US08898810B2

A method for functionalizing cantilevers is provided that includes providing a holder having a plurality of channels each having a width for accepting a cantilever probe and a plurality of probes. A plurality of cantilever probes are fastened to the plurality of channels of the holder by the spring clips. The wells of a well plate are filled with a functionalization solution, wherein adjacent wells in the well plate are separated by a dimension that is substantially equal to a dimension separating adjacent channels of the plurality of channels. Each cantilever probe that is fastened within the plurality of channels of the holder is applied to the functionalization solution that is contained in the wells of the well plate.
US08898809B2

The invention relates to a method for the combined analysis of a sample with objects to be analyzed, in particular a sample with biological objects, in which measurement results for one or more of the objects to be analyzed in the sample are obtained by analyzing the one or more objects to be analyzed by an imaging method of measurement, probe-microscopic measurement results are obtained for the one or more objects to be analyzed by analyzing the one or more objects to be analyzed by a probe-microscopic method of measurement, and the measurement results and the probe-microscopic measurement results are assigned to one another, after optional prior intermediate processing. Furthermore, the invention relates to an apparatus for carrying out combined analysis of a sample with objects to be investigated, in particular a sample with biological objects.
US08898808B1

A system for accurately estimating global impression volumes at tag and host levels, and for computing global page views and reach estimates, collects impression volumes for various tracking technologies and for several hosts from a panel of users. The collected panel data is normalized, e.g., to minimize spurious and/or non-human activity data. A scaling factor is computed using measured global impression volume of a reference tag and impression volume of the reference tag with respect to the panel. The required global estimates are obtained by scaling the normalized panel data using the computed scaling factor.
US08898806B1

A computer-implemented method for protecting services may include (1) identifying a service control manager, the service control manager having access to modify a configuration of at least one service, (2) identifying a request from a process for permission to access the configuration of the service, and, in response to the request, (3) authenticating the process based on at least one attribute of the process, (4) providing an authentication token to the process, (5) intercepting an attempt by the process to access the configuration of the service via the service control manager, the attempt including the authentication token, and, in response to the attempt, (6) validating the authentication token, and, in response to validating the authentication token, (7) allowing the process to access the configuration of the service. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.
US08898796B2

A method, system or computer usable program product for masking communication data using context based rules including intercepting a communication between a server and a client by an intermediary, the communication having a recipient, parsing the communication by the intermediary to determine whether a context based alteration rule should be applied, responsive to an affirmative determination, applying the rule to the communication to produce an altered communication with altered data, and sending the altered communication to the recipient so that the altered data in the communication is utilized in a masked manner.
US08898792B1

A secure search mechanism (or search engine) for use with content based information security repositories. The present invention may be embodied in an information security system or method. In accordance with the present invention, a search occurs in a protected device that contains classified metadata and addresses of encrypted headers relating to classified data or information objects. A search request comes in from a user in a particular access level and the search engine returns a set of addresses that are at appropriate access levels and satisfy the search criteria. These addresses are passed or transferred to another device that stores the encrypted headers, and the encrypted headers are sent to the user.
US08898788B1

Systems and methods for malware attack prevention are provided. Network data is copied from a communication network. It is then determined if a possible malware attack is within the copied network data. The network data is intercepted based on the determination. The network data is then analyzed to identify a malware attack.
US08898787B2

This paper describes a mechanism for minimizing the exploitation of vulnerabilities on software installed on a computing system. At a transport layer (e.g., transmission communication protocol (TCP) sockets layer), network traffic is monitored using a security component installed on a target computer. When a message destined for the computing system is received, data included in the message is compared with exploit evidence used to identify malicious code. The exploit evidence is provided to the security component by security service that gathers information about the malicious code. Based on the comparison of data in the message with the exploit evidence, rules are identified that instruct the security component to take an appropriate action on the message received.
US08898782B2

Systems (100) and methods (1300, 1400) for spontaneously configuring operations of a Computer Network (“CN”). The methods involve: configuring CN to operate in accordance with a first Mission Plan (“MP”); and detecting a reactive trigger event. The first MP specifies a manner in which an assigned value for an IDentity Parameter (“IDP”) is to be dynamically modified by a node (105-107, 113, 114) of CN. The reactive trigger event is a spontaneous event for causing a change to occur in relation to the dynamic modification of IDP. In response to the detection of the reactive trigger event, a second MP is selected. Thereafter, the operations of CN are automatically modified in accordance with the second MP plan such that IDP is dynamically modified in a manner that is different than that specified in the first MP.
US08898780B2

Methods, servers, and systems for encoding security labels in a dynamic language value to allow cross script communications within client application while limiting the types of information that is allowed to be communicated back to a host server. Static analysis is performed during compilation, and the results are used to generate and insert additional code that updates, modifies and propagates labels (e.g., JavaScript labels) attached to values (e.g., JavaScript values) during execution of a program. To support popular language features that allow for strong integration with other web-based systems, malicious code is allowed to perform operations locally (e.g., on the client), and a detection and prevention mechanism identifies and stops malicious code from sending requests or gathered information over the network, naturalizing attacks and improving the security of applications that embed dynamic language code.
US08898774B2

A computer-implemented method for scanning a computer system for sensitive data. A scan manager manages a scan of files of a second computer. The scan manager receives a request to scan and identify files stored on the second computer based on at least one category of sensitive data. The scan manager receives scan report recipient information and generates a user profile based on the at least one category and the recipient information. The scan manager makes the user profile available to a category server for use in creating a scan profile defining the scan criteria and deploys a scan agent to a computer to conduct the scan based on the scan profile. When the scan is complete and upon creation of the scan report, the scan manager makes the scan report available to the intended recipients.
US08898764B2

A web extension authenticates a user using a token based authentication scheme. A token is retrieved from a client application to authenticate the user. The web extension transmits the token to a server component to have the server component authenticate the user. The server component validates the token using a validation library. The user is mapped to the token and authenticated upon validating the token.
US08898760B2

An arrangement for authenticating a transaction between a user's mobile device and an entity such as a corporate server is disclosed. The user's universal integrated circuit card (UICC) is adapted to generate a time-dependent authentication code which is dependent on a time value and which is usable to authenticate the transaction only during a predetermined period. A time verification processor verifies a time value to ensure that the time-dependent authentication code was generated based on the correct time value. The time value is based on the UTC time obtained from UTC clock. The verified time is used to generate a “one-time” password (authentication code) by the authentication code calculator of the UICC. This is used to authenticate a transaction with the corporate network.
US08898749B2

A method for one-time password generation, the one-time password being used for user authentication by a restricted resource. The one-time password is generated by means of a mathematical algorithm in a user-specific device, and the one-time password is generated by the mathematical algorithm using at least one user-specific password generation parameter. A first password generation parameter is used for generating a first one-time password for use in user authentication by a first restricted resource, and a second password generation parameter is used for generating a second one-time password for use in user authentication by a second restricted resource, the second restricted resource being different from the first restricted resource, and the first and second password generation parameters being distinct.
US08898747B2

The disclosure discloses an authentication routing system and method for a cloud computing service and an authentication router. The method comprises the following steps: an authentication router registers a cloud computing service and saves the registration information of a cloud computing service registered successfully, wherein the registration information includes but is not limited to: an index number of a cloud computing service, an authentication mechanism chosen by the cloud computing service, an address of an authentication server address providing the authentication mechanism and a routing strategy of the authentication server; when a user terminal requests a cloud computing service, the authentication router receives an authentication request for the user terminal from the requested cloud computing service; and the authentication router routes the authentication request for the user terminal to a corresponding authentication server for authentication according to the saved registration information corresponding to the cloud computing service. Through the disclosure, a cloud computing service can provide a consistent user authentication experience and a relatively high authentication security level and effectively ensures the privacy security of the user when being used by the user.
US08898746B2

A method for controlling access to protected computer resources provided via an Internet Protocol network that includes registering identity data of a subscriber identity module associated with at least one client computer device; storing (i) identity data of at least one access server, (ii) the identity data of a subscriber identity module, and (iii) authorization data regarding the protect computer resources; receiving the identity data of a subscriber identity module, and a request for the protected computer resources; authenticating (i) the identity data of the at least one access server, and (ii) the identity data of a subscriber identity module; authorizing the at least one client computer device to receive at least a portion of the protected computer resources; and permitting access to the at least the portion of the protected computer resources (i) upon successfully authenticating the identity data of the at least one access server and the identity data of a subscriber identity module associated with the at least one client computer device, and (ii) upon successfully authorizing the at least one client computer device.
US08898743B1

A method for controlling personal content on a media device includes establishing, at the media device, a wireless connection with a mobile user device using a wireless communication circuit of the media device; receiving, from the mobile user device, account information for an account associated with personal content, the personal content of the account accessible by the media device from a server computer over a communication network or from a memory of the media device; receiving, from the mobile user device, a usage term for accessing or using the personal content of the account; and controlling access to or usage of the personal content of the account by the media device based on the received account information and the usage term.
US08898739B2

Data storage and management systems can be interconnected as clustered systems to distribute data and operational loading. Further, independent clustered storage systems can be associated to form peered clusters. As provided herein, methods and systems for creating and managing intercluster relationships between independent clustered storage systems, allowing the respective independent clustered storage systems to exchange data and distribute management operations between each other while mitigating administrator involvement. Cluster introduction information is provided on a network interface of one or more nodes in a cluster, and intercluster relationships are created between peer clusters. A relationship can be created by initiating contact with a peer using a logical interface, and respective peers retrieving the introduction information provided on the network interface. Respective peers have a role/profile associated with the provided introduction information, which is mapped to the peers, allowing pre-defined access to respective peers.
US08898725B2

A method for processing an input signal is disclosed. The method includes receiving an input signal. The method also includes applying a first transfer function to the input signal to produce a first signal, wherein the first transfer function exhibits a high pass characteristic. The method further includes applying a second transfer function to the input signal to produce a second signal, the second transfer function exhibiting a low pass characteristic.
US08898719B2

A system and method of performing data communication upstream to the network central location is provided. A system and method for providing one way devices with video and/or services distributed using switched digital video can be provided. A system may include a one way device, a gateway device, a user operated communication device, and/or a network central location. Such systems and methods allow for greater functionality, customization and/or interactivity to users of one way devices, which do not communicate data from the one way device upstream to a network central location.
US08898717B1

A method is provided in one example embodiment that includes receiving a request for a linear media service and determining that the linear media service is not available. An upstream server is provided with start-up content that is streamed in response to the linear media service not being available. The method also includes switching to the linear media service if the linear media service becomes available. In certain example implementations, the upstream server is an origin server, a residential gateway, an edge cache, an endpoint, etc.
US08898714B2

Systems and methods for identifying which video segment is being displayed on a screen of a television system. The video segment is identified by deriving data from the television signals, the derived data being indicative of the video segment being displayed on the screen. This feature can be used to extract a viewer's reaction (such as changing the channel) to a specific video segment (such as an advertisement) and reporting the extracted information as metrics. The systems and methods may further provide contextually targeted content to the television system. The contextual targeting is based on not only identification of the video segment being displayed, but also a determination concerning the playing time or offset time of the particular portion of the video segment being currently displayed.
US08898711B2

An apparatus and a method of sending/receiving video on demand (VOD) streaming service according to providing client-favored advertisement. A VOD server and a VOD client terminal tie the VOD streaming service to client advertisement selection interactions, such as advertisement receipt selections, advertisement selection attributes (e.g., type, mode, etc.). The VOD server comprises a service controller providing to clients multimedia contents and specific advertisement contents selected by the clients to receive and a data storing unit storing the multimedia contents, the advertisement contents, and the client data.
US08898707B2

A system and apparatus for enhancing delivery of media services is disclosed. A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, a set-top box that can have a controller element to present at a media device a first satellite program of a number of satellite programs. A first request is received from a cell phone for content associated with the number of satellite programs. A second request is transmitted over a broadband Ethernet connection to a media system that is separate from equipment of the satellite service provider, to cause the media system to submit a fee to the multimedia satellite provider related to the content information. Content information is received over the Ethernet connection without interrupting the presenting of the first satellite program. Additional embodiments are disclosed.
US08898702B2

A video processing apparatus includes: a communication unit which receives a video content and property information of the video content from an external supply source; a video processor which processes the video content; and a controller which controls the video processor to adjust a property of the video content based on the property information of the video content received through the communication unit.
US08898687B2

This document describes techniques and apparatuses for controlling a media program based on a media reaction. In some embodiments, the techniques pause, mute, or stop a media program when a user leaves the room, when a user in the room is talking or is otherwise not paying attention to the program, or when a child walks into the room.
US08898684B2

An optical disc device according to the present invention performs, in parallel, a first control to convey a first tray in the first optical disc drive group from the disc replacing position to the recording and reproducing position, and a second control to convey a second tray in the second optical disc drive group 40R from the recording and reproducing position to the disc replacing position. The second tray is opposed to the first tray.
US08898682B2

In one embodiment an enclosure for a high-density storage system, comprises a backplane to which a plurality of data storage devices may be coupled, a front panel opposite the backplane and defining a first airflow channel adjacent a front side of the data storage devices, a back panel opposite the front panel and comprising a second airflow channel adjacent the backplane, a floor panel and a top panel, a first side panel comprising an array of air flow inlets, a second side panel comprising at least one air flow outlet, and a fan assembly to expel air from the at least one air outlet.
US08898680B2

A system and method can support asynchronous message processing in a distributed data grid. A cluster node in the distributed data grid can provide a message processor running on a message processing thread. The message processor can receive a request to process an incoming message from a service thread, wherein the request is associated with a continuation data structure. Then, the message processor can wrap the continuation data structure in a return message after processing the incoming message, and forward the return message to a service queue that is associated with the service thread.
US08898678B2

Identifying a collective operation within an application executing on a parallel computer; identifying a call site of the collective operation; determining whether the collective operation is root-based; if the collective operation is not root-based: establishing a tuning session and executing the collective operation in the tuning session; if the collective operation is root-based, determining whether all compute nodes executing the application identified the collective operation at the same call site; if all compute nodes identified the collective operation at the same call site, establishing a tuning session and executing the collective operation in the tuning session; and if all compute nodes executing the application did not identify the collective operation at the same call site, executing the collective operation without establishing a tuning session.
US08898664B2

In a virtual machine environment, a hypervisor is configured to expose a virtual cache topology to a guest operating system, such that the virtual cache topology may be provided by corresponding physical cache topology. The virtual cache topology may be determined by the hypervisor or, in the case of a datacenter environment, may be determined by the datacenter's management system. The virtual cache topology may be calculated from the physical cache topology of the system such that virtual machines may be instantiated with virtual processors and virtual cache that may be mapped to corresponding logical processors and physical cache.
US08898660B2

An example customized documentation generation apparatus is disclosed that generates documents relevant to a software update/upgrade of a particular process control system. A notes instrumentation module instruments general release notes for at least one of an update or an upgrade of a process control system to correlate the release notes with a general process control system configuration to produce instrumented notes. An upgrade assessment module determines configuration information for a particular process control system to provide default filter settings. An items of interest filter applies the default filter settings for the particular process control system to the instrumented notes to filter the instrumented notes and produce custom release notes for the particular process control system. The custom release notes are provided to a user to alert the user regarding potential effects of the update/upgrade on the particular process control system.
US08898656B2

In accordance with embodiments, there are provided mechanisms and methods for facilitating dynamic zero-downtime updating of formats of software applications in an on-demand services environment. In one embodiment and by way of example, a method includes receiving a request to facilitate a format change to a current version of a software application at a computing device, and retrieving a trigger corresponding to the format change, where a trigger may include a version indicator to indicate a past version of the software application relating to the format change. The method may further include comparing the current version and the indicated past version of the software application, and invoking the format change to the current version of the software application based on the retrieved trigger and the version indicator.
US08898654B2

A firmware update system is described that collectively handles secure firmware updates for hardware resources in a defined and consistent manner. The firmware update system may be configured to manage at least some firmware updates in a pre-boot environment (e.g., before an operating system is loaded). By doing so, the firmware update system exercises control over the updates and reduce entry points exposed to attackers. In one approach, update states are defined for hardware resources that are managed by the firmware update system. In a pre-boot environment, the update states for the managed hardware resources are set to enable firmware updates. The firmware update system may then detect and apply firmware updates available for the managed hardware resources. Update states may be set to disable before loading the operating so that firmware updates for managed resources are disabled outside of the secure pre-boot environment.
US08898649B2

Disclosed is a method for analyzing a program that includes database operation statements, including: a first procedure for analyzing control flow of a program and data used in the program, on the basis of the program and the execution result of the program; a second procedure for analyzing the dependency relationship among a plurality of database operation statements, in accordance with the analysis result of the first procedure and the operation details of the plurality of database operation statements; a third procedure for analyzing the propagation path of the incorrect operation in the opposite direction to the control flow, on the basis of the analysis result of the first procedure and the analysis result of the second procedure and taking as a starting point for analysis a predetermined program location which is operating incorrectly; and a fourth procedure for displaying program statements on the propagation path obtained by the third procedure.
US08898641B2

A computer collects first test metrics on a transaction hosted within a middleware container, and is executing within a first environment. The computer generates baseline values of expected execution behavior of the transaction based on the first test metrics. The computer collects second test metrics on the transaction hosted within the middleware container, and is executing within a second environment. The computer compares the second test metrics to the baseline values. The computer determines whether the second test metrics satisfy the baseline values. In response to the second test metrics not satisfying the baseline values, the computer identifies the transaction as a candidate for cancellation.
US08898640B2

Embodiments are directed to handling errors in a distributed software application. In one scenario, a computer system instantiates a distributed application which is configured for execution on multiple different computer systems. The computer system determines that an exception has occurred during the execution of the distributed application on at least one of the computer systems and translates the exception that occurred during distributed execution in a distributed environment into a serial exception that appears to have occurred during serial execution in a serial execution environment. The computer system then presents the translated serial exception to an application developer or other user.
US08898631B2

A method (300) of editing program code is proposed. The program code consists of main instructions written in a high-level language. Typically, the program code further includes one or more sets of service instructions, which are not directly connected to a desired algorithm (such as tracing instructions for debugging purposes, performance measuring instructions, and the like). In the solution of the invention, each set of service instructions is enclosed (321-322) between a pair of predefined comments defining a starting tag and an ending tag. An editor of the program code is provided with commands for automatically disabling (341) the service instructions (converting them into corresponding comments); at the same time, the disabled instructions are condensed (340) on the monitor. Additional commands are available for automatically enabling (368) and restoring (367) the service instructions.
US08898630B2

Systems and methods for developing, customizing, and deploying mobile device applications through voice and/or gesture interactions are provided through a mobile application development and deployment platform. Preferably, these systems and methods are implemented in an Internet based environment that allows non-technical users to build sophisticated, highly-customizable cross-platform mobile applications. The platform allows users to use voice and/or gesture interactions to select, input, create, customize, and combine various content, design characteristics, and application components, such as modules, some of which utilize features and functionality associated with various mobile devices and mobile operating systems. In certain embodiments, the platform allows users to compile the mobile application for various mobile operating systems and generates a configuration file for the mobile application that can be distributed to end users for execution on various mobile devices. When the mobile application is installed on, or executed by the mobile device, the configuration file may enable the retrieval of various data associated with the mobile application.
US08898597B2

An approach for methodology, and an associated apparatus, enabling a simulation process to check integrity of the design and predict a manufacturability of a resulting circuit that accounts for process latitude without a long turnaround time and/or a highly skilled engineer is disclosed. Embodiments include: determining first and second features of an IC design; determining a thickness of a resist layer of the IC design based on an aerial image of the IC design; determining a threshold value according to the thickness; and comparing the threshold value to a separation distance between the first and second features.
US08898593B2

Technologies are described herein for identifying a sharing level of content items in a content library. The content library includes a first content item having a first sharing configuration and a second content item having a second sharing configuration. The first sharing state associated with the first content item is set based on the first sharing configuration. The second sharing state associated with the second content item is set based on the second sharing configuration. A content list including multiple rows and a sharing hint column is displayed. A first row corresponds to the first content item, and a second row corresponds to the second content item. A first icon corresponding to the first sharing state is arranged under the sharing hint column on the first row. A second sharing icon corresponding to the second sharing state is arranged under the sharing hint column on the second row.
US08898592B2

A method for viewing a tree structure can include retrieving, by a computer, the tree structure having a plurality of nodes for viewing on a display, receiving, by the computer, a user selection of a first node for expansion, receiving, by the computer, a user selection of a second node for expansion and grouping the first node and the second node.
US08898591B2

According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a method for implementation on a computer system in order to remove or disable a program that generates dialog boxes on a display of the computer system. The method includes accepting input from a user input device that identifies a dialog box displayed on the display of the computer system, identifying the process or process module and program components associated with the identified dialog box, and attempting to terminate or disable the identified process or process module, and remove or disable the identified program components.
US08898588B2

A method for providing a user interface (UI) for each user and a device applying the same are provided. The method displays an icon indicating that a user has approached, if the user approaches an approach recognition area, and displays a personalized area allocated to the user, if a manipulation to select the icon is input. Accordingly, the user uses the device simply by approaching the device without going through an extra log-in process, so that the user can use the device more easily.
US08898584B2

A mobile electronic device includes a touch sensitive display and enables text input to be provided in either a reduced keyboard ambiguous text input mode or in a full keyboard unambiguous text input mode and advantageously enables uncommitted text entered in the ambiguous input mode to be automatically committed when switching into the unambiguous input mode. An improved method employs the mobile electronic device.
US08898583B2

A method for providing contextual information regarding semantic entities included in a page of content, includes the steps of: displaying to a user a page of content including one or more semantic entities; identifying the included one or more semantic entities; and receiving input from the user indicating a desire to receive contextual information regarding a specific one of the identified semantic entities.
US08898580B2

Various embodiments provide a model through which service providers can describe offered services using a standardized format. In one or more embodiments, the standardized format is declarative and enables service providers to describe their associated services in a standardized way. In at least some embodiments, the standardized format includes a set of common service properties that are shared across multiple different services. Additionally, service specific properties can be described in addition to the common service properties. In one or more embodiments, existing services can be extended by including, in the standardized format, a description of an extension. In one or more other embodiments, new services can be added for consumption by simply including a description of the new service using the standardized format.
US08898572B2

Disclosed is a method and system for enabling a user, through a user interface, to manage a correspondence that defines how information about a state of a first device at a first location is to be used to control a second device at a second location.
US08898568B2

