thereon. The biometric dataset is encrypted using a randomly generated value. Subsequently, the encrypted biometric dataset is transmitted to the data processing device, a first checksum is generated in the data processing device for the encrypted biometric dataset and the electronic dataset, and the first checksum is transmitted from the data processing device to the signature generation unit. The random value is encrypted using the first checksum, and the encryption result is further encrypted using the stored key. The result of this is then transmitted to the data processing device.
US08612762B2

An apparatus in a system which includes at least a high-level apparatus and a plurality of low-level apparatuses, said apparatus being one of the low-level apparatuses. The apparatus includes a storage unit configured to store an individual certificate set and a common certificate set and a communication unit configured to transmit own authentication information to the high level apparatus to allow the high level apparatus to perform decryption to authenticate the validity of the apparatus.
US08612752B2

Methods are provided for processing a packet received by a mesh-enabled access point (MAP). When a first MAP receives a packet it can determine whether the packet is destined for a mesh portal based on the destination address. If so, the first MAP can retrieve an encryption key corresponding to the mesh portal, use the encryption key to encrypt the packet and set a mesh forwarding flag in the packet to indicate that the packet is destined for a mesh portal, and is encrypted with an encryption key corresponding to the mesh portal, and then forward the packet to the next hop MAP towards the a mesh portal. The mesh forwarding flag indicates that the packet is destined for a mesh portal, is encrypted with an encryption key corresponding to the mesh portal, and is to be forwarded to the next hop MAP without performing decryption/re-encryption processing on the packet. When a MAP receives a packet, the first MAP it determines whether a mesh forwarding flag is set in the packet. When the mesh forwarding flag is set in the packet, the first MAP skips decryption/re-encryption processing of the packet, and forwards the packet to the next hop MAP towards the mesh portal. When the mesh forwarding flag is not set in the packet, the first MAP retrieves an encryption key corresponding to the mesh portal, encrypts the packet using the encryption key, sets a mesh forwarding flag in the packet and forwards the packet to the next hop MAP.
US08612744B2

A distributed firewall of a gateway device includes at least one IO module for performing IO functionality of the distributed firewall, at least one security processing module for performing security functionality of the distributed firewall and a firewall controller for managing the IO module and the security processing module. Each of the at least one IO and security processing modules is executed within a virtual machine. In response to a packet received from an ingress interface, the at least one IO module is to identify a security processing module corresponding to a connections session associated with the packet, to transmit the packet to the identified security processing module to perform a security process on the packet, and in response to a signal received from the identified security processing module indicating that the security process has been completed, to transmit the packet to the egress interface.
US08612743B2

A method includes identifying a suspect node of a network that includes multiple nodes in wireless communication. The method also includes initiating formation of a sub-network of the network in response to identifying the suspect node. The suspect node is not a member of the sub-network. After formation of the sub-network, first communications between the suspect node and a device of the network are routed to or through at least one of the members of the sub-network. The sub-network is configured to enable second communications between members of the sub-network, where the second communications are communicated in a manner that is secured against access by the suspect node.
US08612738B2

A method of configuring a data network with a controller, the data network including a plurality of hosts each associated with at least one of a plurality of switches, the method including receiving a request to boot an operating system image on one of the plurality of hosts, the operating system image having network connectivity requirements. Further, the method includes selecting a host out of the plurality of hosts on which to boot the operating system image. The method also includes booting the operating system image on the host, and configuring a switch out of the plurality of switches associated with the host based upon the network connectively requirements of the operating system image. Additionally, the method includes configuring networking attributes of a network interface in the host based upon the network connectivity requirements of the operating system image.
US08612734B2

A method for uploading and storing application code in a re-writable, non-volatile memory of an electronic device is carried out by means of a bootloader. The bootloader receives the application code transmitted by a master unit through a communication channel, writes at least one portion of the application code to a portion of the non-volatile memory, and validates the at least one portion of the application code by means of the bootloader.
US08612733B2

A system may include multiple chips and a host processor. The host processor can be coupled to the multiple chips and send an enumerate command. The multiple chips can propagate an enumerate packet including the enumerate command from chip-to-chip, and each chip can use information in the enumerate packet to determine its own unique address.
US08612723B2

A system and method for storing and retrieving a sparse matrix from memory of a computing device while minimizing the amount of data stored and costly jumps in memory. The computing device may be an FPGA having memory and processing elements. The method comprises storing non-zero data elements of the matrix in a data array and storing their corresponding column address values in a column index array. To read this stored data from memory, each preceding value of the column index array may be compared with each current value of the column index array to determine if the data array value corresponding with the current column index array value belongs on the next row of the matrix. The method may include pre-ordering the matrix with zero-pad placeholders or creating a row increment pointer array which typically stores fewer values than the number of rows in the matrix.
US08612721B2

According to one embodiment, upon request from an information processor, a semiconductor storage controller writes pieces of data in predetermined units into storage locations in which no data has been written in erased areas within a semiconductor chip's storage area. A third table and a second table which is a subset thereof include physical addresses each indicating a storage location of each of pieces of the data within the semiconductor chip. The first table includes either information specifying a second table entry or information specifying a third table entry. The semiconductor storage controller records the first and the second tables into a volatile memory or records the first table into a volatile memory and the third table into a nonvolatile memory.
US08612719B2

Techniques for optimizing data movement in electronic storage devices are disclosed. In one particular exemplary embodiment, the techniques may be realized as a method for optimizing data movement in electronic storage devices comprising maintaining, on the electronic storage device, a data structure associating virtual memory addresses with physical memory addresses. Information can be provided regarding the data structure to a host which is in communication with the electronic storage device. Commands can be received from the host to modify the data structure on the electronic storage device, and the data structure can be modified in response to the received command.
US08612705B2

Systems and methods relating to making a physical copy at a remote storage device of data on a local storage device in response to a command from a backup application operatively associated with the local storage device are disclosed. An exemplary method comprises replicating the data from the local storage device on the remote storage device. The method also comprises copying the data replicated at the remote storage device to a physical medium operatively associated with the remote storage device in response to a command from the backup application operatively associated with the local storage device.
US08612703B2

The respective data fragments stored in each page assigned to the respective virtual areas of the virtual volume are copied to the logical volume, and information representing the respective copy source pages corresponding with information representing the respective virtual areas in the mapping information that indicates which storage area corresponds with which virtual area is updated to information representing the respective copy destination storage areas of the data fragments stored in the respective copy source pages and copies the updated mapping information to the logical volume which constitutes the data fragment copy destination.
US08612701B1

Embodiments of the present invention comprise a method and apparatus for performing data backup from multiple nodes of a computer network. In one or more embodiments, the method of performing a data backup from multiple nodes of a computer network comprising generating a control message within a control node and, in response to the control message, enabling two or more nodes of the multiple nodes to access a tape drive concurrently.
US08612695B2

Bit inversions occurring in memory systems and apparatus are provided. Data is acquired from a source destined for a target. As the data is acquired from the source, the set bits associated with data are tabulated. If the total number of set bits exceeds more than half of the total bits, then an inversion flag is set. When the data is transferred to the target, the bits are inverted during the transfer if the inversion flag is set.Alternatively, an acquired data stream includes an association with an inversion bit. The inversion bit is acquired and stored separately from the data stream. As the data stream is transferred, if the inversion bit is set then the stream is inverted during the transfer of the stream to a target.
US08612687B2

A mechanism is provided within a 3D stacked memory organization to spread or stripe cache lines across multiple layers. In an example organization, a 128B cache line takes eight cycles on a 16B-wide bus. Each layer may provide 32B. The first layer uses the first two of the eight transfer cycles to send the first 32B. The next layer sends the next 32B using the next two cycles of the eight transfer cycles, and so forth. The mechanism provides a uniform memory access.
US08612682B2

A storage system according to one embodiment includes a first storage tier; an intermediate storage tier; a second storage tier; logic for storing instances of a file in the first storage tier, the intermediate storage tier, and the second storage tier; logic for determining which of a plurality of instances of the file in the first storage tier are to be migrated to the second storage tier; logic for copying one instance of the file from the first storage tier to the intermediate storage tier; and logic for copying the instance of the file from the intermediate storage tier to the second storage tier for creating an instance of the file on the second storage tier for each instance of the file on the first storage tier that is to be migrated to the second storage tier. Additional systems, methods, and computer program products are also presented.
US08612681B2

A storage system enables a core storage apparatus to execute processing requiring securing of data consistency, while providing high write performance to a host computer.A storage system includes an edge storage apparatus 20 configured to communicate with a host computer 10 and including a cache memory 25, and a core storage apparatus 30 that communicates with the edge storage apparatus 20 and perform I/O processing on a storage device 39. When receiving a write request from the host computer 10, the edge storage apparatus 20 processes the write request by writeback. When about to execute storage function control processing, on condition that data consistency is be secured, such as pair split processing of a local copy function, the core storage apparatus 30 requests the edge storage apparatus 20 to perform forced destage of dirty data in the cache memory 25 and then executes the storage function control processing after the completion of the forced destage.
US08612680B1

A system, computer program product, and computer-implemented method for defining a data stripe that spans one or more of N data storage devices and one or more of M erasure code devices. The one or more N data storage devices and the one or more M erasure code devices are included within a data storage system. A data chunk to be written to the data storage system is received. At least a portion of the data chunk is written to the portion of the data stripe that spans the one or more N data storage devices. Each of the N data storage devices and the M erasure code devices is included within a unique server computer.
US08612672B1

A solid-state drive, a solid-state drive access unit allocation/data storage approach, and a solid-state drive access unit access/data retrieval approach are described that improve the efficiency with which data, that has been stored to the solid-state drive in association with a series of logical block addresses, can be retrieved from the solid-state drive. The described access unit allocation approach assures that data stored in the solid-state drive in association with a sequential series of logical block addresses is stored and maintained in solid-state drive access units, i.e., addressable units of solid-state drive memory that allow parallel read access to the data via parallel memory access I/O channels internal to the solid-state drive. In this manner, the time required to retrieve data associated with a sequential series of logical block addresses from corresponding access units within the solid-state drive is reduced.
US08612658B1

An interrupt reducing device driver module reduces the rate at which interrupts from a peripheral burden a processor. The interrupt reducing device driver determines when data is associated with the interrupt. When data is present, such as when indicated by an interrupt status register, further interrupts are masked and a buffer associated with the peripheral is read-out. This read-out continues while data is present in the buffer. Once no further data is present, the data interrupts are unmasked. Reduction in the rate of interrupts prevents resource starvation and improves overall system response. Additionally, the processor and associated components are able to enter and remain in low power modes, improving battery life.
US08612646B2

Systems, devices, and methods for multiplexing one or more services are disclosed. Such systems and devices may have an architecture that includes communication interfaces, processors, storage devices, and software applications that generate virtual machines. Each of the virtual machines may receive a first set of service data for a service of the one or more services; process the first set of service data using the one or more software applications to generate a second set of service data and data instructions associated with the second set of service data; provides a service security function for the service; provide a service operating system; mine the first set of service data, including analytical information; and transmit the second set of service data and data instructions associated with the second set of service data to a display interface that may be a communication interface.
US08612641B1

A portable or mobile computing device, such as a smart phone or portable media player, can be used to control one or more electronic devices over an appropriate wireless channel. In one example, a user can utilize a smart phone as a mouse for a notebook computer or Internet-capable television. The user can move the portable device on a surface and press appropriate selectable elements on the portable device, as if the user is using a wireless mouse. The portable device can send the commands over the wireless channel to the electronic device, which can provide inputs and/or control signals to the electronic device. In some embodiments, the user can take advantage of the processing capability of the portable device to work directly with elements such as a wireless keyboard and wireless monitor, without the need for a notebook or other such computing element therebetween.
US08612639B1

A method for providing a backup capability for a plurality of units communicatively coupled to a communications bus, each unit assigned a unique address on the communications bus, is described. The method includes monitoring, with a monitoring unit, messages on the communications bus for an indication that at least one of the communicatively coupled units has failed, configuring the monitoring unit, upon receiving the indication of a unit failure, to assume the unique address associated with the failed unit, performing, within the monitoring unit, at least a portion of the functions of the failed unit in response to messages occurring on the communications bus that are addressed to the failed unit, and transmitting messages, from the monitoring unit to the communications bus, the messages including data generated by the performing of at least a portion of the functions of the failed unit by the monitoring unit.
US08612634B2

A terminal apparatus connected to an external apparatus controls a universal serial bus (USB) apparatus that is connected to the external apparatus through the external apparatus. The terminal apparatus is connected to the external apparatus through a communication interface including a data channel. The terminal apparatus requests the external apparatus to use the USB apparatus through the data channel. If the USB apparatus is connected to the external apparatus, a controller executes a driver program corresponding to the USB apparatus and accesses the USB apparatus through the data channel. Accordingly, the USB apparatus, which is connected to the external apparatus, is controlled by the terminal apparatus.
US08612632B2

Methods and structures for validating tag information received in SAS frames by any of a plurality of ports comprising a SAS wide port. Each port may have a dedicated transport layer processing element. A tag information table is shared by all of the one or more transport layer processing elements. The tag information table is used to store information regarding a particular tag value being valid for use with a particular device and is updated when the particular tag value is no longer valid for use with the particular device. The information is initially stored in response to transmission of a frame that first uses the particular tag value with the particular device. The tag information table is updated to indicate the particular tag value is no longer valid upon receipt of an appropriate SAS frame or by a processing element external to the one or more transport layer processing elements.
US08612626B2

A method, in accordance with particular embodiments, includes receiving a configuration message for configuring a first node with an IP address. The configuration message comprises a subnet portion associated with a group of nodes and a host portion associated with the first node. The method also includes detecting a second node in a routing table maintained by the first node. The method further includes determining that the second node has an IP address comprising a subnet portion matching the subnet portion of the IP address associated with the first node. The method additionally includes determining that the second node is a member of the group of nodes based on the matching subnet portion of the IP address of the second node. The method also includes transmitting a message to at least the second node identifying a service supported by the first node for the group of nodes.
US08612624B2

An apparatus for multi-bitrate content streaming includes a receiving module configured to capture media content, a streamlet module configured to segment the media content and generate a plurality of streamlets, and an encoding module configured to generate a set of streamlets. The system includes the apparatus, wherein the set of streamlets comprises a plurality of streamlets having identical time indices and durations, and each streamlet of the set of streamlets having a unique bitrate, and wherein the encoding module comprises a master module configured to assign an encoding job to one of a plurality of host computing modules in response to an encoding job completion bid. A method includes receiving media content, segmenting the media content and generating a plurality of streamlets, and generating a set of streamlets.
US08612620B2

Mechanisms are provided to detect device client capabilities associated with screen size, video and audio codec support, bandwidth limitations, and memory limitations. A content server can intelligently select a media stream for transmission to the device using the client capability information for the device. In some instances, the content server presents prioritized selections to a user and the user can choose the optimal media stream.
US08612618B2

The peer-to-peer DNS networking method network is built over Chord protocol as a secondary path to resolve Domain Name System (DNS) queries as a solution designed to avoid an intentional blocking from higher name servers. The DNS is a critical service in the Internet infrastructure that provides user-friendly name to Internet IP address mapping services, and must be protected from abuse, since the absence of the DNS has a severe impact on several Internet applications, such as HTTP, FTP, and/or e-mail that can cause such applications to become non-functional. The method is designed to keep DNS functional during intentional blocking from higher name servers, and the like.
US08612612B1

In one example, a method includes receiving, with a network device, a portion of a subscriber session packet flow for a subscriber session, and reassembling application-layer data from data packets in the subscriber session packet flow into one or more application flows for the subscriber session. The method includes identifying, from the application flows, application identity information for the application flows, and applying a first session policy to the subscriber session. Applying the first session policy includes applying one or more application policies to the application flows in the subscriber session based on subscriber information and the application identity information for the application flows. The method includes processing the application flows in the subscriber session for accessing a packet data network in accordance with the application policies.
US08612609B2

Methods and apparatus to reassign quality of service (QoS) priorities in a communication network are disclosed. An example method disclosed herein comprises performing a temporary QoS priority reassignment for network traffic between a first network element associated with a first user of a communication network and a second network element associated with a second user of the communication network without intervention by a service provider providing the communication network to the first and second users, the first user authorized by the service provider to temporarily reassign a QoS priority associated with the second user, and terminating the temporary QoS priority reassignment based on a monitored termination criteria.
US08612601B2

A management method for network address translation includes: obtaining a network resource section of a client and using state information of the network resource section; adjusting the network resource section according to the using state information of the network resource section, where the adjusted network resource section can provide a network resource for all connections of the client; establishing a network address translation entry for each connection of the client according to the adjusted network resource section; and establishing a corresponding log record for the network resource section.
US08612591B2

An integrated security system integrates broadband and mobile access and control with conventional security systems and premise devices to provide a tri-mode security network that with remote connectivity and access. The integrated security system includes a touchscreen providing security keypad functionality as well as content management and presentation, and is used as a security system interface and an interface for interacting with a network. The integrated security system delivers remote premise monitoring and control functionality to conventional monitored premise protection and complements existing premise protection equipment. The integrated security system integrates into the premise network and couples wirelessly with the conventional security panel, enabling broadband access to premise security systems. Automation devices can be added, enabling users to remotely see live video or pictures and control home devices via a personal web portal, mobile phone, or other client device. Users can receive notifications of detected events via electronic message.
US08612587B1

The present invention facilitates identification and control of peer-to-peer sessions via an access concentration point (ACP). The ACP will monitor packets routed therethrough and detect access messages intended for known peer-to-peer access services. The access messages sent from a communication client to the peer-to-peer access service, which will respond by sending an access reply message back to the communication client. The ACP will monitor the packets being routed to identify the access reply message, which will include routing addresses that may be associated with potential remote communication clients. With these addresses, the ACP can monitor packets to identify when an attempt to initiate a peer-to-peer communication session is being made to or through an entity associated with one or more of these addresses. Upon detecting a session initiation message to or through an identified address, the ACP may take any number of actions, depending on how the ACP is configured.
US08612580B2

Embodiments are directed to distributing processing tasks from the reduced-performance computer system to at least one other computer system, to processing, at one computer system, a distributed task received from a reduced-performance computer system, and to establishing a simulation environment for testing distributed computing framework functionality. In an embodiment, a reduced-performance computer system monitors computing tasks to determine a processing resource usage level for each task. The computing tasks are part of a software application that is running on the reduced-performance computer system. The reduced-performance computer system determines that one of the monitored tasks is using processing resources beyond a specified threshold level. The reduced-performance computer system sends the task to another computer system that receives, processes and returns the results of the tasks to the reduced-performance computer system. The reduced-performance computer system presents the processed results received from the other computer system within the running software application.
US08612577B2

Embodiments relate to systems and methods for migrating software modules into one or more target clouds. The systems and methods can analyze system data to determine software modules supported by the system, and target cloud data to determine which target clouds have a capacity to support a migration of the software modules. In embodiments, benefits of migrating any or all of the software modules to the target clouds can be determined. Based on the benefits, the software modules of the system can be segmented and migrated into systems associated with the multiple target clouds.
US08612576B1

As exterior routing protocols generally do not provide information about the internal routing paths of an autonomous system, a particular autonomous system has limited information about the internal health of other autonomous systems. However, if a monitoring system has access to routing data and/or other network data from multiple points of an autonomous system, the monitoring system can estimate, with some accuracy, the health of the autonomous system. In turn, by monitoring at least some of autonomous systems forming a larger internetwork, such as the Internet, the monitoring system can estimate the overall health of at least portions of the internetwork.
US08612570B1

In a networked computer system, a method and system for classifying and managing the data objects in a data signal in a computer system comprising using a network tap to tap the data signal transmitted between two devices in the system, collecting information about the data objects in the data signal, classifying the data objects to assign categories based on the collected information about the data object, and storing the results of the classification.
US08612568B2

The present invention discloses method, system and network server for recording use of network service capability by applications (APPs), and the key points of the methods comprise: a network server acquires an identity of the APP and type information of the network service capability providing services for the APP, conducts service logic processing, and writes a message of use of network service capability, which comprises at least the identity of the APP and the type information of the network service capability providing services for the APP. With the methods of this invention, the purpose of making effective records of use of network service capability by APPs provided by service providers is implemented. Furthermore, management of APPs, such as charging, may be conducted by utilizing the records.
US08612559B2

A centralized control processor provides a unified management mechanism for multiple multicast switches or servers running virtual switches that is also capable of sending query messages based upon a subset of ports.
US08612554B2

A portable file server includes a radio field intensity input unit, a current controller, and an antenna. A radio field intensity for use in wireless communication between the portable file server and a terminal through the antenna is inputted to the radio field intensity input unit. The current controller increases or decreases the amount of signal current for data to be transmitted to the terminal in accordance with the radio field intensity inputted to the radio field intensity input unit. The signal current is, in turn, outputted to the antenna. Thus, the radio field intensity is controlled such that the radio waves can be received only in the area where wireless communication between the portable file server and the terminal takes place; thus, unauthorized wireless access from outside of this area will be prevented. Hence, the portable file server provides enhanced security.
US08612547B1

A container application is a native application that provides a web based application with access to a computer's system resources and windowing system. If a container application is associated with a window, then the web based application can alter or control many, or all, aspects of the container application's content area and meta user interfaces (UIs). Web based applications are downloaded from application servers and run inside container applications. A container application can run a web based application as a service. Services made from web based applications miming in container applications are almost indistinguishable from operating system services when there is no associated window.
US08612544B2

The present invention relates in particular to a synchronization system and process. The synchronization system comprises a specification unit for specifying synchronization signals associated with an audiovisual program, the latter comprising an audiovisual content and control information, a recognition unit for recognizing these synchronization signals in a stream carrying this program transmitted via a broadcasting network, by recognizing at least one extracted portion of the audiovisual content, and an activation unit triggering an action in case of detection of these signals. The specification unit prepares and transmits to the recognition unit recognition elements making it possible to obtain this extracted portion, which comprise instructions for extracting the portion of content from at least one stream of an audiovisual program previously received by the recognition unit via the broadcasting network. In variants, the recognition elements are obtained independently of the specification unit. Applications to interactive television and to automatic recordings.
US08612538B2

Systems and methods minimize loading of servers which automatically provide upgrades to downstream processors minimize server loading by randomly distributing the upgrade requests. Each of the downstream processors can establish its own randomized next time for an upgrade. Upgrade time intervals can be limited to off-peak evening and weekend hours.
US08612533B1

The disclosure relates to systems and methods of burning, snapshotting, streaming and curating geofeeds, each geofeed including a plurality of geofeed content items that are aggregated from a plurality of content providers using respective requests formatted specifically for individual ones of the plurality of content providers, where each individual set of a plurality of content is relevant to one or more geographically definable locations. Archives of a geofeed may be generated by burning portions or all of the geofeed content items and/or generating snapshots of geofeeds at different times. A real-time geofeed may be streamed by continuously or periodically obtaining newly available geofeed content items and updated a geofeed stream in real-time. Collections of geofeed content items may be curated in order to organize and follow geofeed content items of interest.
US08612527B2

Receiving a notification message by a mobile subscriber can include establishing a session with a notification service; maintaining a persistent communication connection with the notification service after the session is established; subscribing to a node hosted by the notification service, wherein the node is pre-provisioned for use by a mobile subscriber; and receiving from the notification service a notification message corresponding to the subscribed node. Further, a message can be transmitted over the communication connection to the notification service at a predetermined interval and it can be determined whether the communication connection is viable. Additionally, it can be determined that the communication connection is no longer viable if no response is received from the notification service, the period of the predetermined interval can be decreased, and another session with the notification service can be established.
US08612523B1

Botnet attacks may be detected by collecting samples of spam messages, forming clusters of related spam messages, and identifying the source or sources of the related spam messages. The related spam messages may be identified as those generated using the same template. For example, spam messages generated using the same image template, text template, or both may be deemed as related. To find related spam messages, images of spam messages may be extracted and compressed using a lossy compression algorithm. The compressed images may then be compared to one another to identify those generated using the same image template. The lossy compression algorithm may involve dividing an image into several blocks and then computing a value for each block for comparison.
US08612521B2

This invention has as its object to avoid occurrence of garble even when an e-mail message to be created includes text information described in character codes of different kinds of language. To achieve this object, a communication apparatus according to this invention includes an input unit which inputs image information, a recognition unit which extracts text information included in the image information input by the input unit, and recognizing a type of character code of the extracted text information, an embedding unit which embeds the extracted text information in a text of e-mail using character codes of the type recognized by the recognition unit, and describing the recognized type (510, 516) of character code and an identifier (509, 515, 526) indicating a description range of the extracted text information in the text of e-mail, and a sending unit which sends e-mail data embedded by the embedding unit.
US08612512B1

A method and apparatus for providing subscribers of network services to enjoy in a virtual environment the experience of visitors who physically visit cultural landmarks, e.g., museums around the world are disclosed. These visitors often rent audio equipment to walk through popular exhibits as they listen to recorded information about each display. Thus, the present method enables a network to provide subscribers with the ability to select audio and video sessions that allow them to virtually stroll through popular destinations or landmarks of interest throughout the world and listen to audio information about each site.
US08612504B2

Techniques for performing IFFT pipelining are described. In some aspects, the pipelining is achieved with a processing system having a memory having first and second sections, an encoder configured to process data in each of the first and second memory sections, an IFFT configured to process the encoded data in the first and second memory sections, and a post-processor configured to process the IFFT processed data in the first memory section while the IFFT is processing the encoded data in the second memory section, the post processor configured to operate at a different clock speed than the encoder or the IFFT.
US08612501B2

Novel random number generation methods and novel random number generators based on continuous-time chaotic oscillators with dual oscillator architecture are presented. Numerical and experimental results not only verify the feasibility of the proposed circuits, but also encourage their use as a high-performance IC TRNG. In comparison with RNG's based on discrete-time chaotic maps, amplification of a noise source and jittered oscillator sampling, which are advantageous in the sense that true random behavior can be mathematically proven thanks to an analytical model that has been developed, it is seen that RNG's based on continuous-time' chaotic oscillators can offer much higher and constant data rated without post-processing. The proposed innovation increases the throughput, maximizes the statistical quality of the output sequence and is robust against external interference, parameter variations and attacks aimed to force throughout. The proposed circuits can be integrated on today process at GHz range.
US08612493B2

Tracking newly created objects during a garbage collection cycle includes marking newly allocated objects in the GC cycle during the allocation cache population phase. The goal is to take a high performance system for tracing live objects, such as the mark map, and combine the SATB with a cached allocation system for heap memory such that SATB representation is preserved. Embodiments combine both efficient support for an SATB model during a collection cycle and a highly optimized allocation path for heap objects in an allocation scheme (which may optionally be a size segregated class allocation scheme) that allows both mechanisms to co-exist effectively. Specifically, embodiments track newly created objects during a GC cycle such that they are kept alive during the trace phase while continuing to support a highly efficient allocating caching strategy.
US08612489B2

For each of a plurality of concepts indicated in an XBRL schema associated with an XBRL instance, concept relationship information is determined. The concept relationship information is determined from the XBRL schema, context information indicated in the XBRL instance, and at least one of a plurality of files that constitute a taxonomy set for the XBRL instance. Attribute information is determined for each concept based, at least in part, on the XBRL schema and at least one of the files that constitute the taxonomy set. An XML document is generated with XML elements structured in accordance with the concept relationship information. Each of the XML elements is populated with corresponding ones of XBRL facts to yield the structured XML data model instance.
US08612482B2