An audio user interface that provides audio prompts that help a user interact with a user interface of an electronic device is disclosed. The audio prompts can provide audio indicators that allow a user to focus his or her visual attention upon other tasks such as driving an automobile, exercising, or crossing a street, yet still enable the user to interact with the user interface. An intelligent path can provide access to different types of audio prompts from a variety of different sources. The different types of audio prompts may be presented based on availability of a particular type of audio prompt. As examples, the audio prompts may include pre-recorded voice audio, such as celebrity voices or cartoon characters, obtained from a dedicate voice server. Absent availability of pre-recorded or synthesized audio data, non-voice audio prompts may be provided.
US08898561B2

A method and a device for determining a display mode of an electronic document on a screen are provided. The method may comprise: obtaining the size of the screen and the original layout size of the electronic document; determining, from the obtained original layout size, a document layout length in a layout direction of the original layout of the electronic document; determining, from the obtained size of the screen, a screen reading length in a reading direction of the screen; and comparing the document layout length with the screen reading length to determine whether a fixed-layout display mode or a flow display mode shall be selected to display the electronic document.
US08898550B2

A data encoding method for encoding a sequence of N input blocks of bits into an output block for transmission includes adding an L-bit control indicator, indicating whether the sequence contains any control blocks, and if so, producing an output block in which the order of data and control blocks is preserved by deleting a set of bits from the block-type field of at least one control block, adding to the sequence an N-bit position indicator indicating positions of data and control blocks in the sequence, and providing in bit positions of remaining bits of the block-type field of the at least one control block an indication of the type of that control block; wherein the position indicator bits are added at bit-positions such that, in a header-first transmission order of the output block, all data and control blocks succeed the position indicator bits indicating positions of those blocks.
US08898548B1

A data storage device may comprise an array of flash memory devices and a controller coupled thereto, configured to program and read data from the array responsive to received data access commands. The array may comprise a plurality of blocks, each comprising a plurality of flash pages (F-Pages), each of which comprising an integer number of one or more error correcting code pages (E-Pages), at least some of which comprising a data portion and an error correction code (ECC) portion. The controller may be configured to store a plurality of logical pages (L-Pages) in one or more of the plurality of E-Pages, at least some being unaligned with boundaries of the E-Pages; and to adjust, in at least one of the blocks, the size of the ECC portion and correspondingly adjust the size of the data portion of the E-Pages.
US08898536B2

The following description includes a method and a system of detecting bit errors in a multi-core processor. When a subatomic particle, or other matter, impacts the processing cores of the processor, bit flips may occur. To detect these bit flips and thereby prevent erroneous results, operations performed by one core are inversely performed by another core. By comparing the results of the original operation and the inverse operation, embodiments of the invention can detect errors in binary data. If an error is detected, then the operations are performed again. Alternatively, multiple cores do not perform inverse operations, but instead perform identical operations in parallel. The results from the parallel operations are compared and if the results are not identical, then the operations are repeated.
US08898527B2

An integrated circuit comprises scan test circuitry and additional circuitry subject to testing utilizing the scan test circuitry. The scan test circuitry comprises a scan chain having a plurality of scan cells. The integrated circuit further comprises a clock distribution network configured to provide clock signals to respective portions of the integrated circuit. The clock distribution network comprises at least one clock module comprising one or more clock dividers and associated clock divider logic, and the scan test circuitry is configured to permit testing of at least a portion of the clock divider logic. A given scan chain of the scan test circuitry may comprise first and second scan cells, with the first scan cell having a scan output coupled to a scan input of the second scan cell, and the second scan cell having a data input driven by an output of the clock divider logic.
US08898520B1

A computer implemented method is provided for message queue failure recovery. The method comprises detecting a failure in a message queue or a queue manager for the message queue, detecting a current status of each of the message queue and the queue manager, examining a maintained active log for the message queue and a message recovery log, examining usage of system resources associated with the message queue and the queue manager, and executing one of a plurality of failure recovery procedures based on the current status of the message queue and the queue manager, the active log, the message recovery log, and the usage of the system resources.
US08898514B2

A SAS storage enclosure to provide storage drive information that includes an expander and a storage manager. The expander supports communication between initiators and associated zoned storage drives of the storage enclosure, and the storage drive information table is to store extended storage drive status information of storage drives of the storage enclosure. The storage manager is to store to the storage drive information table extended storage drive status information of storage drives of the storage enclosure in response to receipt from an initiator a SAS command to store the information, in the event that the storage manager receives from an initiator a command to exchange data with a zoned storage drive and then a storage drive failure occurs with the zoned storage drive. The storage manager sends to the initiator the information in response to receipt from an initiator a SAS command to retrieve the information.
US08898508B2

A checkpointing fault tolerance network architecture enables a backup computer system to be remotely located from a primary computer system. An intermediary computer system is situated between the primary computer system and the backup computer system to manage the transmission of checkpoint information to the backup VM in an efficient manner. The intermediary computer system is networked to the primary VM through a first connection and is networked to the backup VM through a second connection. The intermediary computer system identifies updated data corresponding to memory pages that have been less frequently modified by the primary VM and transmits such updated data to the backup VM through the first connection. In such manner, the intermediary computer system holds back updated data corresponding to more frequently modified memory pages, since such memory pages may be more likely to be updated again in the future.
US08898506B2

Methods and structure for enhanced SAS expander functionality to store and forward buffered information transmitted from an initiator device to a target device and to process errors in control circuits of the expander without intervention from the general purpose programmable processor of the expander. A PHY of an expander is associated with control circuits that comprise buffering of commands to be forwarded to an end device directly coupled to the PHY. The control circuits locally process errors detected from the end device. The control circuits comprise a SATA host circuit adapted to communicate with a SATA end device to detect and clear error conditions and a SATA target circuit to communicate with one or more STP initiator devices to report and clear error conditions reported by the end device. The structures and methods may also service SAS connections (in addition to STP connections).
US08898501B1

A multiprocessor system dynamically updates CPU affinities for processes executing on processors of the multiprocessor system based on an external signal. The external signal is generated by a monitor device. The external signal identifies the processors and the processes that require updating. In response to the external signal, the multiprocessor system redistributes the processes identified in the external signal and powers on or off one or more processors based on a processor threshold associated with the multiprocessor system.
US08898481B1

An auditable cryptographic protected cloud computing communication system, wherein the system can include a plurality of industrial devices. Each industrial device can have an individualized messaging protocol enabling each industrial device to receive commands and transmit status and measurement data using the individualized messaging protocol for each industrial device. At least one industrial device is in communication with a computing cloud, wherein the computing cloud is configured to provide at least one service and shared hardware and software resources.
US08898475B2

In a method for detecting infringements of the authenticity of a system component an authentication request is sent from a controller to an authentication device of the system component. A first authentication code is calculated in the authentication device by applying a shared one-way function to an identification code, stored in the authentication device, for the system component. A second authentication code in the controller is calculated by applying the shared one-way function to an identification code, stored in the controller, for the system component, and an authentication response including the first authentication code is sent from the authentication device to the controller. The first authentication code is compared with the second authentication code in the controller for detecting infringements of the authenticity of the system component.
US08898471B2

A method for generating and delivering a message via a web service is provided. A message for a recipient is converted to a URL and sent. A request is received from a sender to send a message to a recipient. A URL message is created in response to receiving the request to send the message to the recipient and the URL message is sent to the recipient. A URL message response is received from the recipient and a landing message is sent to the recipient in response to receiving the URL message response. The landing message includes a hint requesting an answer from the recipient. An answer is received from the recipient and the message is displayed to the recipient in response to receiving the answer.
US08898467B2

A switcher device comprises a multiplexer coupled in-between at least one input and output cards. The multiplexer detects the presence of an event signal from an activated sink. In response to the detection of the event signal, the switch dynamically switches to a closed position in order to enable the at least one source to authenticate with the input card and the output card to authenticate with the at least one sink for security protocol encryption. In response to the non-detection of the event signal, the switch switches dynamically to an open position in order to disable the at least one source from authenticating with the input card, therefore the output card also does not attempt to authenticate with the at least one sink for security protocol encryption.
US08898462B2

The invention relates to a device and a method for authenticating components of an self-service automatic teller machine, wherein the components comprise unambiguous identification information that can be exchanged among the components, wherein an authentication of the components and/or the information exchanged between the components is carried out by the encryption and/or signature of the information on basis of identity based encryption (IBE) that uses the identification information of the components.
US08898452B2

A system and method for securing data by receiving encrypted data at a security appliance transmitted from a client, wherein at least a portion of the encrypted data is encrypted according to a first encryption protocol, and wherein the encrypted data is transmitted to the security appliance according to a first data transfer protocol. The encrypted data is then decrypted at the security appliance, wherein at least a portion of the decrypted data is re-encrypted according to a second encryption protocol at the security appliance. The re-encrypted data is transmitted from the security appliance to a storage device, wherein the re-encrypted data is transmitted according to a second data transfer protocol that is different than the first data transfer protocol.
US08898438B2

The invention provides a processor comprising an execution unit for executing multiple threads, each thread comprising a sequence of instructions and each thread being designated to handle activity from at least one specified source. The processor also comprises a thread scheduler for scheduling a plurality of threads to be executed by the execution unit, said scheduling being based on the respective activity handled by the threads; and a plurality of sets of registers connected to the execution unit. Each set of registers is arranged to store information representing a respective one of the plurality of threads, at least a part of the information being accessible by the execution unit for use in executing the respective thread when scheduled.
US08898435B2

A technique for optimizing program instruction execution throughput in a central processing unit core (CPU). The CPU implements a simultaneous multithreading (SMT) operational mode wherein program instructions associated with at least two software threads are executed in parallel as hardware threads while sharing one or more hardware resources used by the CPU, such as cache memory, translation lookaside buffers, functional execution units, etc. As part of the SMT mode, the CPU implements an autothread (AT) operational mode. During the AT operational mode, a determination is made whether there is a resource conflict between the hardware threads that undermines instruction execution throughput. If a resource conflict is detected, the CPU adjusts the relative instruction execution rates of the hardware threads based on relative priorities of the software threads.
US08898432B2

Systems and methods for folding a single instruction multiple data (SIMD) array include a newly defined processing element group (PEG) that allows interconnection of PEGs by abutment without requiring a row or column weave pattern. The interconnected PEGs form a SIMD array that is effectively folded at its center along the North-South axis, and may also be folded along the East-West axis. The folding of the array provides for north and south boundaries to be co-located and for east and west boundaries to be co-located. The co-location allows wrap-around connections to be done with a propagation distance reduced effectively to zero.
US08898431B2

The present invention provides a multi-path network for use in a bridge, switch, router, hub or the like, comprising a plurality of network ports adapted for connection with one or more devices, each device having a different identifying address data; a plurality of network elements; and a plurality of network links interconnecting the network elements and connecting the network elements to the network ports, wherein the multi-path network further comprises separately addressable memory elements each adapted for storing device address data and the multi-path network is adapted to distribute a plurality of device address data amongst the plurality of memory elements.
US08898427B2

Embodiments relate to target buffer address region tracking. An aspect includes receiving a restart address, and comparing, by a processing circuit, the restart address to a first stored address and to a second stored address. The processing circuit determines which of the first and second stored addresses is identified as a same range and a different range to form a predicted target address range defining an address region associated with an entry in the target buffer. Based on determining that the restart address matches the first stored address, the first stored address is identified as the same range and the second stored address is identified as the different range. Based on determining that the restart address matches the second stored address, the first stored address is identified as the different range and the second stored address is identified as the same range.
US08898422B2

A workload-aware distributed data processing apparatus and method for processing large data based on hardware acceleration are provided. The data processing apparatus includes a memory buffer including partitions. The data processing apparatus further includes a partition unit configured to distribute a mapping result to the partitions based on a partition proportion scheme. The data processing apparatus further includes a reduce node configured to receive content of a corresponding one of the partitions, and perform a reduction operation on the content to generate a reduce result.
US08898420B2

A non-volatile storage device, which communicates with an access device and carries out reading and/or writing of data in accordance with a command from the access device, the device comprises one or more non-volatile memories for storing data and a memory controller for carrying out control of the non-volatile memory. The memory controller writes data to the error correcting group and writes a provisional error correcting code with respect to the data to the parity table if a data size is smaller than the first size when writing the data.
US08898416B2

A computer program product and system for managing allocation of storage in a switch utilizing flow control are provided. The switch includes a plurality of ports and an internal storage divided into a plurality of storage units. The computer program product and system provide for monitoring an average number of storage units used by each of the plurality of ports over a predetermined time period, setting a threshold for the average number of storage units used by each of the plurality of ports, and allocating one or more available storage units assigned to a first port to a second port in response to storage allocation management being enabled for the second port and the average number of storage units used by the second port exceeding the threshold for the second port.
US08898411B2

A system and method of managing stored data in a storage management system. The storage management system includes a storage manager, a media agent connected to the storage manager, and a primary volume connected to the media agent. Multiple snapshots are taken of the primary volume. The snapshots are indexed by associating respective information with the snapshot. The indexed snapshots are copied to a recovery volume. In this way, browsing features are enabled for the user. The user may view the snapshots in a hierarchical format, and may even view snapshot data in association with the corresponding application. The resultant recovery volume may be used to replace a primary volume.
US08898407B1

A method, article of manufacture, and apparatus for protecting data. In some embodiments, this includes taking a snapshot of a physical volume with a native snapshot program, determining which blocks have changed since a previous snapshot with a change block tracker, creating a child virtual container, populating the child virtual container with the changed blocks, and linking the child virtual container with a parent virtual container.
US08898406B2

A data block read-out control apparatus includes: an order buffer that stores an identifier sequence in which sort-unit identifiers corresponding to data blocks stored in reception buffers prepared for each sort unit are arranged in arrival order of the data blocks; a detecting unit that detects a head position of the sort-unit identifiers in the identifier sequence; a determining unit that determines a data block to be read out from one of the reception buffers, based on at least the head position of the sort-unit identifiers and a read-out rule of data blocks from the reception buffers defined in advance; and a reading-out unit that reads out the data block determined in the determining unit, from the one of the reception buffers, wherein the sort-unit identifiers are expressed by a minimum bit number to express all sort units corresponding to the data blocks stored in the reception buffers.
US08898404B2

A memory management method is provided to manage a memory in which areas of a garbage collected Java heap memory and a non-garbage collected external heap memory can be secured, by using a program executed by a processor in a computer. If it is judged that there is no reference to all data arranged in the external heap memory or starting point data of reference relations included in the all data, from data arranged outside the external heap memory, then the external heap memory is judged to be capable of being deallocated. As a result, it becomes possible to implement memory management in which garbage collection needing a long time program stop is not conducted and an additional API is not used.
US08898399B2

Disclosed are systems and methods for transporting data using shared memory comprising allocating, by one of a plurality of sender application, one or more pages, wherein the one or more pages are stored in a shared memory, wherein the shared memory is partitioned into one or more pages, and writing data, by the sender application, to the allocated one or more pages, wherein a page is either available for use or allocated to the sender applications, wherein the one or more pages become available after the sender application has completed writing the data. The systems and methods further disclose sending a signal, by the sender application, to a receiver application, wherein the signal notifies the receiver application that writing the data to a particular page is complete, reading, by the receiver application, the data from the one or more pages, and de-allocating, by the receiver application, the one or more pages.
US08898391B2

A technique for determining a data window size allows a set of predicted blocks to be transmitted along with requested blocks. A stream enabled application executing in a virtual execution environment may use the blocks when needed.
US08898389B2

A mechanism is provided for managing a high speed memory. An index entry indicates a storage unit in the high speed memory. A corresponding non-free index is set for a different type of low speed memory. The indicated storage unit in the high speed memory is assigned to a corresponding low speed memory by including the index entry in the non-free index. The storage unit in the high speed memory is recovered by demoting the index entry from the non-free index. The mechanism acquires a margin performance loss corresponding to a respective non-free index in response to receipt of a demotion request. The mechanism compares the margin performance losses of the respective non-free indexes and selecting a non-free index whose margin performance loss satisfies a demotion condition as a demotion index and selects an index entry from the demotion index to perform the demotion operation.
US08898356B2

An electronic device including a host system including a source; and a target system operably coupled to the host system via a combined power I/O line; wherein the target system includes a pass transistor and a switching system cooperative to allow the source to charge a power supply capacitor on the target system via the combined power I/O line in a first mode and alternately charge and discharge the power supply capacitor during a communication via the combined power I/O line in a second mode, wherein the alternately charging and discharging is in synchronization with said communication.
US08898355B2

An arrangement for facilitating remote booting in diskless client systems as just described. To this end, there is broadly contemplated herein the employment of a hypervisor that can freely accommodate a variety of booting arrangements for a given OS. This then ensures that few if any modifications, especially costly ones, would need to be made to the OS to ensure greater versatility.
US08898351B2

In one aspect, a method of compressing data includes splitting an I/O into smaller I/Os based on an I/O throughput. The size of the smaller I/Os are equal or less than a set block size. The method also includes asynchronously compressing the smaller I/Os. In another aspect, an article includes a non-transitory machine-readable medium that stores executable instructions. The instructions cause a machine to split an I/O into smaller I/Os based on an I/O throughput and asynchronously compress the smaller I/Os. The size of the smaller I/Os being equal or less than a set block size. In a further aspect, a system includes circuitry configured to split an I/O into smaller I/Os based on an I/O throughput and asynchronously compress the smaller I/Os. The size of the smaller I/Os being equal or less than a set block size.
US08898346B1

Method and system for an initiator device communicating with a target device are provided. The initiator device sends an inquiry to the target device to determine if the target device supports dynamic parameter setting of certain operating parameters used by both the initiator device and the target device for sending and receiving information from each other. The initiator device receives parameters from the target device, when the target device supports dynamic parameter settings. The initiator device translates parameters received from the target device; and sets operating parameters at the initiator device based on the received parameters from the target device.
US08898331B2

The embodiments described herein provide a method, program and computing network for processing a content request received via a computing network. The method comprises the steps of receiving an incoming request for content from a remote computing device, determining the content type requested by the incoming request and delivering the request to one of a plurality of servers according to the determined content request type.
US08898327B2

The present invention relates to a method and device for arranging peers in a P2P network. To this end, a request is received from a peer entering the network to receive data content. Thereafter, a latency is determined with which the entering peer is to receive the data content with respect to a real-time playback point of the data content distributed by the streaming source. After the latency has been determined, the entering peer is provided with a plurality of randomly selected peers from which the requested data content can be downloaded with an expected probability depending on the determined latency. Thus, the entering peer is enabled to download, with the expected probability, the requested data content from a selected one of the randomly selected peers having a lower latency than that determined for the entering peer.
US08898324B2

A method, accelerator system, and computer program access data in an out-of-core processing environment. A data access configuration is received from a server system managing a plurality of data sets. A determination is made that data sets retrieved from the server system are to be stored locally based on the data access configuration. A request to interact with a given data set is received from a user client. At least a portion of the given data set is retrieved from the server system. The at least a portion of the given data set is stored locally a memory based on the data access configuration that has been received.
US08898318B2

One or more techniques and/or systems are disclosed for providing resource authorization to users of a distributed memory store (e.g., a distributed web-based cloud service). A session ID that identifies a location of an authorization document in a distributed memory store is used to access the authorization document, which comprises a global section with a principal ID related to a user. The user can be authorized to utilize a resource (e.g., in a distributed cloud service) if a resource section is present for the principal ID in the authorization document, and has appropriate resource data for the resource. If the resource section is not present, it can be created in the authorization document, and identified by a resource identifier. Authorization data can be loaded into the newly created resource section, and the authorization document, with the global and resource sections, is saved to a local cache for the distributed memory store.
US08898317B1

A communications system and associated method distributes media in a communications network. A Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) communication session call is established between a caller and a communications server. A message is transmitted from the communications server to the media server that includes Session Description Protocol (SDP) parameters for media provided by the media server. Media is delivered to the caller in a packet format in accordance with the Real Time Transport Protocol (RTP) to reuse the same socket as the source IP and port numbers and update RTP timestamps and sequence numbers. The media is transferred to the caller with minimal jitter buffer flushes and network resource usage.
US08898302B2

A method and apparatus for prevention of user-level applications from initiating data connection establishment using signaling from radio code, the method including receiving a request from an application on a mobile device at a tunnel management module on the mobile device, the request being to establish a data connection with a network; checking a state of a tunnel for the data connection at the tunnel management module; blocking the connection request if the tunnel for the data connection is in a stalled state; and allowing the connection request to proceed to a networking access interface module if the tunnel for the data connection is not in a stalled state.
US08898295B2

Computerized methods, systems, and computer-storage media for fairly sharing available bandwidth among endpoints (including physical or virtual machines) of a multitenant environment are provided. Initially, a load balancer of the network is programmed to monitor bandwidth used by the endpoints, respectively, and to compare an aggregation of the usage against a network threshold. Also, the load balancer is equipped to dynamically classify the endpoints using the respective monitored bandwidth. Classifying generally involves designating some endpoints as small entities, which individually consume an amount of bandwidth less than an endpoint threshold, and designating other endpoints as large entities, which individually consume an amount of bandwidth greater than the endpoint threshold. Upon the aggregate bandwidth usage overcoming the network threshold, data packets being sent to or transmitted from the large entities are randomly dropped, while data packets being sent to or transmitted from the small entities are unrestrained.
US08898292B2

A plurality of network addresses from a distributed client is obtained, at least a first portion of the obtained network addresses including resolved network address responses to distributed client requests for resolved network addresses corresponding to one or more network location indicators associated with a first web service. Test content is obtained, based on one or more of the network addresses included in the first portion. It is determined whether the obtained test content includes unauthorized content.
US08898289B1

Method and system for distributing a notification of an event occurring at a one entity to an affected entity. In one embodiment, entities are grouped into one or more groups so that an event occurring at one entity of the group is distributed to the other entities of the group (“affected entities”). If an event occurs at an entity managed by a local entity manager, a notification of the event can be routed to a remote entity manager that manages an affected entity. The local entity manager can use a distributed mapping to determine where to route the event notification. In one embodiment the mapping associates an entity to an entity manager.
US08898282B2

A system can include multiple individual status identifiers that correspond to multiple users and a group status identifier that corresponds to a group with which the users are associated. A status identifier update module can update the group status identifier based on a change to at least one of the individual status identifiers.
US08898277B2