Methods and computer-readable media provide for efficient paging of search results in accordance with the access rights of a user. According to various implementations, a request for a search query results in a calculated number of search results being retrieved and analyzed for user access rights. As documents having user access rights are located, session state information corresponding to the number of located documents having user access rights and to the number of analyzed documents required to locate the number of documents having user access rights is maintained. This information is used to dynamically alter the number of subsequent documents that are retrieved in order to fill a page of results. This minimizes redundant determinations of user access rights and minimizes the number of documents required to be retrieved and analyzed in order to fulfill a search query request.
US08612479B2

A systems and methods are described detect fraud in existing logs of raw data. There can be several disparate logs, each including data of disparate data types and generated by different and possibly unrelated software enterprise applications. The fraud management system aggregates and organizes the raw log data, extends the raw data with reference data, archives the data in a manner that facilitates efficient access and processing of the data, allows for investigation of potentially fraudulent usage scenarios, and uses the results of the investigation to identify patterns of data that correspond to correspond to high risk usage scenarios and/or process steps. In subsequent processing, archived data can be compared against the identified patterns corresponding to high risk usage scenarios to detect matches, and the invention thereby automatically detects high risk usage scenarios and issues appropriate alerts and reports.
US08612460B1

A first content entity and one or more associated second content entities are presented to one or more arbiters. Arbiter determinations relating to the association of at least one of the second content entities with the first content entity are received. A determination as to whether the at least one of the second content entities is to be disassociated from the first content entity based on the arbiter determinations can be made.
US08612458B2

A software system may be used to define configurable products for use in a selling application module by sellers of products to define custom configuration of products to satisfy customer needs. During periodic points in time, a subset of all configuration of these configurable products may be offered for sale by sellers user special price terms and conditions. Catalogs of sale products may provide a mechanism for configuring only products that are included within sale products. A catalog manager module may assist in preparing a catalog of product data and related configuration rules associated with only products included within a particular catalog.
US08612452B2

An information processing apparatus capable of collecting electronic data efficiently and avoiding sharing highly confidential and secure electronic data with an indefinite number of users. The information processing apparatus is connected to an external apparatus through a network. The information processing apparatus receives electronic data from the external apparatus, registers attribute information related to the received electronic data in association with the received electronic data so that the received electronic data can be retrieved by using the attribute information, and controls the registering unit so as to register the attribute information related to the received electronic data when the received electronic data is not confidential data, and so as not to register the attribute information related to the received electronic data when the received electronic data is confidential data.
US08612448B2

A system and method for keeping, organizing and managing electronic records, comprising generating a first instance of data objects comprising data elements during a first encounter, the elements comprising a first instance identifier and temporal identifiers; linking a data object to a summarization reference with a pointer; creating an additional instance of data objects also comprising data elements comprising an additional instance identifier and temporal identifiers during a later encounter; and providing continuity for the first instance data objects over time. Continuity may be provided by tracking a relationship between the first instance data object and an additional instance data object and repointing the pointer to point between the summarization reference and the additional instance data object. The additional instance data object may be a revision of the first instance data object, and tracking may occur by back-linking the revision to the first instance data object.
US08612441B2

A method of identifying one or more particular images from an image collection, includes indexing the image collection to provide image descriptors for each image in the image collection such that each image is described by one or more of the image descriptors; receiving a query from a user specifying at least one keyword for an image search; and using the keyword(s) to search a second collection of tagged images to identify co-occurrence keywords. The method further includes using the identified co-occurrence keywords to provide an expanded list of keywords; using the expanded list of keywords to search the image descriptors to identify a set of candidate images satisfying the keywords; grouping the set of candidate images according to at least one of the image descriptors, and selecting one or more representative images from each grouping; and displaying the representative images to the user.
US08612435B2

A method and apparatus for activity-based users' interests modeling for determining relevance of the content distributed to the users is provided. Modeling of the user's interests starts by collecting information about the actions that the user performed and about the contents that were associated with the actions. That information may be used to determine how much interest the user has had in the individual subjects up to date, and to determine which subjects became more or less important to the user over time. Further processing of the information about the interests of each of the individual users in a group of users may produce characteristics indicating the interests of the group as a whole. Additional processing may generate the information reflecting relative importance of the interests of an individual user in the group to the interests of other users in the same group.
US08612432B2

A tree structure has a node associated with each category of a hierarchy of item categories. Child nodes of the tree are associated with sub-categories of the categories associated with parent nodes. Training data including received queries and indicators of a selected item category for each received query is combined with the tree structure by associating each query with the node corresponding to the selected category of the query. When a query is received, a classifier is applied to the nodes to generate a probability that the query is intended to match an item of the category associated with the node. The classifier is applied until the probability is below a threshold. One or more categories associated with the nodes that are closest to the intent of the received query are selected and indicators of items of those categories that match the received query are output.
US08612431B2

A method and apparatus are provided for enhancing search results generated by a search engine. A graphical user interface may display search results, which may include at least one multi-part record comprising a plurality of independent documents. Upon receiving a selection of the multi-part record from the search results a detailed view of the record may be displayed. The detailed view of the record may include a listing of the multiple documents that form the record along with an indication of whether keywords from the search criteria are present in the documents. By providing an indication of exactly which documents of a multi-part record include keywords associated with a search, embodiments of the invention allow users to easily identify desired materials from a list of search results comprising the multipart record.
US08612429B2

An apparatus, system, and method of searching are disclosed. When a search result includes a plurality of images being obtained from the same document, the plurality of images being obtained from the same document is displayed, one by one, in the order determined based on priority order information.
US08612426B2

Systems and methods for arranging participant interview clips for conducting ethnographic research. Video clips and photographs of interviews of participants in a market research study are stored in a database. Each item stored in the database is tagged with an interpretive tag indicative of an observed behavioral, attitudinal, or emotive characteristic of the participant. A user searches the database for tags or search terms of interest, and selects clips from the search results for inclusion in a perspective, which is a collection of selected clips and their associated tags and comments from multiple users who collaborate to determine which clips to include in the perspective. The process of creating a perspective is iterative and collaborative, in which the database can be mined and re-mined using different search strategies by multiple users, who provide their comments on selected clips to form a perspective that can be used for product innovation.
US08612422B2

A method and system for rewriting Structured Query Language (SQL) statements. A SQL statement having search criteria including conditions pertaining to fields in database tables is received. A table from the SQL statement listing all combinations of the search criteria is created, every combination reflecting a subset of information used to determine combined results. A set of patterns among the possible combinations of the SQL statement based on the fields referenced in the combinations is identified. The table based on the set of patterns is sorted. Based on the sorting, the table is divided into temporary tables which are joined with the SQL statement. New temporary tables are generated. Each new temporary table includes results of a search conducted using a separate portion of the SQL statement as joined with the set of temporary tables. All results from the new temporary tables are combined into a single result table.
US08612414B2

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on one or more computer storage devices, for grouping search query refinements. One of the methods includes while receiving a text input into an input field by a user and before the user has submitted the text input to a search engine obtaining query suggestions based at least in part on the text input. The method includes grouping query suggestions based on a common query term shared by the query suggestions, wherein the query suggestions include terms that refine the common query term. The method includes transmitting a set of query suggestions to a client device for presentation, wherein the set includes the query suggestions that are presented as a group with the common query term presented in a prominent position and the refinement terms presented in subordinate positions and wherein the common query term and the refinement terms are each user-selectable.
US08612407B1

An embodiment of the invention provides a method for source control in a program, wherein the program includes hierarchical files for execution of processes, wherein the hierarchical files include parent files and child files. A revised process selected by a user on a graphical user interface is identified; and, files in the revised process are identified. The files in the revised process are locked with a source control processor. This includes disallowing revisions to the files in the revised process. One or more files that are descendents of a file in the revised process are identified. The one or more files that are descendents of a file in the revised process are locked with the source control processor. This includes disallowing revisions to the one or more files that are descendents of a file in the revised process.
US08612402B1

Systems and methods for managing key-value stores are disclosed. In some embodiments, the systems and methods may be realized as a method for managing a key-value store including creating an uncompressed tree of key-value pairs, monitoring the growth of the uncompressed tree, compressing the uncompressed tree when the uncompressed tree meets and/or exceeds a specified threshold, and creating a new empty uncompressed tree.
US08612396B1

Aspects of a data environment, such as the cloning, hibernation, and recovery of databases, are managed using a separate control environment. A monitoring component of the control environment can periodically communicate with the data environment to determine any necessary actions to be performed, such as to recover from faults or events for a data instance in the data environment. A workflow can be instantiated that includes tasks necessary to perform actions such as recovery, hibernation, resumption from hibernation, or backup or cloning. Tasks of the workflow can cause certain jobs to be performed by host managers in the data environment to effect calls made to the control environment.
US08612394B2

The invention relates generally to archiving data items in an information store. More particularly, the invention provides a computerized method for identifying, in a first information store, a first data item satisfying retention criteria; copying the first data item to a second information store; creating, in the first information store, a second data item containing a subset of the data of the first data item selected based on the data type of the first data item; and replacing the first data item, in the first information store, with the second data item.
US08612387B2

A system and a method manage, control and/or render media in a network. The system utilizes a media management application that manages, controls and/or renders digital media files in the network. A user browses, searches, manages and/or consumes content from multiple storage devices and servers in the network. The user may view a visual representation of active media connections between the available servers and/or the available rendering devices connected to the network.
US08612377B2

Techniques for performing diagnostics for a monitored system. In one set of embodiments, an aggregate model can be built from a set of models corresponding to entities (e.g., applications and systems) in the monitored system, and data from the monitored system can be applied to the aggregate model. Diagnostic result information can then be generated based on the application of the data to the aggregate model. In certain embodiments, generating the diagnostic result information can include determining a state of an application or system in the monitored system and determining an impact of the state to a user.
US08612374B1

A method, computer readable, and apparatus for read-ahead prediction of subsequent requests to send data between a client coupled to a server via a network includes receiving at a traffic management device a request for a part of at least one of a data file and metadata. The traffic management device selects from two or more of a sequential prediction engine, an expert prediction engine and a learning prediction engine to predict a read-ahead of the at least one of the data file and metadata. One or more additional read-ahead parts of the at least one of the data file and metadata are determined with the traffic management device based on the selecting.
US08612368B2

Systems and methods for processing Machine Learning (ML) algorithms in a MapReduce environment are described. In one embodiment of a method, the method includes receiving a ML algorithm to be executed in the MapReduce environment. The method further includes parsing the ML algorithm into a plurality of statement blocks in a sequence, wherein each statement block comprises a plurality of basic operations (hops). The method also includes automatically determining an execution plan for each statement block, wherein at least one of the execution plans comprises one or more low-level operations (lops). The method further includes implementing the execution plans in the sequence of the plurality of the statement blocks.
US08612351B2

In example embodiments, a system and method provides receiving a funds request that contains an identifier to uniquely identify a first member of a first social network, an identifier to uniquely identify a second member of a second social network, and an amount of funds to be exchanged between the first and the second member. The information in the funds request is received via a user interface provided by the first social network that is customized to the first member. A funds authorization from the second member is received. An exchange of the amount of funds between an account held by the first member of the first social network and an account held by the second member of the second social network based on the receiving of the funds authorization is implemented. The first and the second social network are each a community of members that share a common interest.
US08612347B1

A method and apparatus are disclosed (a) which maintain credit card account and billing data including (i) data correlating credit card numbers, cardholders, and payment information such as mailing addresses or American Banking Association (ABA) routing numbers of the payee or his representative; (ii) data from which a payment due date can be determined; and (iii) means for estimating, receiving, or calculating a payment amount equal to or greater than a minimum payment amount due during a credit card's billing cycle; (b) which provide a mechanism for automatic funding of said payment amount payable during a billing cycle; and (c) which provide a mechanism for automatically issuing said payment amount to a designated payee or his representative whereby “late fees” are avoided.
US08612340B1

A method of identifying a point of compromise includes accessing data stored in a data storage system, the data being associated with a plurality of identified at-risk accounts, identifying a plurality of common points of transaction, each of the plurality of common points of transaction being associated with a minimum number of the plurality of identified at-risk accounts, and identifying a point of compromise from the plurality of common points of transaction based on (i) the number of the identified at-risk accounts involved in transactions executed via each common point of transaction during a time period, and (ii) a total number of accounts involved in transactions executed via the common point of transaction during the time period.
US08612336B2

A method for trading financial instruments includes listing, by an electronic financial exchange, financial instruments that specify which version of a serialized index the financial instrument tracks; receiving, by the electronic financial exchange, an electronic indication to buy or sell the financial instrument; executing, by the electronic financial exchange, a trade involving the financial instrument; and settling the financial instrument according to the version of the serialized index specified by the financial instrument.
US08612329B1

In accordance with the principles of the present invention, an electronic trading interface and method for displaying trading data are provided. Reported trade prices are received. The largest volume for a trading price is determined. The largest volume for a trading price is normalized to establish a highest volume number. In one embodiment, the highest volume number is established by dividing the largest volume for a trading price by an adjusted percentage of itself. The remaining volumes for trading prices are normalized by the same method used to establish the highest volume number. The normalized volumes for trading prices are displayed. Thus, a trader is able to read volume earlier and clearer, thus providing an economic opportunity outside the singularity of the present. This Abstract is submitted with the understanding that it will not be used to interprete or limit the scope or meaning of the claims.
US08612327B1

A system, method and computer program product are provided including a catalog database with a plurality of product definitions. The product definitions includes a plurality of rules and attributes associated with a plurality of products. Further included is a pricing engine in communication with the catalog database. The pricing engine is adapted for charging for the products based on the rules and the attributes.
US08612326B1

The present invention provides a method and system for analyzing risk. An embodiment of this invention comprises determining a deployment cost and an outage cost for each of a plurality of portfolios. The portfolio comprises one or more elements with a predetermined capacity. Total cost, which is an indicator of deployment cost and risk, for each portfolio is then determined by summing the deployment cost and the outage cost. The total cost of at least two portfolios is compared.
US08612322B2

A method and related system obtains consent from a user for electronic delivery of sensitive information. The user operating a first computer accesses a web page on a server system to input the consent. The web page prompts for the consent from the user. Once the consent is received at the server system, the consent is stored and sensitive information is delivered electronically to an e-mail address specified by the user. Once consent is indicated, it is communicated from the individual's computer to another computer such as a server over, for example, a modem connection. Having secured the individual's consent, the additional sensitive information may be delivered to the individual's computer as, for example, a URL attachment to an email message.
US08612311B2

A hybrid distribution system and method for distributing/temporarily renting playable media items, such as movies in a digital format. The distribution system includes a first option in which a title is delivered in a ranking order identified by the subscriber and based on an allocation priority associated with the subscriber for such title. Alternatively the subscriber can be given a second option to gain access rights to the first title from a third party. In this manner a content provider can manage different types of demand through a combination of dedicated and third party inventory.
US08612303B2

A method comprising visually providing on a user terminal, business productivity software application functionality and/or utility software application functionality to a user; and causing the user terminal to play one or more audio songs as the user engages the software. The audio songs are selected in accordance with metrics describing usage and/or engagement of the software by the user.
US08612290B2

A system and method for operating a reward points accumulation and redemption program wherein a user earns rewards from a plurality of independent reward issuing entities, with each tracking the user's earned rewards. A trading server accumulates some or all of the user's earned rewards from the reward servers and credits the accumulated points rewards into a single reward exchange account associated with the user. The user may then select an item for purchase with the accumulated rewards. The item is provided to the user in exchange for a subset or all of the rewards. Reward points may also be redeemed in exchange for services, such as the playing of a video game or Internet access.
US08612280B2

A method of monitoring workflow performance includes selecting a workflow for a job in a production process environment, wherein the job corresponds to a job category. The method also may include accessing a knowledge base to automatically select a set of performance indicators that correspond to the job category. Process parameters corresponding to the production process are displayed, and at least a portion of the displayed process parameters include the selected performance indicators.
US08612278B1

A facility includes a location node having a transceiver of wireless signals. It communicates with a central hub and mobile devices in the facility. The nodes are located in a specific location in the facility, and provide data about the movement of the entities in the facility relative to the location. Includes at least one of entry into the location, departure from the location, amount of time spent in the vicinity of the location; and the data being transmitted to the operator in at least one of real time or being for storage and analysis at a later time for use by the operator. There can be a series of location nodes in the facility. The nodes provide data about the movement of the entities in the facility, such data including the travel path of the entities in the facility.
US08612276B1

Scheduling of activities for field service technicians may be improved by modifying availability constraints associated with appointment windows for activities. Activities may be scheduled based on a performance deadline and relevant shift times of the resources to whom the activity may be allocated, as well as a variety of parameters relating to activities, resources and/or relevant environmental conditions (e.g., weather, traffic). An activity may be moved from one calendar day to another, a location constraint at the beginning and/or the end of a technician's shift may be removed or modified, and/or information updates may be provided in real time or near real time (e.g., every five minutes or less) throughout a work day to facilitate scheduling. In one example for scheduling dispatch of locate technicians for locate operations, ticket information relating to locate request tickets, as well as resource information relating to available technicians, may be extracted from a ticket database and a resource/technician database to provide appropriate inputs to a scheduling engine, based at least in part on matching available resources to performance deadlines associated with locate requests.
US08612264B2

A system and method of generating insurance risk samples and for comparing hypothetical and real insurance premiums of different insurance companies is disclosed. In some embodiments, one or more rating factors are defined and have a plurality of possible values at least partially defining an insurance risk. Values for the one or more rating factors are selected according to a predetermined distribution. The selected values are then used to generate sample risks, calculate sample premiums for the risks, and/or compare sample premiums for different types of insurance policies.
US08612260B2

An apparatus for communicating health care data from a sender to a receiver is provided. The apparatus has a first computer system, a second computer system, and a rules engine. The first computer system has health care data stored therein. The second computer system is in operable communication with, and is configured to extract the health care data from, the first computer system. The rules engine normalizes the extracted health care data to a predefined format. The rules engine defines a plurality of health care data fields in the predefined format, as well as a plurality of relationships between fields of normalized data.
US08612255B1

A system and method for automating and standardizing an appeals process, facilitating both business-to-business (i.e., insurance companies to providers) and business-to-consumer (i.e., insurance companies to patients) relationships, and educating users on the healthcare industry and patient rights. The system and method provides automated and standardized electronic communication for any business with a regulated or contractual appeals or grievance process. In one application, the system and method provide electronic communication between patients, providers, and insurance plans; convenient access to an “anytime” appeals process; and an efficient follow-up and appeals status tracking. There are standardized forms for the appeal, and the provider appeal format is compatible with current billing forms. The system includes an on-line web site with the ability to manage “behind the scenes” the overall appeals process, including data collection, data management, correspondence generation, process status tracking, and individualized client accounts.
US08612252B1

A system for facilitating the provision of health care services to patients comprises a computer-readable medium containing information associated with the provision of health care services to patients; an electronic display disposed in a health care environment; and software configured to effect display of some of the information on the electronic display. A method for facilitating the provision of health care services to patients comprises inputting, via an electronic touch screen display, information corresponding to a patient or room; displaying, via the electronic touch screen display, the information; and providing, to a patient, physical health care services, based on the viewed information. The electronic touchscreen display preferably is not a part of a computer workstation and is configured for simultaneous viewing by a plurality of health care providers and caregivers.
US08612248B2

A healthcare communication system can include a patient terminal having a keyboard unit with message keys for transmitting different ones of one or more programmed messages, and alphanumeric keys for composing messages. The patient terminal can be communicatively linked to a patient terminal display for presenting the programmed messages and composed messages. Each of the message keys can include identifying indicia associated with a programmed message transmitted upon selection of the message key. The patient terminal keyboard also can include one or more destination keys for specifying one of multiple destination addresses within the healthcare communication system for delivering individual ones of the messages.
US08612242B2

Methods and apparatus for coordinating audio data processing and network communication processing in a communication device are disclosed. An exemplary method begins with demodulating a series of received communication frames, using a network communication processing circuit, to produce received encoded audio frames. An event report for each of one or more of the received encoded audio frames is generated, the event report indicating a network communication circuit processing time associated with the corresponding received encoded audio frames. The received encoded audio frames are decoded, using an audio data processing circuit, and the decoded audio is output to an audio circuit. The timing of the outputting of the decoded audio is adjusted, based on the generated event reports.
US08612241B2

A method for performing packet loss or Frame Erasure Concealment (FEC) for a speech coder receives encoded frames of compressed speech information transmitted from an encoder. The method determines whether an encoded frame has been lost, corrupted in transmission, or erased, synthesizes properly received frames, and decides on an overlap-add window to use in combining a portion of the synthesized speech signal with a subsequent speech signal resulting from a received and decoded packet, where the size of the overlap-add window is based on the unavailability of packets. If it is determined that an encoded frame has been lost, corrupted in transmission, or erased, the method performed an overlap-add operation on the portion of the synthesized speech signal and the subsequent speech signal, using the decided-on overlap-add window.
US08612240B2

An audio decoder for providing a decoded audio information includes an arithmetic decoder for providing a plurality of decoded spectral values on the basis of an arithmetically-encoded representation of the spectral values and a frequency-domain-to-time-domain converter for providing a time-domain audio representation using decoded spectral values. The arithmetic decoder is configured to select a mapping rule describing a mapping of a code value onto a symbol code in dependence on a context state. The arithmetic decoder is configured to determine a numeric current context value describing the current context state in dependence on a plurality of previously decoded spectral values and also in dependence on whether a spectral value to be decoded is in a first predetermined frequency region or in a second predetermined frequency region. An audio encoder provides an encoded audio information on the basis of an input audio information.
US08612238B2

An encoding method and apparatus and a decoding method and apparatus are provided. The decoding method includes extracting a three-dimensional (3D) down-mix signal from an input bitstream, generating a down-mix signal with 3D effects removed therefrom by performing a 3D rendering operation on the extracted 3D down-mix signal, and generating a 3D down-mix signal with 3D effects by performing a 3D rendering operation on the generated down-mix signal. Accordingly, it is possible to efficiently encode multi-channel signals with 3D effects and to adaptively restore and reproduce audio signals with optimum sound quality according to the characteristics of an audio reproduction environment.
US08612226B1

The present disclosure provides methods operable by computing device having one or more applications configured to perform functions based on a received verbal input. The method may comprise receiving a verbal input, obtaining one or more textual phrases corresponding to the received verbal input, and providing the one or more textual phrases to an appropriate application on the computing device. The method may further comprise accumulating data on the one or more textual phrases. The data comprises at least a count of a number of times a particular textual phrase is obtained based on a given received verbal input. Based on the count exceeding a threshold, the method may further comprise providing a query corresponding to the textual phrase, where the query is usable to search an advertisement database for one or more advertisements relating to the textual phrase.
US08612225B2

A voice recognition device that recognizes a voice of an input voice signal, comprises a voice model storage unit that stores in advance a predetermined voice model having a plurality of detail levels, the plurality of detail levels being information indicating a feature property of a voice for the voice model; a detail level selection unit that selects a detail level, closest to a feature property of an input voice signal, from the detail levels of the voice model stored in the voice model storage unit; and a parameter setting unit that sets parameters for recognizing the voice of an input voice according to the detail level selected by the detail level selection unit.
US08612223B2

There is provided a voice processing device. The device includes: score calculation unit configured to calculate a score indicating compatibility of a voice signal input on the basis of an utterance of a user with each of plural pieces of intention information indicating each of a plurality of intentions; intention selection unit configured to select the intention information indicating the intention of the utterance of the user among the plural pieces of intention information on the basis of the score calculated by the score calculation unit; and intention reliability calculation unit configured to calculate the reliability with respect to the intention information selected by the intention selection unit on the basis of the score calculated by the score calculation unit.
US08612222B2

A speech enhancement system improves the perceptual quality of a processed voice signal. The system improves the perceptual quality of a voice signal by removing unwanted noise components from a voice signal. The system removes undesirable signals that may result in the loss of information. The system receives and analyzes signals to determine whether an undesired random or persistent signal corresponds to one or more modeled noises. When one or more noise components are detected, the noise components are substantially removed or dampened from the signal to provide a less noisy voice signal.
US08612220B2

The invention relates to a method for quantifying components, wherein certain components are each determined based on a plurality of audio signals and can be calculated by the application of a linear conversion on the audio signals, said method comprising: determining a quantification function to be applied to the components by testing a condition relative to an audio signal and depending on a comparison made between a psycho-acoustic masking threshold relative to the audio signal and a value determined based on the reverse linear conversion and quantification errors of the components by the function.
US08612218B2

The invention relates to a method for outputting a speech signal. Speech signal frames are received and are used in a predetermined sequence in order to produce a speech signal to be output. If one speech signal frame to be received is not received, then a substitute speech signal frame is used in its place, which is produced as a function of a previously received speech signal frame. According to the invention, in the situation in which the previously received speech signal frame has a voiceless speech signal, the substitute speech signal frame is produced by means of a noise signal.
US08612217B2

Techniques pertaining to noise reduction are disclosed. According to one aspect of the present invention, noise in an audio signal is effectively reduced and a high quality of a target voice is recovered at the same time. In one embodiment, an array of microphones is used to sample the audio signal embedded with noise. The samples are processed according to a beamforming technique to get a signal with an enhanced target voice. A target voice is located in the audio signal sampled by the microphone array. A credibility of the target voice is determined when the target voice is located. The voice presence probability is weighted by the credibility. The signal with the enhanced target voice is enhanced according to the weighed voice presence probability.
US08612216B2

To form an audio signal, frequency components of the audio signal which are allotted to a first subband are formed by means of a subband decoder using supplied fundamental period values which respectively indicate a fundamental period for the audio signal. Frequency components of the audio signal which are allotted to a second subband are formed by exciting an audio synthesis filter using an excitation signal which is specific to the second subband. To produce this excitation signal, an excitation signal generator derives a fundamental period parameter from the fundamental period values. The fundamental period parameter is used by the excitation signal generator to form pulses with a pulse shape which is dependent on the fundamental period parameter at an interval of time which is determined by the fundamental period parameter and to mix them with a noise signal.
US08612210B2

A handheld electronic device includes a reduced QWERTY keyboard and is enabled with disambiguation software that is operable to disambiguate text input. In addition to identifying and outputting representations of language objects that are stored in the memory and that correspond with a text input, the device is able to employ contextual data in certain circumstances to prioritize output.
US08612204B1

Computer-implemented techniques include receiving a phrase in a first language and obtaining a corpus comprising a plurality of phrases in the first language and word reordering information for the plurality of phrases, the word reordering information indicating a correct word order for each phrase in a second language. Word-to-word correspondences between each of the phrases in the first language and the corresponding correct word order for the phrase in the second language are identified and at least one tree that allows for the identified word-to-word correspondences is generated. Based upon the at least one tree, a statistical model for reordering from a word order that is correct for the first language to a word order that is correct for the second language is created. Based upon the statistical model, a reordered phrase from the received phrase is generated, the reordered phrase having a correct word order for the second language.
US08612201B2

A hardware emulation system having a heterogeneous cluster of processors is described. The apparatus for emulating a hardware design comprises a plurality of processors, where each processor performs a different function during an emulation cycle. The method performed by the apparatus comprises using a data fetch processor to retrieve data from a data array, evaluating the retrieved data using the data fetch processor to produce an output bit, supplying the output bit to an intracluster crossbar and using a data store processor to store the output bit in the data array.
US08612192B2

A vehicle simulation system includes a first simulation model that when executed simulates a software ring along with other software of a vehicle module. The vehicle simulation system further includes a second simulation model of the software ring. A bypass switch that has a first state and a second state. A bypass switching module switches the bypass switch between the first simulation model and the second simulation model based on a bypass signal and a ring enabling signal. A simulation control module executes code of a vehicle simulation model including software in-the-loop (SIL) testing of a selected one of the first simulation model and the second simulation model based on state of the bypass switch.
US08612186B2

System, method and software product for numerically simulating structural behaviors of an engineering product in compressible and near-incomprssible region is disclosed. Meshfree enriched finite element method (ME-FEM) is used for such numerical simulation. ME-FEM requires an engineering product be represented by a FEM model comprising a plurality of finite elements. Finite elements used in the ME-FEM are generally low-order finite elements. Each of the finite elements in the FEM model is enriched by at least one meshfree enriched (ME) node located within the element's domain. Each ME node has additional degrees-of-freedom for the element it belongs independent from those of the corner nodes. A displacement based first-order convex meshfree approximation is applied to the ME node. The convex meshfree approximation has Knonecker-delta property at the element's boundary. The gradient matrix of ME-FEM element satisfies integration constraint. ME-FEM interpolation is an element-wise meshfree interpolation that is discrete divergence-free at the incompressible limit.
US08612178B2

A specific emitter identification (SEI) method and apparatus is capable of identifying and tracking objects within a geographical area of interest wherein the system and method has not been preprogrammed to look for particular signals. The system and method receives all of the emitted electromagnetic signals emitted from area of interest. The system and method next performs high order statistical analysis on the received signals and determines which signals emanate from possible targets of interest and which likely emanate from background clutter/noise by comparing the relative degrees of Gaussianness of the signals (for example using entropy measurements). The least Gaussian signals are deemed to likely be signals from potential targets of interest while those which are more Gaussian are deemed to be likely from background clutter or noise.
US08612171B2

A method of automatic formulation by a computer of test cases for verifying at least one function of a piece of software in relation to a specification including requirements relating input values and output values of the software, the method including the steps of: distinguishing combinatorial requirements and sequential requirements; modeling combinatorial requirements by a truth table and sequential requirements by a finite state machine to obtain a modeled specification; establishing an operation matrix relating the input values of the software with a probability of them being in succession and a transition time between them; selecting the successions of input values to be tested by performing a Monte Carlo draw on the operation matrix; determining a test case including test rows relating each selected succession with the output values expected given the modeled specification; stopping the determination process when the test case being determined makes it possible to reach a predetermined threshold for at least one of the following criteria: verified percentage of function code, verified percentage of requirements, verification time, and verification cost.
US08612166B2

A test bed for an electrical energy storage system for vehicles includes a test system for conducting electrical tests of the energy storage system, optionally at least one conditioning unit for the climate control of the energy storage system, at least one data collection and analysis system, and optionally at least one safety system. In order to be able to test energy storage systems in a manner approximating their use as closely as possible in that all real influences on the energy storage system, for example, a traction battery for electric or hybrid vehicles, can be simulated with the simultaneous interaction of thermal, electrical, and mechanical influencing factors without the need to conduct tests in a real-world environment, at least one actuator is additionally provided for the mechanical stimulation of the energy storage system.
US08612161B2

The invention provides methods and compositions, including, without limitation, algorithms, computer readable media, computer programs, apparatus, and systems for determining the identity of nucleic acids in nucleotide sequences using, for example, data obtained from sequencing by synthesis methods. The methods of the invention include correcting one or more phenomena that are encountered during nucleotide sequencing, such as using sequencing by synthesis methods. These phenomena include, without limitation, sequence lead, sequence lag, spectral crosstalk, and noise resulting from variations in illumination and/or filter responses.
US08612160B2

A method for identifying a mechanism associated with a cellular response includes identifying molecules participating in the cellular response; accessing a database containing information characterizing molecular interactions; determining pathways connecting the identified molecules participating in the cellular response; and solving an optimization problem that includes determining a subset of the molecules and interactions having a minimum aggregate cost. The pathways include, nodes, each representing a molecule, and edges, each connecting a respective pair of nodes and representing an interaction between a respective pair of molecules represented by the respective pair of nodes. Nodes from a subset of nodes represent molecules identified as participating in the cellular response.
US08612158B2

An automatic and robust method to attenuate seismic interference noises in marine seismic survey using multi-dimensional filters in Tau-P domain to identify and isolate seismic interference noises as anomalies.
US08612149B2

A system and method of relative location detection on an electronic device using image perspective analysis. The electronic device will consist of a processor module coupled to a camera module. The camera module of an electronic device as well as a target device will be used to capture image(s) of the current surroundings, including common elements, which will then be used to obtain the relative location of the devices in reference to one another.
US08612148B2

Methods, apparatus, and systems for facilitating a marking operation to indicate a presence or an absence of at least one underground facility. Marking information, including one or both of environmental information representative of at least one environmental condition of an environment in which the marking operation is located, and operating information representative of at least one operating condition of a marking device used to perform the marking operation, is received and compared to a target value or a range of values to determine if an out-of-tolerance condition exists.
US08612144B2

In order to provide a method for operating a navigation device, which also receives TMC data using two tuners for ascertaining an optimum travel route, using which an optimal travel route is ascertainable using the largest amount of TMC data possible, after a first search by the second tuner, the TMC data found are compared with those of the first tuner and to use the second tuner for searching for another transmitter having other TMC data. Furthermore, a navigation device of an appropriate design is provided.
US08612141B2

A navigation system capable of enabling a user to use navigation functions such as route guidance without setting a destination. It includes an information recording unit for storing a driving history, a destination estimating unit for estimating a destination from the driving history stored in the information recording unit, a route computing unit for calculating a route to the destination estimated by the destination estimating unit, and an information display unit for causing the route calculated by the route computing unit to be displayed.
US08612129B2

A marine threat monitoring and defense system and method protects a target vessel in icy or other marine regions. The system uses communications, user interfaces, and data sources to identify marine obstacles (e.g., icebergs, ice floes, pack ice, etc.) near a target vessel performing set operations (e.g., a stationed structure performing drilling or production operations or a seismic survey vessel performing exploration operations with a planned route). The system monitors positions of these identified marine obstacles over time relative to the target vessel and predicts any potential threats. When a threat is predicted, the system plans deployment of support vessels, beacons, and the like to respond to the threat. For example, the system can direct a support vessel to divert the path or break up ice threatening the target vessel.
US08612111B2

An automatic braking system includes a laser module, an image capturing module, a braking module, and a control module. The laser module emits a laser beam along a forward direction of a vehicle and receives the reflected laser beam. The image capturing module captures a road image in front of the vehicle. The braking module slows the vehicle. The control module is electrically connected to the laser module, the image capturing module, and the braking module. When an intensity of the reflected laser beam is greater than a pre-set value, the image capturing module is controlled by the control module to captures the road image. When the control module decides that there are human characteristics in the road image, the control module activates the braking module.
US08612098B2

A drive arrangement (1) for driving a motor (9) in a seat belt pre-tensioner incorporates a power supply circuit (6) in the form of an H bridge and a voltage boost circuit 16 which are controlled by a control unit (17). The control unit (17) controls the voltage boost circuit (16) to increase the voltage output to the motor (9) to speed up the rotation of the motor (9) whilst the motor (9) winds in slack in a seat belt (13).
US08612093B2

An inventive system and method for vehicle cabin control is presented. The method comprises creating one or more collections of set-points, each set-point comprising a duration and settings for one or more cabin features; establishing an order and duration for the set-points; uploading the set-points to a cabin management system; executing the set-points in the established order; and when a request is received, modifying the duration in accordance with user preferences based on the request. In one aspect, the cabin features comprise one or more of lighting, Cabin Ready, Cabin Temperature, Cell Phone Power and Special Purpose features. In one aspect, one of the collection of set-points is the initial features and another of the collection of set-points is the termination features.
US08612081B2

The present invention concerns a vehicle including a fuel tank, an engine to which fuel is supplied from the fuel tank, and a control device. The control device is characterized by notifying a refueling instruction corresponding to a use history of the vehicle. According to the present invention, the supply of extra fuel that can be degraded in the fuel tank can be prevented since a necessary refueling instruction is notified in accordance with the use history of the vehicle.
US08612073B2

In an electric vehicle inverter apparatus 100, a vehicle control controller 15 detects a switch open signal output from a collision detector 16 when the collision detector 16 is caused by a collision between electric vehicles to operate. Then, an inverter main circuit connection switch 10 of a high-voltage battery unit 8 is put into an open state. Thus, the direct-current power supply from a high-voltage battery 12 to a DC bus portion is interrupted. In addition, electric charges charged into a main circuit capacitor 7 are discharged by a forced discharge circuit portion 22b.
US08612069B2

A method is provided for dynamically consolidating items of an aeronautical procedure in order to present to the operator the best action to perform according to the context of all the systems, in order to reduce his cognitive workload faced with an action to be carried out. The method consists, for each item of a procedure, in determining the text of the requested action, in choosing the text of the corresponding response that the crew must perform according to the general state and the configuration of the aircraft, in incorporating in the corresponding item the texts of the requested action and of the corresponding response, in displaying this duly enriched item, in detecting whether the requested action has indeed been accomplished and in displaying the result of this detection.
US08612068B2

Apparatus and method is provided for propagating the attitude of a vehicle. A slew rate is computed based on angular rotation increments associated with a time interval. An incremental update is computed for the associated time interval based on an angular rate and the slew rate. An attitude of the vehicle is propagated based on the computed attitude increment and an initial attitude at the start of propagation.
US08612067B2

The invention concerns a system for deicing and/or defogging an aircraft surface (4) comprising: a temperature sensor (5) located proximate said surface (4) and adapted to generate a temperature information (TPT); a computer (20) adapted to generate a control information (CMD) based on the temperature information (TPT) and to transmit the control information (CMD) over a computer network (18) of the aircraft; an electric power supply system (8) located in the electrical center of the aircraft (18) and comprising a switch (12) adapted to be switched based on the control information (CMD); a heating element (6) located proximate said surface (4) and electrically powered via said switch (12). The invention also concerns a method for controlling such a system.
US08612065B2

A position encoder provides one or more trigger outputs based on position signals developed within the encoder, in addition to traditional position output signals used by other system components such as a motion controller. The trigger outputs may be used directly by a triggered device, bypassing the motion controller and obviating any separate trigger generation electronics. The trigger output(s) can be fully synchronous with the encoder's position output signal(s) with essentially no latency or jitter, increasing accuracy and providing improved system performance. The trigger functionality can be incorporated in a variety of encoder types (e.g., absolute and incremental) and technologies (optical, magnetic, inductive etc.), and used in conjunction with different position output signal formats (e.g., quadrature, serial).
US08612049B2

When the load factor of a loading/unloading apparatus reaches a second reference value that is smaller in load factor than the first reference value, the operation speed of the loading/unloading apparatus becomes a reduction state. It is possible to make load vibration difficult to be generated in a load. Further, fine adjustment of the manipulation becomes easy, such that it is possible to prevent the load factor from reaching the first reference value due to careless manipulation of the operator. Even if the load factor reaches the first reference value, the operation speed of the loading/unloading apparatus has been reduced, such that it is possible to prevent load vibration of the load W when stopping.
US08612044B2

A program analyzing unit that extracts electrode numbers included in a plurality of processing programs, determines duplication of the electrode numbers among the processing programs to display a result of determination, and that stores correspondence between a revision electrode number that is specified by a user and an in-use electrode number that is used in the processing program for each of the processing programs and a program executing unit that executes each of the processing programs by reading the revision electrode number instead of the in-use electrode number used in each of the processing programs based on the stored correspondence at the time of execution of the processing programs are included, and duplication of the electrode numbers used among the programs is easily and certainly resolved.
US08612041B2

A method is provided for determining a sequence of mounting a plurality of components on a board by using variable pitch heads having a plurality of pitches. The method includes: partitioning the board into a plurality of sectors, each of the sectors including a plurality of mounting points arranged in parallel with a direction in which the heads are arranged; dividing the board into a plurality of sub-boards including first sub-boards based on the sectors, each of the first sub-boards including as many mounting points as the heads; and determining a combination of a sequence of mounting the components on the board and at least one pitch among the pitches required to mount the components on the board in a shortest time, compared to another sequence or other sequences of mounting the components on the board and another pitch or other pitches among the pitches, based on the first sub-boards.
US08612037B2

A method for making a rapid prototype of a patient's mouth to be used in the design and fabrication of a dental prosthesis. The method takes an impression of a mouth including a first installation site having a dental implant installed in the first installation site and a gingival healing abutment having at least one informational marker attached to the dental implant. A stone model is prepared based on the impression. The model is scanned. The scan data is transferred to a CAD program. A three-dimensional model of the installation site is created in the CAD program. The at least one informational marker is determined to gather information for manufacturing the rapid prototype. Rapid prototype dimensional information is developed. The rapid prototype dimensional information is transferred to a rapid prototyping machine which fabricate a rapid prototype of the patient's dentition as well as a dental implant analog position.
US08612028B2

According to one embodiment, a method comprises receiving, by an adaptive controller, performance measurement for a computing system. The method further comprises estimating a performance model for use by the adaptive controller, and determining whether the estimated performance model has a correct sign for approaching performance desired for the computing system. When determined that the estimated performance model has an incorrect sign, the adaptive controller takes action to determine a performance model having a correct sign for approaching performance desired for the computing system.
US08612013B2

A system is disclosed which comprises an implantable electrical medical device (100) with an internal energy receiver (102). The system also comprises an external energy source (104) located externally for supplying wireless energy to the internal energy receiver (102). The external energy source (104) has a primary coil (11) for transmitting energy inductively to a first secondary coil (10) in the energy receiver (102). The system is arranged to measure parameters related to a first coupling factor (C1) between the primary and the first secondary coil (10), and the external energy source (104) is adapted to transmit energy to the energy receiver (102) for enabling the medical device (100) to detect information related to the first coupling factor (C1). The medical device (100) is adapted to wirelessly send feedback information related to said first coupling factor (C1) to the external energy source (104) with the external energy source (104) being arranged to receive the feedback information and to perform a predetermined action based on said feedback information.
US08612003B2

The present subject matter provides feedthrough or interconnect systems for components of an implantable medical device and methods for their manufacture. A feedthrough system includes a wire or nailhead having a protruded tip. The wire or nailhead extends from an aperture in an encasement of a first component and is connected to a terminal conductor adapted to electrically connect to circuitry within the encasement. A ribbon wire has a distal end adapted to electrically connect to a second component and a proximal end having a pattern adapted to fit to the protruded tip of the wire or nailhead to provide for subsequent attachment of the ribbon wire to the nailhead.
US08612000B2

In a pacing mode where the left ventricle is paced upon expiration of an escape interval that is reset by a right ventricular sense, there is the risk that the left ventricular pace may be delivered in the so-called vulnerable period that occurs after a depolarization and trigger an arrhythmia. To reduce this risk, a left ventricular protective period (LVPP) may be provided. Methods and devices for implementing an LVPP in the context of multi-site left ventricular pacing are described.
US08611998B2

A device and method for delivering electrical stimulation to the heart in a manner which provides a protective effect against subsequent ischemia is disclosed. The protective effect is produced by configuring a cardiac pacing device to intermittently switch from a normal operating mode to a stress augmentation mode in which the spatial pattern of depolarization is varied to thereby subject a particular region or regions of the ventricular myocardium to increased mechanical stress.
US08611997B1

A capacitor assembly is configured for use with an implantable medical device (IMD. The capacitor assembly may include a stack assembly having at least one anode stack between outer cathodes, and a housing having a case secured to a lid. The case and the lid define an internal chamber that retains the stack assembly. One of the case or the lid comprises a folded double wall connected to a drawn end. A recessed area is defined between the folded double wall and the drawn end. A linear edge of the other of the case and the lid is retained within the recessed area.
US08611989B2

A method of generating an image of a segment of a lumen structure comprises acquiring volumetric image data that comprises image data representative of a longitudinal segment of a lumen structure, extracting the segment of lumen structure from the volumetric image, calculating a thickness of planar MPR slab that at least encompasses the longitudinal segment of lumen structure, and rendering a planar MPR slab image based on the thickness and the volumetric image data.
US08611985B2

The invention relates to a method of navigation of a tool to be used in a surgical operation for treating a target region within the body of a patient.
US08611983B2

The invention provides methods and apparatus for navigating a medical instrument to a target in the lung. In one embodiment, the invention includes inserting a bronchoscope into the lung, inserting a catheter into the lung through the working channel of the bronchoscope, inserting a tracked navigation instrument wire into the lung through the catheter, navigating the tracked navigation instrument through the lung to the target, advancing the catheter over the tracked navigation instrument to the target, removing the tracked navigation instrument from the catheter, and inserting a medical instrument into the catheter, thus bringing the medical instrument in proximity to the target.
US08611982B2

One or more light beam endowed with photonic orbital angular momentum generating devices are mounted at preselected locations on an insertable instrument to hyperpolarize nuclear magnetic dipoles in a region of interest. The hyperpolarized nuclear magnetic dipoles are caused to resonate, generating magnetic resonance signals. A controller controls gradient coils to induce a magnetic field gradient across the region of interest, such that the frequency of the resonance signals is indicative of spatial positions. A frequency-to-position decoder converts the resonance signal frequencies into spatial positions. A video processor combines the spatial positions and a portion of a diagnostic image from a diagnostic image memory into a combined image which depicts the location of the region of interest or a portion of the instrument marked on the diagnostic image and displays the combined image on a monitor.
US08611978B2

Systems and methods for processing sensor analyte data are disclosed, including initiating calibration, updating calibration, evaluating clinical acceptability of reference and sensor analyte data, and evaluating the quality of sensor calibration. The sensor can be calibrated using a calibration set of one or more matched sensor and reference analyte data pairs. Reference data resulting from benchtop testing an analyte sensor prior to its insertion can be used to provide initial calibration of the sensor data. Reference data from a short term continuous analyte sensor implanted in a user can be used to initially calibrate or update sensor data from a long term continuous analyte sensor.
US08611971B2

A clamshell handheld wireless communication device having a hinging interconnector between the two housings, one in which the display screen is located and the other upon which the keyboard is located. The hinging interconnector is positioned between the two housings and navigation tool is located on the hinging interconnector.
US08611969B2

A cable assembly for electronic devices such as cellular telephones and music devices is disclosed. The cable assembly can comprise either one or two earpieces, each of which is configured to be received into the concha of a user's ear. The earpiece(s) can be configured so as to be held in place by at least one anatomical structure of the concha. A speaker can be in acoustic communication with each earpiece. A cable can be configured to communicate a signal representative of sound from the electronic device to each earpiece. A microphone can be permanently attached or removably attachable to the cable to facilitate use with a cellular telephone. The cable assembly can facilitate hands free operation of a cellular telephone and can facilitate listening to a music device. Other implementations and related methods are also disclosed.
US08611961B2

A mobile terminal device of the invention is a mobile terminal device capable of placing and receiving calls by first identification information, and of placing and receiving calls by second identification information, and is characterized by having a mode changing section that changes a mode among a first mode, a second mode and a common mode, and an outgoing call control section which places a call by the first identification information in the first mode, places a call by the second identification information in the second mode, and places a call by either the first identification information or the second identification information in the common mode.
US08611949B2

A method and apparatus of security negotiation for handover between different radio access technologies are provided. The method includes: transmitting the security information of the NAS and AS selected by the target system to the UE when the UE hands over between different radio access technologies. Therefore, the UE can perform security negotiation with the target system according to the security information of the NAS and AS. Through the embodiments of the present invention, the UE may obtain the key parameter information of the NAS and AS selected by the LTE system and perform security negotiation with the LTE system when the UE hands over from a different system, such as a UTRAN, to an LTE system.
US08611943B2

A method, an apparatus and a computer program for controlling updating of a signal quality target (405) for power control of an ongoing radio transmission (101) in a radio communication system (SYS1), wherein the signal quality target is updated based on communication quality. The method includes detecting (301) a change in transmission format from a first transmission format to a second transmission format for the radio transmission. Any updates causing the signal quality target to increase due to communication quality being below a set communication quality target are blocked (302) for a predefined blocking period after detecting said change in transmission format.
US08611934B2

Described herein are a method, apparatus and computer program to automatically inform a second party to a call that a first party to the call has or will disconnect due to a power source, such as a battery, of a terminal used by the first party becoming depleted. The second party can be informed by the generation and transmission of any suitable type of message, including a SMS message, a MMS message and a IMS message.
US08611920B2

Method and apparatus to analyze and present location information in an easy-to-digest manner are disclosed. In one embodiment, each piece of location information can include a piece of location-designating information and a piece of location-related information. Location-designating information is primarily for identifying location. Location-related information is information related to location-designating information. The location-designating information and the location-related information can be supplied by a mobile device. With the help of location-related information, each piece of location-designating information can be more accurately transformed into a label to help identify a location. The amount of location information can be reduced. All of the location-designating information pertaining to a given area can be consolidated into one piece of location-designating information related to the label. Consolidation of some of the information may not occur if a piece of location-related information changes by more than a preset value. To better present location information in an easy-to-digest manner, location information can be compared to standards. Presentation can be on a display with respect to a reference location.
US08611916B2

In a distributed antenna system (DAS), the number of physical antennas is usually larger than that of the antenna ports supported by LTE/LTE-A RS pattern in each cell. Systems and methods are directed to a RS transmission scheme in which the RRHs (or RRH groups) are dynamically scheduled and mapped to the antenna ports for RS transmission based on user density distribution such that the accuracy of the channel state information (CSI) estimation in the DAS is optimized.
US08611906B2

A mobile communications system is disclosed. The mobile communications system includes a first unit, provided at a base station apparatus, which controls a base station status by determining a request from an upper-layer general base station apparatus; and a second unit, provided at the general base station apparatus, which monitors for one or more mobile station apparatuses entering into/appearing in, or exiting/disappearing from a cell formed by the general base station apparatus, and, if at least one of the mobile station apparatuses enters into/appears in the cell formed by the general base station apparatus, requests for changing the base station apparatus to a service status, and, if all of the mobile station apparatuses exit/disappear from the cell formed by the general base station apparatus, requests for changing the base station apparatus to a radio unit stop status.
US08611902B2

The present invention relates to a broadband wireless access system, and more particularly, to a method and an apparatus for acquiring system information in a mobile communication system in which a legacy system and an advanced system coexist. A method of receiving system information on a peripheral base station in a mobile communication system includes receiving a second message containing time information for receiving, through a second region of a serving base station, a first message broadcasted through a first region of the serving base station and receiving the first message through the first region of the serving base station using the time information, the first message containing system information on neighbor legacy base stations and/or on the first region of neighbor advanced base stations which operate in a mixed mode.
US08611900B2

A method for determining an optimal access network by an apparatus is described. The method may include communicating with a first base station as part of a first access network using a first radio access technology (RAT). Information about access networks available to the apparatus may be received from a mobile broker. An optimal access network and the corresponding optimal RAT may be selected based on the received information. The method may also include switching to communications with a second base station using a second RAT.
US08611892B2

A mobile communication network system (1) is disclosed. The network system comprises a transport network (30) including a plurality of routers (31), and a network control apparatus (20) for controlling mobility of a mobile node (40, MN1), characterized in that the network control apparatus (20) comprises a mobility managing unit (LRM1) for managing information (CDT) of a correspondent node (41, MN2) communicating with the mobile node (40, MN1); the mobility managing unit (LRM1) comprises a boundary router detecting unit for detecting that the mobile node (MN1) moves and reaches a boundary of a router (AR2) managed by the mobility managing unit (LRM1) itself; and a correspondent node information forwarding unit for forwarding the information (CDT) of the correspondent node (MN2) to a neighbor mobility managing unit (LRM2) having a similar structure, when it is detected that the mobile node (MN1) reaches a boundary of a router (AR2) managed by the mobility managing unit (LRM1) itself.
US08611888B2

There are provided measures for enabling power restriction control for inter-band multi-carrier capable devices, such as e.g. inter-band carrier aggregation capable devices. Such measures may exemplarily include a distortion level determination on a downlink band of a terminal device when using at least one output power restriction value for output power for at least one uplink band of the terminal device, and a power restriction control with respect to the at least one output power restriction value on the basis of the determined distortion level and a preconfigured distortion threshold condition.
US08611887B1

Techniques are provided to set the timezone of a wireless user device in a wireless cellular communication network when the wireless user device is being served by a radio access point device rather than a macro base transceiver station. At a provisioning server configured to provision radio access point devices to operate in a wireless cellular communication network, a determination is made as to which timezone sub-region a radio access point device configured to operate in the wireless cellular communication network is located and selects a set of location area codes among the plurality of sets of location area codes assigned to the sub-region in which the radio access point device is determined to be located based on which of a plurality of radio access point gateway devices serves that radio access point device. The provisioning server sends the selected set of location area codes to the radio access point device. The location area codes are used by a wireless user device to request its timezone from a mobile switching center when the wireless user device is served by a radio access point device.
US08611883B2

A portable communication device may be used so that, in place of speaking into the portable communication device during a telephone call, users may initiate playback of pre-recorded messages to the party with whom the user is communicating. In one implementation, a device may receive, during a telephone call between a first party and a second party, a command from the first party to transmit a pre-recorded message to the second party. The pre-recorded message may be an audible message that was pre-recorded by the first party. The device may transmit the pre-recorded message to the second party in response to the command.
US08611879B2

A vPBX server manages calls in a bridged line appearance (BLA) group. A BLA group can include extensions for location-aware mobile devices. The vPBX server contains location based forwarding rules that can be applied together with BLA redirection rules in managing incoming calls. A single extension can appear as a user interface element (e.g., an icon or button) on multiple mobile devices. Using the user interface element, a primary user can view a secondary user's status, including the secondary user's location information. The vPBX server allows the primary user to redirect the incoming calls to devices in accordance with the forwarding rules and the redirection rules.
US08611874B2

A system and method for providing enhanced information to a mobile telephone regarding a calling device is described. The system and method includes receiving an incoming call request at a mobile telephone including the identifier of the calling device. An information request is then formulated including the identifier of the calling device. The information request is transmitted from the mobile phone to the query processing center via a data communication channel. A response is then obtained from the data processing center and transmitted to the mobile phone via the data communication channel. The response received from the data processing center includes the requested information related to the calling device.
US08611869B2

In one embodiment, a method includes detecting an unanswered communication received at a mobile device, identifying an alternate contact based on a location of the mobile device and a relationship between the mobile device user and the alternate contact, and transmitting a request to the alternate contact to notify the user of the mobile device of the communication. An apparatus and logic are also disclosed.
US08611863B2

The invention relates to the field of instant messaging. More specifically the invention relates to a server centric method and unit for instant voice and video mail messaging. Even more particularly the invention relates to voicemail messaging with mobile terminals. The inventive methods and units under study allow faster voice messaging and enable similar, but not identical audio/video message “ping ball”. The sending of voicemail in accordance with the invention is instantaneous and involves no different telephone numbers for the sender to remember. The reception of messages is always instantaneous, provided the recipient is available, and only if not available, may the delivery of the messages be delayed.
US08611858B2

To provide a communication system including a mobile terminal which can prevent leak of information even if the mobile terminal is lost and reproduce previously accumulated confidential data without losing newly created and updated confidential data. A mobile terminal includes connection state judging device which detects a line connection state with a server. When the line connection state is a broadband connection, the data is read directly from and written directly into a data storing device of the server. When the line connection state is a narrowband connection, the data is temporarily read out and written into a data storing device of the terminal. When the operation of the mobile terminal is completed or a security operation starting instruction is issued by a user, the updated confidential data is written into the data storing device of the server and then the confidential data is erased from the mobile terminal.
US08611851B2

A system and method for accounting request processing in a communication network. When an accounting request is received in a correlating network element from a service-monitoring element, it is stored unless and until the associated service has been completed. When a final accounting request associated with the service has been received, a processing track is determined; one of two or more preferably each associated with a different processing rate. Once a processing track has been assigned, each ACR is placed in a queue for processing; there are multiple queues, each associated with one or more processing tracks. In a preferred embodiment, the backlog of a queue, or of multiple queues, is considered when queuing an ACR. The backlog may be monitored and ACRs may be reassigned to a different queue, or the processing rate of a queue may be adjusted, so that ACRs may be processed at a higher (or lower) rate.
US08611847B2