A computer-implemented system to support performance monitoring of distributed transaction service can comprise a monitoring management tier that provides services to a monitoring logic and policy control module; one or more monitoring processes that are controlled by the monitoring logic and policy control module; and a plug-in framework that includes one or more plug-ins that is capable of receiving monitoring data from the one or more monitoring processes.
US08898262B2

A method for configuring a network path of a network for transferring a data flow, whereby said path has a network device susceptible of network congestion and arranged for storing at least a part of the data flow. The method includes determining at least one possible path for transferring between locations of source and destination a data flow, the data flow being classified according to a footprint measure indicative of a possible difference between the total amount of incoming data and the total amount of outgoing data in the at least one network device over a time interval having a duration of one or more time units, the time unit is chosen that individual data units of the at least one data flow are distinguishable at byte level by the network device, and configuring the at least one path according to the footprint measure.
US08898257B1

The present invention provides for a brokering device adapted to manage multimedia information including an interface device having access to a network and a multimedia service provider. The interface device enables selection of multimedia information from the network and provides the selected multimedia information to a plurality of locations without requiring the user to specify a protocol associated with the multimedia information.
US08898253B2

A media editing system includes one or more machines that are configured to support cloud-based collaborative editing of media by one or more client devices. A machine within the media editing system may be configured to receive a render request for generation of a media frame, determine whether a client device is to generate the media frame, and initiate generation of the media frame. Moreover, a machine within the media editing system may facilitate resolution of conflicts between edits to a particular piece of media. Furthermore, a machine within the media editing system may facilitate provision of convenient access to media from a particular client device to one or more additional client devices.
US08898251B2

A link to a file to be stored at a network location is calculated using a client before the file is uploaded to the network location. The client may calculate the link to the network location either while online or offline. In response to determining to upload a file, a link to the file at the network location is calculated before uploading the file. The created link may be a direct link that specifies the file at the network location as the destination of the link and/or a redirect link that when used redirects the user to the file at the network location. The link may be created using various information (e.g. a default location, filename, and/or a unique key). When online, the client may reserve a specific link with the network location before the file is uploaded.
US08898249B1

A user, identified by a network access identifier (NAI) or other user identifier, uses a communication device, identified by a hostname or other device identifier. An Internet Protocol (IP) address is obtained for the communication device, e.g., when the user logs in for access to a packet-switched network. An association between the IP address and the hostname is registered in a domain name server. An association between the user identifier and the hostname is registered in an RWHOIS server. An application may query the RWHOIS server to determine the hostname of the communication device being used by the user and then query the domain name server to determine the IP address of the communication device.
US08898243B2

A device relay control synchronizes a primary control display device with one or more other display devices connected over a network. The system operates independently, without the need of specialized hardware, and requires only a network connection. The control facilitates synchronization, for example, between a teacher's manual and a student book in a digitized teaching environment, allowing a teacher to facilitate a page turn event on a student book without diverting attention from the teacher's manual.
US08898237B1

Systems, methods, and interfaces are provided for sharing information. Specifically, the present application is directed toward an environment for facilitating the exchange of information between users associated with specific partner network components. Users are granted access to such specific partner networks through a content management system in accordance with each user's affiliation with one or more organizations. The content management system can generate specific information portals accessible by individual users based their organizational associations.
US08898227B1

A system for bilaterally transferring information between a client and an NFS server. The client is coupled with an NFS server proxy running on a second receive server via a first network and communicates thereon. The processed first information is passed to a first send server via a dedicated network connection. The first send server causes the first information to be transmitted to the NFS server, via a first one-way data link, a first receive server, a second dedicated network connection and an NFS client proxy running on a second send server. The NFS server is coupled to the NFS client proxy via a second network. The NFS client proxy forwards information received from the NFS server to the client via a second one-way link, the NFS server proxy running on the second receive server and the first network.
US08898226B2

In particular embodiments, a search request is received at a social network. A search may be performed to find any matching users whose associated content matches one or more terms in the search request. The search may be performed in a data store of social networking content associated with users of the social network. Matching users having matching associated content may be determined from the search results. Associated content information for at least one matching user may be retrieved. Information to display a web page may be sent in response to the search request. The information to display the web page may comprise profile information and the associated content information for the matching users.
US08898217B2

Systems and methods are provided for selecting content based on user interactions with content previously presented to a user but failing to generate a conversion. In operation, a content delivery system delivers a content package to a user terminal, where the content package includes a content designed to elicit a pre-defined response, such as a conversion. The user terminal then presents the content to a user and generates a journal of events occurring in response to the content package. The journal is then used to determine the proximity of the events in the journal to the pre-defined response. If the degree of proximity to the desired response is high, the user is likely prepared to complete the conversion and therefore a same or similar content can be selected for the user terminal. Otherwise, new content can be delivered to the user terminal.
US08898213B2

An apparatus and method for processing a division of a binary polynomial are provided. The apparatus includes a plurality of exclusive OR (XOR) operators that may perform a selective XOR operation with respect to a conditional bit of a dividend polynomial. The plurality of XOR operators may perform selective XOR operations in parallel and accordingly, a division of a binary polynomial may be rapidly performed.
US08898201B1

Data migration between Home Location Registers (HLR) may be performed because another HLR platform better suits business needs due to its performance, or because the provider chooses to move to another make, model, or manufacturer, or may be the result of a combination of rationales. Data migration is ideally executed with minimal interruption of service to the customers of the telecommunications provider. The systems and methods disclosed herein provide an automated, repeatable manner of migrating data between HLR platforms using a flat source file created for each table from the original HLR platform being transferred. A series of scripts is created and run and if a step in the process or function of the system is not correctly executed, that source file and/or the series of scripts is edited or otherwise reviewed instead of re-downloading new data from the original HLR platform.
US08898198B2

Provided is a graphical user interface (GUI) to associate information with an object. Different views are maintained providing different hierarchical arrangements of a set of objects. Selection is received of one view and one object in the selected view. Information is associated with the selected object, wherein the associated information is accessible in all views in which the object with which the information is associated is accessible.
US08898179B2

Embodiments of the present invention recite a method for extracting attribute data from a media file. In one embodiment, an attribute of a geographic feature, which is described in at least one media file, is automatically identified. A configuration file is then accessed which defines how the attribute is to be displayed by an office application. The attribute is then displayed in a manner consistent with the configuration file.
US08898178B2

A solution monitoring system is provided for gathering, filtering, and analyzing information associated with solutions for managing monitoring, upgrades, and migrations. Telemetry may be recorded for various types of solution events and various properties of solutions as part of an add-in intelligence. Furthermore, add-in management tools are provided for administrators and end users.
US08898171B2

One embodiment of a non-word-based information retrieval system includes searching stock or image documents in a huge data source. A non-word-based document is first divided into a series of elements or an array of cells. Each element or cell is matched against a series of predefined token patterns, so that a match will generate a token having a name. The collection of the generated named tokens is a word-based representation of the non-word-based document. After tokens from all documents are collected in a master collection of tokens, the non-word-based documents can be efficiently and systematically searched in a manner analogous to a document search in a word-based search system.
US08898168B2

An information searching apparatus retrieves a sub graph matching an inquiry graph from a graph to be searched. The apparatus includes an extracting unit that extracts, from among clusters of nodes in the graph to be searched, plural cluster pairs that each include a first cluster and a second cluster including a node linked by a link to a node in the first cluster and a calculating unit that calculates a bonding strength for each of the cluster pairs. The apparatus further includes a determining unit that determines, among the cluster pairs and based on the bonding strength of each of the cluster pairs, a cluster pair to be merged; a merging unit that merges the cluster pair; and a searching unit that searches the merged clusters for a sub graph matching the inquiry graph. An output unit outputs a search result of the searching unit.
US08898165B2

A computer hardware-implemented method, system, and/or computer program product identifies a null set of synthetic event containing electronic files in a database of electronic files. A synthetic event, which is a non-executable descriptor of a set of context-related factors, is created. A context-based search of a database of electronic files is performed to identify a synthetic event containing electronic file that includes the synthetic event. In response to determining that there are no electronic files in the database of electronic files that contain the synthetic event, a set of binary data is transmitted/broadcast. The set of binary data includes a notice that there are no synthetic event electronic files in the database of electronic files.
US08898148B1

A computer-implemented information targeting method is disclosed. The method includes receiving a search query from a computing device, where the search query has at least two different meanings, identifying metadata associated with the search query, using the metadata to promote search results corresponding to a first meaning of the at least two meanings of the search query, and providing search results corresponding to the first meaning of the search query to the computing device. Using the metadata to promote search results may comprise analyzing (a) prior search queries that are related to the received search query, (b) metadata associated with the prior search queries, and (c) selections of search results provided in response to the prior search queries; and identifying a correlation between the metadata associated with the prior search queries and selections of search results presented in response to the prior search queries.
US08898139B1

Systems and methods for a dynamic visual search engine are provided. In one example method, a criteria used to partition a set of compressed image descriptors into multiple database shards may be determined. Additionally, a size of a dynamic index may be determined. The dynamic index may represent a dynamic number of images and may be configured to accept insertion of reference images into the dynamic index that can be search against immediately. According to the method, an instruction to merge the uncompressed image descriptors of the dynamic index into the database shards of the compressed image descriptors may be received, and the uncompressed image descriptors of the dynamic index may be responsively merged into the database shards of the compressed image descriptors based on the criteria.
US08898135B2

Search keywords are acquired (S3), a first item and a second item displayable by scale axes are set in accordance with the search keywords (S4, S5), a search is made by the search keywords and the scale axis values of the items and a presence of search hits is found (S5), and display data for displaying a 2D distribution of the presence of search hits is generated by the scale axis values of the items in a plane with two axes including the scale axis of the first item and the scale axis of the second item (S11).
US08898133B2

Methods and system for providing social feeds from a plurality of third party sites to a user at a host site includes retrieving one or more access logs capturing online behavior of the user. The access logs are analyzed to determine the user's interactive behavioral pattern related to social feeds from each of the plurality of third party sites. A refresh schedule for the user is computed to refresh cache entries of social feeds at the host site based on the analysis of the user's online behavior at the social feeds. Cache entries of social feeds for the user are refreshed at the host site from the one or more of the plurality of third party sites at an allotted time specified by the refresh schedule.
US08898131B1

A set of preliminary search results is retrieved based on a search query, the set of search results including a plurality of pay-per-click listings. A normalized click-through rate is calculated for each pay-per-click listing in the set of preliminary search results, the normalized click-through rate being based on an actual click-through rate that is adjusted according to one or more positions in which the pay-per-click listing was previously provided in one or more sets of final search results. The plurality of pay-per-click listings is ordered based on the calculated normalized click-through rates.
US08898127B2

A lock control device receives a lock acquisition request from an application and transmits a lock acquisition request to a DBMS, receives a lock acquisition response from the DBMS, and transmits a lock acquisition response to the application, and each time, acquires statistical time information including the lock request counter, subsequent lock request counter, lock request time, lock acquisition time, initial lock acquisition time, and subsequent lock request time. The statistical processing device calculates the lock request count for each resource, subsequent lock request count for each resource, average lock wait time, and average lock acquisition delay expectation time, based on the statistical time information. Based on these values, the statistical processing device calculates an evaluation value which is the degree of expectation for the time eliminated from the lock wait time when lock acquisition is postponed, and outputs the lock order of the resources arranged in order of smallest evaluation value to a lock order table.
US08898125B2

A method and apparatus for adding trophy support games that do not have trophies without modifying the original game. The method and apparatus are used to detect particular disk access, use the detected disk access as potential trophy triggers in games, and recognize the triggers while a game is played. Trophies are awarded based on the triggers, and the awarded trophies are stored.
US08898112B1

In one aspect, a method includes generating a write signature command. The write signature command is configured to write a signature to an offset in a storage array without data and to enable the storage array to write the data with the same signature to a volume if the data is available at the storage array.
US08898109B2

Techniques for recovering from session failures between clients and database servers are described herein. A session may be established between a client and a first database server, and a transaction may be opened to process a plurality of database commands. One or more commands associated with the transaction may be received from the client at the database server. Each received command has an associated command identifier. A transaction log stores the command identifier associated with each received command and indicates whether each received command has been successfully executed at the database server. After a session failure, the session is reestablished, and a command identifier for a further command is received from the client. If the command identifier associated with the further command is determined to have been stored in the transaction log, the command does not need to be executed, and the transaction may continue.
US08898106B2

An improved method for efficiently and accurately entering detailed data by yes/no entries so that the data is automatically recorded, optionally automatically distributed and optionally transformed into a readable prose report of the data, which is entered by yes/no markings.
US08898096B2

Techniques for tuning systems generate configurations that are used to test the systems to determine optimal configurations for the systems. The configurations for a system are generated to allow for effective testing of the system while remaining within budgetary and/or resource constraints. The configurations may be selected to satisfy one or more conditions on their distributions to ensure that a satisfactory set of configurations are tested. Machine learning techniques may be used to create models of systems and those models can be used to determine optimal configurations.
US08898092B2

An approach is presented for identifying related problem tickets in an information technology (IT) environment. User interactions with a computer program are stored. The user interactions include inputs to the computer program to search for problem tickets issued in the IT environment that have the same characteristics. One or more user interaction patterns within the user interactions are recognized. A user interaction pattern of the one or more user interaction patterns is selected based on an evaluation of effectiveness of each of the one or more user interaction patterns. Based on the user interaction pattern, a rule is generated for determining which problem tickets in the IT environment share a common characteristic. The rule is applied to additional problem tickets issued in the IT environment to identify which of the additional problem tickets share the common characteristic.
US08898083B2

There is disclosed a method. The method includes identifying, using a mobile device, an encrypted electronic token associated with at least one physical package designated for delivery to a destination. The electronic token having been encrypted by a first key associated with a particular party. The method also includes electronically signing, using the mobile device, for the at least one physical package. This includes initiating a decryption of the encrypted electronic token with a second key associated with the particular party.
US08898082B2

A computer-implemented method and system is operable to: receive a purchase transaction from a purchaser, the purchase transaction including purchase transaction information including a purchaser credit number associated with a purchaser credit account previously established on a payment site, use the purchaser credit number to obtain associated purchaser credit account information maintained at a payment site, receive from the payment site a disposition of the purchase transaction, and receive from the payment site purchaser-specific information to streamline the purchase transaction.
US08898069B2

Methods and systems are described herein for detecting one or more analyte in salivary fluid. Systems include: a discrete oral component configured for complete enclosure in a human oral cavity; at least one sensor configured to detect one or more analyte in salivary fluid; and an external device including a port configured for communication with the discrete oral component. Methods include: detecting one or more analyte within salivary fluid with at least one sensor integral to a discrete oral component, wherein the discrete oral component is configured to be completely enclosed in the oral cavity and includes one or more flavorant; and communicating information from the discrete oral component to at least one external device.
US08898066B2

A multi-lingual text-to-speech system and method processes a text to be synthesized via an acoustic-prosodic model selection module and an acoustic-prosodic model mergence module, and obtains a phonetic unit transformation table. In an online phase, the acoustic-prosodic model selection module, according to the text and a phonetic unit transcription corresponding to the text, uses at least a set controllable accent weighting parameter to select a transformation combination and find a second and a first acoustic-prosodic models. The acoustic-prosodic model mergence module merges the two acoustic-prosodic models into a merged acoustic-prosodic model, according to the at least a controllable accent weighting parameter, processes all transformations in the transformation combination and generates a merged acoustic-prosodic model sequence. A speech synthesizer and the merged acoustic-prosodic model sequence are further applied to synthesize the text into an L1-accent L2 speech.
US08898062B2

A strained-rough-voice conversion unit (10) is included in a voice conversion device that can generate a “strained rough” voice produced in a part of a speech when speaking forcefully with excitement, nervousness, anger, or emphasis and thereby richly express vocal expression such as anger, excitement, or an animated or lively way of speaking, using voice quality change. The strained-rough-voice conversion unit (10) includes: a strained phoneme position designation unit (11) designating a phoneme to be uttered as a “strained rough” voice in a speech; and an amplitude modulation unit (14) performing modulation including periodic amplitude fluctuation on a speech waveform. The amplitude modulation unit (14) generates, according to the designation of the strained phoneme position designation unit (11), the “strained rough” voice by performing the modulation including periodic amplitude fluctuation on the part to be uttered as the “strained rough” voice, in order to generate a speech having realistic and rich expression uttering forcefully with excitement, nervousness, anger, or emphasis.
US08898059B2

Disclosed is an LPC residual signal encoding/decoding apparatus of an MDCT based unified voice and audio encoding device. The LPC residual signal encoding apparatus analyzes a property of an input signal, selects an encoding method of an LPC filtered signal, and encode the LPC residual signal based on one of a real filterbank, a complex filterbank, and an algebraic code excited linear prediction (ACELP).
US08898055B2

A voice quality conversion device including: a target vowel vocal tract information hold unit holding target vowel vocal tract information of each vowel indicating target voice quality; a vowel conversion unit (i) receiving vocal tract information with phoneme boundary information of the speech including information of phonemes and phoneme durations, (ii) approximating a temporal change of vocal tract information of a vowel in the vocal tract information with phoneme boundary information applying a first function, (iii) approximating a temporal change of vocal tract information of the same vowel held in the target vowel vocal tract information hold unit applying a second function, (iv) calculating a third function by combining the first function with the second function, and (v) converting the vocal tract information of the vowel applying the third function; and a synthesis unit synthesizing a speech using the converted information.
US08898052B2

An iterative language translation system. The system includes a first automatic speech recognition component adapted to recognize spoken language in a source language and to create a source language hypothesis and a first machine translation component adapted to translate the source language hypothesis into a target language. The system also includes a second universal automatic speech recognition component adapted to recognize spoken languages in plurality of target languages spoken by a translator, and wherein the second automatic speech recognition component is further adapted to create a target language hypothesis. The system further includes a second machine translation component adapted to translate the target language hypothesis into the source language, wherein the translation of the target language hypothesis into the source language is used to adapt the first automatic speech recognition component, wherein the translation of the source language hypothesis into the target language is used to adapt the second automatic speech recognition component, wherein the source language hypothesis is used to adapt the first machine translation component and the second machine translation component, and wherein the target language hypothesis is used to adapt the first machine translation component and the second machine translation component.
US08898051B2

A system and method for selectively capturing and storing emulation data results from a hardware emulation system, which reduces the data bandwidth requirement and the unnecessary consumption of the DRAM memory capacity by uninteresting data. According to one embodiment, a system comprises a trace array for storing one or more frames of data; a first set of hardware control bits that enables the trace array to selectively capture non-continuous windows of data within a frame of data; a data capture card; and a second set of hardware control bits that enables the data capture card to capture a select frame of data from the one or more frames of data stored on the trace array.
US08898044B2

Systems, methods, and instructions encoded in a computer-readable medium can perform operations related to simulating subterranean fracture propagation. A subterranean formation model representing rock blocks of a subterranean formation is received. The subterranean formation model is used to predict a response of each rock block to one or more forces acting on the rock block during an injection treatment for the subterranean formation. The predicted responses of the rock blocks may include, for example, a fracture, a rotation, a displacement, a dilation of an existing fracture, and/or another type of response. In some implementations, an injection treatment may be designed for a subterranean formation based on the predicted response of the rock blocks.
US08898037B2

Methods and systems are provided for generating Lissajous figures based on monitored signals and identifying features of Lissajous figures. Features may include similarity metrics, shape change metrics and noise metrics, and may be used to determine information about the monitored signal. Features may also be used in monitoring operations, such as measurement quality assessment and recalibration.
US08898033B2

Systems and methods for determining angular velocity of a vehicle. Systems include an array of accelerometers and a computing unit configured to determine angular velocity as a function of acceleration measured by the array of accelerometers. Angular velocity can then be used, for example, by stability systems to control the vehicle.
US08898017B2

A method and system for estimating reservoir pressure in a hydrocarbon reservoir from downhole pressure measurements of producing wells is disclosed. Pressure measurements are obtained from wells in the production field over time, and communicated to a server that applies the pressure measurements for a well to a model of that well. The server operates the model using the pressure measurements to determine an operating mode of the well, such as producing or shut-in. Upon detection of a change in operating mode indicative of an abrupt change in flow at the well, such as corresponding to a shut-in event, additional downhole pressure measurement data is acquired until a steady-state condition is reached. The pressure measurements are used to determine a reservoir pressure, which is transmitted to a responsible reservoir engineer or other user. Modification of the determined reservoir pressure value by the user can be received, and the stored reservoir pressure and well model are updated accordingly.
US08897997B2

A method for the classification of data includes receiving a first message that is a vehicle-to-vehicle or a vehicle-to-infrastructure message. The first message includes first mobility data of a vehicle. An expected route of the vehicle is determined based on the first mobility data. A second message that is a vehicle-to-vehicle or a vehicle-to-infrastructure message is received. The second message includes second mobility data of the vehicle. An actual route of the vehicle is determined based on the second mobility data. Whether the expected route deviates from the actual route by at least a predetermined threshold value is determined. If the expected route deviates from the actual route by at least the predetermined threshold value, a type of momentary driving maneuver of the vehicle is determined and the first mobility data and the second mobility data are classified on the basis of the type of momentary driving maneuver.
US08897995B2

A fuel injection system including injectors for two different fuels is disclosed. In one example, fuel injection is adjusted to compensate for changes in engine intake air amount. Combustion stability during transient conditions may be improved.
US08897990B2

An ISG system may include a shift stage sensing unit that senses a shift stage of a transmission, a parking sensing unit that senses a driver's intension of parking by recognizing at least one of whether a vehicle enters a parking lot and whether a parking assistant system may be operated, and an ISG controller that stops an idle-stop of an engine when the shift stage of the shift stage sensing unit may be at a reverse stage or the parking sensing unit senses the driver's intension of parking.
US08897986B2

It is an object of the present invention to control unstable behavior of a vehicle body that arises when braking during turning.A brake control method for when a two-wheeled motor vehicle is turning includes the steps of: judging whether or not the two-wheeled motor vehicle is turning; calculating a maximum braking force with which slipping of a front wheel will not arise and updating, on the basis of the calculation result, a stored maximum braking force for the front wheel; calculating a maximum braking force with which slipping of a rear wheel will not arise and updating, on the basis of the calculation result, a stored maximum braking force for the rear wheel; limiting the braking forces on the front wheel and the rear wheel to predetermined percentages of the corresponding maximum braking forces in a case where there has been a brake operation by a driver during turning; and bringing the braking forces on the front wheel and the rear wheel that have been limited closer to the corresponding updated maximum braking forces.
US08897983B2