Location determination signals are received and a location of interest is determined from the location determination signals. A communication service is established and synchronized with a known, valid base station via a first communication channel. A value of a signal strength indicator associated with the first communication channel is monitored. When the value of the signal strength indicator falls below a threshold level, a warning message is transmitted to the known, valid base station before synchronization of the communication service is lost with the known, valid base station.
US08611843B2

A filter package for communications equipment includes two or more filters in die form, each having a different frequency response. A first switch and a second switch are operatively connected to the filters and are configured to select a desired filter for operation in a signal stage of the equipment. The filters are aligned and stacked one over the other in the form of a package having an input terminal that is tied to a common terminal of the first switch, and an output terminal tied to a common terminal of the second switch. When the input and the output terminals of the filter package are connected to corresponding terminals of an intermediate frequency (IF) stage in a communications transceiver, the package can support both narrowband and wideband waveforms defined by the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS).
US08611840B2

In a mobile communication terminal, a communication control section controls communication on the basis of a selected radio communication system or frequency band and manages the state of communication. A signal-strength-indicator acquiring and storing section acquires signal-strength indicators and stores it. A communication-state acquiring section acquires the state of communication. A signal-strength-indication displaying control section determines whether a radio communication system or a frequency band is being searched for from the communication state. When it is being searched for, antenna bars indicative of signal strength are not shown or flashed when the signal-strength indicator is indicated on a display section.
US08611838B2

An HD radio receiver includes a storage unit for carrying out tuning at a time when autostore is activated and for storing broadcasting station data about a terrestrial digital radio broadcast received by the tuning, a reception quality detecting unit for detecting reception quality of the radio broadcast received, and a control unit for deciding the number of broadcast programs of multicasting that broadcasts a plurality of programs on a single frequency from the terrestrial digital radio broadcast received and for registering in the storage unit broadcasting station data with a greater number of decided broadcast programs in preference to broadcasting station data with better reception quality detected by the reception quality detecting unit.
US08611837B2

A method and apparatus can cut back power in a simultaneous dual frequency band call. The method may operate a dual frequency band transmit device. The method may include determining if a transmit frequency in a first frequency band from the device combined with a transmit frequency in a second frequency band from the device causes receiver desensitization at the device. The method may include determining if the transmit power in the first frequency band is above a threshold power. The method may include reducing maximum transmit power in the second frequency band by an amount proportional to transmit power in the first frequency band and transmit signal bandwidth in the second frequency band in only the portion of the second frequency band where a resultant frequency component can cause desensitization.
US08611835B2

Method and apparatus for sensing the envelope of high level multi frequency band RF signals in power amplifiers. For each frequency band, an RF transistor, such as a FET or a bipolar transistor is operated essentially at a non-linear operating point (e.g., in Class B, AB or C) at the frequency band. The RF transistor is fed by a DC power supply trough an RF filter and terminated by a dummy load that is tuned to the frequency band so as to terminate the RF components in the output signal of the RF transistor. An RF signal of the frequency band is fed into the input of the RF transistors and an output signal representing the envelope is obtained from the fluctuating current drawn from the DC power supply by the RF transistor, during the time period when the RF signal is applied to the input. The output signals obtained from all RF transistors that operate within their corresponding frequency band are combined to a common output, such that the output signal at this common point is essentially equal to the output signal that corresponds to one of the frequency bands.
US08611827B2

Radiowave environment data correction that uses the data measurement results obtained at measuring points in a base station peripheral area provided for a wireless communications system, is achieved accurately at a limited number of measuring points. A radiowave environment data correcting system includes correction data determining means that determines correction data for sub-areas, the sub-areas being regions into which an assessment area is divided, on the basis of data measurement results obtained at measuring points belonging to the sub-areas, wherein division into the area is based on an area usage division that is a division predefined according to a particular layout of objects or spaces in the assessment area. The system may also include sub-area dividing means that divides the assessment area into sub-areas in accordance with the area usage division, correction data calculating means that calculates the correction data in the sub-areas using the data measurement results obtained at the measuring points existing in the sub-areas, and radiowave environment data correcting means that uses the calculated correction data to correct radiowave environment data present inside the sub-areas.
US08611820B2

Techniques for designing a communications unit including a signal separation module for energy harvesting. In an exemplary aspect, the signal separation module includes first and second quadrature hybrids coupled by band-pass filters (BPF's). Incoming signals within the pass-band of the BPF's are directed through the quadrature hybrids and through the BPF's, and emerge as a desired pass-band signal to be processed by an RX processing module. Incoming signals lying outside the pass-band of the BPF's are reflected from the BPF's back to the first quadrature hybrid, and output as a non-pass-band signal to be processed by an energy harvesting module. In a further exemplary aspect, the signal separation module resides in a detachable module coupleable to a wireless communications device, and a signal transmitted by the wireless communications device is coupled to the signal separation module for energy harvesting.
US08611812B2

An ultrawideband radio transceiver/repeater provides a low cost infrastructure solution that merges wireless and wired network devices while providing connection to the plant, flexible repeater capabilities, network security, traffic monitoring and provisioning, and traffic flow control for wired and wireless connectivity of devices or networks. The ultrawidebande radio transceiver/repeater can be implemented in discrete, integrated, distributed or embedded forms.
US08611801B2

The fixing apparatus is provided with a cleaning pad that is pressed against at least one of roller members composed of a fixing roller, a pressurizing roller and an external heating roller to clean a surface of the roller member, and the cleaning pad is composed of a pad member that cleans the surface of the roller member, and a support member that press the pad member against the surface of the roller member to support. The support member has a plurality of opening portions formed along a thrust direction of the roller member, and has a larger opening area per unit length of the support member at a center part of the support member than that at both edge parts thereof. For example, an interval of holes or slits is narrower at the center part of the support member than that at the both edge parts thereof.
US08611794B2

A developer replenishing device for replenishing a developer to a development device includes a developer housing container configured to house the developer inside the container, a discharge outlet provided on the developer housing container and configured to discharge the housed developer outside the container, a conveying device provided between the discharge outlet and the development device, and configured to convey the developer in the developer housing container to the development device, and a motion providing device configured to provide a periodic motion to the developer housing container. The periodic motion is a circling motion, in which a trajectory of an arbitrary point of the developer housing container on a horizontal plane is at least one of circular and ellipsoidal trajectories, without a fixed rotation center on the horizontal plane.
US08611792B2

There is provided an opening/closing device for an upper unit case, including a pair of guide members formed of lower and upper guide members provided on lower and upper unit cases respectively, at least one of the lower and upper guide member being configured to be swingable in an up and down direction; a movable body which is connected movably to the lower and upper guide members and which has a rotary body installed in the movable body while being fitted rollably with respect to the lower and lower guide members; and a regulating mechanism which regulates swinging amount in the up and down direction of the at least one guide member configured to be swingable in the up and down direction.
US08611790B2

An image forming apparatus is provided which includes an image forming unit, a main body having a pair of frames, a pair of rollers, a belt which is endless, and a reinforcing member. The frames are disposed to sandwich the image forming unit therebetween. The rollers are spaced apart from each other such that an axial direction of each of the rollers extends in a direction perpendicular to the frames. The belt extends around the rollers. The reinforcing member is disposed in an area enclosed by the belt. One end of the reinforcing member is fixed to one of the frames, and the other end of the reinforcing member is fixed to the other one of the frames.
US08611785B2

A process cartridge and an image forming apparatus are provided. The process cartridge is detachably mountable in an apparatus body of the image forming apparatus, and includes a plurality of photosensitive drums, a first outer side plate which is provided on one side of the photosensitive drums in an axial direction of the photosensitive drum, a second outer side plate which is provided on the other side of the photosensitive drums in the axial direction, and opposes the first outer side plate with the photosensitive drums interposed therebetween, and a plurality of input parts which are provided on ends of the photosensitive drums at the one side, respectively. An end face of each of the input parts being provided inward with respect to the outer surface of the first outer side plate.
US08611782B2

An image forming device includes an image forming unit that includes a development agent container, a development device that supplies development agent in the development agent container to an electrostatic latent image on a photoconductive body and forms a development agent image on the photoconductive body, a transfer unit transferring, onto a sheet, the development agent image on the photoconductive body, and a fixing unit fixing the development agent image on the sheet, a feed tray disposed under the image forming unit, a pickup unit feeding a sheet placed on the feed tray toward the image forming unit in a U-turn manner, a first conveying path tilted to extend downward obliquely from the pickup unit, and a second conveying path tilted to extend toward the fixing unit obliquely from a continuous section between the first conveying path and the second conveying path.
US08611772B2

A recording medium imaging apparatus includes an irradiation unit configured to irradiate a recording medium with light, an imaging unit configured to capture reflected light which is irradiated by the irradiation unit and reflected by the recording medium as a surface image, and a reference plate which includes a background that reflects light irradiated by the irradiation unit, and a mark that has a different reflectance ratio to the background, wherein the imaging unit captures reflected light reflected by the reference plate as a surface image and includes a control unit that determines a type of the recording medium based on the surface image of the reference plate and the surface image of the recording medium.
US08611770B2

An image forming apparatus includes: a storage container which horizontally stores a waste toner; a full detection sensor which detects whether the waste toner reaches a full position; a near detection sensor which detects whether the waste toner reaches a near position; and a conveyance portion which is provided inside the storage container, includes an axial rod, and rotates about the axial rod, wherein the conveyance portion includes: a first spiral protrusion which conveys the waste toner to the near position; a second spiral protrusion which conveys the waste toner from the near position to the full position; and a third range which is provided between the first spiral protrusion and the second spiral protrusion and through which the waste toner passes at a speed lower than the conveyance speed of the first spiral protrusion and the second spiral protrusion.
US08611767B2

Disclosed is an image forming apparatus, which makes it possible to reduce the frequency of image defect occurrences to a level as lower as possible by detecting abnormalities generated with age on the photoreceptor member and/or in the cleaning section, so as to suppress an amount of spoiled paper sheets and material. The image forming apparatus includes: a light source that is disposed at a position located between a cleaning section and a charging section, to emit an inspection light, which is to be irradiated onto a photoreceptor member over a main-scanning direction thereof; a tight-contact type image sensor that has a line image sensor to receive the inspection light reflected from a surface of the photoreceptor member; and a control section to determine a status of a surface of the photoreceptor member, based on a result of analyzing the inspection light receive by the line image sensor.
US08611766B2

A replacement toner cartridge management apparatus is provided with: a receiver which receives first information indicating that a toner cartridge has been replaced with a new one and second information indicating that the remaining amount of toner contained in a toner cartridge reaches a predetermined value, from one or more than one image forming apparatus which the replacement toner cartridge management apparatus can access via a communication circuit; a determiner which determines the right type of a replacement toner cartridge to be loaded in place of the toner cartridge causing the first information or the second information, depending on which is received by the receiver, the first information or the second information; and a transmitter which outputs an instruction to deliver a replacement toner cartridge of the type determined by the determiner.
US08611764B2

An optical receiver module includes an optical receiver that receives and converts a plurality of optical signals depending on different polarized states into a plurality of electric signals, a bit error detector that detects a plurality of bit error rates from electric signals, a maximum value detector that detects a maximum bit error rate among bit error rates, a dispersion compensating controller that calculates a dispersion compensating value based on the maximum bit error rate, and a variable dispersion compensator that performs dispersion compensation against waveform degradation of received optical signals. Thus, it is possible to accurately search for an optimum dispersion compensating value in a transmission line susceptible to polarized dispersion. This makes it possible to stabilize dispersion compensating control on the optical receiver.
US08611763B2

A method (10) of compensating phase noise in a coherent optical communications network. The method comprises: receiving a traffic sample (12); receiving an optical carrier and determining a phase noise estimate for the optical carrier (14); and removing the phase noise estimate from the traffic sample to form a phase noise compensated traffic sample (16).
US08611762B2

A system and method are disclosed which compensate for chromatic dispersion and polarization mode dispersion in a digital signal. The signal is adjusted for chromatic dispersion in the frequency-domain. The signal is then converted to the time-domain and at least a portion of the signal is estimated to produce channel parameters. The channel parameters are converted to the frequency domain and used to compensate for polarization mode dispersion in the signal.
US08611760B2

An optical modulation device and method thereof is provided. The optical modulation device includes a decision circuit making a decision with respect to an input data signal in accordance with a timing of a first clock signal, a first modulator modulating light output based on the data signal by the decision circuit; a second modulator modulating the modulated light in accordance with a timing of a second clock signal; and delay controller delaying the first clock signal within a range of a phase margin of a decision circuit, and delaying the second clock signal, thereby controlling a state of a phase difference between the data signal and the second clock signal.
US08611758B2

A system for bi-directional data transmission includes a first array coupled to a first subsystem and a second array coupled to a second subsystem. The first array includes a first plurality of transmitters that produce first optical signals that are transmitted through free space, and a first plurality of receivers. The second array includes a second plurality of transmitters that produce second optical signals that are transmitted through free space to the first plurality of receivers, and a second plurality of receivers that is configured to receive the first optical signals. An image-forming apparatus is operatively positioned between the first and second arrays and is configured to concurrently form an image of the first plurality of transmitters on the second plurality of receivers and an image of the second plurality of transmitters on the first plurality of receivers.
US08611751B2

Systems, apparatus and method for modulating digital data onto an optical carrier to produce a modulated optical carrier in which symbol-modulated optical signals of orthogonal polarizations are temporally interleaved and adapted to be processed by electronic time-division demultiplexing to recover the digital data modulated onto the orthogonal polarizations of the optical signals.
US08611749B2

A reconfigurable optical switching device comprising a Tunable Filters Array (TFA) unit incorporating tunable optical filters, wherein the arrangement is such that one and the same TFA unit is utilized both for performing a drop function of the device in a colorless and reconfigurable manner, and a through function of the device in a reconfigurable manner.
US08611741B2

A method and memory medium in a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) network that communicates multiplexed signals representing a plurality of communication channels to determine received signal quality are disclosed. Generally, the signals format the plurality of communication channels to impart a distinctive noise profile in time or frequency for each channel; and collectively process the channels at a digital signal processing device to measure the signal-to-noise ratio.
US08611738B2

An image capturing apparatus includes an image sensor having a focus detection pixel group including a plurality of focus detection pixels that receive light passing through a part of a pupil area of an imaging lens for forming an object image and an image forming pixel group including a plurality of image forming pixels that receive light passing through the whole of the pupil area of the imaging lens; and an image processing unit that generates an image signal corresponding to the position of each of the focus detection pixels by using at least either of a signal of the focus detection pixel at the position and signals of neighboring image forming pixels of the focus detection pixel at the position, depending on the size of an aperture of the focus detection pixels.
US08611731B2

A digital television (DTV) transmitting system includes a first frame decoder, a second frame decoder, and a frame multiplexer. The first frame decoder forms first enhanced data frames, encodes each data frame for error correction, forms a first super frame by combining the encoded first frames, and interleaves the first super frame. The second frame decoder forms second enhanced data frames, encodes each data frame for error correction, forms a second super frame by combining the encoded second frames, and interleaves the second super frame. The frame multiplexer multiplexes the interleaved first and second enhanced data frames.
US08611729B2

A conversion apparatus and method is disclosed by which a file including data multiplexed therein can be edited or handled readily while maintaining the compatibility. A standard/independent conversion section converts a file of a standard AV multiplex format wherein video data and audio data are placed in a multiplexed state in a body into a file of an AV independent format wherein video data or audio data are placed collectively in a body. Meanwhile, an independent/standard conversion section converts a file of the AV independent formation into a file of the standard AV multiplex format.
US08611724B2

A computer readable medium is provided. The computer readable medium has recorded an information processing program for causing a computer to execute a function including: a still image extraction mechanism; a sound detection mechanism; a moving image editing point setting mechanism; a moving image editing point determination mechanism; a sound editing point setting mechanism; a text extraction mechanism for converting a voice sound into a text and extracting the text; a still image selection mechanism for selecting a still image outputted at a moving image editing point; and a combination mechanism for combining the text extracted by the text extraction mechanism into the still image.
US08611722B2

The invention provides a recording/reproduction apparatus and method as well as a recording medium wherein, when nondestructive editing is executed for an AV signal, the AV signal can be reproduced seamlessly without suffering from any interruption. Information representative of states (an A type, a C type, a D type, or an E type) of an IN point and an OUT point on a Clip, designated by a Playitem, of a Playlist in which at least more than one Playitems are arranged in the order of reproduction is described in a block Playitem( ).
US08611712B2

A rubber member optically connects (a) an optical transmission medium or an optical component and (b) another optical transmission medium or another optical component by intervening between the (a) and the (b). An adhesive connecting member comprises a rubber member having a refractive index of 1.35 to 1.55 and an adhesive having a refractive index of 1.35 to 1.55.
US08611708B2

An optical assembly is provided that can mitigate thermal damage that could otherwise occur in the region near where the optical fiber emerges from a high-power optical device package. The optical assembly includes an optical medium to guide stray light, along the fiber axis but substantially outside of the fiber core, from the interior to the exterior of a housing. The assembly further includes a transition region external to the housing, where at least one optical mode guided by the optical medium transitions to at least one optical mode confined by a polymer coating as a guided mode of the cladding. In embodiments, the optical medium is provided by the fiber cladding together with overlying materials of relatively low refractive index that help to confine the stray light within the cladding.
US08611704B2

A photoelectric conversion module includes: an IC chip and a photoelectric conversion element mounted on one surface of a circuit board having a light transmitting property and flexibility; an optical fiber having a tip portion disposed in a holding groove formed in a resin layer provided on another surface of the circuit board; a reinforcing member covering the holding groove; and an optical element optically coupling a tip of the optical fiber and the photoelectric conversion element via the circuit board. The holding groove has an open end at an end of the resin layer, the end of the resin layer being located on the IC chip side in terms of an arrangement direction of the IC chip and the photoelectric conversion element, and at least part of the tip portion of the optical fiber extends along the IC chip.
US08611695B1

An image processing server enhances an original image using image data from other images. The server generates global descriptors of a set of received images and creates an image data structure therefrom. The server also identifies a set of patches for each of the received images, generates descriptors of the patches, and generates a patch data structure therefrom. The image processing system identifies a patch in an original image for which enhancement is desired. The image processing server uses a global descriptor of the original image to search the image data structure for a set of related images that are visually similar to the original image. The image processing server uses a patch descriptor of the patch for which enhancement is desired to search the patch data structures for the related images to identify a set of patches that are visually similar to the patch in the original image.
US08611693B2

Various methods and apparatus for removing artifacts in frequency domain processing of light-field images are described. Methods for the reduction or removal of the artifacts are described that include methods that may be applied during frequency domain processing and a method that may be applied during post-processing of resultant angular views. The methods may be implemented in software as or in a light-field frequency domain processing module. The described methods include an oversampling method to determine the correct centers of slices, a phase multiplication method to determine the correct centers of slices, a method to exclude low-energy slices, and a cosmetic correction method.
US08611683B2

Computer-readable medium with image decoding program which performs: storing a reference image which is a previously decoded image; receiving coded information including motion vector and rounding method information specifying a rounding method used in synthesizing a prediction image of a currently decoded image; and synthesizing the prediction image via motion compensation using the motion vector information and reference image; wherein synthesizing a prediction image uses a positive and negative rounding method for interpolating intensity values of pixels; wherein interpolation of intensity values of pixels uses a rounding method specified by the rounding method information; wherein interpolation is performed using the rounding method specified by rounding method information included in the encoded bitstream of the current frame when the current frame is a P frame; and wherein the rounding method information is not received from the encoded bitstream of the current frame when the current frame is an I frame.
US08611676B2

The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a feature extraction method, a recording media, and a program that are adapted to easily and correctly extract features of classes in which a plurality of elements are classified. Of all combinations of metadata for each piece of content belonging to each class subject to feature extraction, a combination extraction block 83 extracts a metadata combination that does not exist in any metadata combinations for each piece of content belonging to another class, as the feature of the class in which a content classification block 81 classifies a plurality of pieces of content as instructed by the user. The present invention is applicable to recommendation systems.
US08611665B2

A technique for use in automated recognition of a media item involves accessing a template that includes multiple segmentation maps that each is associated with one of multiple classes to which the media item might belong. For each of the multiple classes, the segmentation map is applied to an image of the media item to extract a feature set for the image, the feature set is analyzed, and an assessment is made as to whether the media item belongs to the class.
US08611663B2

An information image includes a first, second, third, fourth and fifth pixel series which represent first, second, third, fourth and fifth information, respectively. The first and second information are successions of binary numbers 0 or 1. The first and third pixel series are series of pixel lumps arranged continuously as rows in a rectangle. The second and fourth pixel series are series of pixel lumps arranged continuously as columns in the rectangle. The row of the third pixel series is at a predetermined position with respect to that of the first pixel series. The column of the fourth pixel series is at a predetermined position with respect to that of the second pixel series. The fifth pixel series is a series of pixel lumps arranged in an area other than the rows and the columns of the first, second, third and fourth pixel series are arranged.
US08611662B2

A digital image is converted to a multiple level image, and multiple scale sets are formed from connected components of the multiple level image such that different ones of the scale sets define different size spatial bins. For each of the multiple scale sets there is generated a count of connected components extracted from the respective scale set for each spatial bin; and adjacent spatial bins which represent connected components are linked. Then the connected components from the different scale sets are merged and text line detection is performed on the merged connected components. In one embodiment each of the scale sets is a histogram, and prior to linking all bins with less than a predetermined count are filtered out; and each histogram is extended such that counts of adjacent horizontal and vertical bins are added (single region bins are filtered out) and the linking is on the extended histograms.
US08611659B2

In embodiments of the present invention improved capabilities are described for producing background separated product images for print and on-line display. An image formation system provides lighting of a product to facilitate acquiring images that can be automatically processed to generate high resolution item-only images free of quality defects and imaging artifacts. Image processing programs accurately detect an outline of an item in a set of digital images taken using the image formation system and automatically store processed images in an image library. The images in the library may be repurposed for print, sales display, transmission to a user, on-line customer support, and the like. A user display configured with an adaptable user interface facilitates user interaction with images in the library.
US08611655B2

Some embodiments provide a computer program for performing a color matching operation. The computer program identifies first and second images. Each image includes several pixels. Each pixel includes a hue component value. The computer program identifies a set of hue ranges for the first image based on analysis of the hue component values of pixels in the first image. The computer program identifies a set of hue ranges for the second image based on analysis of the hue component values of pixels in the second image. The computer program modifies pixel values of the first image to match pixel values of the second image based on the sets of hue ranges for the first and second images.
US08611637B2

Provided are novel methods and systems for inspecting photomasks to identify lithographically significant contamination defects. Inspection may be performed without a separate reference image provided from a database or another die. Inspection techniques described herein involve capturing one or more test images of a photomask and constructing corresponding test “simulation” images using specific lithographic and/or resist models. These test simulation images simulate printable and/or resist patterns of the inspected photomask. Furthermore, the initial test images are used in parallel operations to generate “synthetic” images. These images represent a defect-free photomask pattern. The synthetic images are then used for generating reference simulation images, which are similar to the test simulation images but are free from lithographically significant contamination defects. Finally, the reference simulation images are compared to the test simulation images to identify the lithographically significant contamination defects on the photomask.
US08611634B2

To quantify the aggregation ability of various types of blood cells respectively within a short period of time. An apparatus for achieving the above-described object, which includes: a TV camera for taking an image of blood flow; an image processing section for identifying the types of blood cells contained in a blood cell retention part, in which blood cells are retained, from a blood flow image taken by the TV camera; and an aggregation ability calculation device for calculating at least one of the area, cell count and position of blood cells of each type as the aggregation ability of blood.
US08611631B1

Methods, processes and systems of image reconstruction using variable filter length local tomography, for reconstructing internal body images in medical applications, and the like. Algorithm uses less radiation, less computer power than prior art, and without using iteration algorithms so that all target sizes from large to small can be reconstructed.
US08611628B2

When compensating for truncated patient scan data acquired by a multi-modal PET/CT or PET/MR imaging system (14, 16), such as occurs when a patient is larger than a field of view for an anatomical imaging device, a segmented contour of a non-attenuation-corrected (NAC) PET image is used to identify a contour of the truncated region. An appropriate tissue type is used to fill in truncated regions of a truncated CT or MR image for the attenuation map. The corrected attenuation map is then used to generate an attenuation-corrected PET image of the patient or a region of interest. Alternatively, the system can be employed in PET/CT or PET/MR imaging scenarios where two modalities are performed sequentially (e.g., not simultaneously), and thus the contour derived from the PET scan can be compared to the CT or MR image to infer potential subject motion between the PET and CT or MR scans. Additionally, the system can be employed in PET imaging scenarios where the contour derived from the NAC PET image is used as emission boundary for scatter correction using single-scatter simulation, in which a tail-fitting procedure utilizes an emission boundary to define pure-scatter tails (e.g., in the absence of true coincidence events).
US08611627B2

The present disclosure relates to the performing spectral calibration of a CT imaging system. In accordance with certain embodiments, spectral calibration phantoms are scanned while positioned on a table in the imaging volume of the CT imaging system. The scans of the calibration phantoms, in conjunction with air sans performed on the CT imaging system, are used to derive information about the deviation of the measured phantom scans from an ideal. The deviation information is in turn used to derive spectral calibration vectors that may be used with the CT imaging system.
US08611626B2

A system and method for projection number and radiation dose reduction in tomographic imaging that creates a three dimensional cross sectional image of an object by the reconstruction of its projections. Images of a superior quality can be obtained with a fewer number projections than seen with conventional methods by reconstruction of projections that have been pre-processed and preferably placed in the Fourier domain with a Fractional Fourier Transform (FrFT) or forward Pseudo-polar Fast Fourier transform (PPFFT). The projections are iteratively refined through formulation of a constrained optimization problem with constraints in object space and Fourier space preferably solved with a gradient descent algorithm incorporating a Bregman iterative regularization or a continuative regularization. By using an exact Fourier-based iterative algorithm as well as physical and mathematical constraints, convergence to a lowest-possible noise state that is also strictly consistent with the measured data can be obtained.
US08611617B1

An image similar to a target image is selected from among a set of candidate images. A set of image classifiers is first generated and used to create a fingerprint for each candidate image. A hash table is generated for each fingerprint segment, and an identifier for each candidate image is stored in each hash table based on the candidate image fingerprint value for the fingerprint segment associated with the hash table. A fingerprint is created for the target image using the set of classifiers. Segments of the target image fingerprints are compared to segments of the candidate image fingerprints using the hash table, and a candidate image similar to the target image is selected based on this comparison.
US08611614B2

An image taking unit including a lens array, a light shielding member, and an image taking unit that acquires a compound eye image of a vein pattern of a living body held at a lens array. A shift estimation unit estimates an image shift amount between ommatidium images of the compound eye image. An image restructuring unit restructures a single image from the compound eye image by using the image shift amount. In at least one embodiment, a size correction unit corrects the size of the restructured single image with a magnification ratio determined by the estimated image shift amount and an image shift amount stored in a registration pattern storage unit so as to correspond to a registration pattern. As a result, it is possible to perform personal authentication while compensating influences due to fluctuations in a subject distance.
US08611611B2