A system and method for providing additional speed retardation capacity is disclosed that utilizes parasitic loads of the vehicle. A vehicle is disclosed that includes a vehicle control system for sensing overspeed conditions, a powertrain, and a parasitic load. When an overspeed condition is detected, the parasitic load that is normally deactivated to improve efficiency is activated to remove power from the powertrain. Temperature sensors can monitor a load temperature and the parasitic loads can be controlled based on the temperature readings. A method is disclosed that includes detecting overspeed conditions, activating parasitic loads to absorb power when an overspeed condition is detected, and deactivating the loads when the overspeed condition ceases. The parasitic loads can be controlled separately or together. The method can include cumulative actions based on greater overspeed conditions.
US08897972B2

A method of controlling a multiengine harvester including the steps of operating the harvester in a first mode, operating the harvester in a second mode, and selecting less than all of the power absorbing loads to be driven. In the first mode, the harvester is operated using a first engine and a second engine to drive the plurality of power absorbing loads. In the second mode, the harvester is operated with the second engine being uncoupled from all of the power absorbing loads. In the selecting step, less than all of the power absorbing loads are selected to be driven dependent upon the sensed load on the first engine while operating in the second mode. The first engine is incapable of driving all of the power absorbing loads.
US08897967B2

The electric power steering apparatus has a plurality of power systems each including an inverter apparatus provided corresponding to a plurality of wiring sets of a motor thereof. The control section calculates the assist current to be supplied to the motor using a one power system failure-state map when the inverter apparatus or its corresponding wiring set of one of the power systems fails, or using a vehicle speed detection failure-state map when there is a failure in detecting the vehicle speed. The assist current limit value in the one power system failure-state map and the assist current limit value in the vehicle speed detection failure-state map are set to the same value.
US08897963B2

A method operates a sensor device in a vehicle. In the method, signals from at least a sensor designed to register an outside temperature are processed. In addition, data that relates to a track located in front of the vehicle is processed. An evaluation of the signals is changed as a function of the data relating to the track. Herewith, it is possible to quickly display an abrupt fall in temperature, such as can be the case when travelling out of a tunnel, on a display belonging to the vehicle and to thus warn the driver of the vehicle in time. A vehicle has a control device that is designed to process signals from a temperature sensor and data that relates to the track located in front of the vehicle.
US08897962B2

Provided is a reaction force control device for reducing discomfort experienced by the driver operating the accelerator pedal when continuous curves are being traveled, and setting the characteristics of the reaction force on the accelerator pedal in accordance with the curves. In the case that the target reaction force, which has been set prior to entering a subsequently traveled second curve, is greater than the current reaction force acting on the acceleration pedal and being generated during the turn through the first curve, a reaction force controller controls the operation so as to reduce the target reaction force imparted on the second curve until the vehicle leaves the first curve.
US08897959B1

The embodiments herein describe a feedback system for an electric motorcycle. The feedback system notifies a user of the electric motorcycle of various conditions of the electric motorcycle via one or more output devices. In one embodiment, the feedback system causes a throttle mechanism of the electric motorcycle to vibrate in response to the electric motorcycle being in an on state.
US08897958B2

A method for determining ambient air temperature outside of a vehicle with a sensor mounted on the vehicle, includes the steps of determining a road speed of the vehicle, comparing the determined road speed to a reference road speed value, if the determined road speed is below the reference road speed value, activating a device to move ambient air across the sensor, the ambient air being drawn from a location outside the vehicle, taking a temperature reading with the sensor, and, if the temperature reading is lower than a stored temperature value, storing the lower temperature reading as the ambient air temperature.
US08897957B2

A control and monitoring device of a vehicle, including at least one controlled brake system (ABS, EBS), which during braking adjusts the brake slip and/or the brake pressure to a setpoint value, including at least one brake control device (ECU-EBS, ECU-TEBS) as well as a device (TPMS) for monitoring the tire pressure and/or the tire air temperature of at least one tire, including at least one tire sensor, which transmits a signal representing the individual tire pressure and/or the individual tire air temperature of the particular tire, to at least one tire-monitoring control unit (ECU-TPMS). The at least one tire-monitoring control unit (ECU-TPMS) and the at least one brake control unit (ECU-EBS, ECU-TEBS) are integrated in one subassembly and are configured for the exchange of data among each other.
US08897953B2

Various embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for managing fault codes triggered by one or more vehicles during operation. In general, various embodiments of the invention involve recording and analyzing fault codes triggered during a particular time period while a vehicle is in operation. As a result of the analysis, various embodiments of the invention may set a state for each of the identified fault codes, the state indicating a level of action to address the identified fault code. In particular embodiments, the states may be one of a caution state indicating one or more components or sub-systems of the vehicle should be monitored, a critical state indicating one or more components or sub-systems of the vehicle should be repaired, or an environmental state indicating failure or potential failure of one or more components or sub-systems of the vehicle may affect one or more environmental conditions.
US08897951B1

A method and apparatus for maintaining a component on a vehicle. Component maintenance information is read from an automated identification technology tag on the vehicle, wherein the automated identification technology tag is associated with an interior component on the vehicle. A remaining portion of a maintenance period for the interior component is determined using the component maintenance information. An indication of the remaining portion of the maintenance period is displayed on a user interface.
US08897942B2

A hybrid vehicle (100) includes a voltage step-up device (17). The voltage step-up device (17) is provided between driving devices (18, 20) and an electrical storage device (16), and steps up input voltages of the driving devices (18, 20) to a voltage of the electrical storage device (16) or above. An HV-ECU (36) determines whether it is possible to reduce a CO2 emissions for a predetermined travel route by increasing the voltage of the electrical storage device (16). Then, when it is determined that it is possible to reduce the CO2 emissions, the HV-ECU (36) controls an SOC of the electrical storage device (16) so as to increase the SOC at a start of the travel route.
US08897940B2

A vehicle may include an electric machine that generates motive power for the vehicle, a plurality of cells that store energy for the electric machine, and at least one controller. The at least one controller may cause the cells to receive current for a period of time and, during the period of time, cause at least some of the cells to supply cell load current such that at the expiration of the period of time, the amount of energy stored by the cells is at least equal to a predetermined target energy level.
US08897937B2

A railcar control apparatus comprises a synchronous slide/slip detector which determines that the axles are synchronously sliding/slipping if an absolute value of axle's speed difference is less than a synchronous slide/slip speed difference threshold and an absolute value of axle's acceleration is greater than a predetermined synchronous slide/slip acceleration threshold.
US08897935B2

This disclosure relates to a system for preventing collisions with a terrain. The system includes a detecting means for detecting risks of collision with the terrain after a predetermined forecasting delay. The system further includes a determining means for determining, based on a trajectory followed by the aircraft, a possible limit point for success of the vertical terrain avoidance maneuver. The system further includes indication means for giving indications on azimuth clearance sections, around the direction in which the aircraft is moving, suitable for success of the vertical terrain avoidance maneuver. The system further includes means for estimating a free-travel distance in each azimuth clearance sector on a straight distancing trajectory with constant gradient and over a distance correspond to more than one minute of flight, the free-travel distance being free of potential conflicts with the terrain. The system further includes means for signaling azimuth clearance sections and free-travel distances.
US08897933B1

Methods and systems disclosed herein relate to using a rotating flywheel battery in a balloon in a high-altitude balloon network. An example method could include converting, in a balloon, first electrical energy into kinetic mechanical energy. The balloon includes a flywheel battery configured to rotate about a spin axis. The kinetic mechanical energy includes a rotation motion of the flywheel battery. The method could further include storing the kinetic mechanical energy for a finite period of time. Further, the method could include performing, using the flywheel battery, at least one of: i) converting at least a portion of the stored kinetic mechanical energy into second electrical energy; ii) stabilizing at least one motion of the balloon based on the rotational motion of the flywheel battery; and iii) rotating the balloon substantially about a balloon axis substantially perpendicular to the ground surface of the earth.
US08897928B2

Systems for, and methods of, derating and locking down a vehicle's engine are described. The systems and methods gradually derate an engine in response to a command sent over the air in a manner that does not cause the engine control module (ECM) of the vehicle to generate an error code.
US08897923B2

A method of Demand Response (DR) utilizing a Load Control Transponder (LCT) installed at the location of an electricity consumer. A DR program, in conjunction with the LCT, allows a consumer to determine, in advance, when they will reduce their demand on an electricity supply system. The consumer is informed of price points at which the cost of energy increases due to overall demand. The consumer then determines if, and when, they will reduce their demand on the system when a price point is reached. In addition, when an unplanned, critical event occurs, the method enables the utility to bypass any intermediate consumer established settings and immediately and directly drop the level of energy consumption to the consumer's lowest selected level for continuing service thereby to shed sufficient load on the system to maintain an adequate level of electricity supply. Once the event has been resolved, the method enables the utility to restore the consumer's previous level of usage.
US08897919B2

A robot controller (11) which moves either a tool (4) or a workpiece (W) relative to another one with a hand unit, controls the force acting between the tool and the workpiece, comprising a force detector unit (3) for detecting a force in one axial direction and moments about the axes in two axial directions that are at right angles with the one axis and are, further, at right angles with each other; a force-presuming point setting unit (12) for setting a force-presuming point at where a force acting between the tool and the workpiece is presumed; and a force-presuming unit (13) for presuming forces in the two axial directions and a moment about the one axis based upon the force in the one axial direction and the moments about the axes in the two axial directions, and upon the position of the force-presuming point.
US08897910B2

The invention relates to a new technology which uses a surface modification method for ultra-precision machining, and in particular relates to a particle beam-assisted ultraprecision machining method for single-crystal brittle materials. The invention, the particle beam-assisted ultra-precision machining method for single-crystal brittle materials, can significantly improve machining accuracy, reduce surface finish and greatly reduce tool wear during ultra-precision machining of brittle materials. The method adopts the technical proposal that the method comprises of the following steps: a) utilizing simulation software to simulate modification parameters according to cutting depth, surface roughness and other machining requirements; b) using particle beams to bombard or irradiate the surface of a single-crystal brittle material to be machined, according to the energy and fluence obtained from the simulation results; c) utilizing ultra-precision cutting (or grinding) technology to perform ultra precise cutting on the single-crystal material which is bombarded or irradiated by the particle beams; and d) measuring and characterizing the surface quality of the machined material and comparing the improvement of the machined surface quality with that of the unmodified machined surface. The method is mainly used for machining the single-crystal brittle materials.
US08897908B2

A sewing data creation apparatus includes an area specification portion that specifies at least one area in which a plurality of stitches are to be formed and a sewing data creation portion that creates sewing data for forming the plurality of stitches in each of the specified at least one area and for forming an overlapping portion in a case where the specified at least one area includes a first area and a second area. The overlapping portion is a region in which at least one of the first area and the second area is enlarged in a direction that extends across a boundary line, such that a portion of the plurality of stitches to be formed in the first area is one of intersected and overlapped by a portion of the plurality of stitches to be formed in the second area.
US08897898B2

An apparatus includes a command generation portion that generates the command signal, and a first monitoring portion that monitors an abnormality relating to actuation of the actuator control apparatus. The actuator control apparatus includes a control portion and a second monitoring portion. The control portion generates a control signal for controlling operation of the actuator in accordance with the above-described command signal. The second monitoring portion monitors an abnormality that relates to actuation of the actuator control apparatus and that is different in type from an abnormality monitored by the first monitoring portion.
US08897892B2

Various embodiments concern a suture sleeve for securing an implantable lead with a suture. The suture sleeve can comprise a tubular body having a proximal end portion, a distal end portion, an exterior surface, and a lumen, the lumen sized to receive the implantable lead. The suture sleeve can further comprise a suture receiving area along the tubular body, the suture receiving area within a channel that extends around a circumference of the tubular body. An exterior surface of the suture receiving area can comprise a tear resistant feature. The tear resistant feature can be configured to resist initiation of a tear in the exterior surface from the suture. The lumen can comprise an inner surface configured to frictionally engage the implantable lead.
US08897891B2

A stimulation lead includes a lead body having a longitudinal length, a distal portion, and a proximal portion; terminals disposed along the proximal portion of the lead body; an electrode carrier coupled to, or disposed along, the distal portion of the lead body; segmented electrodes disposed along the electrode carrier; and conductors extending along the lead body and coupling the segmented electrodes to the terminals. The electrode carrier includes a lattice region defining segmented electrode receiving openings. Each of the segmented electrodes extends around no more than 75% of a circumference of the lead and is disposed in a different one of the segmented electrode receiving openings of the electrode carrier.
US08897890B2

An implantable system that includes a lead and an implantable signal generator wherein the plurality of electrical contacts and the plurality of insulating regions on the lead, and the plurality of electrical connectors and the plurality of electrical insulators in the connector block are configured so that each of the plurality of electrical contacts form operable connections to the electronic circuitry through each of the plurality of electrical connector, and the insulating regions and the electrical insulators electrically isolate adjacent operable connections. Leads, and methods are also disclosed.
US08897888B2

An active implantable medical device (AIMD). The AIMD comprises: a knitted electrode assembly comprising: at least one biocompatible, electrically non-conductive filament arranged in substantially parallel rows each stitched to an adjacent row, and at least one biocompatible, electrically conductive filament having a first end intertwined with a first row of the at least one non-conductive filament, and a second end intertwined with a second row of the at least one non-conductive filament, wherein the first and second rows are spaced from one another.
US08897885B2

A method and associated stimulation device for ensuring firing of an action potential in an intended physiological target activated by a stimulus pulse generated by an electrode of a non-invasive surface based stimulation device irrespective of skin-to-electrode impedance by: (i) increasing internal impedance of the stimulation device so as to widen a Chronaxie time period thereby ensuring firing of the action potential of the intended physiological target irrespective of the skin-to-electrode impedance; and/or (ii) generating a stimulation waveform that optimizes a non-zero average current (e.g., non-zero slope of the envelope of the stimulation waveform) during preferably substantially the entire current decay of the stimulus pulse.
US08897883B2

Cochlear implant systems include a circuit board having electronic circuitry configured to generate one or more signals configured to direct electrical stimulation of one or more stimulation sites within a patient, an induction coil configured to transmit a telemetry signal by generating a telemetry magnetic field, and a telemetry flux guide positioned between the induction coil and the circuit board. The telemetry flux guide is configured to direct magnetic flux of the telemetry magnetic field away from the circuit board.
US08897872B2

Medical devices, software and methods are provided, for making a decision as to whether to administer electric shock therapy to a patient. The decision is made with respect to ECG data that is discounted at least partially, and sometimes even completely, if it occurs during a transition between chest compression group and a pause for ventilation.
US08897870B2

The present application relates to a new stimulation design which can be utilized to treat neurological conditions. The stimulation system produces a burst mode stimulation which alters the neuronal activity of the predetermined site, thereby treating the neurological condition or disorder. The burst stimulus comprises a plurality of groups of spike pulses having a maximum inter-spike interval of 100 milliseconds. The burst stimulus is separated by a substantially quiescent period of time between the plurality of groups of spike pulses. This inter-group interval may comprise a minimum of 5 seconds.
US08897864B2

A heart rate meter for measuring the heart rate of a living body includes a heart rate variation detecting unit for measuring the variation of the heart rate determined from a heart beat waveform, and a heart rate error detecting and correcting unit for detecting an error of heart rate on the basis of the trend of the heart rate variation and correcting the heart rate error being detected. The heart rate error detecting and correcting unit includes a heart rate error detecting unit for detecting an error of the heart rate variation as a heart rate error on the basis of the trend of the heart rate variation, and a heart rate error correcting unit for correcting the error of heart rate according to the detection of the heart rate error.
US08897861B2

The present invention consists of a modification and a new method of today's art 12 lead resting electrocardiogram The modifications include: Elimination of connecting means to record today's art Leads; connecting means to connect a common positive electrode, placed on the left leg, to all the positive terminals of the electrocardiographic amplifiers; connecting means to connect the negative electrodes, placed on the chest to the negative terminals of each individual electrocardiographic amplifier; reporting the results of the electrocardiogram including all the digital data sets obtained and calculated by the electrocardiograph in a disk, and a remote safe Data Bank for easy retrieval. A method of reprograming the electrocardiograph calculator to calculate the second derivative of the maximal and minimal values of each structure of the myocardium at specific instants of the electrocardiographic trace calculate the value generated by the left leg and the values generated by each negative electrode.
US08897855B2

In an imaging procedure, sound pressure is generated by applying ultrasound to the region to be imaged in order to cause a deformation of tissue therein from at least one acquired ultrasound image data set, first data are determined that represent, with spatial resolution, the deformation of the tissue as a reaction to the sound pressure. At least one magnetic resonance image data set is acquired, from which second data are determined that represent, with spatial resolution, the deformation of the tissue as a reaction to the sound pressure. The at least one ultrasound image data set and the at least one magnetic resonance image data set are brought into registration with each other by a comparison of the first data and the second data.
US08897852B2

A biological information detection device has a device main body and a biological signal detection portion formed integrally with the device main body. The biological signal detection portion has at least one electrode for contacting a biological surface of a human body. A fixing portion has an elastic strap and is configured to mount the device main body and the biological signal detection portion to the human body without the device main body and the biological signal detection portion being directly attached to the elastic strap. The fixing portion covers the device main body and the biological signal detection portion with the electrode being disposed in contact with the biological surface of the human body when the device main body and the biological signal detection portion are mounted to the human body.
US08897851B2

A releasable liner for a sensor device having adhesive and conductive gel portions includes a flexible sheet having a free end and a fixed end, and a portion of the flexible sheet that is releasably attached to the sensor device, wherein the flexible sheet is folded upon itself so that the fixed end is generally adjacent the free end. Exerting a pulling force on the free end releases the liner in a controlled manner to uncover the adhesive and conductive gel portions of the sensor device.
US08897840B1

A plurality of frequencies are generated at a wireless device and a frequency which a user perceives as the loudest frequency is determined. A first frequency range is selected comprising a first minimum frequency and a first maximum frequency. A ringtone is processed to shift the second frequency range to within the first frequency range, wherein an average frequency of the processed ringtone is the determined loudest frequency.
US08897834B2

A communication device is described herein that has control (or at least partial control) over which virtual antenna(s) in one or more base stations to use for transmissions. In one embodiment, the mobile phone performs the following steps: (1) receives an antenna subset list (from the scheduling unit) which identifies a configuration of virtual antennas that is associated with the base station(s); (2) uses the antenna subset list to select which virtual antenna(s) in the configuration of virtual antennas to use for transmissions; and (3) sends an antenna selection signal (to the scheduling unit) which contains information that instructs/requests the base station(s)/scheduling unit to use the selected virtual antenna(s) for transmissions.
US08897827B2

A communication system (100) provides collaboration between narrowband communication devices (102) and broadband communication devices (104) operating over different networks. The communication devices (102, 104) are linked to provide peer-to-peer communication that supports the dissemination of public safety information to a public safety personnel user utilizing the devices. Applications within the devices (102, 104) automatically control features amongst the plurality of devices for redundancy of critical information, removal of non-critical information and power management. Context information can also be examined and shared between amongst the devices.
US08897826B2

A cellular communication network has a mobile switching center (MSC) that maintains a GPS location data of a mobile handset referenced by a mobile identification number (MIN) and an electronic serial number (ESN) in addition to a geographic cell number in an HLR database for handsets operating in the network. The GPS location data of the handset may be used for efficient paging to a specific cell to route incoming calls to the handset, route emergency responder calls with the physical location of the handset and to program the handset with the handset transmission strength to the nearest cell tower In lieu of using triangulation algorithm.
US08897824B2

Implementations and techniques for model based Doppler compensation using traffic data are generally disclosed.
US08897822B2

Mobile device auto responders that dynamically send customized automated messages that depend on the identity of an incoming call, on the location of the mobile device, on the speed of the mobile device, on the acceleration of the mobile device, and/or on the time of day. The automated message can be customized to include the location, speed, heading and/or acceleration of the mobile device as well as an estimated time of arrival over a predetermined stored route to a predetermined location. The automated message may be audio, video, email, iMessage™, instant message, or SMS message.
US08897816B2

An apparatus includes at least one a processor, and at least one memory including computer program code, the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to determine that an input defining a piece of information to be located has been received, determine the location of the information in an environment of the apparatus, and report the location.
US08897805B2

Determining levels of geographic redundancy among radios of a wireless radio network is described. The level of geographic redundancy for a radio can affect the determination of location information for a user equipment (UE) on the wireless radio network. The disclosed subject matter can be employed in conjunction with timed fingerprint location (TFL) technologies to facilitate selection of radios employed in determining time values for TFL location determination. Levels of geographic redundancy can be employed to rank or order radios of a wireless radio network so as to reduce the likelihood of using geographically redundant radios in location determination. Further, rules can be selected to adjust threshold values and equations employed in determining the levels of geographic redundancy. Moreover, rules can be selected to apply boundary conditions to reduce the number of determinations formed for a set of radios of the wireless radio network.
US08897798B2

Systems and techniques for scheduling of use of resources by wireless devices and allocation of resources among devices. Information is received relating to channel efficiency experienced by a user equipment and also to the channel efficiency experienced by other user equipments. The information may include channel gain. Scheduling and resource allocation are performed so as to provide service to each device while minimizing interference penalties imposed by devices on one another. Scheduling and resource allocation may be evaluated and conducted through a number of mechanisms, such as ranking users according to transmit power, ranking user equipments according to target signal to noise ratios, and evaluation of relative advantages to users with the evaluation being performed resource block by resource block. The various metrics take into account both advantages to a particular user equipment under consideration and detrimental effects on other user equipment.
US08897784B1

There is provided a processor for a base station control unit, the base station control unit being associated with a plurality of antennas; the processor comprising a plurality of processing streams, each stream being suitable for generating signals for at least one user in a plurality of users; wherein any of the processing streams can be used to generate the signals for any user in the plurality of users and for transmission by any antenna in the plurality of antennas.
US08897781B2

A method for managing a mobile communication system in which a base station and a mobile station communicate with each other, the method includes: stopping, among cells of a plurality of base stations, operation of a cell whose amount of use of communication is smaller than a reference value; and operating, among the cells of the plurality of base stations, a cell whose amount of use of communication is larger than the reference value using a high-order multi-input and multi-output configuration in which a plurality of antennas are used for transmission.
US08897776B2

A method of operating a mobile wireless network comprising: receiving, by a provisioning server, a signal from a mobile wireless network specifying a location of a first mobile device having a first International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) and operating in the mobile wireless network under a first condition, the mobile wireless network including a plurality of mobile switching centers (MSCs) and a plurality of mobile devices operating in the mobile wireless network; provisioning the first IMSI in the first HLR based on a state transition rule from a first provisioning state to a second provisioning state; provisioning a second IMSI in the first HLR based on the state transition rule from a third provisioning state to the first provisioning state; and transmitting data identifying the second IMSI to the first mobile device to allow the first mobile device to operate in the mobile wireless network under a second condition.
US08897774B2

A method and apparatus for efficient network scanning that selects candidate frequencies based upon the frequency bands that were noted as being active during a previous network scan. A mobile device performs a full network scan on power up or on radio cycle and determines the available active bands. This information is stored as active band information on the device. When the device loses coverage on a selected one of the bands, then it identifies a candidate frequency based upon the stored active band information and attempts to locate a suitable network on the candidate band.
US08897773B2

A femtocell utilizing method and apparatus are disclosed. A mobile terminal may establish a communication channel to a microminiaturized base station for mobile communication creating a femtocell on the basis of a frequency, PSC information, or a frequency band or multiple frequencies. The mobile terminal employing the method and apparatus enables the user to initiate femtocell search at a desired point in time, increasing effectiveness in utilization of a femtocell.
US08897758B2

A portable device includes: a communication unit configured to transmit and receive additional information corresponding to caller ID over a network; a storage unit configured to store the additional information; a sensor unit configured to detect at least one of a face and a gaze of a user; a display unit configured to display the additional information; and a controller configured to: receive an incoming call; detect the face of the user looking at the portable device; and display first additional information on the incoming call when the face is detected, wherein the first additional information is collected according to the caller ID of the incoming call.
US08897757B2

A system and method for answering a call on a communication device is provided and includes: detecting an incoming call on the communication device, automatically answering the incoming call, and detecting whether an audio signal is received through the microphone of the communication device. Upon not detecting an audio signal, the call is disconnected.
US08897750B2

A method, in a wireless communications device, comprising: receiving a new security mode configuration from a radio access network that is to replace an original security mode configuration as part of a security procedure; detecting, prior to completion of said security procedure, that a cell update message is to be sent to the network; transmitting a first cell update message to the network in accordance with the original security mode configuration; transmitting a second cell update message to the network in accordance with the new security mode configuration; receiving a cell update confirm message, the cell update confirm message sent by the network in accordance with a network determined security mode configuration; ascertaining if the network determined security mode configuration is either the original or new security mode configuration; and completing the cell update procedure in accordance with the ascertained security mode configuration.
US08897747B2

The PCRF Selection Function selects the PCRF for an IP-CAN session. In embodiments, the PCRF Selection Function is located in the HSS and/or the 3GPP AAA server. The PCRF Selection Function is only required to be located in the HSS if a Bearer Binding and Event Reporting Function (BBERF) is deployed in the serving gateway. In this case, the PCRF selection takes place at the time that the PDN Gateway is selected and returned by the HSS to the serving gateway over the HSS to MME interface (S6a).
US08897745B2

An approach for optimizing the rate of delivery of data records required by a billing system associated with a service provider is described. A mediation platform collects session records for specifying data about sessions conducted by network subscribers via the network and transport records for specifying data about the transport of data via the network during a correlation cycle. The mediation platform also generates, based on a minimal threshold of correlation, a charging data record based on a mapping of data associated with a session record and multiple transport records. The mediation platform also transmits the charging data record to a billing system of the provider prior to the collecting of all of the session records and transport records.
US08897744B2

Various embodiments are disclosed for a services policy communication system and method. In some embodiments, a communications device implements a service profile for assisting control of the communications device use of a service on a network, in which the service profile includes service policy settings, and the service profile is associated with an ambient service plan that provides for initial access to the service with limited service capabilities prior to activation of a new service plan; and monitors use of the service based on the service profile.
US08897741B2

Provided is a distributed system and method for enabling new and useful location dependent features and functionality to mobile data processing systems. Mobile data processing Systems (MSs) interact with each other as peers in communications and interoperability. Data is shared between mobile data processing systems to carry out novel Location Based eXchanges (LBX) of data for new mobile applications. Information transmitted inbound to, transmitted outbound from, is in process at, or is application modified at a mobile data processing system triggers processing of actions in accordance with user configured permissions, charters, and other configurations. In a preferred embodiment, a user configurable platform is provided for quickly building well behaving LBX applications at MSs and across a plurality of interoperating MSs. Tools, triggered interfaces and integrated applications are disclosed for a breadth of MS LBX configurations and functionality.
US08897727B2

Power detectors with temperature compensation and having improved accuracy over temperature are disclosed. In an aspect of the disclosure, variations of a power detector gain over temperature is reduced by varying both the gate and drain voltages of MOS transistors within a power detector. In an exemplary design, an apparatus includes at least one MOS transistor, which receives an input signal, detects the power of the input signal based on a power detection gain, and provides an output signal indicative of the power of the input signal. The at least one MOS transistor is applied a variable gate bias voltage and a variable drain bias voltage in order to reduce variations of the power detection gain over temperature. At least one additional MOS transistor may receive a second variable gate bias voltage and provide the variable drain bias voltage for the at least one MOS transistor.
US08897726B2

A multipath circuit is described that has multiple signal paths and various common components used for normal operation. Each of the multiple signal paths also has multiple circuit blocks defining the functionality of the signal path. A shared access path is provided through the third winding of a three-way transformer for each signal path. Multiple switches are provided in the multipath circuit that couple to the third winding in each of the multiple signal paths. The switches are also coupled to the various common components. Selected ones of these switches may be closed to provide a shared access path between a common component and one of the signal paths or between a common components and one of the circuit blocks in one of the signal paths.
US08897723B2

An adaptive modulation apparatus and method using a multiple antenna selection scheme are provided. The adaptive modulation method using the multiple antenna scheme includes: selecting one transmit antenna from a plurality of transmit antennas; determining a target transmission rate of the selected transmit antenna to transmit the determined target transmission rate to a multiple antenna reception apparatus; receiving, from the multiple antenna reception apparatus, feedback information including information regarding whether to accept the target transmission rate; and transmitting data to the multiple antenna reception apparatus using the received feedback information.
US08897711B2

A method for reducing cross cell interference in a wireless time division duplex communication system using code division multiple access, the system having at least one user equipment (UE) and a base station (BS) is disclosed. The method begins by measuring an interference level of each timeslot at the BS. A timeslot is eliminated for additional uplink communication if the measured interference level exceeds a first threshold. UEs in nearby cells that are large interferers are identified and their downlink timeslot usage is gathered. A timeslot is eliminated for uplink communication for a large interferer UE that uses the timeslot for downlink communication.
US08897698B2

The invention relates to a data transfer method in a multi-hop relay system. The data transfer method comprises: a step for allowing a base station to receive from a first terminal the channel information (Hd,1) between the base station and the first mobile station, a step for making the base station generate an interference cancellation precoding matrix using Hd,1, a step for forcing the base station to transfer first data to a relay station, and a step for making the relay station transfer the first data to the first mobile station and forcing the base station to transfer second data to a second mobile station, wherein the second data is converted using the interference cancellation precoding matrix. According to the disclosed data transfer method in the multi-hope relay system, the base station transfers data to another mobile station efficiently when the relay station transfers data to a mobile station. Therefore, the data transfer method is able to efficiently use the resources wasted in an existing data transfer method and improve the total data transmission rate of the base station.
US08897692B2

An image forming system includes: a ring bookbinding section which perform a ring bookbinding to a bundle of sheets by using a binder provided with a spine portion and a plurality of finger portions; and a judging section, wherein a last page is firstly fed immediately after job initiation and, subsequently after having fed the last page, image formation based on the image data is initiated, when the judging section judges that an image is not formed on the last page, and wherein all of the image data is firstly acquired completely after job initiation, subsequently the last page is fed and formed image thereon, and then image formation of remaining pages is carried out, when the judging section judges that image is formed on the last page.
US08897682B2

An image forming apparatus includes an image holding member on which an image is held, and a transfer unit transferring the held image to a recording material, wherein the transfer unit includes, a transfer roll disposed to be opposite to the image holding member, forming a transfer electric field, and transferring the image to the recording material, a drive unit applying driving force to the transfer roll, a torque limiting machanics limiting an upper limit of torque which acts on the transfer roll, and an inertia member provided to increase an amount of inertia with respect to the transfer roll and moving the transfer roll with inertia in a direction in which a speed difference between the image holding member and the transfer roll is decreased when the upper limit of torque acts on the transfer roll.
US08897677B2

A developer transporting device includes a transporting device body having an inlet, an inlet cover member that opens and closes the inlet, a container having an outlet, an outlet cover member that opens and closes the outlet, a restraining member that restrains an opening movement of the inlet cover member, and a releasing member that is capable of releasing the inlet cover member from the state in which the opening movement is restrained. The restraining member restrains the opening movement of the inlet cover member when the outlet cover member is closed. The releasing member releases the inlet cover member from the state in which the opening movement is restrained when the outlet cover member is open.
US08897676B2

An image forming apparatus includes an image bearing member, a developing apparatus and a toner container which replenishes the developing apparatus with toner. The developing apparatus includes a first conveyance member having a first rotational shaft and a toner replenishment port. The toner container includes a second conveyance member having a second rotational shaft and a toner discharge port. The developing apparatus and the toner container are assembled in such a manner that the first rotational shaft and the second rotational shaft are in mutually perpendicular directions, and the toner replenishment port and the toner discharge port are mutually overlapping in a vertical direction. The second conveyance member rotates in a direction whereby the toner is discharged from the toner discharge port to the toner replenishment port at a position on an upstream side of the toner replenishment port in terms of the toner conveyance direction.
US08897665B2

A photosensitive member unit includes a photosensitive member, first and second side walls, a rotatable body and a unit electrode. The photosensitive member defines an axis extending in an axial direction, and has first and second end portions in the axial direction. The first side wall rotatably supports the first end portion and the second side wall rotatably supports the second end portion. The rotatable body is rotatably disposed between the first and the second side walls. The rotatable body confronts and contacts the photosensitive member in a prescribed direction perpendicular to the axial direction to be movable in the prescribed direction. The unit electrode is provided at the first side wall and supports the rotatable body, the first side wall supporting the unit electrode to permit the unit electrode to be movable in the prescribed direction in conjunction with movement of the rotatable body in the axial direction.
US08897664B2

An image forming apparatus includes a body, at least one developing cartridge, which is disposed inside the body to form an image and is provided at one side thereof with an interface terminal to receive a power, a tray movably coupled to the body while accommodating the at least one developing cartridge, a cover coupled to one side to open/close the body such that the tray moves to outside the body, a link member configured to guide the movement of the tray and to move according to the open/close movement of the cover while being connected to the cover, and a connection terminal configured to make contact with the interface terminal by being pressed by the link member when the cover closes the body and to be separated from being released for pressing force when the cover opens the body.
US08897652B2

An optical transmission circuit comprises a light emitting element and a differential amplifier circuit to which differential input signals are input to modulate an optical output of the light emitting element. The differential amplifier circuit includes a first current source, a first transistor, a second transistor, a third transistor, and a fourth transistor. The first current source is connected to a first potential source and the sources of the third and the fourth transistor are connected to a second potential source. The differential amplifier circuit includes a second current source having one end that is connected to a third potential and another end that is connected to a drain of the second transistor, and a fifth transistor having a gate that is connected to the gate of the fourth transistor, a source that is connected to the second potential, and a drain that is connected to the light emitting element.
US08897651B2

An apparatus comprising a wavelength division multiplexer (WDM), an optical network unit (ONU) coupled to the WDM, a passive optical network (PON) data over cable service interface specification (DOCSIS) upstream proxy (PDUP) coupled to the ONU and configured to couple to a coaxial cable, and a downstream (DS) optical/electrical (O/E) converter coupled to the WDM and configured to couple to the coaxial cable. An apparatus comprising a WDM, an optical line terminal (OLT) coupled to the WDM, a cable model termination system (CMTS) coupled to the OLT via an upstream external physical (PHY) interface (UEPI), and a DOCSIS and a Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) unit coupled to the WDM and the CMTS.
US08897649B2

In one embodiment, the optical transport system has an optical transmitter, an optical receiver, and one or more phase-sensitive amplifiers (PSAs) disposed within an optical link that connects the optical transmitter and receiver. The optical transmitter employs a first nonlinear optical process to generate a two-carrier signal in a manner that makes this signal suitable for phase-sensitive amplification. The PSAs employ a second nonlinear optical process to optically amplify the two-carrier signal in a phase-sensitive manner to counteract the attenuation imposed onto the two-carrier signal by lossy components of the optical link. The optical receiver employs a third nonlinear optical process in a manner that enables the receiver to beneficially use redundancies in the two-carrier signal, e.g., for an SNR gain. The optical transport system can advantageously be implemented to have better noise properties than a comparable conventional system, which enables a commensurate increase in the data-transport capacity.
US08897642B2

The invention relates to a remote node architecture for a fiber-optic network, especially for low bit-rate data transmission, the fiber-optic network comprising a central node and a plurality of remote nodes serially connected to each other or to the central node, respectively, the central node and the remote node being capable of communicating by means of digital optical signals created by the central node or a respective remote node, each digital optical signal comprising a data frame.
US08897632B2

Methods of managing electrical power storage can include remotely controlling operation of one of at least two water heating units included in a single water heater, separately from one another, at a customer location in response to a determination that an imbalance exists in a distribution of electricity to a power grid coupled to the single water heater.
US08897631B2

An annealing apparatus includes heating sources provided to face a wafer W, the heating sources having LEDs emitting lights to the wafer; light-transmitting members for transmitting the lights emitted from the LEDs; and cooling members made of aluminum and provided to directly contact with the heating sources, respectively. The heating sources include a plurality of LED arrays having supporters made of AlN, each having one surface on which the LEDs are adhered by using a silver paste; and other surface on which thermal diffusion members made of copper are adhered by using a solder. The LED arrays are fixed to the cooling member by using screws via a silicone grease.
US08897630B2

An aerosol generator periodically forms aerosolized fragrance material by repeatedly supplying a liquid fragrance material to a capillary passage via only capillary action and heating the capillary passage, such that the liquid fragrance material at least partially volatilizes and is driven out of an outlet of the capillary passage. A wick feeds the liquid fragrance material to an inlet of the capillary passage by capillary action. An apparatus and method for generating such an aerosolized fragrance material, as well as the methods of heating, are disclosed.
US08897621B2

An imaging apparatus includes an imaging portion that images an omnidirectional subject on the basis of an imaging position when imaging is performed and generates a circular image including the omnidirectional subject, an image processing portion that specifies a substantially fan-shaped object region in a circular image which is generated on the basis of a direction specified based on an attitude of an imaging apparatus in the imaging position among all directions and converts an image of the object region into a substantially rectangular image, and a display control portion that simultaneously displays a conversion image which is the converted image and the generated circular image on a display portion.
US08897612B2

Light-coupling systems and methods that employ light-diffusing optical fiber are disclosed. The systems include a light source and a light-diffusing optical fiber optically coupled thereto. The light-diffusing optical fiber has a core, a cladding and a length. At least a portion of the core comprises randomly arranged voids configured to provide substantially spatially continuous light emission from the core and out of the cladding along at least a portion of the length. A portion of the light-diffusing optical is embedded in an index-matching layer disposed adjacent a lower surface of a transparent sheet. Light emitted by the light-diffusing optical fiber is trapped within the transparent sheet and index-matching layer by total internal reflection and is scattered out of the upper surface of the transparent sheet by at least one scattering feature thereon.
US08897611B2

An optical fiber interface includes an optical fiber connector including a receptacle and an axis of propagation along which light traverses through the optical fiber connector. The receptacle includes a first member pivotably attached to the receptacle. The first member includes a first aperture. The first member has a blocking position relative to the receptacle in which the first aperture is not aligned with the axis of propagation, such that light traversing along the axis of propagation does not pass through the first aperture. The first member has a transmitting position relative to the receptacle in which the first aperture is aligned with the axis of propagation such that light traveling along the axis of propagation passes through the first aperture.
US08897603B2

An image processing apparatus includes a selection device that selects a plurality of frames from a video image constituted with a group of frames, an extraction device that recognizes a specific subject image in the plurality of frames having been selected and extracts the recognized subject image, and an image creation device that creates a still image containing a plurality of subject images having been extracted by the extraction device.
US08897597B2

A method for proactively creating an image-based product includes identifying a group of images and automatically creating a design for a image-based product without receiving a user's request if the number of images in the group is determined to be within a predetermined range. The image-based product incorporates a plurality of images in the group. The method further includes presenting the design of the image-based product to a user for preview and making a physical manifestation of the image-based product based on the design.
US08897594B2

An image reader includes a reading unit that reads an image; a detection unit that detects marks from the read image read by the reading unit; a creation unit that creates a hiding image, which hides a region including the marks, on the basis of the marks detected by the detection unit; and a combining unit that combines the read image and the hiding image to create an electronic document.
US08897593B2

An image evaluation device includes: a partial area extracting section extracting plural partial areas from an original image; an extracted image generating section generating an extracted image corresponding to each of the partial areas and having pixels whose pixel values correspond to a gradient of pixel values in the image; an autocorrelation calculating section calculating plural autocorrelation coefficients for each extracted images; a representative coefficient value calculating section calculating a representative coefficient value for each of the autocorrelation coefficients among the partial areas; and a checking section checking the quality of the image based on a distribution of the representative coefficient values.
US08897592B2

A method for correcting a defect pixel includes extracting a pixel value of a central pixel, and pixel values of each of a plurality of neighboring pixels around the central pixel in an image sensor by using a color filter; calculating reference levels by multiplying each the pixel value of the plurality of neighboring pixels by a weight value; calculating a total number of cases where the pixel value of the central pixel is larger or smaller than the reference level as a first comparison value or second comparison value, respectively; determining the central pixel is a defect pixel where the first or second comparison value is larger than a first or second control register value, by comparing the comparison values with the control register values, respectively; and correcting the central pixel determined as the defect pixel.
US08897587B2

The disclosed method includes: carrying out scale conversion for a first pixel value of each of a plurality of pixels included in an image to generate a second pixel value of the plurality of pixels; applying a reaction-diffusion equation including a diffusion element and a reaction element that is set according to at least the number of types of regions to be extracted, to the second pixel value of each of plural pixels within a certain region of the image a predetermined number of times to generate a third pixel value of each of the plurality of pixels included in the image; and carrying out scale inverse-conversion that is inverse-conversion of the scale conversion, for the third pixel value of each of the plurality of pixels included in the image to generate a fourth pixel value of the plurality of pixels.
US08897584B2

An image processing apparatus may be configured to detect motion based on a first block image within a first frame image included in first reduced image data sampled at a first sampling point and a first reference block image within a first reference frame image included in the first reduced image data; and extract a second block image when detecting that the first block image and the first reference block image are not moving and generate first image data corresponding to the first block image based on the first block image and the second block image. The second block image is in a second frame image included in second reduced image data sampled at a second sampling point that is different from the first sampling point and is at substantially the same time as the time of the first block image or the first reference block image.
US08897579B2

A computer-implemented method of managing information is disclosed. The method can include receiving a message from a mobile device configured to connect to a mobile device network (the message including a digital image taken by the mobile device and including information corresponding to words), determining the words from the digital image information using optical character recognition, indexing the digital image based on the words, and storing the digital image for later retrieval of the digital image based on one or more received search terms.
US08897577B2

An image recognition device in accordance with the inventive concept may include an input vector extraction part extracting an input vector from an input image; a compression vector conversion part converting the input vector into a compression vector using a projection vector; a training parameter generation part receiving a training vector to generate a training parameter using a projection vector obtained through a folding operation of the training vector; and an image classification part classifying the compression vector using the training vector to output image recognition data.
US08897573B2

A system and an article of manufacture for de-duplicating virtual machine image accesses include identifying one or more identical blocks in two or more images in a virtual machine image repository, generating a block map for mapping different blocks with identical content into a same block, deploying a virtual machine image by reconstituting an image from the block map and fetching any unique blocks remotely on-demand, and de-duplicating virtual machine image accesses by storing the deployed virtual machine image in a local disk cache.
US08897570B1

Provided is a process and system for detection of sparse or otherwise weak targets in a hyperspectral image. A hyperspectral image is received having a multitude of pixels, with each pixel having a respective spectrum. In some embodiments, multiple mean spectra are selectively determined for respective sub-regions of the hyperspectral image. The subset mean spectra can be selectively removed from respective pixels, thereby improving image fidelity due to sensor artifacts. Additionally, target detection of such an adjusted image can be determined by one or more of matched filter techniques or by partial un-mixing. In at least some embodiments target detection is enhanced by combining a measure of target match with a residual spectrum determined as a measure of un-match. Target detection can be further improved by application of rules, for example, related to target detection threshold.
US08897569B2

The disclosed image enlargement device is provided with: an image enlargement filter (1) that enlarges an input image, generating a first enlarged image; a first wavelet transformation unit (2) that performs a wavelet transformation on the first enlarged image; a second wavelet transformation unit (3) that performs a wavelet transformation on the first enlarged image; and an accentuation processing unit (6, 7, 8, 10) that performs an accentuation process using a first edge signal (EDGE_CDF9/7), generated from the output of the first wavelet transformation unit, and a second edge signal (EDGE_Harr), generated from the output of the second wavelet transformation unit. The first wavelet transformation unit and the second wavelet transformation unit perform different wavelet transformations.
US08897565B1

The present technology proposes techniques for extracting forms and other types of documents from images taken with a mobile client device. By calculating and making adjustments along a document's detected borders, an input image can be transformed such that the document within the image may be properly aligned and background clutter completely removed. The resulting text fields of the extracted document are thus upright, aligned and locatable at predictable points.
US08897564B2

A method and system for computer-aided detection of abnormal lesions in digital mammograms is described, wherein digital films are processed using an automated and computerized method of detecting the order and orientation of a set of films. In one embodiment, anatomic features are used to detect the order, orientation and identification of a film series. In another embodiment of the invention, a technologist feeds films into the system in any order and orientation. After processing, the system provides an output on a display device to a radiologist that is in an order and orientation preferred by the radiologist. In yet another embodiment of the invention, films from one case are distinguished from films of another case. In this manner and through the use of a bulk loader, a large number of films can be stacked together and fed into the system at one time.
US08897558B2