The present invention discloses a three dimensional human pose recognition method and apparatus, where the three dimensional human pose recognition method includes steps of: a three dimensional pose initial recognition step of performing three dimensional pose recognition on an input image containing a human image to obtain image-based three dimensional human pose information; a sensor information acquisition step of acquiring, by a motion sensor, motion information of human articulation points; and a three dimensional pose correction step of correcting, with the motion information acquired by the sensor information acquisition step, the image-based three dimensional human pose information recognized by the three dimensional pose initial recognition step. According to the technical solution of the invention, it is possible to improve accuracy of the three dimensional human pose recognition efficiently. Further, the present invention also discloses a three dimensional human pose recognition method and apparatus, in which three dimensional half-body pose recognition is proposed, thereby speed of three dimensional human pose recognition can be improved significantly while improving accuracy of three dimensional human pose recognition.
US08611609B2

A fixed data memory stores data of a normal lane width between lane lines and a narrow lane width between inner guide lines of double white lines. A lane-line candidate setting section detects lane-line detection points on both sides of a driving lane using a captured image, and sets lane-line candidate points on the opposite lane lines at spaces of the widths and therebetween, using the detection points as starting points. A curve approximation processing section sets virtual lines on both sides of the driving lane from a curve approximation equation obtained using the detection and candidate points. A lane-line position setting section obtains dispersions of the candidate points to the left and right virtual lines, and estimates the type of at least one of the left and right virtual lines.
US08611602B2

Methods and apparatus for robust video stabilization. A video stabilization technique applies a feature tracking technique to an input video sequence to generate feature trajectories. The technique applies a video partitioning technique to segment the input video sequence into factorization windows and transition windows. The technique smoothes the trajectories in each of the windows, in sequence. For factorization windows, a subspace-based optimization technique may be used. For transition windows, a direct track optimization technique that uses a similarity motion model may be used. The technique then determines and applies warping models to the frames in the video sequence. In at least some embodiments, the warping models may include a content-preserving warping model, a homography model, a similarity transform model, and a whole-frame translation model. The warped frames may then be cropped according to a cropping technique.
US08611598B2

A computer-implemented method of detecting objects in a path of a vehicle is provided. An image frame that depicts the path of the vehicle is obtained. An edge-image corresponding to the image frame is generated. A binary image corresponding to the edge-image is also generated. One or more blobs in the binary image that respectively correspond to one or more objects in the image frame are identified. Based on an analysis of the blobs in the binary image, a determination is made that one of the objects in the image frame is an obstacle in the path of the vehicle.
US08611594B2

This is directed to determining the relative position of several devices by capturing representations of the device environments in which a tag is located. The devices can compare the captured representations to determine a perspective of the tag corresponding to each device. In some cases, a device can determine an absolute position relative to a coordinate system integrated in a tag. Using the positioning information, several devices can receive directions to come together at a particular meeting point. In some cases, several devices can operate an application that requires the interaction of several users of the devices (e.g., multi-player games). The application can control the time or manner in which inputs are provided based on the relative positions of the devices. In some cases, the devices can display virtual content that is shared across several devices, where the different devices can each interact with the virtual content.
US08611585B2

A method for detecting a clear path of travel for a vehicle utilizing an image generated by a camera device located upon the vehicle includes monitoring the image, and generating a plurality of patches onto the image, wherein the patches are collectively arranged to substantially include the clear path of travel. Feature extraction is utilized to analyze the patches and includes convolving each of the patches with a feature detection filter generating a feature-based filter response, extracting features based upon the feature-based filter response, and determining each of the patches to represent the clear path of travel or to not represent the clear path of travel based upon the extracted features. The clear path of travel is determined based upon the plurality of patches, and is utilized to navigate the vehicle.
US08611584B2

A system and method for performing optical navigation selectively uses portions of captured frame of image data for cross-correlation for displacement estimation, which can reduce the power consumption and/or increase the tracking performance at higher speed usage.
US08611583B2

A loudspeaker assembly that converts electrical signal into sound waves in the full spectral range of an audio voltage. The loudspeaker assembly includes: a plurality of drivers; and a hollow volume permanent magnet that accommodates the voice coils. Each driver includes a cylindrically shaped voice coil affixed to a matching diaphragm. Each voice coil is configured coaxially in a cylindrical assembly, which is in electrical communication with an incoming audio voltage. Each driver is adapted to reciprocally move along the main longitudinal axis of each voice coil when stimulated by said incoming audio voltage.
US08611578B2

Disclosed is a charging cradle for a headset device, which includes a housing with a surface providing a mounting depression, and a cover with a transparent surface pivotably connected to the housing so as to open and close the mounting depression. The headset device is mounted in the mounting depression so as to charge an internal battery pack provided in the headset device. The cradle protects the headset device under charging, enabling the user to observe the charging state without opening it. An earphone cover for a headset device includes a projected semi-circular fixing ring for preventing the earphone from being removed from the ear. The earphone cover is provided in various sizes to fit a user's ear size, and may be rotated to change the rotational position of the fixing ring so as to enable the user to put the headset device selectively on the right or left ear.
US08611576B2

An acoustic adaptive noise generating device in the form of a flat panel loudspeaker is suitable for increasing people's powers of concentration in acoustically difficult surroundings. The adaptive noise generating device includes a carrier panel, an actuator arranged on the carrier panel. A control device is connected to the actuator and permits adjustment of noise signals emitted by the actuator.
US08611575B1

The disclosure relates to a concealed speaker system, specifically a system that is not readily visible in a room. The speaker system is comprised of a base frame that is adapted to be mounted between support members of a wall. The concealed speaker system further has a speaker assembly mounted to the base frame and an active member formed of PVC that has an outer surface which is substantially coplanar with the surrounding wall section, and in one form extends slightly outward therefrom. The base frame, speaker assembly, and the active member cooperate to form an acoustic chamber that is positioned behind the inner surface of the active member. Acoustic energy is transferred from the speaker assembly to the active member where the sound is produced therefrom to the room.
US08611563B2

A system for facilitating access to multiple layer media items over communication network. The system comprises a media database which is used for storing multiple layer media items as independently accessible channels. The system further comprises plurality of subscriber applications which are connecting via a communication network, e.g. The Internet, to the media database. Users can use the subscriber application to access to each channel of the multiple layer media items independently.
US08611561B2

An external audio signal is input to an input terminal which is connected to the first terminal of a first resistor. The first terminal of a second resistor is connected to the second terminal of the first resistor. An operational amplifier is arranged such that its inverting input terminal is connected to the second terminal of the second resistor, and a reference voltage is applied to its non-inverting input terminal. A third resistor is arranged between the output terminal and the inverting input terminal of the operational amplifier. A first diode is arranged between the second terminal of the first resistor and a power supply terminal such that its cathode is on the power supply terminal side. Furthermore, a second diode is arranged between the second terminal of the first resistor and the ground such that its cathode is on the second terminal side of the first resistor.
US08611560B2

Methods and devices for voice operated control are provided. The method can include measuring an ambient sound received from at least one Ambient Sound Microphone, measuring an internal sound received from at least one Ear Canal Microphone, detecting a spoken voice from a wearer of the earpiece based on an analysis of the ambient sound and the internal sound, and controlling at least one voice operation of the earpiece if the presence of spoken voice is detected. The analysis can be a sound pressure level (SPL) difference, a correlation, a coherence, or a spectral difference.
US08611558B2

A method and system is presented for sampling analog signals in a manner that avoids the effects of signal clipping due to a limited dynamic range. A method and device for sampling an analog input using multiple gains, or gain mask, is described. By using different gains during different time quanta, a subset of the sampled points may effectively be attenuated before being sampled and converted to a digital representation. If clipping occurs during the sampling process, the true values of the clipped samples may be interpolated using the amplitudes of the non-clipped samples, which may not have been attenuated. Such interpolation may include constructing and/or solving a constraint optimization problem using linear programming. In one embodiment, such a problem may be constructed and/or solved by using sign information from the clipped samples and/or by imposing a sparsity assumption on the signals during the reconstruction process.
US08611557B2

A method and apparatus for introducing a time-varying time delay randomly into the individual reproduction channels of a sound recording, two in the case of binaural presentation. This emulates the temporal aspect of microphone and/or listener motion. The present invention may be applied as a unidirectional process. No preparation of the source material is required. It can be applied to any multichannel audio signal set. It can process analog or digital signals. The process may be used with headphones, loudspeakers, hearing aids or similar assistive hearing devices.
US08611556B2

The specification and drawings present a new method, apparatus and software product for calibrating multiple microphones (e.g., a microphone array) to match their sensitivity using an ambient noise by creating and updating one or more calibration signal level difference histograms.
US08611553B2

Apparatus and method of an ANR circuit detecting instances of instability in at least the provision of feedback-based ANR, monitoring audio that includes feedback anti-noise sounds for acoustic output by an acoustic driver for a sound having characteristics indicative of instability including at least a frequency within a range of frequencies and an amplitude reaching at least a predetermined minimum amplitude, and perhaps also a sinusoidal waveform.
US08611552B1

Robust feedforward active noise cancellation is provided which can overcome or substantially alleviate problems associated with the diverse and dynamic nature of the surrounding acoustic environment. A multi-faceted analysis is performed to determine the direction (or directions) of propagation of noise in the surrounding acoustic environment. The direction of propagation is then utilized to determine direction-dependent characteristics of the acoustic path between a reference position where the noise is captured and a desired position where the noise is to be cancelled. These characteristics are used to form a feedforward signal adapted to cancel the noise at the desired position. By forming the feedforward signal based on direction-dependent characteristics of the acoustic path, the techniques described herein can achieve optimal noise cancellation at the desired location, regardless of the direction of propagation of the noise.
US08611545B2

A surround system includes a decoder that decodes an encoded audio data stream, a decorrelation unit that receives and decorrelates stereo signals decoded by the decoder so as to generate surround signals having a low-correlation component, an addition unit that adds high-correlation-component signals extracted from the stereo signals to the surround signals generated by the decorrelation unit, and a controller that controls addition of the high-correlation-component signals performed by the addition unit on the basis of the bit rate of the audio data stream.
US08611541B2

Methods and devices are provided for applying a ciphering configuration in a wireless communication network. The method includes initiating an entity reset procedure by a first entity in the wireless communication network; synchronizing Hyper Frame Numbers (HFNs) associated with the first entity and a second entity, respectively, during the entity reset procedure; and applying a new ciphering configuration by the first entity and the second entity, upon completing the entity reset procedure, without updating the synchronized HFNs associated with the first entity and the second network, respectively.
US08611540B2

An improved system and method are disclosed for peer-to-peer communications. In one example, the method enables endpoints to securely send and receive messages to one another within a hybrid peer-to-peer environment.
US08611524B2

Embodiments of the present invention disclose a method for call routing, including receiving routing request information sent by computer telephony integration. The routing request information carries customer media information. Customer requirement quality of service is calculated according to the customer media information, and an agent is selected corresponding to the customer requirement quality of service according to the customer requirement quality of service to make a service capability of the agent match a network quality requirement, thereby improving the quality of service.
US08611520B2

The present invention comprises a method for audio/video conferencing. In a preferred embodiment, the method comprises using a dynamic threshold value to determine whether there is speech on a line. One aspect, the method comprises determining a dynamic threshold value based on one or more characteristics of signals received on a port, associating that dynamic threshold value with the port; and comparing one or more characteristics of signals subsequently received on the port to the dynamic threshold value. Signals received over a plurality of ports are summed, but for ports whose signal characteristics have a specified relationship to the dynamic threshold value associated with that port, signals are not contained in the sum.
US08611511B2

A contact number encapsulation system is disclosed that is operable to consolidate a plurality of contact numbers associated with a given user into a single contact number. The system includes a call processing application that uses information contained in a message header to determine a list of contact numbers to call. The message header contains a call destination indication that is used by the call processing application to retrieve the list of contact numbers. The list of contact numbers is user defined and may be updated or modified by an account holder at any given time. Once the list of contact numbers is obtained, a simultaneous call module is used to simultaneously call each number. The account holder only needs to provide the primary contact number to individuals desiring to reach them instead of various numbers that are associated with locations the account holder may be located.
US08611508B2

A telephone call is established between a local telephone (110) associated with a local party and a remote telephone (104) associated with a remote party. The local telephone (110) receives a voice signal from the remote telephone (104) responsive to establishing the telephone call. The voice signal represents directory assistance information, a name, a phone number or directions provided by the remote party. The local telephone (110) stores the voice signal in a memory unit (212) in the local telephone (110) responsive to receiving the voice signal. The local telephone (110) converts the voice signal to a text signal responsive to storing the voice signal. The local telephone (110) stores the text signal in the memory unit (214) in the local telephone (110) responsive to converting the voice signal to a text signal. The local telephone (110) edits the stored text signal in the memory unit responsive to storing the text signal. The local telephone (110) correlates the remote party's identity with the stored voice and/or text signal responsive to storing the voice and/or text signal. The local telephone (110) uses the stored edited text signal to make a new telephone call or to transfer the stored edited text signal to another electronic device.
US08611496B2

A radiation treatment system that can apply radiation to a respiratory moving organ (such as, a lung, a liver or the like) with high precision is provided. A radiation treatment system according to the present invention as solving means is characterized in that when medical treatment target position information obtained by executing pattern matching processing on the inside of each frame of a fluoroscopic X-ray image for detecting a medical treatment target position achieved under medical treatment on the basis of a template image of an area containing a medical treatment target position of a patient, which is achieved in advance, is within a predetermined error range with respect to the medical treatment target position information based on the template image, and also a timing is an application timing of medical treatment radiation which is set on the basis of motion information of a body surface, a signal for applying medical treatment radiation is generated; and in the other cases, a signal for stopping the application is generated, whereby the application of the medical treatment radiation is controlled on the basis of these signals.
US08611489B2

A spectral processor (118) includes a first processing channel (120) that generates a first spectral signal derived from a detector signal, wherein the first spectral signal includes first spectral information about the detector signal, and a second processing channel (120) that generates a second spectral signal derived from the detector signal, wherein the second spectral signal includes second spectral information about the detector signal, wherein the first and second spectral signals are used to spectrally resolve the detector signal, and wherein the detector signal is indicative of detected polychromatic radiation.
US08611475B2

A channel estimation method for use with a received signal by a receiver is disclosed. The received signal comprises multiple data bursts which are transmitted to the receiver via multiple path channels, with each of the data bursts having a plurality of preamble symbols which are decoded. The channel estimation method includes the following steps: firstly, at least one correlation pattern is generated according to the decoded preamble symbols. Then, a cross correlation of the correlation pattern with the received signal is performed to yield at least one correlation result of channel impulse response (CIR). Wherein, the symbol boundary of the received signal is decided according to the correlation result.
US08611469B2

In a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system, multiple receive antennas produce a received signal vector, Y, which includes an element for each of the receive antennas. In an embodiment of a de-mapping method performed within a MIMO receiver, a quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) search is performed within a search space that includes the full constellation of symbol points. Based on the results of the QPSK search, the search space is reduced to fewer than all of the quadrants, and the received signal vector data is scaled and transformed to the reduced search space. A lower-level QPSK search is performed, and the process is repeated until the modulation order is reduced to a QPSK constellation. Hard or soft decisions corresponding to the search results may then be passed to a decoder.
US08611451B1

A method of operation in a receive circuit is disclosed. The method comprises entering an initialization mode followed by receiving training data from a lossy signaling path. The training data originates from a transmit circuit. The received training data is sampled and minimax transmit equalizer coefficients are generated based on the sampled data. The minimax transmit equalizer coefficients are then transmitted back to the transmit circuit. The initialization mode is exited and an operating mode initiated, where transmit data precoded by the minimax transmit equalizer coefficients is received.
US08611449B2

A method for wireless network communication is provided. The method comprises determining, by a transmitter including a quantity of antennas, a quantity of transmitted layers; mapping a quantity of data symbols to the antennas using a quantity of precoders; generating a quantity of demodulation reference signal (DMRS) antenna ports based on the quantities of the antennas, the transmitted layers, and the precoders; and determining whether to precode at least one of the DMRS antenna ports with the precoders. The method further maps the precoded data symbols and the DMRS antenna ports to a quantity of resource elements. The method then modulates a signal comprising the resource elements and transmits the modulated signal to a receiver. Subsequently, the method estimates a channel received by the receiver over the DMRS antenna ports.
US08611441B2

The present invention relates to a transmission interference cancellation method for a multiuser MIMO system. The method includes decomposing a channel matrix to represent formulae of permutation matrixes including a first matrix and a second matrix; determining an optimal permutation matrix among a plurality of available permutation matrixes using a norm of multiplication of the second matrix and a transmitting data vector; and determining the second matrix using the determined optimal permutation matrix and calculating a transmitting precoding vector using the determined second matrix and the transmitting data vector.
US08611429B2

A digital broadcasting transmission and/or reception system having an improved reception performance and a signal-processing method thereof. A digital broadcasting transmitter comprises a TRS encoder for to TRS-encode an MPEG-2 transmission stream having null data for inserting an SRS data and a TRS parity at predetermined positions, randomizer to input and randomize data stream from the TRS encoder, a SRS exchanger to replace the null data for inserting the SRS data to the known data, and an encoder for encoding a data streams to which the Known data is inserted. Accordingly, the present invention detects the known data from a signal received from a reception side and uses the detected known data for synchronization and equalization and further uses the TRS parity for correcting error of the received signal, so that the digital broadcasting reception performance can be improved at poor multipath channels.
US08611428B1

An example embodiment of the present invention provides a process for inserting a source media stream into a target media stream, which media streams might be in container file format. The process opens and reads into memory structural information from a target media stream and structural information from a source media stream. The process then finds the nearest prior key frame to an insertion time and splits a chunk of media samples if the key frame's sample is not at the beginning of a chunk. The process adjusts the structural information for both streams in order to effect the mid-roll insertion of the source media stream into the target media stream. The process then writes onto an output media stream the adjusted structural information for the source and target media streams and then pipes onto the output media stream the media data for the source and target media streams.
US08611414B2

A video signal encoder includes a pre-processor adapted to select a portion of an input video signal and partition the portion into partitions, a first transformer adapted to transform the partitions from a first domain into a second domain, a selector adapted to select representative values from the respective partitions of the second domain, a collector adapted to collect the representative values to form a representative group of values, and a first encoding unit adapted to encode the representative group.
US08611407B2

According to various embodiments, apparatus and methods disclosed herein include computing phase error of a received signal based on an estimate of a first component (e.g., in-phase component) of a transmitted signal and an analytic representation of the estimate of the first component of the transmitted signal. The analytic representation of the estimate of the first component of the transmitted signal may represent an estimate of a second component (e.g., quadrature phase component) of the transmitted signal. The analytic representation of the estimated first component may be computed using at least one of a Hilbert transform or Fourier transform on the estimated first component of the transmitted signal.
US08611406B2

Communication system optimization using a soft receiver masking technique is disclosed. For example, a method for testing a communication device comprises obtaining a software representation of a receiver portion of a given communication device. A data signal received from a transmitter through a given link channel is then processed, wherein the processing step is performed using the software representation of the receiver portion of the communication device. An output signal is caused to be generated by the software representation of the receiver portion. An eye mask test is then applied to the output signal. Based on a result of the eye mask test, one or more parameters of the transmitter may be adjusted.
US08611401B2

In a millimeter-wave radar, full-duplex operation comprises identifying a leakage signal in a digital baseband received signal, estimating the leakage signal, synthesizing an estimated leakage signal, and subtracting the estimated leakage signal from the digital baseband received signal. The time interval during which the leakage signal occurs may be measured, and samples of the digital baseband received signal within the time interval are masked to remove the leakage.
US08611399B2

Methods, systems, and apparatuses, including computer programs encoded on computer-readable media, for receiving a timing signal at a first access point, wherein the timing signal is also received at a second access point. A first time is synchronized at the first access point with a second time at the second access point based upon the received timing signal. The first access point is configured with a spreading code and a transmit frequency. The second access point is also configured with the spreading code and the transmit frequency. The spreading code of the first access point is synchronized with the spreading code of the second access point using the timing signal. A message is transmitted from the first access point to the node and from the second access point to the node.
US08611398B2

A MIMO receiver for processing N data streams received by N antennas for a direct-sequence spread-spectrum wireless communication system comprising a linear equalizer operating at the chip level for performing linear chip level Inter-Chip Interference and all Inter-Stream Interference cancellation of said N data streams, and generating N output chip level data streams; de-spreading blocks for separately de-spreading the N outputs of the linear equalizer; and a non linear detector for performing spatial equalization and multi-stream detection.
US08611393B2

This disclosure is directed to widen an adjustable range of the spectral linewidth of laser light output from a laser apparatus. This laser apparatus may include: (1) an excitation source configured to excite a laser medium in a laser gain space, (2) an optical resonator including an output coupler arranged on one side of an optical path through the laser gain space and a wavelength dispersion element arranged on the other side of the optical path through the laser gain space, and (3) a switching mechanism configured to switch a beam-width magnification or reduction factor by placing or removing at least one beam-width change optical system for expanding or reducing a beam width in or from an optical path between the laser gain space and the wavelength dispersion element or by inverting orientation of the at least one beam-width change optical system in the optical path.
US08611392B2

In one embodiment, a semiconductor laser includes a semiconductor laminated body formed in a ring shape and first and second electrodes. The semiconductor laminated body includes an active layer, first and second cladding layers formed on both sides of the active layer, first and second contact layers formed on the first and second cladding layers, and first and second modified layers. The first and second modified layers are formed by selectively modifying the inner peripheral sidewalls and the outer peripheral sidewalls of the first and second cladding layers so as to have a refractive index lower than the refractive indexes of the first and second cladding layers. The first and second contact layers are electrically connected to the first and second electrodes.
US08611382B2

It is an object of the invention to simplify the power stabilization of laser diodes. For this purpose, a laser device comprising a die and thereon a first laser diode and a second laser diode is provided. The second laser diode has a structure or element that avoids lasing if a supply voltage is applied that is sufficient for the first semiconductor laser cavity to emit laser light.
US08611381B2

A laser oscillator control device includes a controller having a transmitter section and a receiver section; a laser oscillator having a transmitter section and a receiver section and communicating with the controller via a communication line; wherein the laser oscillator control device outputs a control signal from the controller to the laser oscillator, based on a status signal indicating operational state of the laser oscillator sent from the laser oscillator to the controller. The controller has an alternating signal transmitter circuit that generates an alternating signal that changes at a predetermined period, and sends this alternating signal to the laser oscillator, and the laser oscillator has a return signal transmitter circuit which generates a return signal that changes periodically in correspondence to the alternating signal from the controller, and sends this return signal to the controller. Furthermore, the controller has a monitoring circuit monitoring the return signal from the laser oscillator, and if it determines that there is an abnormality in the return signal, outputs a stop control signal for stopping laser beam irradiation by the laser oscillator.
US08611379B2

A programmable frequency receiver includes a slicer for receiving data at a first frequency, a de-multiplexer for de-multiplexing the data at a second frequency, a programmable clock generator for generating a clock at the first frequency, and first and second resonant clock amplifiers for amplifying clock signals at the first and second frequencies. The resonant clock amplifiers include an inductor having a low Q value, allowing them to amplify clock signals over the programmable frequency range of the receiver. The second resonant clock amplifier includes digitally tunable delay elements to delay and center the amplified clock signal of the second frequency in the data window at the interface between the slicer and the de-multiplexer. The delay elements can be capacitors. A calibration circuit adjusts capacitive elements within a master clock generator to generate a master clock at the first frequency.
US08611374B2

The present invention relates to a protocol data unit (PDU) reordering method in a wireless communication system. The terminal maintains the number of bytes of PDUs stored in the buffer for reordering PDUs received in a sequence that is changed due to HARQ error correction to thereby prevent overflow of the reordering buffer. When the HARQ function unit transmits a PDU received at the radio access control RAS (S101), the PDU reordering unit of the access terminal sets a current frame number as an arrival frame number of the received PDU (S102). When a current frame number is stored as an arrival frame number of a received frame, the PDU reordering unit compares a sequence number (SN) of a received PDU with a sequence number of a PDU that is about to be reordered (S 103). If the PDU has already been reordered, the received PDU is discarded (S 104). Else, the PDU reordering unit calculates an average size of a buffer that is required for storing the received PDU by using a moving average calculation equation (S 105).
US08611368B2

Disclosed is an apparatus which operates to substantially evenly distribute commands and/or data packets issued from a managed program or other entity over a given time period. The even distribution of these commands or data packets minimizes congestion in critical resources such as memory, I/O devices and/or the bus for transferring the data between source and destination. Any unmanaged commands or data packets are treated as in conventional technology.
US08611366B2

A method includes receiving a token over a token line at a first control module and, in response to receiving the token, receiving a first address. The first control module is configured to control one or more first actuators. The method also includes using the first address for communications over a communication line and identifying a second address. The method further includes providing the token over the token line to a second control module, where the second control module is configured to control one or more second actuators. In addition, the method includes providing the second address to the second control module in response to the second control module receiving the token.
US08611365B2

An Ethernet link may comprise silent and active channels and may support energy efficient Ethernet communication. Training parameters from the one or more active channels may be utilized for determining and/or adjusting training parameters for silent channels prior to activation. Training parameters for silent channels may be determined based on copying training parameters from active channels. Determination of training parameters for silent channels may be based on a weighted average of the active channel training parameters. A delta between active channel training parameters from a prior time and subsequent time may be utilized to determine a correction factor for adjusting training parameters for a silent channel from a prior time. Silent channels may be adjusted based on active channel training parameters and then subsequently may be trained. Training parameters may be adjusted for one or more of an echo canceller, a near-end crosstalk canceller and a far-end canceller.
US08611358B2

A method for mobile computer networking on a distributed network includes, with a network element of a local network, establishing a connection to a mobile client device, determining a home network of the mobile client device without using a logical address of a packet of data from the mobile client device, and forwarding network traffic from the mobile client device to a home network of the mobile client device in response to determining that the home network is not the local network.
US08611352B2

An apparatus for forwarding packets includes a packet processing pipeline having a processing unit that processes packets compliant with a recognized communication protocol. A first port coupled to the packet processing pipeline is configured to receive a packet that does not comply with the recognized communication protocol and has a header that conforms to a second communication protocol. A data extraction unit extracts first destination information from the header of the packet and, based on the first destination information, generates second destination information that conforms to the recognized communication protocol. The processing unit determines, based on the second destination information, an egress interface to which the packet is to be forwarded.
US08611349B1

Methods and apparatus for Internet-scale routing using small-scale border routers and IP tunneling are described. Each border router is directly connected to a transit provider. Routing protocol peerings may be passed via the border routers through tunnels to a routing service; the routing service and the transit provider router(s) appear to be directly adjacent routing peers. The routing service receives routing data from the transit provider(s), maintains the routing data in a routing table, and processes the routing data in the routing table to select best paths. A mapping service may be informed, by the routing service, of a best exit point (or points) for each Internet prefix of each packet to be routed on the Internet. Outbound packets from devices on the network to the Internet, and inbound packets from the Internet to the network devices, may be encapsulated and passed through tunnels as directed by the mapping service.
US08611344B2

A method and an apparatus for providing multi-homing to an aggregate endpoint device over a network are disclosed. In one embodiment, the method receives a session request directed towards a user endpoint device by a routing device. The method receives at least one Public User Identity (PUID) for the user endpoint device if the session request is for a subscriber of a service with multi-homing via an aggregate endpoint device. The method selects a route for sending the session request in accordance with the at least one PUID and a route priority information of the PUID associated with the user end point device, wherein the route with a highest priority is selected, and forwards the session request via the selected route.
US08611341B2

The objective of the present invention is to provide a lower main device capable of connecting a non-IP terminal such as a digital terminal to an upper main device using an IP network and of accommodating call control. The lower main device behaves as one or more IP terminals toward the upper main device and houses one or more non-IP terminals which each correspond to the one or more IP terminals.
US08611334B2