A method of compressing a 2×2 block based binary image is provided. The method includes: determining whether pixels included in a block are included in existing patterns; generating the number N of the pixels included in the existing patterns (N is a natural number); when N is more than a predetermined value, compressing the block with a binary bit stream comprising information about patterns of the pixels included in the existing patterns and color information about the pixels having a new pattern. The method of compressing a 2×2 block based binary image reduces information damage which may occur during compression and restoration of the binary pattern so that the difference in picture quality between an original image and the restored image can be visibly improved.
US08897550B2

A system and method for estimating a set of landmarks for a large image ensemble employs only a small number of manually labeled images from the ensemble and avoids labor-intensive and error-prone object detection, tracking and alignment learning task limitations associated with manual image labeling techniques. A semi-supervised least squares congealing approach is employed to minimize an objective function defined on both labeled and unlabeled images. A shape model is learned on-line to constrain the landmark configuration. A partitioning strategy allows coarse-to-fine landmark estimation.
US08897549B2

Porous body data in which position information and type information are correlated is reference to take a curved surface solid including a parent virtual sphere and child virtual spheres as a virtual curved surface solid, and place multiple virtual curved surface solids so as to fill in space pixels with curved surface solid pixels occupied by virtual curved surface solids. Repeating this process, by placing multiple virtual curved surface solids within space in a porous body, the microstructure of the porous body is analyzed precisely. As for analysis, deriving of in-plane uniformity index γx, spatial uniformity index γ, pressure drop P, flow-through velocity T, and equivalent diameter d, for example, and acceptability determination based on derived values thereof, is performed.
US08897548B2

A low-complexity method of converting 2D images/videos into 3D ones includes the steps of identifying whether each pixel in one of the frames is an edge feature point; locating at least two vanishing lines in the frame according to the edge feature point; categorizing the frame into the one of close-up photographic feature, of landscape feature, and of vanishing-area feature; if the frame is identified to have the vanishing-area feature or the landscape feature to generate a GDM; and apply a modificatory procedure to the GDM to generate a final depth information map; if the frame is identified to have the close-up photographic feature, distinguish between a foreground object and a background information in the frame and define the depth of field to generate the final depth information map.
US08897547B2

A three-dimensional topographical data precision improving device (10) removing noise that occurs in water regions of three-dimensional topographical data comprises a water region specifying unit (13) specifying the range of any one water region; a feature extraction unit (14) extracting feature values within any one water region that describe altitude distribution pattern of each local region in the three-dimensional topographical data; a segmentation unit (15) segmenting the whole range into candidate water regions and non-water regions by comparing the feature values of the specified water region with those of each point in the three-dimensional topographical data; a water region extraction unit (16) extracting water regions from the candidate water regions; and a plane creation unit (17) creating a corrected plane of each water region using the altitudes of the surrounding non-water regions and replacing the water region extracted by the water region extraction unit (16) with the corrected plane.
US08897542B2

A method for generating a depth map for a 2D image and video includes receiving the 2D image and video; defining a plurality of object classes; analyzing content of the received 2D image and video; calculating probabilities that the received 2D image belongs to the object classes; and determining a final depth map based on a result of the analyzed content and the calculated probabilities for the object classes.
US08897539B2

According to various embodiments, a stream of image frames depicting a structure in a scene are obtained. The stream of image frames may comprise first image frames from a first imaging device and second image frames from a second imaging device. Using the first image frames and the second image frames, a wireframe of at least a portion of the structure is generated. From the wireframe, as-built dimensions may be identified, materials estimates may be determined, and/or data for a fabrication device may be generated, for example.
US08897533B2

According to one embodiment, a medical image processing apparatus includes an image acquiring unit, a detection algorithm storage, an abnormal area detecting unit and an outputting unit. The image acquiring unit acquires image data of a corpse. The detection algorithm storage stores an abnormal area detection algorithm. The abnormal area detecting unit uses the abnormal area detection algorithm to the image data of the corpse and analyzes the image data to detect an abnormal area. The outputting unit outputs information of the abnormal area detected by the abnormal area detecting unit.
US08897530B2

An image processing device and method are disclosed for determining a proportion of necrotic tissue in a defined tissue area of an object under examination based on a high-energy image dataset and a low-energy image dataset, each recorded by way of x-ray measurements with different x-ray energies after a contrast medium has been applied to the object under examination. In at least one embodiment of the method, a virtual contrast medium image is determined from the high-energy image dataset and the low-energy image dataset and a segmentation image dataset is created, by the area of tissue being segmented. The segmentation result is transferred into the virtual contrast medium image for segmenting the tissue area in the virtual contrast medium image. Finally an analysis of values of the pixels lying in the segmented area is undertaken for identifying pixels which are to be assigned to necrotic tissue.
US08897529B2

Methods, systems, and apparatuses for non-convex prior image constrained compressed sensing are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method is provided for iterative image reconstruction for medical imaging applications which employ a prior image to constrain the reconstruction process allowing the use of fewer high SNR samples or complete but lower SNR samples. The objective function made use of non-convex compressed sensing methods during the iterative reconstruction process. Applications include, but are not limited to radiation dose reduction and fast image acquisition.
US08897520B2

An image processing apparatus includes an approximate value calculating unit that calculates an approximate value that becomes consecutive inside an examination area for a pixel value of each pixel of the examination area based on the pixel value inside an image, a validity evaluating unit that evaluates whether the approximate value is valid on the pixel value, an area dividing unit that divides the examination area with the approximate value that is evaluated as being invalid, an examination area re-setting unit that sets each divided area obtained by the area dividing unit as a new examination area and controls a repetition of processing, and an abnormal portion detecting unit that detects an abnormal portion based on the pixel value inside the image and the approximate value that has been evaluated as being valid by the validity evaluating unit.
US08897512B1

In one embodiment, a method of operating a processing system includes receiving a reference video and calculating global camera motion parameters for a plurality of the reference video's frames. The method further includes using the camera motion parameters to identify reference video frames corresponding to motion-based events, generating hash values for the identified and neighboring frames in the reference video; and storing the identified frames and hash values. In one version, the method also includes receiving a subject video, calculating global camera motion parameters for the frames of the subject video, using these parameters to identify frames of motion-based events in the subject video, and generating hash values for the identified and neighboring frames in the subject video. The identified frames and hash values of the subject can be compared with those stored for the reference video to evaluate similarity.
US08897511B2

A method and device for registering a handwritten personal signature and for judging its authenticity by comparison with previously registered measured values and data derived therefrom. Signature data is acquired by registering a signature handwritten on a surface by a three-dimensional inertial sensing system having rate-of-rotation sensors and linear acceleration sensors. The data is subjected to a subsequent procedure of recognition or verification or comparison with other signatures. Hence not only tracking is performed with reference to the tip of a writing implement, but the dynamics of the signature are registered and evaluated by numerical calculation and adopted as the basis for the subsequent comparison, effectively ruling out the possibility of fraudulent duplication or tracing-over of a signature by an unauthorized third party. The dynamics i.e. acceleration and deceleration phenomena and rates of rotation as the signature are executed and effectively registered. From them, supplementary measured variables are calculated and specific characteristics are defined from those variables. Those variables are adopted as the basis for comparison, the degree of accuracy of the verification that the signature is genuine can be substantially increased.
US08897478B2

An earphone including a housing, a speaker, a tuning mechanism and an acoustic damper is provided. The housing has a sound-output opening. The speaker is disposed at the sound-output opening. The speaker and the housing together define a compartment. The speaker has an inner chamber and a through hole for communicating the inner chamber and the compartment. The tuning mechanism is movably disposed at the housing and extended into the compartment. The acoustic damper is disposed between the tuning mechanism and the speaker, and located at the through hole. The tuning mechanism is configured to move to compress or release the acoustic damper for adjusting the air permeability of the acoustic damper.
US08897477B1

The dual resonator chamber with variable volume includes first and second housings. The second housing is slidably mounted within the first housing such that a second inner neck portion of the second housing is slidably mounted about the first inner neck portion of the first housing and forms a fluid-tight seal therewith. A sliding wall is slidably mounted within the second housing, dividing the interior thereof into upper and lower resonator chambers. At least one first actuator selectively adjusts the height of the sliding wall with respect to the second lower end of the second housing to selectively adjust volumes of the upper and lower resonator chambers. At least one second actuator selectively adjusts the height of the second housing with respect to the first housing to selectively adjust the neck length of the lower resonator chamber.
US08897474B2

Provided is a synchronization system and method for acoustic communication in audible frequency range, and an apparatus applied thereto. The synchronization system for acoustic communication in audible frequency range is configured to prevent deterioration of a synchronization performance and to reduce an amount of calculation by calculating a correlation based on a few samples as opposed to calculating a correlation for each sample when a receiver of the acoustic communication performs synchronization while the acoustic communication is performed in the audible frequency range through modification of an audio signal or adding of a predetermined signal to an audio signal.
US08897467B2

An electronic amplifier for driving a capacitive load may include first and second differential input terminals to receive an input signal, and first and second differential output terminals to provide a differential output signal. The amplifier may further include a first operational device having first and second differential inputs connected to the first and second differential input terminals, respectively, and an output connected to the first differential output terminal, and a second operational device having first and second differential inputs connected to the first and second differential input terminals, respectively, and an output connected to the second differential output terminal. The first and second operational devices may be operatively configured so that both the first and the second output terminals are at a same reference potential during periods in which a magnitude of differential output signal amplitude decreases.
US08897466B2

Embodiments of the present invention include methods and apparatuses for adjusting audio content when more multiple audio objects are directed toward a single audio output device. The amplitude, white noise content, and frequencies can be adjusted to enhance overall sound quality or make content of certain audio objects more intelligible. Audio objects are classified by a class category, by which they are can be assigned class specific processing. Audio objects classes can also have a rank. The rank of an audio objects class is used to give priority to or apply specific processing to audio objects in the presence of other audio objects of different classes.
US08897446B2

Methods and algorithms for generating identical symmetrical cryptographic keys. In a method for generating a symmetrical cryptographic key, a first profile is generated, the first profile comprising a series of data points collected over a first period of time. A start time of the first profile is identified and the first profile divided into a sequence of time-based segments, each time-based segment comprising at least one data point. A first symmetrical cryptographic key is calculated from the sequence of time-based segments, and the first symmetrical cryptographic key is stored for at least one of encrypting and decrypting data in cooperation with a second symmetrical cryptographic key substantially identical to the first symmetrical cryptographic key.
US08897440B2

A method for use in encrypting data using a computer. The method comprises receiving data to be encrypted, defining a set of byte codes comprising user byte codes, meta byte codes, and dead byte codes, storing a transformation vector defined from the set of byte codes, retrieving the transformation vector from the memory, transforming a block of the data from the data to be encrypted, comprising translating values of the user byte codes from the block of data across the transformation vector, randomly selecting one or more meta byte codes from the defined meta byte codes, performing the reversible operations indicated by the selected meta byte codes during the translation of the values of the user byte codes from the block of data, translating the values of the selected meta byte codes across the transformation vector, inserting the translated values of the user byte codes into an encrypted block of data, and inserting the translated values of the selected meta byte codes into the encrypted block of data.
US08897435B2

A method for controlling access, of a communication device, to a conference call, the method comprising determining contextual attributes related to the device, evaluating the contextual attributes against a set of access requirements and connecting the device to the conference call if one or more of the access requirements is satisfied.
US08897430B2

A method and system for capturing missed communications is provided. An enhanced real-time communication system receives a communication from an initiating participant for a receiving participant that is not available. The enhanced real-time communication system detects that the receiving participant missed the received communication from the initiating participant. Upon detecting that the receiving participant missed the communication, the enhanced real-time communication system stores the missed communication for later retrieval by the receiving participant.
US08897408B2

A method for operating an automation system with a plurality of communication users linked for communication purposes via a serial connection, of which at least one functions as sender and at least one as a receiver, includes determining at a sender an offset value between an occurrence of a synchronous signal and a communication clock cycle, transmitting the determined offset value in a data transmission to the at least one receiver, waiting at the at least one receiver until a time period commensurate with the offset value has elapsed, and generating at the at least one receiver an output signal after the time period has elapsed.
US08897405B2

One or more embodiments describe a decision feedback equalizer for highly spectrally efficient communications. A method may be performed in a decision feedback equalizer (DFE). The method may include initializing values of tap coefficients of the DFE based on values of tap coefficients of a partial response filter through which said transmitted symbols passed en route to said sequence estimation circuit. The method may include receiving estimates of transmitted symbols from a sequence estimation circuit, and receiving an error signal that is generated based on an estimated partial response signal output by the sequence estimation circuit. The method may include updating values of tap coefficients of the DFE based on the error signal and the estimates of transmitted symbols. The method may include generating one or more constraints that restrict the impact of the error signal on the updating of the values of the tap coefficients of the DFE.
US08897402B2

A data transmission system and method is provided for the transmission data signal to one or receiving locations. A Multi Mode Compressive Sensing (MMCS) scheme is provided which adaptively changes the number of pilots used to reconstruct the Impulsive Noise (IN) depending on the IN's current severity so as to mitigate the same and stabilize the Bit Error Rate (BER) of the transmitted data signals and so improve the overall transmission system data throughput. The system can also allow for a variable IN mitigation range in order to allow the concurrent control of the BER and data throughput in the data transmission system.
US08897399B2

A communication system includes: a module configured to decode a remainder portion of a receiver message using a mechanism with a compensation channel value calculated from decoding an evaluation portion of the receiver message with a different mechanism, or using a mechanism-controller generated using a mismatch characterization based on determining a partial-sensitive output and a partial-insensitive output, or a combination thereof for communicating with a device.
US08897396B2

Provided is a pulse receiver capable of receiving a burst signal and decoding the burst signal with a bit error rate reduced to a target value or less by controlling a determination threshold such that decoding success rate is equal to or less than a predetermined value. A decode unit 140 decodes a pulse train 20 to information 30, counts the number of decoding successes for a predetermined time period and outputs the counted number (decoding success rate DR) to a control unit 150. The control unit 150 uses as a basis the decoding success rate DR communicated from the decode unit 140 to control the set value of reference voltage Vth used in the comparator 130.
US08897387B1

A method and system for configuring one or both of a transmitter pulse-shaping filter and a receiver pulse-shaping filter to generate a total partial response that incorporates a predetermined amount of inter-symbol interference (ISI), based on one or more defined performance-related variables and one or more set constraints that are applicable to one or both of the transmitter pulse-shaping filter and the receiver pulse-shaping filters. The predetermined amount of ISI is determined based on an estimation process during extraction of data from an output of the receiver pulse-shaping filter, such that performance of total partial response based communication matches or surpasses performance of communication incorporating filtering based on no or near-zero ISI. The configuring may comprise determining optimized filtering configuration, by applying an optimization process which is based on, at least in part, the one or more constraints and the one or more performance-related variables.
US08897383B1

A wireless communication device to improve multipath environments for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless networks comprises a wireless communication transceiver and a processing system. The wireless communication transceiver is configured to receive MIMO performance information for a plurality of locations of a premises. The processing system is configured to process the MIMO performance information to determine individual ranks associated with each of the locations, wherein higher ones of the ranks indicate better MIMO performance, compare each of the individual ranks to a threshold to determine a group of suboptimal locations of the plurality of locations that have ranks falling below the threshold, and process the suboptimal locations with an in-building geometry of the premises to identify at least one location to install a scattering agent.
US08897372B2

To reduce performance degradation due to a high-performance core's waiting for a processing result of a low-performance core in a multi-core processor including a plurality of cores with different running performance, included are a task pool that stores executable tasks for each computational core, a task scheduler, and a reference count analysis module that acquires hint information and a reference count estimation method from a running task and estimates a reference count of a task to be newly inserted into the task pool or a task existing in the task pool based on the specified method. The scheduler performs insertion and acquisition of a task by mainly using performance of the cores and the reference count.
US08897370B1

A system and method provides content-adaptive bitrate video transcoding of a source video for a video hosting service. The system is coupled to a video coding complexity engine and video rate-distortion modeling engine of the video hosting service. The system is configured to receive the video coding complexity score of the source video and a trained rate-distortion model and a scaling model. A target bitrate estimation module of the system is configured to calculate an initial target bitrate based on the video coding complexity using the trained rate-distortion model. A bitrate refinement module of the system is configured to adjust the initial target bitrate with respect to the resolution and/or frame rate of the transcoded source video. An adaptive video coder of the system is configured to transcode the source video with the adjusted target bitrate.
US08897369B2

An apparatus and method for encoding video data and an apparatus and method for decoding video data are provided. The encoding method includes: splitting a current picture into at least one maximum coding unit; determining a coded depth to output an encoding result by encoding at least one split region of the at least one maximum coding unit according to operating mode of coding tool, respectively, based on a relationship among a depth of at least one coding unit of the at least one maximum coding unit, a coding tool, and an operating mode, wherein the at least one split region is generated by hierarchically splitting the at least one maximum coding unit according to depths; and outputting a bitstream including encoded video data of the coded depth, information regarding a coded depth of at least one maximum coding unit, information regarding an encoding mode, and information regarding the relationship.
US08897365B2

A system for executing video encoding operations. The system includes a video encoder for encoding an incoming video stream into a plurality of macro blocks. A motion estimation engine is coupled to the video encoder for controlling the encoding of the macro blocks. A video rate control processor is coupled to the video encoder and coupled to the motion estimation engine. The video rate control processor receives a plurality of parameters from the video encoder that indicate an encoding complexity for a macro block and a video frame of the video stream and, upon receiving an indication from the motion estimation engine, computes a quantization parameter for the macro block. The quantization parameter is dynamically adjusted for the video stream to achieve a target bit rate.
US08897362B2

A method of temporal prediction using motion estimation is implemented in a sequence of digital images, in the context of coding in a bitstream comprising at least first and second layers linked to each other in a chosen hierarchical relationship of scalability. Provision is made for constructing at least one set of reference pixels for the temporal prediction on the basis of information from a prediction image of the second layer and complementary information from an image of the first layer corresponding temporally to the prediction image. For each block of the current group of the image of the current second layer, a search is made for at least one block of the reference set of pixels so constructed that is suitable for the temporal prediction; and at least one corresponding motion vector is determined.
US08897356B2

Data compression and decompression methods for compressing and decompressing data based on an actual or expected throughput (bandwidth) of a system. In one embodiment, a controller tracks and monitors the throughput (data storage and retrieval) of a data compression system and generates control signals to enable/disable different compression algorithms when, e.g., a bottleneck occurs so as to increase the throughput and eliminate the bottleneck.
US08897351B2

According to various embodiments, methods, apparatuses and systems are provided to allow a transmitter to reduce the Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR) of a modulated signal by applying a pre-emphasis filter to the signal, clipping the pre-distorted signal to reduce the PAPR, and applying a de-emphasis filter to the clipped signal to reduce the spectral leakage caused by the clipping. Other embodiments may be disclosed or claimed.
US08897348B2

A test system for diagnosing twisted pair wiring includes a system processor in communication with a subscriber line interface module, which includes a codec and a SLIC (Subscriber Line Interface Circuit). The SLIC transmits a waveform having a frequency used for voice or baseband modem transmissions onto the twisted pair wiring. The system processor transmits a digital PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) stream to the codec, and the codec converts the digital PCM stream into the waveform transmitted onto the twisted pair wiring. In response to the transmitted waveform, the SLIC senses current on the twisted pair wiring. The codec generates an output waveform corresponding to the sensed current. The system processor receives the output waveform from the codec as a digital PCM stream, synchronizes the transmitted waveform and the output waveform at a single sample, and determines electrical properties of the twisted pair wiring from the output waveform.
US08897343B2

A diversity receiver comprises a plurality of receiving paths connected to a receiver circuit. Each of the receiving paths comprises an antenna receiving a signal, connected to a matching network connected to a receive amplifier. The receiver circuit is connected to a signal level comparison circuit for providing a relative comparison value indicating one of the receiving paths receiving the signal with a relative maximum strength. The signal level comparison circuit comprises a comparator circuit connected to the receiver circuit receiving a currently received signal level, and to a logic control unit being arranged to select one of the receive paths to provide the currently received signal to the receiver circuit.
US08897342B2

A master modem is configured to generate a carrier signal for transmission over a wired connection. A slave modem is configured to change an impedance of the wired connection to alter generation of the carrier signal by the master modem. The impedance of the wired connection is changed based on data to be provided by the slave modem. The master modem can demodulate its own carrier signal to obtain the data provided by the slave modem. The impedance of the wired connection could be changed by changing an impedance of a transformer winding or inductor of the slave modem, where the transformer winding or inductor is coupled to the wired connection. The impedance of the wired connection could also be changed by changing a reactance of a circuit coupled to the wired connection.
US08897339B2

A method and arrangement of increasing impairment co-variance matrix Ru estimation accuracy in downlink in a user equipment in a communication network system. De-spread is performed on HS-DSCH symbols to form a matrix X of de-spread symbols. The matrix X and channel estimates hc from CPiCH and modulation scheme information are used to form a matrix S of recovered symbols in hard value. The matrix X and the channel estimates hc, the modulation scheme information and the matrix S output are used to increase the estimation accuracy of the matrix S. The previous step is repeated until the output symbols are the same as the input symbols or the number of iterations reaches a pre-defined maximum value. The matrix X and the matrix S with increased estimation accuracy are used to form an impairment co-variance matrix Ru estimate.
US08897334B2

A light emitting device includes first and second electrodes, a semiconductor laser element, a bonding wire, a transparent frame section, and a lid section. The first electrode includes a convex section, a bottom surface surrounding the convex section, and a first surface. The second electrode includes a first surface opposed to the bottom surface of the first electrode and a second surface. The second electrode includes an opening section and a step section receding toward the first surface from the second surface. The semiconductor laser element is provided on the convex section and includes a light-emitting layer. The bonding wire is capable of electrically connecting the semiconductor laser element and the step section. The transparent frame section surrounds the convex section and is bonded to the bottom surface and the first surface of the second electrode. The lid section is bonded to the second surface of the second electrode.
US08897330B2

The present invention provides a surface emitting laser that provides a sufficient optical output and is suitable as a light source intended for electrophotographic apparatuses, and a surface-emitting-laser array and an image forming apparatus each including the surface emitting laser.The surface emitting laser includes a first stepped structure on a front surface of a front mirror. In the first stepped structure, a difference L between an optical path length in a first area and an optical path length in a second area satisfies the following expression: (¼+N)λ<|L|<(¾+N)λ where N is an integer.
US08897329B2

Group III nitride-based laser diodes comprise an n-side cladding layer formed of n-doped (Al,In)GaN, an n-side waveguide layer formed of n-doped (Al)InGaN, an active region, a p-side waveguide layer formed of p-doped (Al)InGaN, and a p-side cladding layer formed of p-doped (Al,In)GaN. Optical mode is shifted away from high acceptor concentrations in p-type layers through manipulation of indium concentration and thickness of the n-side waveguide layer. Dopant and compositional profiles of the p-side cladding layer and the p-side waveguide layer are tailored to reduce optical loss and increased wall plug efficiency.
US08897326B2

In a method, a gain medium is provided having an absorption coefficient that varies with wavelength. An absorption coefficient curve of the absorption coefficient or a range of wavelengths comprises peaks and valleys. A pump module is operated to output pump energy at an operating wavelength within one of the valleys, at which the absorption coefficient is approximately less than 40% of the absorption coefficient at an adjacent peak of the absorption coefficient curve defining the valley. The pump energy is directed through the gain medium. A portion of the pump energy is absorbed with the gain medium and laser light is emitted from the gain medium responsive to the absorbed pump energy. The non-absorbed pump energy (feedback pump energy) is fed back to the pump module. The operating wavelength of the pump energy is stabilized using the feedback pump energy.
US08897325B1

A fiber laser having a ring resonance path comprises a pump light source, a Yb-doped optical fiber and a light modulation unit. The pump light source emits a pump light. The Yb-doped optical fiber is coupled with the pump light. The light modulation unit includes a grating pair, a diaphragm and two reflective elements. The grating pair is coupled with the pump light. The diaphragm includes an aperture. The light transmitted by the grating pair partially passes through the aperture and reaches one of the reflective elements to become a reflective light, and the reflective light passes through the aperture and is transmitted through the grating pair and the other reflective element to be coupled back with the ring resonance path.
US08897323B2

In a network synchronization system including plural information processing devices, a first information processing device includes a synchronization-use common storage unit configured to copy and store first information for each user authorized to use the first information processing device, so that the first information can be shared with another information processing device; and a second information processing device includes a setting information unit configured to store second information for each user authorized to use the second information processing device, and a synchronization control unit configured to compare the second information with the first information, and to update the second information to latest information based on a result of the comparison. The synchronization control unit acquires common update information common to the information processing devices, which is stored in the synchronization-use common storage unit.
US08897311B2

In an embodiment, a method is provided at which it is used in a device. In this method, a logical identifier assigned to the device is identified and additionally, a mesh group identifier identifying a mesh group is identified. The logical identifier and the mesh group identifier are encoded in a routing message, which is used in an inter-domain routing protocol, and this routing message is transmitted to a reflector device in communication with the device. The reflector device is configured to transmit the routing message to a remote device included in the computer network.
US08897302B2

Methods, apparatuses, and systems for improving utilization of a communications system (e.g., a satellite communications system) are provided, using delayed reliability techniques as part of a multicast transport protocol. Embodiments may operate in a client-server context, in which the server-side of the communication link multicasts data to requesting users and to users where the data is being speculatively prepositioned. Requesting users may implement reliability checks to verify receipt of complete data in response to the request while user systems where data is being speculatively prepositioned may receive multicast reliability information in response to reliability requests from other users, but may not request replacement of missing or corrupted data themselves until a request is made for the data by that system.
US08897299B2

A method for routing packets from a gateway to an endpoint includes the step of associating a private internet protocol (IP) address with an endpoint having a public IP address. A packet addressed to the private IP address of the endpoint is captured. A policy is applied to the packet. The packet is transmitted to the public IP address of the endpoint, responsive to the application of the policy to the packet.
US08897298B2

Methods, devices, and computer program products for compressing packet headers and payloads are described herein. In one embodiment, a packet including a packet header and a packet payload is compressed in accordance with a compression map, and the compressed packet is transmitted. The compression map includes a run-length encoded data set identifying at least one data field of the packet header and the packet payload to compress. In another embodiment, a packet including a packet header and a packet payload is received and decompressed in accordance with a decompression map. The decompression map includes a run-length encoded data set identifying at least one data field of the packet header and the packet payload to decompress.
US08897290B2

There is a need to enable decompression of a speech signal even if no network synchronizing signal is output from a baseband processing portion. For this purpose, an information processing device includes a first serial interface. The first serial interface includes a notification signal generation circuit that generates a notification signal each time compressed data incorporated from the baseband processing portion reaches a predetermined data quantity, and notifies a speech processing portion of this state using the notification signal. The speech processing portion includes a synchronizing signal generation circuit that generates a network synchronizing signal based on the notification signal. A clock signal for PCM communication is generated based on the network synchronizing signal. A speech signal can be decompressed even if no network synchronizing signal is output from the baseband processing portion.
US08897280B2

System and method for performing clear channel assessment for simultaneous transmission in a device implementing multiple wireless protocols. The system may include first and second wireless protocol circuitry configured to generate first and second signals, respectively, for wireless transmission according to first and second wireless protocols, respectively. A first in-band signal strength threshold and a second in-band signal strength threshold may be maintained by the first wireless protocol circuitry. It may be determined whether the first or second in-band signal strength threshold should be used in performing the clear channel assessment. Clear channel assessment may be performed using the determined in-band signal strength threshold. Performing clear channel assessment may include comparing an ambient signal strength on a channel with the determined in-band signal strength threshold. The first wireless protocol circuitry may be configured to determine whether to wirelessly transmit first signals based on the clear channel assessment.
US08897275B2

It is described a method for compensating interference effects within a telecommunication network including at least a first base station and a second base station, which serve in a cooperative manner a first user equipment and a second user equipment by using time division duplex. The method is applied in an operational state, in which the first base station is in a downlink mode and the second base station is in an uplink mode. The method includes (a) determining at least one of a first channel state information between the first base station and the second base station and a second channel state information between the first user equipment and the second user equipment, (b) encoding data signals based on the first and/or the second channel state information, and (c) transmitting the encoded data signals by the first base station and/or by the second base station. It is further described a telecommunication network, a program element and a computer readable medium, which are adapted to carry out or control the described method.
US08897269B2

Techniques for mitigating pilot pollution in a wireless network are described. In an aspect, pilot pollution may be mitigated by reducing density and/or transmit power of common pilots whenever possible. A cell may send a common pilot at a first density and a first transmit power level during a first time period and may send the common pilot at a second density and a second transmit power level during a second time period. The second density may be lower than the first density and/or the second transmit power level may be lower than the first transmit power level. Lower density may be achieved by sending the common pilot less frequently, on fewer subcarriers, and/or from fewer antennas. The cell may determine whether to reduce the density and/or transmit power of the common pilot based on network loading, SINRs of terminals, etc. In another aspect, pilot pollution may be mitigated by performing pilot cancellation at a terminal.
US08897263B2

One embodiment of the disclosure sets for a method for synchronizing multiple mobile devices in a wireless network, which includes the steps of calculating a time interval for a first mobile device to respond to a request, receiving timing information of the first mobile device, determining a first offset associated with the first mobile device based on the time interval and the timing information, receiving a first data stream including the timing information of the first mobile device, and inserting a first dataset into the first data stream based on the first offset before transmitting the first data stream.
US08897261B2

Techniques are provided for delivering data to a wireless client device in a wireless local area network via a plurality of access point devices as the wireless client device roams from one access point device to another. A wireless client device receives data communications (i.e., traffic) via a first wireless access point device in the wireless local area network. An impending roam of a wireless client device is detected. A set of one or more candidate wireless access point devices other than the first wireless access point device is determined to which the wireless client device may potentially roam. The one or more wireless access point devices in the set are assigned to a multicast group, and the traffic is sent to the multicast group.
US08897259B2

A method of changing a serving Base Station (BS) in a mobile communication system, and a mobile communication system for implementing the method, are provided. The method includes setting a minimum UpLink (UL) quality value, receiving DownLink (DL) quality values for a current serving BS of a User Equipment (UE) and respective BSs included in an active set of the UE from the UE periodically based on a predefined first period, receiving UL quality values for the serving BS and the respective BSs included in the active set from the serving BS and the respective BSs included in the active set periodically based on a predefined second period, determining if the UL quality value for the serving BS is less than the minimum UL quality value, when, as a result of the determination, the UL quality value for the serving BS is less than the minimum UL quality value, selecting BSs, which have UL quality values equal to or greater than the minimum UL quality value among the BSs included in the active set, as candidate BSs, and determining a BS, which has a maximum DL quality value among the candidate BSs, as a new serving BS of the UE, wherein the active set represents a set of BSs that can provide DL/UL service to the UE.
US08897258B2

A method of transmitting data for reducing interference in a hierarchical cell structure including a macro base station (BS) providing multi carriers and a femto BS providing a single carrier includes performing a channel scan within an interfered carrier to acquire channel state information and neighbor femto BS information if interference with the femto BS occurs; transmitting a channel measurement report including the channel state information and the neighbor femto BS information to the macro BS; and transmitting data through a carrier changed by receiving carrier change information from the macro BS.
US08897256B2

A method and apparatus providing broadcast content over a unicast channel. The method and apparatus may be configured to determine whether content received using a broadcast type format is to be transmitted using a unicast type format, and to map the content to a unicast reservation upon a determination that the content is to be transmitted using the unicast type format.
US08897255B2

Systems and methods are described for managing a wireless network. Packets addressed to subscriber stations may be assigned a tag based on the base station at which the packet is received and the base station at which the subscriber station first entered the network. The tag can identify a media access address associated with subscriber equipment accessible through the subscriber station and an IP address associated with the subscriber equipment. The tag may be obtained from a table linking each of a plurality of virtual local area networks to one or more subscriber stations previously registered at a network base station.
US08897236B2

According to certain aspects, resource blocks used for physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmissions may be allocated in a manner to manage interference in neighboring cells. According to certain aspects, one or more guard RBs may be utilized when transmitting PDSCH in a first cell an effort to reduce interference by transmissions in a second cell.
US08897231B2

A disclosed mobile station includes a multiplexing portion that multiplexes a contention-based channel and a non-contention-base channel, and a transmitting portion that transmits the multiplexed contention-based and non-contention-based channels to a base station. In the mobile station, the contention-based channel and the non-contention-based channel are distinguished from whether scheduling is performed before transmission in the base station. The contention-based channel includes one or more of a fast access channel, a reservation channel, and a synchronization channel. The non-contention-based channel includes one or more of an uplink shared data channel and an uplink shared control channel. The fast access channel includes traffic data, or control data having a data size smaller than a predetermined size, or a combination thereof. The reservation channel includes information to request scheduling the non-contention-based channel. The uplink data channel includes the traffic data, or the control data, or a combination thereof.
US08897227B2

The disclosure discloses a method for managing terminal states or terminal events in a Machine-to-Machine, Machine-to-Man or Man-to-Machine (M2M) service, including: a terminal or a terminal gateway transmits state or event information of itself to a state or event management unit through a gateway device; an M2M service platform determines a service interaction operation with the terminal or the terminal gateway according to the state or event information of the terminal or the terminal gateway in the state or event management unit. The disclosure also discloses a system for managing terminal states or terminal events in an M2M service. With the method and the system, a network side can know the state or event of a terminal in time, and process services according to the state or event of the terminal, thus the success rate of the service is improved.
US08897223B2

In a communication system (100) where a wireless relay node (RN) (114) relays data packets between a Node B (112) and a user equipment (UE) (102), the RN receives (608) a data packet from the Node B via a first wireless link (115), conveys (614) the received data packet to the UE via a second wireless link (120), determines (616) whether the UE is likely to handoff, and in response to determining that the UE is likely to handoff, delays conveying (620, 622) an acknowledgment of the data packet to the Node B until an acknowledgment has been received from the UE. In another embodiment, the RN may use a status report (720) to inform the Node B of data packets that have not been transmitted to the UE or that have been transmitted to the UE but for which an acknowledgement has not been received from the UE.
US08897220B2

A method of wireless communication includes determining denial rates for first and second communication attempts of a packet using a first communication resource (e.g., an LTE radio). The method also includes allowing a second communication resource (e.g., a Bluetooth radio) to communicate when communication attempts from the first communication resource are denied. The denial rates are chosen to achieve threshold levels of performance for the first and second communication resources. The second denial rate may be set and the first denial rate adjusted in a looped manner to achieve desired Bluetooth performance. The denial rates may be set to deny all first communication attempts but to allow all second communication attempts. Final attempts to transmit Bluetooth packets may be given priority regardless of the first and second denial rates.
US08897218B2

A device associated with a Voice over IP (VoIP) network receives a call from a mobile device. The device determines whether a sector identifier (ID) associated with the call includes a femtocell identifier. The device further determines a location identifier included in the sector ID when the sector ID includes the femtocell identifier. The device also identifies a recipient of the call based on the location identifier and forwards the call to the recipient.
US08897193B2

A multicast packet transmitting and receiving method over a wireless communication network is provided. The method includes: transmitting a multicast packet from a sender to a plurality of receivers via a wireless channel; receiving the multicast packet at each of the receivers, determining whether a transmission error occurs in the multicast packet, and simultaneously transmitting a retransmission request from at least one of the receivers to the sender via the wireless channel, according to a result of the determining.
US08897185B2

Some demonstrative embodiments include devices, systems and/or methods of scheduling communications with a group of wireless communication devices. For example, a wireless communication unit may transmit at least one scheduling frame including an indication of a downlink period allocated for simultaneous transmission from the wireless communication unit to at least one group of a plurality of wireless communication devices, wherein the wireless communication unit is to simultaneously transmit a plurality of different wireless communication transmissions to the plurality of wireless communication devices of the group during the downlink period. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US08897179B2

In one embodiment, a method includes obtaining an indication that indicates that a donor radio is online with respect to an interoperability system, and determining if the indication is accurate. If the indication is not accurate, the method includes identifying a communication status for the donor radio within the interoperability system as a fail. Alternatively, if the indication is accurate, the communication status for the donor radio is identified within the interoperability system as being a success.
US08897176B2

The present invention relates to the communication field and discloses a method, an apparatus, and a system for processing priority services to overcome a problem in the prior art that priority services initiated from a network to a target user cannot be provided. The technical solutions provided in the embodiments of the present invention include: determining a service to be carried out with a target user equipment as a priority service; and creating a priority service bearer for the priority service, and carrying out the priority service by using the priority service bearer. The embodiments of the present invention are applicable in an IMS-based communication system.
US08897157B2

A first network device may discover one or more values of one or more parameters corresponding to a plurality of links and/or devices of the network. The first network device may compare the discovered one or more values of the one or more parameters to an expected one or more values of the one or more parameters. The first network device may determine whether to transmit data onto a network path between the first device and one of the plurality of devices based on a result of the comparison, wherein at least one of the plurality of links and/or devices are not part of the network path. The first network device may be operable to utilize the discovered parameter values to generate a security key which may be utilized to encrypt and/or scramble content prior to transmitting the content onto the network.
US08897149B2

The present invention relates to a method and to a transceiver (400) for detecting HARQ transmission failure in a telecommunications system. The transceiver (400) is arranged to execute a HARQ process which is used to generate a transmission of data units to e.g. a eNodeB. The transceiver is also arranged to determine when a maximum number of transmission attempts is reached and when this occurs to flush a HARQ buffer associated with the HARQ process and to detect that a HARQ transmission failure has occurred when the last HARQ feedback received for the current HARQ process is not a HARQ ACK.
US08897138B2

A method for use to configure a network switch device to implement a traffic flow configuration, the network switch device having a plurality of network ports and a plurality of instrument ports, the method includes: receiving instrument port information that identifies one or more of the instrument ports for the traffic flow configuration, wherein the instrument port information is received by a processing unit; receiving network port information that identifies one or more of the network ports for the traffic flow configuration; receiving traffic information that identifies one or more network traffic for the traffic flow configuration, wherein the traffic information is received after the instrument port information is received or after the network port information is received; and storing the instrument port information, the traffic information, and the network port information in association with each other to implement the traffic flow configuration.
US08897137B2

A communications system provides a dynamic setting of optimal buffer sizes in IP networks. A method for dynamically adjusting buffer capacities of a router may include steps of monitoring a number of incoming packets to the router, determining a packet arrival rate, and determining the buffer capacities based at least partially on the packet arrival rate. Router buffers are controlled to exhibit the determined buffer capacities, e.g. during writing packets into and reading packets from each of the buffers as part of a packet routing performed by the router. In the disclosed examples, buffer size may be based on the mean arrival rate and one or more of mean packet size and mean waiting time.
US08897132B2

Methods, apparatuses and systems directed to enhanced random early discard mechanisms implemented in various networked devices including end-systems such as servers and intermediate systems such as gateways and routers. In one implementation, the present invention enables a random early discard mechanism that intelligently biases the drop probabilities of select packets based on one or more application-aware and/or flow-aware metrics or state conditions.
US08897127B2

An admission method, an admission apparatus, and a communication system are disclosed. The admission method includes: obtaining timeslot utilization efficiency R1 of a first User Equipment (UE) that needs to access a system and timeslot utilization efficiency R2 of a second UE that has accessed the system; judging whether the difference between R1 and R2 is greater than a first decision threshold; and allowing the first UE to access the system if determining that the difference between R1 and R2 is greater than the first decision threshold. The admission method provided herein is applicable to a communication system, and can improve the timeslot utilization efficiency and the throughput of the system.
US08897125B2

A method and system include a distributed network of filters having a topology corresponding to an interconnection map of a process to be controlled, each filter modeling a sub-process of the process. Each filter is interconnected to receive an input vector of process measurements corresponding to a local state of the process and to receive process variables. The filters are adapted to determine a communication failure and responsive to the communication failure, correlations of the local state with the state of subsystems estimated by filters that are not accessible due to the communication failure are set to zero and wherein a local state covariance is increased.
US08897122B2

Disclosed is a transmission device including a plurality of antennas for transmitting signals in the same channel at the same time point to a plurality of reception devices, characterized by including: a DRS generator configured to generate DRSs (dedicated reference signals) for the respective reception devices; a nonlinear spatial multiplexer configured to generate a nonorthogonal DRS by use of a first group of DRSs including at least one of the DRSs; and a transmitter configured to transmit a signal containing at least the nonorthogonal DRS.
US08897118B1

A method is provided for Single Carrier-Frequency-Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) format 1/1a/1b detection in a wireless communications receiver. The receiver accepts a plurality of multicarrier signals transmitted simultaneously from a plurality of transmitters, with overlapping carrier frequencies. For each multicarrier signal, a single tap measurement of time delay is performed using a Direction of Arrival (DoA) technique. In response to the single tap measurements, PUCCH 1/1a/1b format signals are detected. Prior to performing the single tap measurements, the multicarrier signals are decorrelated in the time domain, using corresponding orthogonal code covers. Subsequent to the single tap measurements, each multicarrier signal is decorrelated in the frequency domain, using a corresponding cyclic shift. Subsequent to decorrelating the multicarrier signals in the frequency domain, a Generalized Likelihood Ratio Test (GLRT) is performed for each decorrelated multicarrier signal.
US08897114B2

A topography detection mechanism may measure surface height of a side read/write track while the read/write head is interacting with a current read/write track. A memory may store the measured surface height.
US08897105B1

An apparatus includes a solid immersion mirror with opposing, reflective, inner sidewalls having inner surfaces facing a focal region and outer surfaces opposite the inner surfaces. The solid immersion mirror also include opposing outer sidewalls spaced apart from and facing the outer surfaces of the inner sidewalls, and a fill material between the inner sidewalls and outer sidewalls. The apparatus also includes a near-field transducer located in the focal region proximate a media-facing surface.
US08897085B2

A mechanism is presented memory circuits, such a NAND-type flash memories, to autonomously protect themselves from temporary and short power drops. A detection mechanism looks for the supply voltage to drop below a function voltage for a period of time. When such an event occurs, a suspend mechanism is activated, and after completing the last micro-operation (such as a program pulse) the memory freezes. When power is again stable at an operational level, the suspended operation is resumed. The memory controller can then be notified upon occurrence of such voltage drop by polling a special status bit. Examples of how the pausing can be implemented include altering of clock signals and suspending sub-phases of larger operations.
US08897084B2

Techniques are disclosed relating to determining when a data strobe signal is valid for capturing data. In one embodiment, an apparatus is disclosed that includes a memory interface circuit configured to determine an initial time value for capturing data from a memory based on a data strobe signal. In some embodiments, the memory interface circuit may determine this initial time value by reading a known value from memory. In one embodiment, the memory interface circuit further configured to determine an adjusted time value for capturing the data, where the memory interface circuit is configured to determine the adjusted time value by using the initial time value to sample the data strobe signal.
US08897083B1

An integrated circuit may include memory interface circuitry for communicating with off-chip memory. The memory interface circuitry may receive data signals and data strobe signals from different memory devices via respective data ports and data strobe ports. The memory interface circuitry may be operable in at least first and second modes. In the first mode, data signals from each memory device may be received at two respective data ports while the data strobe signal from one memory device is used to clock the data signals at two corresponding read capture registers. In the second mode, data signals from first and second memory devices may be received via first and second data ports, respectively. The data strobe signal from the first memory device may be ignored while the data strobe signal from the second memory device is used to clock the data signals at two corresponding read capture registers.
US08897075B2

A semiconductor memory device and a method of programming the same are provided which can improve the program accuracy by classifying cells depending on a program status of memory cells during a program operation to control a bit line program voltage. The method comprises classifying memory cells to be programmed based on program characteristics of the memory cells and sequentially providing word line program voltages having increasing voltage levels and bit line program voltages having decreasing voltage levels to the classified memory cells in a program operation, wherein differently classified two memory cells receive different bit line program voltages, respectively.
US08897060B2

According to one embodiment, a magnetoresistance effect element includes first and second magnetic layers having an axis of easy magnetization in a direction perpendicular to a film surface, a first nonmagnetic layer formed between the first and second magnetic layers, a first interface magnetic layer formed between the first magnetic layer and the first nonmagnetic layer, and a second nonmagnetic layer formed in the first interface magnetic layer and having an amorphous structure. An electric current flowing through the first magnetic layer, the first nonmagnetic layer, and the second magnetic layer makes a magnetization direction in the first magnetic layer variable.
US08897054B2