The present invention provides systems and methods for presenting a multimedia object to a handset in conjunction with voice call from a circuit switched (CS) network. The voice call is delivered over the CS network and the multimedia object is delivered over a packet-switched (PS) network. The multimedia object can be rendered as a voice call alert, during the voice call, or after the voice call. The multimedia object can be an advertisement object and can be provided by a third party. The systems and methods described are applicable to IMS and non-IMS networks.
US08611333B2

A system and method of managing adjustment of synchronization timing for handover of a mobile relay is disclosed. The method includes repositioning coverage of the mobile relay from a first network access point to a second network access point and adjusting a synchronization timing of the mobile relay in an asynchronous network of the wireless communication system.
US08611332B2

A communication apparatus comprises a processing information acquiring unit to acquire a processing delay time, a transmission information acquiring unit to acquire each transmission delay time, a collecting unit to collect each arrival time from nodes onward from each of the subordinated nodes, a calculating unit to calculate the time after distribution data is received by the self-node until it arrives at each of the terminals as the arrival time from the home node onward for each of the nodes through which the distribution data is routed based on the processing delay time, the transmission delay times, and each the arrival time from the node onward, and a transmission control unit to control the transmission timing of the distribution data to at least one of the nodes based on the arrival times from the home node onward for each of the nodes.
US08611328B2

A communication terminal for Internet telephony is provided that handles and control communication of data in accordance with a standardized network protocol and exchanges data with a connecting unit connected to the Internet where the resulting data exchanged between the terminal and a connecting unit consist of packets in a standardized protocol data packet format embedded in a wireless format. This provides a communications terminal which uses a network or the Internet for the transfer of digitized speech, etc., thereby achieving great economic savings. Also, the flexibility is increased with respect to wireless communication with the network or the Internet without any need for specialized equipment and functionality.
US08611315B2

A communication device has a plurality of operation modes and a plurality of communication modes. The plurality of communication modes includes a first communication mode, in which a terminal station in a wireless network carries out communications via a control station, and a second communication mode, in which a plurality of terminal stations carry out communications with each other directly without an intervening control station. The communication device connects to at least one other communication device either in the first communication mode or the second communication mode, and switches an operation mode when a communication mode is switched.
US08611310B2

Techniques to improve the acquisition process in a spread spectrum environment. The signals from different CDMA systems are spread with different sets of PN sequences, with the PN sequences in each set being uncorrelated to the PN sequences in the other sets. The mobile station can attempt to acquire the pilot signal by processing the received signal with a first set of PN sequences corresponding to a first hypothesis of the particular signal being acquired. If acquisition of the pilot signal fails, a second set of PN sequences corresponding to a second hypothesis is selected and used to process the received signal. The PN sequences in the second set are uncorrelated to the PN sequences in the first set.
US08611306B2

Systems and methodologies are described that facilitate fetching a native security context between network nodes in a core network after an inter-system handover of a mobile device. For instance, a mobility message that is integrity protected by a security context (e.g., the native security context, a mapped security context, . . . ) can be obtained at a network node from the mobile device. Further, the network node can send a request to a disparate network node within a core network. The request can include information that can be used by the disparate network node to establish that the mobile device is authenticated. Moreover, the native security context can be received from the disparate network node in response to the request. Accordingly, the native security context need not be recreated between the network node and the mobile device.
US08611305B2

Techniques for improving the capacity of a wireless communications system using interference cancellation (IC). In an early decoding and IC aspect, a frame transmitted from a user to a base station may be decoded prior to the entire frame being received by the base station. The remaining portion of the frame may then be re-constructed at the base station prior to its reception, and cancelled from the receive signal to reduce the interference to frames received from other users. In a power control aspect for early decoding and IC, the power control target level at a local base station may be adjusted in response to successfully early decoding a frame, without affecting the overall outer loop power control operation. Further aspects include late decoding techniques for utilizing the IC of other users' signals to improve the probability of decoding a given user's frames, as well as techniques for traffic channel demodulation using channel re-estimation.
US08611304B2

A method for forwarding data during cell handover includes: forwarding, by a source base station, user plane data of Packet Data Convergence Protocol, PDCP, data units that have not been transmitted to a User Equipment, UE, to a target base station in a PDCP layer during cell handover. In addition, embodiments of the present invention further provide a system and devices for forwarding data during cell handover. In the method, a system and base stations are provided by the present invention, the data that have not been transmitted are forwarded in a layered manner respectively in at least one of the PDCP layer and RLC layer. Therefore, data transmission during cell handover is implemented and data loss due to the handover is avoided.
US08611298B2

A method for selecting a channel for an access point (AP) in a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN). The method includes the AP receiving network conditions of APs within the sensing range of a terminal sent by the terminal, and the AP selecting a channel based on the received network conditions. By forwarding the network conditions of other APs which can be detected by the terminal, the method of the present invention enables an AP to select a channel from the view of a terminal to avoid conflicts at the terminal, thereby improving the available bandwidth of the terminal, and giving a better experience to users.
US08611292B2

A method and an apparatus for Dynamic Station Enablement (DSE) procedure in a wireless local area network system are disclosed. For a method of enabling a dependent station to operate within a white space as an unlicensed device by an enabling station, the method comprises: transmitting, from the enabling station to the dependent station, an enabling signal to permit the dependent station to operate within a TV white space; transmitting, from the enabling station to the dependent station, a white space map element which indicates an available channel list in the TV white space such that the dependent station operates only within the available channels identified by the white space map element, wherein the white space map element is transmitted via one of a beacon frame, a probe response frame and a white space map announcement frame; and exchanging a DSE (dynamic station enablement) related message between the enabling station and the dependent station on one or more of the available channels identified by the white space map element.
US08611286B2

In a method of improved channel-dependent time- and frequency-domain scheduling in an OFDM based telecommunication system with multiple user terminals, determining SO a parameter value representative of the system load; pre-selecting SI a subset of user terminals if the determined parameter value is larger than or equal to a predetermined threshold; and performing S2 frequency-domain scheduling of the pre-selected subset, to reduce the downlink signaling overhead and enabling improved efficiency of the channel-dependent time- and frequency-domain scheduling.
US08611285B2

A method of processing video data with an electronic equipment where the video data is available from a time-sliced data stream having video data corresponding to each of a plurality of channels. The method includes receiving video data corresponding to one of the channels from the plurality of channels that is currently selected by the user and driving a display in accordance with the video data corresponding to the currently selected channel, and predicting which one of the remaining channels from the plurality of channels that the user may next select. Video data corresponding to the predicted channel is received and buffered to improve switching time from the currently selected channel to the predicted next channel.
US08611282B2

Disclosed in a method for a terminal to receive a downlink signal in a multi user MIMO (MU-MIMO) wireless communication system. More specifically, the method comprises the steps of: receiving downlink control information (DCI) from a base station; obtaining a parameter for a downlink demodulating-reference signal (DM-RS) included in the downlink control information; receiving the downlink DM-RS specified to the terminal on the basis of the parameter; and receiving a downlink data signal on the basis of the downlink DM-RS specified in the terminal, wherein the parameter includes information on a rank which is set in the terminal and a logical antenna port in which the downlink DM-RS is defined.
US08611281B2

A method for transmitting ACK/NACK signal in a wireless communication system applied carrier aggregation is disclosed herein. More specifically, the method includes receiving multiple transmission blocks respectively through multiple downlink component carriers from a base station, determining ACK/NACK responses corresponding to each of the multiple transmission blocks by decoding the multiple transmission blocks, mapping the ACK/NACK responses to a ACK/NACK state information, and transmitting the ACK/NACK state information through a single uplink component carrier, wherein ACK information included in the ACK/NACK state information indicates a number of ACK response among the ACK/NACK responses.
US08611278B2

A mobile device, base stations, a backhaul network device for a wireless network system, and a method and a computer program storage product for the mobile device are provided. Each of the base stations is connected to the backhaul network device via a wired connection. The mobile device selects a primary base station and a backup base station from the base stations according to base station information of each base station. The mobile device performs a data transmission procedure with the primary base station during an available interval of a low-duty mode to communicate with the backhaul network device via the primary base station, and performs a connection keeping procedure with the backup base station during an unavailable interval of the low-duty mode. While the data transmission procedure fails, the mobile device performs a data transmission recovery procedure with the backup base station immediately so as to continuously communicate with the backhaul network device via the backup base station.
US08611275B2

Embodiments of methods and apparatus for providing an integrated multi-hop routing and cooperative diversity system are generally described herein. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.
US08611272B1

A do not disturb (DND) mode for telephonic devices, in which the DND mode is automatically deactivated after a time increment has elapsed, the DND mode having been activated based on detecting, upon receiving a telephone call, a selection of the control.
US08611265B2

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide techniques for processing a HARQ data burst and/or a HARQ ACK message in the event a HARQ ACK message falls within a scanning or an unavailable interval of an MS. For certain embodiments, a HARQ ACK message may be postponed if it falls within the scanning or the unavailable interval of the mobile station. For certain embodiments, the HARQ data burst transmission may be postponed if the corresponding HARQ ACK message falls within a scanning or an unavailable interval of the mobile station. For certain embodiments, the HARQ ACK may be transmitted or received even if it falls within the scanning or the unavailable interval of the mobile station. However, the HARQ ACK message may not be processed during the scanning/unavailable interval.
US08611264B2

A method for transmitting data includes: acquiring a Multicast and Broadcast Service Mapping Information Element (MBS_MAP_IE) and MBS data corresponding to the MBS_MAP_IE; wherein the MBS_MAP_IE carries a parameter for indicating the frame position of the next MBS_MAP_IE; setting a sleep duration according to the parameter for indicating the frame position of the next MBS_MAP_IE; and acquiring the next MBS_MAP_IE and MBS data corresponding to the next MBS_MAP_IE when the sleep duration expires. By applying the present invention, it is unnecessary for a mobile terminal to receive an MBS mapping message, so that the sleep duration of the mobile terminal is increased and thus the power consumption of the mobile terminal is reduced.
US08611261B2

A method to control channel signaling between elements in a wireless network (e.g., a UE and a network node) is described. The method includes making a first assignment by assigning a first resource to a UE for single AN signaling. Making a second assignment by assigning a second resource to the UE for multi-bit AN signaling in conjunction with the single AN signaling is also included in the method. A resource block reserved for sending dynamic AN feedback includes the first resource and the second resource. The method includes providing (e.g., via a transmitter) an indication of the first assignment and the second assignment Apparatus and computer readable media are also described.
US08611260B2

A distance estimation system is disclosed for estimating a distance between two electronic devices. The system includes a power adjustable transmitter that is capable of having its power level adjusted between successive transmissions of packets of data, a remote device that is remote from the power adjustable transmitter for receiving the packets of data, and a distance estimation unit. The distance estimation unit is for generating a distance estimation signal responsive to the packets of data received at the remote device such that the distance estimation signal is associated with a power level at which the power level adjustable transmitter is not able to sufficiently transmit the packets of data to the remote device.
US08611257B1

Aspects of the disclosure provide a method for reducing power consumption in a network switch. The method includes detecting a traffic load on a network link system coupled to the network switch. The network switch can include a first power consumption configuration providing a first link capacity for the network link system, and a second power consumption configuration, which is lower than the first power consumption configuration, providing a second link capacity that is lower than the first link capacity. The method further includes determining whether the traffic load on the network link is lower than a first boundary threshold, and reconfiguring the network switch from the first power consumption configuration into the second power consumption configuration if the traffic load is lower than the first boundary threshold.
US08611246B2

To perform scheduling for improving throughput, while suppressing control information amounts notified from communication terminal apparatuses. A communication terminal apparatus (200) that is provided with a receiving section (220) that receives a control signal from the communication control apparatus, a reception quality measuring section (250) that measures reception quality of each of the channels, a reception quality information generating section (260) which selects part of channels as selection channels from the plurality of channels, and generates reception quality information to notify the communication-destination apparatus of selection channel information for identifying selected selection channels and reception quality measurement results in the selected selection channels, and a transmitting section (290) that transmits the generated reception quality information to the communication control apparatus, wherein the receiving section (220) receives a data signal assigned to at least one channel contained in the selection channels from the communication control apparatus (100).
US08611245B2

A first network client requests initiation of a data transfer with a second network client. An admission control facility (ACF) responds to the initiation request by performing admission analysis to determine whether to initiate the data transfer. The ACF sends one or more packets to the second network client. In response, the second network client sends acknowledgment packets back to the ACF. The ACF performs admission analysis based on the packets sent and the acknowledgment packets, and determines whether the data transfer should be initiated based on the analysis. The admission analysis may be based on a variety of factors, such as the average time to receive an acknowledgment for each packet, the variance of the time to receive an acknowledgment for each packet, a combination of these factors, or a combination of these and other factors.
US08611240B2

A wireless network, such as an LTE (“Long-Term Evolution”) network, may be configured to monitor a communications interface to set an inactivity timer that, in turn, sets the operating mode of a communications interface. The operating mode may comprise a time-domain reception pattern of the wireless device. A wireless device may monitor a communications interface that includes at least a first logical channel (for example for a first application) and a second logical channel (for example for a second application). Based on monitoring the communications interface, a first activity state for the first logical channel may be determined. Also, based on monitoring the communications interface, a second activity state (e.g., an activity status) for the second logical channel may be determined. An inactivity timer used by the communications interface may be set to a first value or a second value based on the first and second activity states. The battery life of a wireless device may be preserved by setting an inactivity timer responsive to the manner in which the wireless device is being used.
US08611233B2

A system and method in accordance with exemplary embodiments may receive, from a management system, configuration data associated with a management protocol. In addition, the system and method may generate test data traffic at least based on the configuration data. Further, the system and method may transmit, to one or more network elements, the test data traffic. Even further, the system and method may receive, from the management system, a query associated with the management protocol that requests data traffic information associated with at least one of the generated test data traffic, transmitted test data traffic, and received test data traffic. The system and method may transmit, to the management system, the requested data traffic information in response to the query.
US08611218B2

A method includes determining a first aggregate received power level of an orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) signal received at a first network node, adjusting a nominal PHY Margin an amount that is dependent upon a measurement of an aggregate received power level of the OFDM signal, determining a data transmission rate based on the adjusted nominal PHY Margin, and receiving data being transmitted in accordance with the data transmission rate at the first node.
US08611209B2

A mechanism provides autonomic recovery for a breakout appliance at the edge of a mobile data network from a variety of errors using a combination of hardware, software and network recovery actions. The recovery actions proceed upon a sliding scale depending on the severity of the problem to achieve the goals of minimizing disruption to traffic flowing through the NodeB while also maintaining an acceptable cost of ownership/maintenance of the system by automatically recovering from as many problems as possible. The error recovery functions within the breakout system hide the error recovery complexities from the management system upstream in the mobile data network. For critical, non-recoverable errors, the autonomic recovery mechanism works in conjunction with a fail-to-wire module to remove the breakout system in the event of a failure in such a way that the mobile data network functions as if the breakout system is no longer present.
US08611207B2

A data transmitter is provided. The data transmitter is configured to transmit reception data and copy data of the reception data to the outside via respective separate ports. The data transmitter includes an identification information attaching unit configured to attach, to the reception data, identification information identifying the reception data, a reception data copying unit configured to copy the reception data with the identification information attached thereto, a data calculation unit configured to perform the same calculation operation on the reception data with the identification data attached thereto and the copy data copied by the reception copying unit, and an identity determiner unit configured to determine whether the reception data with the identification data attached thereto is identical to the copy data, based on the identification data and the calculation results of the data calculation operation.
US08611203B2

In a wireless access network, a transmitter provides a pool of sequences having a reduced peak-to-average power ratio. Information to be transmitted is mapped to a selected at least one of the pool of sequences. The selected at least one sequence is transmitted over an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA)-based wireless link of the wireless access network.
US08611197B2

Provided is an optical write device and method. The optical recording method includes generating a first signal including a preset write pulse power Pm in response to information to be written, generating a second signal including an over drive pulse power Po that is synchronized with the preset write pulse power Pm and which is at a higher level than the preset write pulse power Pm, and writing the information to an optical disc using a driving signal that is obtained by synthesizing the first and second signals.
US08611195B2

An apparatus generates outgoing data (OD) to be provided on an optical disk (1) in a burst cutting area (2). The burst cutting area (2) further comprises markings (3) which cause a marking frequency spectrum (MFS) when reading out the burst cutting area (2). The apparatus comprises a channel coder (4) which receives processed data (PD) and supplies the outgoing data (OD) having an outgoing data frequency spectrum (DFS) with suppressed DC-content. The apparatus further comprises a data processing device (5) which generates the processed data (PD) to obtain an outgoing frequency spectrum (DFS) wherein a frequency component causing interference with a low frequent component of the markings (3) is suppressed or not present.
US08611189B2

A water pillow for coupling acoustic energy into tissue. The pillow is configured to conform to a transducer to facilitate coupling of ultrasound energy. The pillow includes a pouch that accommodates the transducer to enable a snug fit between the pillow and the transducer. The pillow includes a liquid inlet and outlet to facilitate liquid circulation for cooling, is biocompatible, has a low attenuation, is conformal to the shape of the transducer, facilitates use of an adjustable pressure to achieve various standoffs, includes an integral pouch to facilitate an interference fit to the transducer, facilitates water circulation for cooling, is sterilizable, and is disposable. Either the surface of the pillow adapted to conform to a tissue interface, or the surface of the pillow adapted to conform to the transducer, or both, can include pores configured to weep liquid to facilitate acoustic coupling of the pillow with the transducer and/or tissue.
US08611188B2

The invention relates to a method and a device for locating at least one object, in which a) a microphone device of the at least one object at least one acoustic signal of at least one acoustic source is received, b) the temporal profile of the at least one acoustic signal is automatically searched by a data processing device by the means of pre-defined criteria for at least one pattern, whereby c) the at least one pattern is an onset of the at least one acoustic signal or comprises an onset of the at least one acoustic signal and d) the localization of the at least one object occurs in dependency of the reception of the pattern by the means of a time synchronization.
US08611186B2

According to one embodiment, a sound image localization apparatus includes following units. The first signal generating unit is configured to generate a first acoustic signal. The first speaker is configured to generate a first sound according to the first acoustic signal. The input unit is configured to input a localization magnification n. The first control filter unit is configured to adjust the first acoustic signal with a first control filter G1 calculated based on the input localization magnification n to generate a first adjusted acoustic signal. The second control filter unit is configured to adjust the first acoustic signal with a second control filter G2 calculated based on the input localization magnification n to generate a second adjusted acoustic signal. The second and third speakers are configured to generate second and third sounds according to the first and second adjusted acoustic signals, respectively.
US08611184B2

A method and apparatus for a method for generating an estimated value of absorption parameter Q(t). In one embodiment, the method includes receiving an input seismic trace, applying a time variant Fourier transform to the input seismic trace to generate a time variant amplitude spectrum of the input seismic trace, dividing the natural logarithm of the time variant amplitude spectrum by −πf, and performing a power series approximation to the result with an index starting from one to generate an estimated value of R(t). R(t) is a ratio between traveltime t and the absorption parameter Q(t). The method further includes dividing t by R(t) to generate the estimated value of the absorption parameter Q(t).
US08611181B2

Embodiments described herein relate to an apparatus and method of transferring seismic equipment to and from a marine vessel and subsurface location. In one embodiment, a marine vessel is provided. The marine vessel includes a deck having a plurality of seismic sensor devices stored thereon, two remotely operated vehicles, each comprising a seismic sensor storage compartment, and a seismic sensor transfer device comprising a container for transfer of one or more of the seismic sensor devices from the vessel to the sensor storage compartment of at least one of the two remotely operated vehicles.
US08611177B2

For example, a semiconductor device includes a first latency counter, which selects whether to give an odd-cycle latency to an internal command signal; and a second latency counter, which gives a latency to an internal command signal at intervals of two cycles. The latency counters are connected in series. Since the number of bits in control information, which is used to set a latency, is smaller than the types of settable latency as a result, it is possible to reduce wiring density.
US08611175B2

A memory arrangement includes a plurality of memory blocks, a first group of access ports, and a second group of access ports. Routing circuitry couples each pair of the first and second groups of access ports to a respective one of the memory blocks. Each pair includes a first access port from the first group and a second access port from the second group. The first access port has write access to a first portion of the respective memory blocks but not to a second portion of the memory block, and has read access to the second portion but not to the first portion. The second access port has write access to the second portion but not to the first portion, and has read access to the first portion but not to the second portion.
US08611168B2

A memory device includes a command decoder and control interface logic. One or more external inputs, such as row and column address strobes, communicate with the command decoder through the control interface logic. A control signal is also in communication with the control interface logic. During operation of a drowsy mode in the memory device, a self-refresh signal causes the control signal to disable the external inputs. With the external inputs disabled, command hazards are reduced when exiting drowsy mode.
US08611161B2

A system includes integrated circuit chip including a first buffer configured to receive signals and a second buffer configured to receive signals, wherein the first buffer receives signals of a higher frequency than the second buffer, a controller chip configured to control the integrated circuit chip, an I/O channel formed between the controller chip and the integrated circuit chip to transfer a first signal and a second speed signal, wherein the first signal has a higher frequency than the second signal, and a status channel formed between the controller chip and the integrated circuit chip to transfer at least one status signal, wherein the integrated circuit chip is configured to select one of the first buffer and the second buffer and actives the selected buffer in response to the at least one status signal and receive a signal transferred through the I/O channel.
US08611158B2

FLASH memory device contains at least one memory stack. The stack of transistors includes a first (or source) selector transistor, a second (or drain) selector transistor, and a plurality memory cell transistors connected in series therebetween. During an erase operation, each of the first and second selector transistors has a bias applied that releases the select transistors from an electrically floating state together with biasing each of the memory cell transistors.
US08611149B2

A solid state drive is adapted to receive and transmit analog data signals representative of bit patterns of three or more levels (such as to facilitate increases in data transfer rates relative to devices communicating data signals indicative of individual bits). Programming of the solid state drive, including an array of non-volatile memory cells, might include adjusting the level of each memory cell being programmed in response to a desired performance level of a controller circuit.
US08611148B2

In a programming operation, selected storage elements on a selected word line are programmed while unselected storage elements on the selected word line are inhibited from programming by channel boosting. To provide a sufficient but not excessive level of boosting, the amount of boosting can be set based on a data state of the unselected storage element. A greater amount of boosting can be provided for a lower data state which represents a lower threshold voltage and hence is more vulnerable to program disturb. A common boosting scheme can be used for groups of multiple data states. The amount of boosting can be set by adjusting the timing and magnitude of voltages used for a channel pre-charge operation and for pass voltages which are applied to word lines. In one approach, stepped pass voltages on unselected word lines can be used to adjust boosting for channels with selected data states.
US08611142B2

An example magnetic recording device includes a laminated body. The laminated body includes a first ferromagnetic layer with a magnetization substantially fixed in a first direction; a second ferromagnetic layer with a variable magnetization direction; a first nonmagnetic layer disposed between the first ferromagnetic layer and the second ferromagnetic layer; a third ferromagnetic layer with a variable magnetization direction; and a fourth ferromagnetic layer with a magnetization substantially fixed in a second direction, wherein at least one of the first and second direction is generally perpendicular to the film plane. The magnetization direction of the second ferromagnetic layer is determinable in response to the orientation of a current, by passing the current in a direction generally perpendicular to the film plane of the layers of the laminated body and the magnetization of the third ferromagnetic layer is able to undergo precession by passing the current.
US08611137B2

Integrated circuits with memory elements are provided. An integrated circuit may include logic circuitry formed in a first portion having complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) devices and may include at least a portion of the memory elements and associated memory circuitry formed in a second portion having nano-electromechanical (NEM) relay devices. The NEM and CMOS devices may be interconnected through vias in a dielectric stack. Devices in the first and second portions may receive respective power supply voltages. In one suitable arrangement, the memory elements may include two relay switches that provide nonvolatile storage characteristics and soft error upset (SEU) immunity. In another suitable arrangement, the memory elements may include first and second cross-coupled inverting circuits. The first inverting circuit may include relay switches, whereas the second inverting circuit includes only CMOS transistors. Memory elements configured in this way may be used to provide volatile storage characteristics and SEU immunity.
US08611133B2

A stateful negative differential resistance device includes a first conductive electrode and a second conductive electrode. The device also includes a first material with a reversible, nonvolatile resistance that changes based on applied electrical energy and a second material comprising a differential resistance that is negative in a locally active region. The first material and second material are sandwiched between the first conductive electrode and second conductive electrode. A method for using a stateful NDR device includes applying programming energy to the stateful NDR device to set a state of the stateful NDR device to a predetermined state and removing electrical power from the stateful NDR device. Power-up energy is applied to the stateful NDR device such that the stateful NDR device returns to the predetermined state.
US08611129B2

An operation method of a semiconductor device, includes providing one or more memory elements each including a first semiconductor layer of a first conductivity type, second and third semiconductor layers of a second conductivity type, which are disposed to be separated from each other in the first semiconductor layer, a first electrode electrically connected to the second semiconductor layer, and a second electrode electrically connected to the third semiconductor layer, and performing operation of writing information on a memory element to be driven of the one or more memory elements. The operation of writing is performed by forming a filament in a region between the second and third semiconductor layers, which is a conductive path electrically linking these semiconductor layers, through application of a voltage equal to or higher than a predetermined threshold between the first electrode and the second electrode.
US08611125B2

A packaged integrated circuit device includes a substrate, and a conductive pad and a chip stack on the substrate. A primary conductive line electrically connects the pad on the substrate to a conductive pad on one of the chips in the chip stack. Secondary conductive lines electrically connect the pad on the one of the chips to respective conductive pads on ones of the chips above and below the one of the chips in the chip stack. The primary conductive line may be configured to transmit a signal from the pad on the substrate to the pad on the one of the chips in the chip stack, and the secondary conductive lines may be configured to transmit the signal from the one of the chips to the ones of the chips thereabove and therebelow at a same time.
US08611114B2

A method for controlling an inverter having at least two phase modules having respective upper and lower valve branches with at least three two-pole subsystems connected in series, includes in the event of failure of at least one subsystem in a faulty valve branch of a defective phase module the following method steps: a) identifying the faulty a defective upper or lower valve branch in the identified defective phase module in which one or more subsystems have failed; b) controlling a terminal voltage of the one or more failed subsystems in the faulty valve branch so as to be permanently zero; and c) controlling in each of the upper and lower fault-free valve branches having fault-free subsystems a number of fault-free subsystems corresponding to the one or more failed subsystems such that their terminal voltages of the controlled fault-free subsystems terminal voltages are permanently zero.
US08611113B2

A Voltage Source Converter has a series connection of switching assemblies, in which each switching assembly has an electrically conducting plate member carrying a plurality of semiconductor chips each having at least a semiconductor device of turn-off and a free-wheeling diode connected in parallel therewith. Said chips are connected in parallel with each other by each being connected by at least one individual conductor member to a said plate member of an adjacent switching assembly of said series connection. Each switching assembly has a mechanical switch configured to be open under normal operation of the switching assembly and configured to enable connection of said plate member of the switching assembly to the plate member of an adjacent switching assembly for bypassing said semiconductor chips of the switching assembly to which the mechanical switch belongs in the case of occurrence of a short circuit current through a semiconductor chip of the switching assembly.
US08611096B2

This invention is directed to a support plate for reinforcing a portion of a circuit board. The support plate may be coupled to a portion of the circuit board that is subject to forces (e.g., portions of the circuit board having switches) to prevent flexing of the board. The support plate may be coupled to the circuit board. This invention is also directed to a switch constructed from a button, a label plate, and a backer plate. The label plate and the backer plate may include apertures operative to receive a protrusion extending from the button, where the protrusion is welded to the backer plate. Labels may be printed or attached to the bottom surface of the label plate to protect the labels. In some embodiments, the protrusion may be welded to the backer plate. The protrusion may be operative to engage an electrical switch of an electronic device in which the switch is placed.
US08611094B2

Provided is an optical module in which wiring density may be reduced to ensure isolation between lines to reduce crosstalk. A flexible printed circuit includes: dielectric layers; a first pattern facing portion including a first ground conductor pattern and a first wiring pattern electrically connected to an electric terminal, which are facing each other through the dielectric layer; and a second pattern facing portion including a second ground conductor pattern and a second wiring pattern electrically connected to the electric terminal, which are facing each other through the dielectric layer, the second pattern facing portion facing the first pattern facing portion, in which when the dielectric layer is bent along a portion between the first pattern facing portion and the second pattern facing portion, at least one of the first ground conductor pattern and the second ground conductor pattern is located between the first wiring pattern and the second wiring pattern.
US08611085B2

An electronic device includes a main body, a cover, and a latching mechanism latching the cover to the main body. The latching mechanism includes a latching assembly and a hook assembly secured to the cover. The latching assembly includes at least one latching member slidably received in the main body. The hook assembly includes at least one hook member. The at least one hook member engages with the at least one latching member to latch the cover to the main body, and disengages from the at least one latching member allowing the cover to unlatch from the main body. The at least one hook member is hidden in the cover when the cover is unlatched from the main body, and extends out of the cover engaging with the at least one latching member latching the cover to the main body. A latching mechanism is also provided.
US08611083B2

Provided is a system and method of circulating a cooling fluid in a cooling system. For example, provided is a system, comprising a modular unit configured to mount into a computer drive bay, comprising a pump and a reservoir, configured to gravity feed a fluid to the pump, wherein the reservoir is positioned at least partially directly above the pump.
US08611081B2

A foldable fixing apparatus for fixing a hard disk drive includes a handle and two collapsible arms. The handle includes a sidewall. Each collapsible arm includes a fixing arm and a pivot arm. First ends of the fixing arms are rotatably connected to opposite ends of the sidewall. The pivot arms are rotatably connected to second ends of the fixing arms opposite to the first ends. When the pivot arms are pivoted to fold to the corresponding fixing arms, the collapsible arms are capable of being folded to the handle. When the fixing arms are rotated to be perpendicular to the sidewall of the handle, and the pivot arms are unfolded from, and aligned with, the corresponding fixing arms, the hard disk drive is capable of being mounted between the collapsible arms.
US08611076B2

A multi-positional stand and under-cabinet mount for a tablet computer comprising a mounting plate, a hinge member, a base member, a hinge pin, 2 cam-actuated handles, a base mount and an attachment knob. The mounting plate can be temporarily coupled to the center of the back of a tablet computer with hook-and-loop (or similar) two-part, fastening material (of prior art). The mounting plate can be rotationally attached to the flat face on the top front of the hinge member allowing the attached tablet computer to rotate. The bottom of the hinge member can be pivotally attached to the front of the base member with the hinge pin oriented horizontally allowing the recline angle of said tablet computer to be adjusted. The angular position of the hinge member and base member can be locked in place, in any one of an infinite number of angular positions within a range, by the manipulation of the 2 cam-actuated handles. The hinge member can fold down on top of the base member and the cam actuated handles can fold towards the base member for a compact, portable configuration. The base mount can attach to the bottom of a cabinet or shelf with screws. The stand can be temporarily mounted to the base mount (in an upside-down position) with an attachment knob and can be manipulated, touch, rotated, tilted left or right, or forward and back, or fully retracted underneath the cabinet or shelf.
US08611074B2

A mechanism for adjusting the orientation of a user interface of an electronic system component from a rack mounted orientation to a tower orientation.
US08611071B2

A power supply structure of a multi-power-supply system which is electrically connected to at least one power supply to get an output power provided by the power supply. The multi-power-supply system includes a power integration back panel and a casing. The power integration back panel is electrically connected to a DC output port and has at least one output cord to receive the power provided by the power supply. The casing has a housing compartment to hold the power integration back panel, an opening for loading the power supply into the housing compartment, and at least one partition to divide the housing compartment to form a space to hold the power supply, a wiring space threaded through by the output cord, and a power supply port exposed outside the surface of the casing to electrically connect to the output cord.
US08611068B2

A multilayer polymer dielectric film includes a coextruded first dielectric layer and second dielectric layer. The first dielectric includes a first polymer material and the second dielectric layer includes a second polymer material. The first dielectric layer and the second dielectric layer defining an interface between the layers that delocalizes charges in the layers.
US08611065B2

A method and a device for automatic positive and negative ion balance control in a bipolar ion generator. The method may include applying bias voltage from a bias voltage source to a bias electrode from a power supply that includes an AC voltage generator and a voltage multiplying circuit of at least one cascade. The method may also include controlling a bias current flowing through the bias electrode for the purpose of stabilization of that current, wherein the step of controlling of the bias current is performed during charging of a capacitor in the voltage multiplying circuit.
US08611064B2

A magnetization apparatus includes a power supply unit, an energy storage element and a voltage clamp unit. The power supply unit generates at least one exciting signal to excite at least a coil of a magnetic field generating apparatus. The voltage clamp unit has a clamping voltage. The voltage level of the clamp voltage is higher than the voltage level of the exciting signal, and lower than the rated voltage of the energy storage element. When the exciting signal turns to a low voltage level, the voltage clamp unit controls the voltage level of the energy storage element to be less than or equal to the voltage level of the clamp voltage. This configuration with the voltage clamp unit can extend the lifetime of the energy storage element and reduce the energy loss to enhance the efficiency.
US08611063B2

Devices, such as mobile devices, may be exposed to short circuit and output overload events. To protect against such events, mobile devices typically include circuitry to limit currents so as not to exceed a pre-programmed current limit. Various embodiments of the present invention include devices and methods for detecting pre-programmed current limits and for limiting currents in response to such detection. In some embodiments, both the current limit detector and the current limit controller circuitry include scaled current switches. The scaling may be substantially similar between the programmed-current limit detector and the current limit controller circuitry.
US08611059B2

A high voltage device includes a high voltage transistor and a protection device. The high voltage transistor has a first end and a second end, in which the first end is coupled to a voltage input/output terminal. The protection device is coupled between the second end of the high voltage transistor and a ground terminal, and has a parasitical equivalent circuit. When the voltage input/output terminal is charged based on positive ESD charges, the current corresponding to the positive ESD charges flows from the voltage input/output terminal through the high voltage transistor and the equivalent circuit in the protection device toward the ground terminal. A power management circuit is also disclosed herein.
US08611053B2

A current-perpendicular-to-the-plane giant magnetoresistance (CPP-GMR) sensor has a multilayer reference layer containing a Heusler alloy. The multilayer reference layer may be a simple pinned layer or the AP2 layer of an antiparallel (AP)-pinned structure. The multilayer reference layer is formed of a crystalline non-Heusler alloy ferromagnetic layer on either an antiferromagnetic layer (in a simple pinned structure) or an antiparallel coupling (APC) layer (in an AP-pinned structure), a Heusler alloy layer adjacent the sensor's nonmagnetic electrically conducting spacer layer, and an intermediate substantially non-crystalline X-containing layer between the crystalline non-Heusler alloy layer and the Heusler alloy layer. The element X is selected from one or more of tantalum (Ta), hafnium (Hf), niobium (Nb) and boron (B).
US08611048B2

An apparatus for receiving and positioning a read/write head to a disk and related methods are disclosed. The apparatus includes: a deck; a spindle on the deck; a safety enclosure surrounding at least the spindle; and a movable carriage having at least one head receiving portion. The carriage is movable between a first position wherein the head receiving portion is outside the safety enclosure and a second position wherein the head receiving portion is inside the safety enclosure. The apparatus further includes an automated mechanism arranged to pick up the head from the head receiving portion when in the second position and to load the head to the disk for testing.
US08611046B2

A perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) head is fabricated with a pole tip shielded laterally by a graded side shield that is conformal to the shape of the pole tip at an upper portion of the shield but not conformal to the pole tip at a lower portion. The shield includes a trailing shield, that is conformal to the trailing edge of the pole tip and may include a leading edge shield that magnetically connects two bottom ends of the graded side shield.
US08611038B2

A tape drive system according to one embodiment includes a magnetic head having at least one servo sensor; a tape motion controller; a fine actuator; a skew actuator; a coarse actuator; and a control. The control is configured to perform various operations that help account for vibrations that effect track-following a servo track when operating a tape drive. Additional systems, methods and computer program products are also described.
US08611035B1

A proximity sensor is described including a capacitor formed by a first conductive element and a second conductive element. The first conductive element and the second conductive element are situated at a magnetic head, a slider that connects to the magnetic head, a reader of the magnetic head, a writer of the magnetic head, a reader shield of the magnetic head, or a writer shield of the magnetic head. A capacitance and a fringing electric field are formed by the capacitor when there is a voltage difference between the first conductive element and the second conductive element. The capacitor is situated such that the fringing electric field changes with a positioning change of a magnetic storage medium with respect to at least one of the first conductive element and the second conductive element. The capacitor is also situated such that the capacitance changes with the fringing electric field change.
US08611034B2

A magnetic recording device includes a magnetic disk and a magnetic head that performs magnetic recording to the magnetic disk. The magnetic head includes a main magnetic pole layer and a microwave generating element. The magnetic recording device further includes a microwave generating element driving current control circuit. The microwave generating element driving current control circuit, during the magnetic recording, applies a microwave generating element driving current at a first current level to the microwave generating element for a period that is from at the latest a polarity reversal of the recording current before a subsequent polarity reversal of the recording voltage, and thereafter applies another microwave generating element driving current at a second current level, which is smaller than the first current level, to the microwave generating element, or stops the application of the another microwave generating element driving current until the polarity reversal of the recording voltage.
US08611033B2

Various embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for data processing. As an example, a data processing circuit is disclosed that includes: a data detector circuit, a data decoder circuit, and a multi-path circuit. The data detector circuit is operable to apply a data detection algorithm to a data input and a decoder output to yield a detected output. The data decoder circuit is operable to apply a decoding algorithm to a decoder input to yield the decoder output and a status input. The multi-path circuit is operable to provide the decoder input based at least in part on the detected output and the status input.
US08611032B2

Embodiments described herein include systems and methods for correcting for errors caused by disturbances to disk drives, such as disturbances due to shocks or vibrations incident on the drive. For example, systems and methods described herein advantageously correct for corruption to current data as well as previously written. Data may be rewritten in the current track that was being written to when the disturbance occurred, and may also be rewritten to one or more nearby previously written tracks, such as one or more adjacent tracks. According to some aspects, the direction of head deviation is used to select the appropriate corrective action.
US08611031B1

A data storage device may comprise a disk comprising a plurality of zones, each comprising a plurality of data tracks, a head having a reader spaced away from a writer by a gap, and a controller. The controller may be configured to, upon detecting a media defect in one of the zones: determine a width of data tracks in the zone in which the media defect is detected; calculate a minimum number of contiguous tracks in the zone in which the media defect is detected whose aggregate width is at least as great as the gap between the reader and writer; and margin the detected media defect with a number of tracks immediately adjacent to the detected media defect that is at least equal to the calculated minimum number of contiguous tracks.
US08611030B2

An optical imaging assembly having cylindrical symmetry, comprising a plurality of lenses having surfaces with curvatures and spacings between the surfaces, such that an optical image formed by the plurality of lenses has a defocus aberration coefficient greater than 0.1 at a focal plane of the assembly.
US08611027B2

Disclosed herein is a wide display with a lens. The lens is provided on the front of a display unit so that a display unit protection member which is provided on the perimeter of the display unit can be optically hidden by an optical illusion effect induced by the lens and without changing the structure of the display unit. Further, an image displayed on the display unit can look smoother, and the image can be displayed in such a way that it looks wider. Moreover, the present invention can improve the satisfaction of customers who want to increase the size of an image displayed on the display unit. Furthermore, the present invention can reduce the burden of an enormous investment in equipment that is required to produce display units due to the recent trend of increasing size.
US08611026B2

An optical device includes a substrate. a non-planar transparent structure on a first surface of the substrate, the non-planar transparent structure being made of a first material, and a molded refractive surface on the first surface of the substrate adjacent the non-planar transparent structure, the molded refractive surface being made of a second material, different from the first material.
US08611025B2

An optical system for imaging an object on an image acquisition unit includes a first lens unit, a second lens unit, a third lens unit, a fourth lens unit, a fifth lens unit, and a sixth lens unit disposed from the object in the direction of the image acquisition unit. The second lens unit is manufactured from a material whose deviation of the relative partial dispersion fulfills the condition: Δθg F>0.025. The third lens unit is manufactured from a material whose deviation of the relative partial dispersion fulfills the condition: Δθg F<−0.0015. The fifth lens unit is manufactured from a material whose deviation of the relative partial dispersion fulfills the condition: Δθg F<−0.005. According to the disclosed system, the secondary spectrum is reduced and a relative aperture is sufficient so that the optical system is usable in a telescopic sight.
US08611019B2

A zoom lens system comprising a negative first lens unit, a positive second lens unit, a negative third lens unit, and a positive fourth lens unit, wherein the first lens unit and the third lens unit move along an optical axis, and the fourth lens unit is fixed with respect to an image surface in zooming, the third lens unit moves along the optical axis in focusing, and the conditions: 0.0<|M3/fW|<0.5 and 0.2<|f3/f4|<1.0 (M3: an amount of movement of the third lens unit in zooming, f3: a composite focal length of the third lens unit, f4: a composite focal length of the fourth lens unit, fW: a focal length of the entire system at a wide-angle limit) are satisfied.
US08611014B2

In a slab waveguide which expands an image-bearing pupil into a visible image, reflective edge surfaces are used to redirect once-diffracted light back through the same grating structure. The number of separate grating structures thereby can be reduced to two or even one, compared to three in the prior art.
US08611007B2

A fine pitch wire grid polarizer can have a pitch of less than 80 nanometers and a protective layer on the wires, by anisotropically etching the wire grid polarizer to form two parallel, elongated rods substantially located at corners where the wires contacted the substrate. The rods can be polarizing elements. A wire grid polarizer can have a repeated pattern of groups of parallel elongated wires disposed over a substrate. Each group of elongated wires comprises at least three wires. At least one wire at an interior of each group can be taller by more than about 10 nm than outermost wires of each group. Wires of a wire grid polarizer can be a byproduct of an etch reaction. A multi-step wire grid polarizer can comprise a base with a plurality of parallel multi-step ribs disposed on the base and a coating disposed along vertical surfaces of the steps.
US08611000B2

An electro-optical display device includes a first substrate having an pixel electrode, a light-transmissive second substrate having a light-transmissive counter electrode, an electrophoretic layer interposed between the first substrate and the second substrate and having a liquid dispersion, a partition wall that defines a plurality of reservoirs containing the dispersion and a light-transmissive sealing layer that is provided between the partition wall and the counter electrode so as to seal the dispersion, and a light-transmissive hot melt conductive adhesive layer provided between the sealing layer and the counter electrode.
US08610994B1

Optical devices, phased array systems and methods of phase-shifting an input signal are provided. An optical device includes a microresonator and a waveguide for receiving an input optical signal. The waveguide includes a segment coupled to the microresonator with a coupling coefficient such that the waveguide is overcoupled to the microresonator. The microresonator receives the input optical signal via the waveguide and phase-shifts the input optical signal to form an output optical signal. The output optical signal is coupled into the waveguide via the microresonator and transmitted by the waveguide. At an operating point of the optical device, the coupling coefficient is selected to reduce a change in an amplitude of the output optical signal and to increase a change in a phase of the output optical signal, relative to the input optical signal.
US08610993B2

A light control device 1 includes a light source 10, a prism 20, a spatial light modulator 30, a drive unit 31, a control unit 32, a lens 41, an aperture 42, and a lens 43. The spatial light modulator 30 is a phase modulating spatial light modulator, includes a plurality of two-dimensionally arrayed pixels, is capable of phase modulation in each of these pixels in a range of 4π, and presents a phase pattern to modulate the phase of light in each of the pixels. This phase pattern is produced by superimposing a blazed grating pattern for light diffraction with a phase modulation range of 2π or less and a phase pattern having a predetermined phase modulation distribution with a phase modulation range of 2π or less.
US08610990B2

The invention relates to an activation circuit for a Pockels cell, comprising a first circuit node (P1), which can be connected to a first connection of the Pockels cell (CP), and a second circuit node (P2), which can be connected to a second connection of the Pockels cell (CP), wherein the first circuit node (P1) is connected by means of a first line to a first electrical potential (HV1) across a first switch (S1B) and by means of a second line to a second electrical potential (HV2) across a second switch (S1A), and the second circuit node (P2) is connected by means of a third line to a third electrical potential (HV3) across a third switch (S2B) and to a fourth electrical potential (HV4) across a fourth switch (S2A), and HV1 is more positive than HV2 and HV3 is more positive than HV4, wherein the difference of the potentials (HV1−HV4) is greater than the difference of the potentials (HV1−HV2) and the difference of the potentials (HV3−HV4).
US08610987B2

An optical device includes: an axis member including a plate-shaped attachment portion and an elastic support portion that swingably supports the attachment portion around a predetermined axis; a rigid member attached to one side of the attachment portion; and a light reflecting member attached to the other side of the attachment portion and having an area larger than that of the attachment portion.
US08610986B2

Micromirrors and micromirror arrays described herein are useful, for example in maskless photolithography systems and methods and projection display devices and methods. According to one aspect, the micromirrors comprise a polymer structural layer and a reflective dielectric multilayer for selective reflection and/or redirection of incoming electromagnetic radiation. According to another aspect, incorporation of a reflective dielectric multilayer allows for use of polymer structural materials in micromirrors and prevents damage to such polymer materials due to excessive heating from absorption of electromagnetic radiation, as the reflective dielectric multilayers are highly reflective and minimize heating of the micromirror components. According to yet a further aspect, top down fabrication methods are described herein for making a micromirror comprising a polymer structural layer and a reflective dielectric multilayer.
US08610975B2

An image scanning device includes a main unit, a scanning unit movable relative to the main unit between its base position and its moved position, a document conveying unit movable relative to the scanning unit between its base position and its moved position, a cover member movable relative to the document conveying unit between its base position and its moved position, and first and second detectors. The first second detectors output four different combinations of on/off signals which include a first combination output in a base state where all the units are in their base positions, a second combination output when the scanning unit moves to its moved position from the base state, a third combination output when the document conveying unit moves to its moved position from the base state, and a fourth combination output when the cover member moves to its moved position from the base state.
US08610970B1

Scanners built in LCD devices, hence LCD scanners. Without affecting the display functions of an LCD device, an image sensing module is provided behind an LCD unit in the LCD device. By controlling the liquid crystals in the LCD unit, the reflected light from an object placed against the LCD device to be imaged is allowed to pass through and onto an image sensor in the image sensing module to generate an image of the object. This many LCD devices can readily provide scanning functions.
US08610966B2

The present invention provides a unique and novel system for acquiring digital image frames of identification documents such as driver's license, passports, or medical insurance records using a digital camera so as to establish a high resolution image frame and extracting data automatically with machine vision tools so as to acquire accurate data. The present invention teaches also a system that acquires multi-spectral image frames of both sides of the identification document.
US08610959B2

What is disclosed is a system and method which addresses the problem of inheriting color management intent from a fleet color management LUT into a 4-to-4 cascaded LUT. The LUT is updated starting with a set of patches that either form a uniform or non-uniform grid of the LUT or can be projected to a uniform or non-uniform grid in the CMYK space using, e.g., PCA. A set of L*a*b* target as well a variable that serve the purpose of preserving the GCR and other elements of the fleet profile is obtained by passing the set of CMYK values to the fleet printer model. By iterating on the printer (or the printer model of the engine at the moment of the engine change) and converging to the targets, the engine device cmyk set is obtained. The LUT is formed between the uniform or non-uniform gridded CMYK and the device cmyk.
US08610949B2

According to one embodiment, a color facsimile apparatus includes a printer portion that performs color print and monochrome print of a received image of a color facsimile signal transmitted from a certain outgoing listed number, an outgoing detecting portion that receives the facsimile signal to detect the outgoing listed number, an image determination portion that determines whether the received image of the facsimile signal is a color image or a monochrome image, and a color print control portion that compares the outgoing listed number to listed numbers on a previously stored white list to restrict the color print of the received image when the outgoing listed number does not exist in the listed numbers on the white list.
US08610942B2

A discard certification output device is installed in one of a document generation apparatus generating a document, a document discard apparatus discarding the document, and a server connected to the document generation apparatus and document discard apparatus, the discard certification output device including: a discard information acquisition unit that acquires information concerning a document discard in the document discard apparatus; and a discard certification output unit that converts the information acquired by the discard information acquisition unit into a visible image in a predetermined format and outputs the visible image as discard certification.
US08610926B2

An image processing apparatus according to the present invention includes a detection unit configured to detect approach or contact of a printing apparatus relative to a display apparatus, a first acquisition unit configured to acquire information about a print attribute of the printing apparatus detected by the detection unit, a second acquisition unit configured to acquire attribute information about content data to be displayed on the display apparatus, and a determination unit configured to determine suitability of printing the content data in the printing apparatus, based on the information about the print attribute of the printing apparatus and the attribute information about the content data.
US08610921B2

Methods disclosed facilitate the identification of printers from among a plurality of network accessible printers based on information about at least one printer sub-state using commonly available messaging techniques such as e-mail. In some embodiments, an email message, which includes queries with search criteria pertaining to the at least one printer sub-state, is received and a sub-state database is queried based on the search criteria pertaining to the printer sub-state to obtain a set of printers that satisfy the search criteria. The sub-state database comprises information that correlates printer identification information with corresponding printer sub-state information of the plurality of network accessible printers. The response to the query is used to respond to the e-mail request with the e-mail response including identification information about printers in the set of printers that satisfy the search criteria.
US08610914B2

The communication apparatus including: a communication unit communicating with external apparatuses via a communication line; a notification unit notifying, from the communication unit, the external apparatuses of stop of electric power supply to a controller controlling operation, when electric power supply to the controller is stopped; an identification information memory for storing identification information of one of the external apparatuses when, after the notification unit makes the notification, the notification unit again makes the notification to the one of the external apparatuses upon receipt of a signal from the one of the external apparatuses; and a signal processor processing a signal received from any of the external apparatuses by the communication unit. The signal processor discards a signal, when a transmission source of the signal is one of the external apparatuses having the identification information matching the identification information stored in the identification information memory.
US08610911B2

A conversion unit converts a command part of an image inclusion command into an internal command. A first memory unit stores an image non-inclusion command and the internal command converted by the conversion unit. A second memory unit stores an image data part of the image inclusion command. A restart page number memory unit stores restart page number information when a print process being executed is interrupted in order to execute an interruption print process. When restarting the interrupted print process, a control unit executes control to read out the internal command and the image non-inclusion command stored in the first memory unit up to the page indicated by the restart page number information, and from the page indicated by the restart page number, further executes control to read out from the second memory unit the image data part following the internal command read out from the first memory unit.
US08610886B2

A long-distance fiber optic monitoring system having a sensing unit and an analyzer that is remotely located from the sensing unit is provided. The sensing unit comprises a source of optical energy for injecting optical energy into the fiber optical cable and an optical detector configured to detect an optical return signal from the optical fiber. The detected optical return signal is associated with an acoustic signal impinging on the optical fiber. The analyzer receives a signal from the remote sensing unit via the optical fiber that is representative of the optical return signal, and determines a location of a disturbance based at least on the received signal. The representative signal can be transmitted from the remote sensing unit to the analyzer as an optical signal or via a metallic wired included with the optical fiber.
US08610884B2

The present invention relates to a method for optical visualization of graphene domains, and more particularly to a method for optical visualization of graphene domains, which can optically visualize the domains and domain boundaries of graphene by forming on a substrate a graphene layer to be measured, forming a liquid crystal layer on the formed graphene layer, and then measuring the optical properties of the formed nematic liquid crystal layer. The method for optical visualization of graphene domains according to the invention uses a liquid crystal-coating method, which is simpler and easier than a conventional method for observing graphene domains. Thus, the method of the invention is simple, time-saving and inexpensive and, at the same time, enables very-large-area graphene domains to be observed with a polarizing microscope or the like. Therefore, the inventive method will be very useful in the research of graphene's properties.
US08610883B2

In accordance with the present invention, a photoelastic layer and a monitoring device with an integrated polarizer for detecting stress and strain is described. Stresses and strains in the photoelastic layer or in the photoelastic monitoring device can be detected using photoelastic methods. The integrated polarizer allows photoelastic inspections to be carried out with non-polarized incident light, thereby reducing inspection costs and time associated with photoelastic analysis. Also in accordance with the present invention, a method is described for photoelastic analysis comprising a photoelastic coating and an integrated polarizer. The integrated polarizer allows for photoelastic analysis using a regular non-polarized light source. Stresses and strains in the photoelastic coating and in the underlying material can be detected easily and quickly.
US08610871B2

A method for forming a multilayer includes a process for forming a first conductive layer on a substrate; a process for forming a first insulating layer on the first conductive layer; a process for forming a second conductive layer on the first insulating layer and patterning the deposited second conductive layer; a process for forming a second insulating layer over the substrate so as to cover the patterned the second conductive layer; a process for forming a third insulating layer on the second insulating layer, wherein an etching speed of the third insulating layer is faster than that of the second insulating layer; and a process for forming contact holes at once that expose at least a part of the first conductive layer to the first insulating layer, the second insulating layer and the third insulating layer.
US08610868B2

In order to prevent dielectric breakdown of TFT or an interlayer insulating film by static electricity with a reduced area at low cost, a liquid crystal display device has a configuration in which an interlayer insulating film and an a-Si film are formed in a display area and a control area inside terminals. Image signal lines and scan lines are insulated from each other through the interlayer insulating film and a-Si film in their intersections. On the other hand, only the interlayer insulating film is formed between static electricity protection lines and an earth line outside the terminals. When static electricity is induced, dielectric breakdown is caused to occur in the area outside the terminals. Thus, the display area and the control area are protected from the static electricity.
US08610865B2

The TFT substrate includes a pixel electrode and a common electrode laminated one on top of another via an insulating layer, one of the pixel electrode and the common electrode provided farther from the liquid crystal layer being formed into a plane shape, and another of the pixel electrode and the common electrode provided closer to the liquid crystal layer having slits formed therein, each of the plurality of slits having a closed end portion. The liquid crystal display panel further includes a reflection portion for reflecting light, the reflection portion being formed at a surface of the liquid crystal display panel on the illumination device side in a portion which overlaps, in plan view, the end portion of the each of the slits in the long-side direction and a vicinity thereof, and a part of an inner region of the each of the slits.
US08610860B2

The disclosed technology relates to an array substrate and a method of manufacturing the same, and a liquid crystal display. The array substrate comprises a base substrate. The base substrate comprises a pixel region and a peripheral region; data lines and gate lines are formed to transversely and longitudinally cross each other on the base substrate to form a plurality of pixel units, and each of the pixel units comprises a switching element, a pixel electrode and a common electrode above the pixel electrode; the common electrode has slits in each pixel unit and is a plate-shaped electrode in the pixel region, when powered on, the common electrode forms a horizontal electric field together with the pixel electrode of the pixel unit; and a common electrode line formed in the pixel region and connected with the common electrode.
US08610849B2

The disclosed technology relates to a liquid crystal panel, comprising an array substrate and a color filter substrate bonded together with a liquid crystal layer therebetween, wherein, light blocking strips are provided on a surface of at least one of the array substrate and the color filter substrate, and the surface is opposite to the side of the at least one substrate for holding the liquid crystal layer. The disclosed technology also relates to a manufacturing method for the liquid crystal panel and a liquid crystal panel comprising the liquid crystal panel.
US08610840B2

A display panel includes an array substrate including a plurality of connection lines extending from a plurality of signal lines and at least one repair line crossing the connection lines. An opposite substrate including a common electrode formed on a surface of the second substrate that is closest to the array substrate is coupled to the array substrate. The common electrode includes a plurality of openings that are positioned to align with a plurality of intersections between the connection lines and the repair line, thereby preventing an electrical coupling between the signal line and the common electrode.
US08610836B2

An electronic display device includes a storage device for storing an image file, a display screen for showing the image file, a positive evaluation button, and a statistical program. The electronic display device is in communication with a social website. When the positive evaluation button is pressed down, a positive evaluation signal is generated. The statistical program has a preset evaluation threshold value. The statistical program generates an evaluation value according to the positive evaluation signal. If the evaluation value is greater than or equal to the evaluation threshold value, the image file is transmitted to the social website.
US08610834B2

A system and method for effectively implementing a charging base for a remote control includes a television device that is controlled by the remote control over a wireless RC-TV communications link. The charging base recharges a battery of the remote control when the remote control is docked to the charging base. In addition, the remote control may be docked to the charging base for bi-directionally communicating with the television and other external entities over a wireless base-TV communications link. Furthermore, various compatible peripheral devices may also recharge their batteries and bi-directionally communicate with the television and the external entities over the base-TV communications link while the peripheral devices are docked to the charging base.
US08610825B2

An acquisition unit reads content including at least, (a) an image signal of an image frame defined by first and second directions, (b) first and second sizes showing sizes in the first and second directions, and (c) an aspect ratio of the second direction to the first direction. An inspection unit inspects whether the content includes a display area specification. A determination unit calculates a third size by multiplying the first size by the aspect ratio and determines a display area of the image frame based on an entire range in the first direction and a range of the third size from a predetermined position in the image frame in the second direction, when the display area specification is not included in the content. A controller performs control so that the display area of the image frame is displayed and a part other than the display area is not displayed.
US08610821B2

An imaging device according to the present invention comprises: an imaging section photoelectrically converting an object image and outputting image data; a display section displaying the object image based on the image data; an acceleration sensor section detecting vibration in at least one direction among a plurality of directions of a camera; a determination section continuously determining an output equal to or greater than a gravity force by means of the acceleration sensor section; and a power supply control section supplying power to the imaging section upon detection of an output equal to or greater than the gravity force by the determination section and also upon detection of an attitude change in a vertical direction or the like or a predetermined acceleration when a photographer sets the camera while viewing the display section of the camera.
US08610819B2

An imaging device comprises an imaging section for outputting image data every set time, in association with commencement of a bulb exposure; an adding processing section for, every time new image data is output from the imaging section, generating an added image by adding images that were output after commencement of the bulb exposure; an image display section for displaying each generated added image; and a sound generating section for performing sound generation in response to update of the image display section when a display update interval of the image display section is at least a specified time.
US08610818B2

Systems and methods for improving video stutter in high resolution progressive video captured with fast exposure times. In a first approach, digital video is captured with fast shutter speeds that cause each frame of the video to be sharp. A motion blur is not captured for objects moving within the frame. The video codec generates motion information that may be utilized to add an artificial motion blur to each frame of the digital video during processing in a digital video pipeline. In a second approach, the lens assembly of the digital camera includes an electronically actuated filter that attenuates the light reaching an image sensor such that the shutter speeds may be decreased in order to capture motion blur. The electronically actuated filter may be a liquid crystal display (LCD) device that is set to a plurality of different transparency levels based on the voltage applied to the LCD device.
US08610816B2

An image pickup apparatus including a lens barrel with a bending optical system, in which a reflection optical element is movable between a storage state and a photographing state. When a rotary cylinder that retains a lens group to which light beams from an object are incident is being driven by a drive source to advance and retreat between a storage state and a photographing state, the coupling between a cam mechanism for rotary cylinder operation and a driving force transmission gear train for optical element operation is automatically established and released, whereby the operation for moving the reflection optical element between the storage state and the photographing state can be achieved by a single drive source.
US08610814B2

A switchable imaging apparatus having an image display mode and an image capture mode, comprising: a display screen to provide a displayed image when the display screen is in a first display state, wherein the display screen is at least partially transparent when the display screen is switched to a second transparent state; an optical beam deflector switchable between a first non-deflecting state and a second deflecting state, such that when the optical beam deflector is in the second deflecting state imaging light from a scene is deflected into a camera positioned in a location peripheral to the display screen; and a controller which synchronously switches the display screen between the first display state and the second transparent state, and the optical beam deflector between the first non-deflecting state and the second deflecting state, thereby providing the image display mode and the image capture mode.
US08610813B2

An optical system for generating an image having extended depth of field. The system includes a phase mask and a chromatic wavefront coding lens. The chromatic wavefront coding lens provides axial color separation of light by generating specified chromatic aberration in an image created by the lens. The phase mask causes the optical transfer function of the optical system to remain substantially constant within a specified range away from the image plane, and the optical transfer function of the system contains no zeroes within at least one spectral passband of interest. Digital processing may be performed on the image to generate a final image by reversing a decrease in modulation transfer function generated by the phase mask.
US08610812B2

A digital photographing apparatus and a control method thereof are disclosed. The digital photographing apparatus receives a voice, recognizes the received voice, and stores the recognized voice to correspond to a face. In this way, by recognizing the voice while displaying an image, an owner of the voice can be identified and thus a face of a person which is not included in an image being captured can be displayed on a screen.
US08610810B2

The claimed subject matter provides systems and/or methods that facilitate mitigating an impact resulting from mismatch between signal chains in a CMOS imaging System-on-Chip (iSoC) sensor. Two-by-two pixel structures can be a basic building block upon which a pixel array is constructed. Further, each two-by-two pixel structure can be associated with a read bus that carries a sampled signal to a top end and a bottom end of a chip. Moreover, multiplexers at either end of the chip can select a subset of the read buses from which to receive a subset of the sampled signals. Accordingly, pixels in a first color plane can be read, processed, etc. on the same side of the chip (e.g., utilizing a common signal chain), while pixels in at least one second color plane can be read, processed, etc. on the other side of the chip (e.g., employing a differing signal chain).
US08610806B2

A pixel cell with a photosensitive region formed in association with a substrate, a color filter formed over the photosensitive region, the color filter comprising a first material layer and a second material layer formed in association with the first shaping material layer.
US08610805B2

An electronic device includes an array of daisy chained image sensors, with each image sensor including a pixel array. A host is coupled to an image sensor at an end of the array and is configured to insert identification codes. The identification codes include embedded data values to thereby indicate specific parts of the image data, and a set of identification codes comprising a first identification code to identify a start of a data stream and a second identification code to identify an end of the data stream.
US08610803B2

An image processing apparatus includes an image acquisition unit configured to acquire an image captured according to a predetermined image capturing method, an anomalous pixel acquisition unit configured to acquire an anomalous pixel occurring according to an image capturing method different from the predetermined image capturing method, and a display control unit configured to cause the acquired anomalous pixel to be displayed together with the captured image.
US08610801B2

An image processing apparatus includes an image pickup circuit that performs photoelectric conversion on an optical image, and a chromatic aberration correcting circuit that calculates an amount of shift by chromatic aberration based on a linear function to perform chromatic aberration correction on captured image data in accordance with the amount of shift. The chromatic aberration correcting circuit performs the chromatic aberration correction on a first pixel in a first area including an optical center of the captured image data with a first linear function using a distance from the optical center, and performs the chromatic aberration correction on a second pixel in a second area that does not include the optical center and that is different from the first area with a second linear function using the distance from the optical center.
US08610799B2

An image sensing apparatus which stores an image signal from an image sensing element and reads out and processes the stored image signal to magnify and display an image on a display device includes a designation unit that designates the magnification ratio of the image to be displayed, a storage unit that stores the magnification ratio designated by the designation unit, and a magnifying processing unit that executes magnifying processing for the stored image signal on the basis of the magnification ratio stored in the storage unit and outputs the image signal to the display device. The magnification ratio stored in the storage unit is updated when a different magnification ratio is designated by the designation unit, and the magnification ratio stored in the storage unit is used for a plurality of images that are sequentially displayed.
US08610793B2

An electronic camera includes: an image-capturing device that captures an image of a subject and generates image data; a first bus to which the image data generated by the image capturing device are output; an image memory that is connected to the first bus and temporarily stores the image data on the first bus; a plurality of image data conversion devices connected to the first bus that individually convert the image data on the first bus; a second bus through which conversion outputs from the plurality of image data conversion devices are provided to individual output destinations; and an adjustment device that performs timing adjustment or multiplexing of a plurality of conversion outputs to ensure that the plurality of conversion outputs do not collide on the second bus.
US08610791B2

An image pickup apparatus includes an image pickup section to pick up a subject image; and a central processing section to perform processing of arbitrarily setting at least one automatic photographing condition among a plurality of kinds of automatic photographing conditions, judging whether the set automatic photographing condition is satisfied or not, and instructing the image pickup section to pick up a recording subject image when the set automatic photographing condition is judged to be satisfied.
US08610785B2

A movement detection apparatus that detects a shake added by an operator to execute a function of a device, the apparatus comprises an acceleration detection unit configured to detect accelerations caused by a shake in at least three-axis directions; a determination unit configured to determine an axis with a minimum value of acceleration and an axis with a maximum value of acceleration among the accelerations in at least three-axis directions detected by the acceleration detection unit; a decision unit configured to decide a direction of the shake added by the operator based on the axis with the minimum value and the axis with the maximum value determined by the determination unit; and a selection unit configured to select a predetermined function based on the result of the decision unit.
US08610783B2

A portable computer including a display module and an image capture module disposed in the display module is provided. The image capture module includes a first image capture device, a pivot mechanism, and a second image capture device. The first image capture device has a circuit board, a first image sensor disposed on the circuit board, and a first lens, wherein the first image sensor is located on the optical path behind the first lens. In addition, the pivot mechanism is disposed in the display module. The second image capture device is pivotally connected to the pivot mechanism, and the second image capture device is electrically connected to the circuit board. The second image capture device has a second lens and a second image sensor, wherein the second image sensor is located on the optical path behind the second lens.
US08610776B2

The invention relates to a system for target designation and/or illumination in a scene, that is designed to be attached to an aircraft comprising one optical path fitted with a matrix sensor forming an image of the scene, each image corresponding to an instantaneous field centered around a line of sight LV, and fitted with a device for deflecting the LV at a determined speed Vd making it possible to carry out a scan in order to perform the target designation and illumination function. The system comprises an additional device for deflecting the LV at a speed Vr making it possible to carry out a counter-scan in order also to perform an air reconnaissance function.
US08610775B2

A method of estimating states of a plurality of targets tracked by a plurality of sensors. The method includes obtaining a plurality of data sets based on measurements taken by a plurality of sensors, each data set including information on states of a plurality of targets. The method then generates a plurality of target correlation data sets describing correlation of the targets within a first data set and at least one other data set. A Generalised Covariance Union (GCU) technique is used to merge at least some of the plurality of target correlation data sets to generate an estimate of the states of the plurality of targets.
US08610772B2

A surveillance system and method with at least one wireless input capture device ICD(s) and a corresponding digital input recorder (DIR) and/or another ICD, including the steps of providing the base system; at least one user accessing the DIR via user interface either directly or remotely; the DIR and/or ICD searching for signal from the ICD(s) and establishing communication with them, and the system providing for input capture and data transmission prioritization, thereby providing a secure surveillance system having wireless communication for monitoring a target environment with prioritization capabilities.
US08610729B2

A floating point rasterization and frame buffer in a computer system graphics program. The rasterization, fog, lighting, texturing, blending, and antialiasing processes operate on floating point values. In one embodiment, a 16-bit floating point format consisting of one sign bit, ten mantissa bits, and five exponent bits (s10e5), is used to optimize the range and precision afforded by the 16 available bits of information. In other embodiments, the floating point format can be defined in the manner preferred in order to achieve a desired range and precision of the data stored in the frame buffer. The final floating point values corresponding to pixel attributes are stored in a frame buffer and eventually read and drawn for display. The graphics program can operate directly on the data in the frame buffer without losing any of the desired range and precision of the data.
US08610727B1

Apparatus having corresponding methods comprise a processing core performance monitoring module adapted to receive indications of performance levels of a plurality of processing cores, the plurality of processing cores comprising a central processing unit (CPU), a video accelerator, and a graphics accelerator; a video accelerator performance monitoring module adapted to receive an indication of a performance level of the video accelerator; a graphics accelerator performance monitoring module adapted to receive an indication of a performance level of the graphics accelerator; and a processor core management module adapted to dynamically allocate at least one of a pre-processing task and a post-processing task of a multimedia workload to any one of the video accelerator, the graphics accelerator, and the CPUprocessing cores based on the performance levels of the video accelerator, the graphics accelerator, and the CPU.
US08610726B2

Computer systems and methods may provide a projection display as a primary visual output. In particular, a computer system may include an integrated projector output. Such a computer system may be substantially or even entirely externally wire-free. Methods of image processing may involve a computer system with an integrated projector output. Such methods may involve using raw presentation data for image processing, including adjustment and/or correction for brightness, color and/or geometry artifacts generated from aspects of the projection surface (such as geometry, texture, color or the like), the surroundings (such as ambient light), the relation of the computer system (or integrated projector output) to the projection surface (such as distance, orientation or the like), and/or the relation of a user/viewer to the projection surface (such as viewing angle, distance or the like).
US08610725B2

Among other things, dynamically selecting or configuring one or more hardware resources to render a particular display data includes obtaining a request for rendering display data. The request includes a specification describing a desired rendering process. Based on the specification and the display data, hardware is selected or configured. The display data is rendered using the selected or configured hardware.
US08610722B2

A user interface is provided for interacting with slides and objects provided on slides. In certain embodiments, the user interface includes features that are displayed attached to or proximate to selected slides or objects. In embodiments, aspects of the user interface may be used to preview, review, add, or modify transitions associated with animation from one slide to the next (or previous) and builds associated with animation of objects on slides.
US08610718B2

A method of visualizing sets of correlated events of a stream of events on a display, each event having a time of occurrence in the stream and at least one attribute indicating its correlation with the other events of a set, including the steps of plotting a glyph for each event on the display at a radial distance and an angular position with respect to an origin; the radial distance and the size of a glyph being proportional to the occurrence time of its event; the angular position of the glyph of a succeeding event in a set being chosen equal to that of the preceding event in the set unless these two glyphs would over-lap in which case the angular position of the glyph of said subsequent event is shifted in a given direction by an amount just sufficient to avoid such overlap; and the angular position of the glyph of the first event in a set being chosen so that overlapping of all glyphs is minimized.
US08610712B2

A method is disclosed. Input data indicates a location within a region of a digital image of a stereo image pair. A boundary of the region and a corresponding boundary of a corresponding region of another digital image are defined based on the input data, content of the digital image, and content of the another digital image. The boundary and the corresponding boundary represent boundaries of a visual feature in the digital image and the other digital image. The defining further includes constructing a probability distribution for the digital image and another probability distribution for the other digital image. The probability distribution for the digital image represents a probability that each pixel of a set of pixels of the digital image is within the region. The other probability distribution represents a probability that each pixel of another set of pixels of the another digital image is within the corresponding region.
US08610711B2

The present invention relates to a autostereoscopic image display device capable of observing a natural three-dimensional image without crosstalk or pseudo-stereoscopic zone between optimal viewpoints and without using special glasses. The three-dimensional image display device of the present invention includes: a display panel configured to display image information of at least two viewpoints; an optical substrate that is separately disposed from the display panel at a predetermined distance, the optical substrate being configured to form at least one intermediate viewing zone between left and right viewing zones included in base viewing zones corresponding to two viewpoints, which are observed when a position of an observer moves horizontally; and a control unit configured to provide the image information corresponding to the respective viewpoints at the base viewing zones and remove image information from the at least one intermediate viewing zone.
US08610706B2

Described is a technology in which point cloud surface reconstruction is performed via parallel processing on a graphics processing unit, achieving real-time reconstruction rates. An octree is built for a given set of oriented points, with each node containing a set of points enclosed by the node. The data structure is built on the GPU, in parallel, using level-order traversals to process nodes at a same tree level. The surface is reconstructed based on data configured and located via the traversals. To produce the surface, an implicit function over the volume spanned by the octree nodes is computed using the GPU, e.g., based on a Poisson surface reconstruction method. A sparse linear system is built and a multi-grid solver is employed to solve the system. An adaptive marching cubes procedure is performed on the GPU to extract an isosurface of the implicit function as a triangular mesh.
US08610700B2

An organic light emitting display includes a pixel circuit that compensates for variations of the threshold voltage of a driving transistor. The organic light emitting display includes a scan driver, a data driver, a power source unit, and a plurality of pixels. If a pixel is assumed to be positioned in an ith (i is a natural number) horizontal line, that pixel includes an organic light emitting diode (OLED), a first transistor coupled between a power source line and the OLED, a second transistor having a gate electrode coupled to an ith scan line for supplying the data signal to the first transistor, a third transistor coupled between the OLED and the first transistor and having a gate electrode coupled to an ith emission control line, and a storage capacitor coupled between the gate electrode of the first transistor and an anode electrode of the OLED.
US08610697B2

Disclosed herein is a semiconductor integrated circuit including a power supply line drive circuit configured to drive power supply lines connected to pixels that are arranged in a matrix on a self-luminous display panel.
US08610688B2

In one embodiment, a touch sensor includes drive electrodes. The drive electrodes include drive electrode structures that are each coupled to an adjacent drive electrode structure by a first strip of conductive material. The touch sensor also includes sense electrodes. The sense electrodes include sense electrode structures that are each coupled to an adjacent sense electrode structure by a second strip of conductive material. The sense electrode structures are formed on a same layer as the drive electrode structures. The first or second strip of conductive material include one or more conductive crossovers that each couple two drive electrode structures to each other or couple two sense electrode structures to each other.
US08610681B2

An information processing apparatus including a display device; pointed position detecting means for detecting a specified position by a touch operation of a pointing device on a screen of the display device; sensor means for detecting a position of the pointing device when the pointing device is not in contact with the screen of the display device; and control means for recognizing the touch operation detected by the pointed position detecting means and controlling the information processing apparatus in accordance with the recognized touch operation and the position of the pointing device detected by the sensor means.
US08610667B2

A non-contract selecting device is disclosed. The non-contract selecting device include a light source, emitting light to an outside; a camera unit, generating and outputting a video signal corresponding to an external video; a video data generating unit, generating video data corresponding to the video signal; and an identity unit, detecting a location of a detected area formed by light, reflected by pointing-means and inputted, of the light emitted from the video data in units of each frame, recognizing a moving locus of the detected area by comparing at least two continuous frames and generating and outputting corresponding change information. With the present invention, the function-selecting can be more quickly and easily and increase making the most use of elements.
US08610664B2

The invention describes a method of controlling a position (x′, y′) of a control point (c) on a command area (ACM). This method comprises the steps of: —aiming a pointing device (1) comprising a camera (2) in the direction of the command area (ACM); —generating an image (I) of a target area (AI) aimed at by the pointing device; —processing the target area image (I) to determine a target point (T) at which the pointing device (1) is aimed; —determining position (x′, y′) of the control point (C) according to the position (x, y) of the target point (T) within a currently defined control area (ACT), which control area (Acr) includes at least partially the command area (ACM). Moreover the invention describes an adequate system and a pointing device (1) for controlling a control point position (P) on a command area (ACM).
US08610653B2

A liquid crystal display panel and a liquid crystal display device in which a position of a singular point of pinwheel alignment is controlled, thereby suppressing rough-grained image and generation of image retention, and in which the response time is improved. A pair of substrates each include an electrode, at least one of the pair of substrates includes a vertical alignment film and a photopolymerized polymer, the electrode on one of the pair of substrates has such a shape as to provide pinwheel alignment of the liquid crystal molecules upon application of a voltage and is partly provided with openings for surrounding a singular point of the pinwheel alignment and keeping the singular point within the electrode.
US08610647B2

The present invention retains a scanning line for power supply in a floating state in a pause provided halfway through a period of emission.
US08610641B2

A method and system for configuring electronic presentation units for cooperative activities, the method comprising the steps of providing a plurality of presentation units in a conferencing space including a master unit and other units, electronically identifying the other units present in the conferencing space, enabling a configuration interface for identifying a sub-set of the other units as slave units, receiving input via the configuration interface identifying the slave unit sub-set and enabling a control interface for transferring images from the master unit to each of the slave units in the selected sub-set.
US08610636B2

A radio frequency IC device includes a radio frequency IC chip, a feeder circuit substrate, and a radiating plate. The feeder circuit substrate includes a feeder circuit that electrically connects to the radio IC chip and that includes a resonance circuit and/or a matching circuit including inductance elements. The feeder circuit substrate is bonded to the radiating plate, which radiates a transmission signal supplied from the feeder circuit and supplies a received signal to the feeder circuit. The inductance elements are arranged in spiral patterns wound in opposite directions and couple to each other in opposite phases. The radio frequency IC device is able to obtain a radio frequency IC device that is not susceptible to being affected by a usage environment, minimizes variations in radiation characteristics, and can be used in a wide frequency band.
US08610624B2

Example embodiments disclosed herein provide for a method for detecting a fault in a receiver for a satellite navigation system. The method includes calculating a plurality of measurement residuals corresponding to a position solution and combining the plurality of measurement residuals to form a test statistic. The method also includes calculating a threshold corresponding to the test statistic, wherein calculating the threshold includes selecting the threshold to be a value from a non-central chi squared distribution of possible test statistics that corresponds to a desired probability of false alarm. The test statistic is compared to the threshold and if the test statistic is larger than the threshold, performing at least one of: outputting an alarm indicative of a fault in the position solution and discarding the position solution.
US08610619B2

A method for validating received positional data in vehicle surveillance applications wherein vehicles transmit positional data indicating their own position to surrounding vehicles. A a radio direction finding antenna arrangement of a receiving unit receives a signal carrying positional data indicating an alleged position of a vehicle, transmitted from a radio source. The bearing from the receiving unit to the radio source is estimated utilizing the radio direction finding antenna arrangement and the received signal. The distance between the receiving unit and the radio source is estimated based on the time of flight for a signal travelling there between at known speed. An estimated position of the radio source is calculated based on the estimated bearing and the estimated distance. A deviation value indicating the deviation/coincidence between the alleged position of a vehicle is determined according to the received positional data and the estimated position of the radio source.
US08610618B2

The present invention includes a method for identifying a facility on the ground or at sea, the method being implemented on an airborne responder linked to at least two antennas, the method including a step of choosing a first transmission antenna and a step of transmitting an interrogation message from the chosen antenna. The method further includes testing whether a response has been received by the responder, and, if at least one response signal is received by at least one of the antennas, choosing a transmission antenna as a function of the response signal or signals received. If no response message is received, a different transmission antenna is chosen from the antenna that transmitted the last interrogation message. The method is repeated from the step of transmitting the interrogation message.
US08610615B2

An A/D conversion integrated circuit including a plurality of A/D converters which can inhibit noises from being propagated by capacitive coupling from a conductor which transmits a digital signal is provided. In an A/D converter 13, an input 15 receives an analog signal to be A/D converted. An output 17 provides at least a part of a digital signal SD having a predetermined number of bits representing the analog signal SA. In response to an analog signal SA, a sub-A/D conversion circuit 19 generates a signal SDP representing one or a plurality of bit values of the digital signal SD and feeds the signal SDP to the output 17. An input 21a of a control circuit 21 is connected to an output 19a of the sub-A/D conversion circuit 19 and provides a control signal SCONT corresponding to the signal SDP. The control signal SCONT has a waveform including a transition from a voltage level L1 to a voltage level L2 and a transition from the voltage level L2 to the voltage level L1.
US08610611B2

Certain aspects of the present disclosure relate to a technique for producing a difference value by offsetting a current value of an analog signal with a stored previous value of the analog signal, and generating a digital representation of the difference value. Digital representations obtained by this technique may be sent over a channel to a receiver device for reconstruction of the original analog signal. An integrator of the receiver device may be configured to process (sum) the received samples to generate a reconstructed version of the original signal.
US08610607B2

A method for assigning codes to Huffman trees and repairing invalid Huffman trees is disclosed using a calculated delta and moving nodes within the Huffman tree by adjusting their encode register entries.
US08610603B2

A method for delivering media content over a network includes transcoding the media content to generate multiple copies of the media content, each of the multiple copies having a different destination type or a different source type or both, storing the multiple copies in a cache, receiving requests for the media content, and selecting and delivering a copy of one of the multiple copies in response to each of the requests. A further method for providing media content transcoding services includes fetching media content, selecting one of multiple transcoders for transcoding from multiple source types to multiple destination types, wherein the one transcoder is selected based at least on the destination type, sending the media content to the selected transcoder, transcoding the media content to the destination type, thereby generating transcoded media content, and transmitting the transcoded media content.
US08610591B2

The invention inter alia relates to a method for monitoring the bearing current of an electrical machine (10). An electrode (100) arranged at a distance (d) to a shaft and the shaft—due to the gap (S) between the electrode and the shaft—produce a measurement capacitance (C) and an electric shift current (i) which flows through the measurement capacitance when there is a temporal change of the voltage (Ug) applied between the shaft and the housing is measured. A measurement signal (Ms) indicating a bearing current flow is generated when the shift current or a measurement variable produced by the shift current meets a predetermined trigger criterion. Preferably, the electrode has a circular inner contour so that the gap is annular. The annular inner contour results in an error compensation in the case of a balance error of the shaft because the factor dC/dt remains at least substantially constant. Due to the contactless measurement of the shift current, no contact brushes for contacting the shaft are required. The method can be used irrespective of whether the bearings are insulated from the machine housing or not.
US08610584B2

A fall-down alarm system includes a contact detection unit, a non-contact detection unit and a fall-down evaluation unit connecting respectively to the contact detection unit and non-contact detection unit. The contact detection unit and non-contact detection unit respectively detect an abnormal detected shape of an object and abnormal life symptoms of the object, and then the fall-down evaluation unit determines a fall-down condition and sends a trigger signal to request assistance. Through the contact detection unit and non-contact detection unit respectively detecting the shape and life symptoms of the object, the erroneous fall-down judgment can be reduced.
US08610583B2

In order to provide an abnormality detecting device for a heart assist device, a method for detecting an abnormality of a heart assist device and an abnormal state of a heart assist device detecting program which can early detect an abnormal state, the abnormality detecting device for a heart assist device according to the present invention includes a user information acquiring means for obtaining user information that indicates an operation state of the heart assist device implanted in a body of a user or a biological state of the user measured by the heart assist device and associating said user information with time to store in a history information storing means, and an abnormal state judging means for referring said history information storing means and judging whether or not an abnormal state is present based on a history of said user information.
US08610570B2

A system to detect a presence in a space is provided and includes a sensor to issue a signal at an instance when a door to the space closes, a detector to periodically issue packets that identify when a presence was last detected in the space, and a processing unit, coupled to the sensor and the detector, which is configured to receive the signal and the packets and which has executable instructions stored thereon that, when executed, cause the processing unit to identify when the door closes based on the signal and to judge the space to be unoccupied after a wait time if the packets indicate the presence was last detected prior to the closing.
US08610567B2

A system and method for airbag deployment sensing with a mobile device is provided. The system senses an effluent indicative of airbag deployment with a chemical sensor and determines if an airbag deployment condition exists based on the sensing of the chemical sensor. The system may then initiate an emergency communication if it is determined that the airbag deployment condition exists.