A ROM memory circuit is disclosed having at least one electrical line, at least one keeper circuit electrically connected to the at least one electrical line, the keeper circuit including a first transistor, a terminal of the first transistor is driven by a dedicated control signal, wherein the dedicated control signal is configured to keep the voltage of the at least one electrical line at a first voltage.
US08897044B2

An electronic device including a power switch, a switch unit, a power supply unit and a control unit is provided. Two power ends of the power switch are connected in parallel with two connecting terminals of the switch unit. The power supply unit generates a system voltage by a power come from the power switch or the switch unit. When the two power ends of the power switch are conducted for a predetermined time, the power is provided to the power supply unit and the electronic device starts up. Furthermore, the control unit controls the switch unit to conduct the two connecting terminals, so that the power is still provided to the power supply unit through the switch unit after the two power ends are disconnected. When the electronic device is shut down, the control unit controls the switch unit to disconnect the two connecting terminals.
US08897037B2

Power conversion system and method. The system includes a first capacitor, a second capacitor, and a plurality of diodes including a first diode, a second diode, a third diode, and a fourth diode. Additionally, the system includes a fifth diode including a first anode and a first cathode and a sixth diode including a second anode and a second cathode. Moreover, the system includes a primary winding, and a secondary winding coupled to the primary winding. The first anode is connected to a first input terminal, and the second anode is connected to a second input terminal. The first input terminal and the second input terminal are configured to receive an input voltage. The secondary winding is configured to generate an output voltage based on at least information associated with the input voltage.
US08897034B2

The present invention discloses a splitter plate and an electronic apparatus. The splitter plate includes a splitter plate main body, and further includes a turnover positioning apparatus, and the turnover positioning apparatus is hinged on a side of the splitter plate main body; the turnover positioning apparatus is configured to, after a half-height board is assembled to a subrack, abut against the half-height board and connect to the subrack to fasten the half-height board to the subrack.
US08897032B2

A method and system for connecting a vertical printed circuit board with a horizontal printed circuit board where a contact device is biased in a first position when not contacting a vertical printed circuit board and is biased in a second position when the vertical printed circuit is coupled to the horizontal printed circuit board.
US08897021B2

A method for manufacturing a plurality of plug-in cards (25) from a card body (6), preferably on a standard sized, ISO 7810, ID1 type, the method comprising the steps of defining said plug-in cards (25) on the card body (6) and making at least one score line (19) on the card body to define the same plurality of similar plug-in support cards (33) each comprising a single plug-in card.
US08897016B2

A low profile heat removal system suitable for removing excess heat generated by a component operating in a compact computing environment is disclosed.
US08897005B2

An electronic apparatus including a first body, a second body, a connection port module and a pushing rod module is provided. The second body pivoted to the first body so that the second body is able to be opened and closed relative to the first body. The connection port module is movably disposed in the first body and has a pushing portion. The pushing rod module is disposed in the first body. A first end of the pushing rod module is coupled to the pushing portion, and a second end of the pushing rod module is coupled to the second body. When the second body spreads out relative to the first body, the second body drives the pushing portion by the pushing rod module so that the connection port module is exposed from the first body by moving relative to the first body.
US08896977B2

A method for operating an electrical power supply network is described. The power supply network has several levels of different voltages. The levels are interconnected by switches. A first switch is made so that the maximum interruptible short-circuit current of the first switch is smaller than the maximum flowing short-circuit current. In the event of failure, a test is made as to whether the short-circuit current presently flowing through the first switch is smaller than the maximum interruptible short-circuit current. The first switch will remain closed if this is not the case, and the first switch will be opened if this is the case.
US08896975B2

Monitoring of a core logic internal voltage regulator output is performed to detect, alarm and put an integrated circuit device into a safe mode when the voltage on the core logic exceeds a safe operating voltage value. This allows putting the integrated circuit devise into a predictable, detectable and safe mode, and to alarm the over-voltage condition to a system monitor to alert on a fault and subsequent fault disposition.
US08896969B1

Various embodiments concern a dual stage actuation flexure. The dual stage actuation flexure comprises a flexure having a gimbal. The gimbal comprising a pair of spring arms, a tongue between the spring arms, and a pair of linkages respectively connecting the pair of spring arms to the tongue. The dual stage actuation flexure further comprises a pair of motors mounted on the gimbal and a pair of stiffeners respectively mounted on the motors. The dual stage actuation flexure further comprises a slider mounting. Electrical activation of the motors bends the pair of linkages to move the slider mounting about a tracking axis while the stiffeners limit the degree of bending of the motors during the electrical activation.
US08896947B2

According to one embodiment, a disk storage apparatus includes a magnetic head, a detector, a calculator, and a decision module. The magnetic head has a high-frequency assisted element disposed close to a main magnetic pole that generates a recording magnetic field for perpendicular magnetic recording, the high-frequency assisted element applying a high-frequency magnetic field onto a magnetic disk during data recording. The detector detects an electrical resistance of the high-frequency assisted element. The calculator calculates time axis data indicative of a variation, on a time axis, in the electrical resistance value detected by the detector. The decision module determines whether the high-frequency assisted elements is malfunctioning based on the time axis data.
US08896941B2

An image-capturing lens has, in order from an object, an object side lens group G1 and an image side lens group G2 which is disposed next to the object side lens group G1 with an air space, and focusing is performed from a distant object to a close object by moving at least a part of the image side lens group G2 along an optical axis as a focusing lens group, and image stabilization is performed by moving at least a part of the image side lens group G2 as a shift lens group so as to have components roughly orthogonal to the optical axis.
US08896933B2

A lens barrel includes a first frame and a second frame. The first frame includes a plurality of cam grooves. The second frame includes a plurality of cam followers that engage with each of the plurality of cam grooves, and a gear portion. In this case, if rotational force is transmitted to the gear portion, the second frame moves in the optical axis direction while rotating with respect to the first frame. At least one of the plurality of cam followers is disposed on the image plane side of the gear portion.
US08896932B2

A zoom lens comprises, in order from the object side: a first lens group that has a positive refractive power; a second lens group that has a negative refractive power; and a third lens group that has a positive refractive power. Zooming is performed by changing spaces between the first to third lens groups during zooming from a wide-angle end to a telephoto end. The third lens group includes, in order from the object side, a positive lens group, having a positive refractive power, and a negative lens group, disposed to be close to the image side thereof and having a negative refractive power, with an air gap, which is widest in the third lens group, interposed therebetween. The third lens group satisfies the condition −0.45
US08896929B2

A negative first lens group, a positive second lens group, a negative third lens group, a positive fourth lens group, a negative fifth lens group, and a positive sixth lens group are disposed in this order from the magnification side. The reduction side is made telecentric. While changing magnification, the second lens group through the fifth lens group are moved, and the first lens group and the sixth lens group are fixed. Predetermined conditional expressions are satisfied.
US08896925B2

The present invention relates to a microlens array sheet with enhanced optical performance, and a backlight unit having same, and more specifically, to a microlens array sheet and a backlight unit having same, the microlens array sheet comprising: a base portion; and a plurality of microlenses formed on one surface of the base portion, wherein the plurality of microlenses have an irregular array, and the standard deviation of the distance between the mid points of two microlenses adjacent to each other is, 2-20% of the average pitch(p) between microlenses adjacent from the mid point of a selected microlens after selecting one of the microlenses.
US08896921B2

A wire grid type polarization structure is disclosed. In one aspect, the polarization structure includes a retardation layer and a plurality of nanowires formed on the retardation layer. Each of the nanowires includes a wire core and a shell enclosing the wire core. The wire cores include metal nanoparticles embedded therein. The metal nanoparticles may absorb the visible lights effectively, so that the wire grid type polarization structure may have a desired polarization characteristic.
US08896919B2

A three-dimensional (3D) display system is provided. The 3D display system includes a display device and an optical device. The display device is configured to display sets of images with parallax for a 3D display. The optical device has electric-signal-controllable optical parameters and is coupled with the display device. Further, the optical device is configured to enable directional light transmission so as to separate lights of the sets of images into predetermined viewing directions to effect the 3D display.
US08896911B2

The present invention is a laser system including a DFB laser 10 emitting a laser light 50, a semiconductor optical amplifier 20 that modulates an intensity of the laser light, and a harmonic generation element 30 that converts the laser light modulated to a visible light 54 that is a harmonic of the laser light. According to the present invention, it is possible to employ the highly efficient harmonic generation element capable of modulating the intensity of the laser light and to reduce power consumption.
US08896905B2

An appearance-modifying device for modifying the visual appearance of a surface covered thereby, the device comprising a first substrate, a second substrate, a spacer structure spacing apart the first and second substrates in such a way that a space between the first and second-substrates is divided into a plurality of cells wherein in each cell, an optically transparent fluid having a plurality of particles is dispersed therein, wherein each of the cells is configured such that a distribution state of the particles is controllable in a first distribution state and an appearance of the surface covered by the appearance-modifying device is determined by optical properties of the particles and a second distribution state in which the particles are concentrated onto one of a first particle concentration site and a second particle concentration site.
US08896892B2

A method allows an end user to calibrate a color reproduction device with recording media brightness compensation. A color reproduction device includes a device for converting the native color values of the scanner into a device independent color space, a test target, the desired values of each patch of the test target and a printing device. The method includes printing the test target and scanning it with a scanner that forms a part of the color reproduction device. The device compares the desired values with the values obtained from scanning the printed test target to obtain a set of adjustment values to compensate for drift in the output of the color reproduction device. The compensation includes compensation for utilizing a recording media that does not have the same white characteristics as the recording media that was used to generate the scanner profile used in converting the scanner dependent color space values to a device independent color space values.
US08896891B2

A document conveying device includes a document table on which a stack of document sheets is placed; a rotating shaft member detachably provided on a main body of the document conveying device; a feeding member configured to contact and feed a topmost sheet of the stack of document sheets, the feeding member being attached to the rotating shaft member via a driving force transmitting member; a separating unit configured to separate the topmost sheet from one or more sheets that are fed together with the topmost sheet, rotating members rotatably attached to the rotating shaft member; a holding member configured to hold the feeding member and the driving force transmitting member; and a rotating member position restricting unit configured to restrict a position of the rotating members other than the holding member to a given predetermined position with reference to a position of the holding member.
US08896887B2

A controlling device may cause a scan performing unit to perform either a first type of scan or a second type of scan. In the first type of scan, a document may be moved with respect to optical elements while the optical elements are not moved, and in a second type of scan, the optical elements are moved with respect to the document while the document is not moved. The controlling device may judge that a first type of analysis is to be performed on scan data in a case where one type of scan is performed, and judge that the first type of analysis is not to be performed in a case where the other type of scan is performed. The controlling device may determine an output resolution by utilizing a result of the first type of analysis, and create a file including image data indicating the output resolution.
US08896881B2

An image forming system includes a first image forming apparatus and a second image forming apparatus, the first image forming apparatus including: a first image forming section which performs image formation on a sheet; a first fixing section which performs image fixation on the sheet on which the first image forming section performs the image formation; and a first control section which makes, when the first image forming apparatus and the second image forming apparatus perform the image formation and the image fixation on different sides of a sheet to perform double-sided printing, thereby performing tandem outputting, a tandem-outputting target fixing temperature of the first fixing section lower than a first fiducial temperature which is a non-tandem-outputting target fixing temperature of the first fixing section for when the first image forming performs the image formation and the image fixation alone.
US08896849B2

The invention relates to a method for determining a set of optical imaging functions that describe the imaging of a measuring volume onto each of a plurality of detector surfaces on which the measuring volume can be imaged at in each case a different observation angle by means of detection optics. In addition to the assignment of in each case one image position (x, y) to each volume position (X, Y, Z), the method according to the invention envisages that the shape of the image of a punctiform particle in the measuring volume be described by shape parameter values (a, b, 100 , I) and that the corresponding set of shape parameter values be assigned to each volume position (X, Y. Z) for each detector surface.
US08896847B2

A shape-sensing segment traverses through at least a portion of a kinematic chain of a tele-operated slave surgical instrument in a tele-operated minimally-invasive surgical system. The shape-sensing segment includes a pre-set perturbation. Shape information from the pre-set perturbation allows determination of relative partial-pose information for at least one link in the kinematic chain.
US08896838B2

Exemplary embodiments of probes, apparatus, systems and methods can be provided which provide at least one electro-magnetic radiation to at least one sample. For example, a plurality of axicon lenses can be provided which are configured to provide the electro-magnetic radiation(s) having at least partially annulus shape. In addition or alternatively, at least one optical arrangement can be provided which is configured to forward at least one radiation to the sample therethrough having at least partially circularly-symmetric pattern. For example, at least one first portion of the radiation transmitted through a circular section of the pattern can have an optical path-length that is different from an optical path-length of at least one second portion of the radiation transmitted through at least one other section of the pattern.
US08896837B1

An apparatus for reflectivity measurement is provided. The apparatus generally measures reflectivity characteristics of a reflective surface, such as a reflective cavity of a light array. The apparatus generally comprises a body defining a volume and a light emitting element disposed outside the volume. A sensor coupled to the body detects light reflected from a reflective surface. Various embodiments provide positioning of the apparatus relative to a light array having a reflective cavity.
US08896833B2

The invention relates to a method and to a device for determining at least one piece of polarization information on a measurement point of a target sample, the device comprising:—a light source capable of emitting a rectilinearly polarized light beam, the light beam being intended to be reflected by the measurement point;—a means for computing polarization information on the measurement point using the beam reflected by the target sample;—at least one waveguide for guiding the incident beam towards the target sample and the reflected beam towards the computing means; and—a means for rotating the polarization, capable of rotating two orthogonal polarimetric components of the incident beam after passing through the waveguide and two orthogonal polarimetric components of the reflected beam before passing through the waveguide.
US08896832B2

Systems and methods for discrete polarization scatterometry are provided.
US08896829B2

A metal nanoparticle material for molecular sensing, that includes a metal nanoparticle aggregate including three to ten metal nanoparticles connected to each other through an organic molecule so that adjacent metal nanoparticles are bonded and spaced apart a predetermined distance, the aggregate containing a Raman active molecule within a field applied to the aggregate, wherein the metal nanoparticle material emits enhanced Raman scattering light from the Raman active molecule in an enhanced electric field; a method for producing the metal nanoparticle material for molecular sensing; and a molecular sensing method using the metal nanoparticle material for molecular sensing.
US08896825B2

An optical inspector includes a radiating source, a time varying beam reflector, a telecentric scan lens, a first and second lens, a field stop, and a detector. The radiating source irradiates a first position of on the time varying beam reflector with a source beam. The time varying beam reflector directs the source beam to the telecentric scan lens, which in turn directs the source beam to a sample. The first lens focuses scattered radiation from the sample to generate multiple scan lines at a first focal plane. The field stop is positioned at the first focal plane to block one or more scan lines at the first focal plane. The scan line not blocked by the field stop propagates to the second lens. The second lens de-scans the scan line and generates a point of scattered radiation at a second focal plane where the detector input is located.
US08896823B2

A light distribution characteristic measurement apparatus for measuring the light distribution characteristic of a light source is provided. The apparatus includes a plurality of detectors arranged so that they have a predetermined relative relationship with each other. One detector has a detection range at least partially overlapping a detection range of another detector adjacent to the former detector. The apparatus further includes a drive unit that drives a plurality of detectors as one unit to update a positional relationship of the plurality of detectors relative to the light source, and a calculation unit that calculates the light distribution characteristic of the light source by performing a process depending on at least one of a relative relationship between a plurality of detectors and overlapping of respective detection ranges thereof, based on respective results of detection that have been acquired by the plurality of detectors at the same timing.
US08896822B2

A cut-off wavelength measuring method according to the present invention includes: preparing a single mode fiber as a reference fiber; preparing a measurement target fiber; adjusting the length of the single mode fiber such that the length of the single mode fiber is longer than the that of the measurement target fiber at the time of measuring power of transmission light and the reference fiber propagates only light of a base mode at a predicted cut-off wavelength of the measurement target fiber; measuring wavelength dependence of power of light transmitted through the reference fiber and wavelength dependence of power of light transmitted through the measurement target fiber; and calculating a cut-off wavelength of the measurement target fiber based on wavelength dependence represented as the ratio of the power of transmission light transmitted through the measurement target fiber to the power of light transmitted through the reference fiber.
US08896817B2

During an alignment calibration process in a lithographic apparatus using a sensor to detect a property of a projected image at substrate level, a diffuser is inserted into the illumination beam to increase the range of angles of radiation incident on the substrate. Thereby it can be ensured that sufficient radiation enters the sensor even when there is a mismatch between the illumination mode used and the acceptance NA of the sensor.
US08896807B2

A liquid immersion lithography apparatus includes a projection system having a final optical element via which a substrate is exposed to an exposure beam through an immersion liquid located between the final optical element and the substrate, and a nozzle member. The nozzle member has a first opening on one side of the final optical element and from which the immersion liquid is supplied, a second opening on a second side of the final optical element and from which the immersion liquid is collected, and a liquid recovery portion that surrounds a path of the exposure beam and from which the immersion liquid is collected. During exposure, an upper surface of the substrate faces the liquid recovery portion, and the immersion liquid is supplied from the first opening while the immersion liquid supplied from the first opening is recovered from the second opening and the liquid recovery portion.
US08896805B2

The present invention discloses a repairing line system, which includes a plurality of packages, a substrate having a plurality of data lines awaiting for repair, two repairing lines, and two connecting lines. The repairing line includes outgoing lines led from the packages and a wire disposed on three sides of the substrate without the packages disposed and coupled to the outgoing lines. The wires insulatively intersect second terminals of the data lines awaiting for repair. The connecting line insulatively intersects the outgoing lines and first terminals of the data lines. The present invention further discloses a repair method of the repairing line system. The repairing line system and the repair method of the present invention utilize the same repairing lines led from different packages to connect with each other for forming whole connected wires, thereby increasing flexibility of the repairing line system in repairing data lines.
US08896804B2

The present invention provides a method for termination detection of optical alignment of liquid crystal material, which includes: under influence of electrical field, irradiating light on liquid crystal material so that reactive monomers in liquid crystal material polymerizing; detecting a residual amount or a thickness change value of the reactive monomers in liquid crystal material to determine detected residual amount of reactive monomers or thickness change value in liquid crystal box reaching a default value; when reaching default value, terminating optical alignment of liquid crystal material. The present invention also provides a device for termination detection of optical alignment of liquid crystal material. Through detecting termination of optical alignment, the present invention realizes automatic control of irradiation time in optical alignment to reduce the effect of individual glass substrate variation on optical alignment to avoid affecting reaction process of alignment on reactive monomer.
US08896803B2

In accordance with a method of manufacturing a liquid crystal display device including, in a picture element, a first sub-picture-element region where a threshold voltage of the transmittance-applied voltage characteristic is Vth1 and a second sub-picture-element region where a threshold voltage of the transmittance-applied voltage characteristic is Vth2, liquid crystal, which polymerizable components are added to, is filled into the space between a first and a second substrates; thereafter, a voltage V1 slightly higher than the threshold voltage Vth1 is applied to a liquid crystal layer, and is held for a certain length of time; subsequently, a voltage V2 slightly higher than the threshold voltage Vth2 is applied to the liquid crystal layer, and is held for a certain length of time; additionally, a voltage V3 higher than a white-displaying voltage which is applied while the liquid crystal display device is in actual use is applied to the liquid crystal layer, and is held for a certain length of time; then, the polymerizable components are polymerized by irradiation of ultraviolet light; and thus polymers are formed in the liquid crystal layer.
US08896800B2

A liquid crystal panel and a liquid crystal display device using the same are disclosed, in which among common lines formed to overlap a seal formed between a non-display area and a display area, a common line formed between a light-transmitting portion where a through hole is formed and the display area is formed in a plate structure. The liquid crystal panel comprises a first common line formed between a light-transmitting portion of a non-display area of a driving device array substrate and a display area of the driving device array substrate, a second common line formed between a first non-display area of the non-display area and the display area, a seal formed on the second common line to overlap the second common line without overlapping the first common line, and a liquid crystal injected into the display area and the light-transmitting portion.
US08896791B2

A liquid crystal display includes: a first substrate; a pixel electrode on the first substrate; a second substrate which faces the first substrate; a common electrode on the second substrate; a liquid crystal layer between the first substrate and the second substrate; and a cross-shaped organic layer protrusion on the first substrate or the second substrate and overlapping the pixel electrode. The edge of the organic layer protrusion is protruded from the edge of the pixel electrode.
US08896789B2

Disclosed is an optical film in which a minute interference unevenness is reduced. The optical film comprises a transparent film having a thickness of 10 μm to 150 μm, and a first layer and a second layer, in this order, on the transparent film, wherein values of in-plain mean refractive indices thereof satisfy the formula: the second layer>the first layer>the transparent film; the difference in in-plane mean refractive indices between the first layer and the second layer and the difference in in-plane mean refractive indices between the first layer and the transparent film are each 0.02 or more; and the optical thickness D of the first layer satisfies the formula: 270×N−150−75 nm≦D≦270×N−150+75 nm (1≦N≦8 where N is a natural number).
US08896782B2

The present invention provides a frameless liquid crystal display device, which includes a rear enclosure, a backlight module arranged inside the rear enclosure, a mold frame arranged on the backlight module and fixedly coupled to the rear enclosure, and a liquid crystal display panel arranged on the mold frame. The liquid crystal display panel includes a CF substrate and a TFT substrate laminated on the CF substrate and a top polarization plate and a bottom polarization plate respectively laminated to the CF substrate and the TFT substrate. The top polarization plate is a flexible polarization film having an upper end coupled to the mold frame so as to fix an upper end of the liquid crystal display panel to the mold frame. The liquid crystal display panel forms a step on which a surface decoration is positioned to fix to the mold frame.
US08896776B2

The present invention has a pixel which includes a first switch, a second switch, a third switch, a first resistor, a second resistor, a first liquid crystal element, and a second liquid crystal element. A pixel electrode of the first liquid crystal element is electrically connected to a signal line through the first switch. The pixel electrode of the first liquid crystal element is electrically connected to a pixel electrode of the second liquid crystal element through the second switch and the first resistor. The pixel electrode of the second liquid crystal element is electrically connected to a Cs line through the third switch and the second resistor. A common electrode of the first liquid crystal element is electrically connected to a common electrode of the second liquid crystal element.
US08896773B2

The present invention provides an array of FPR 3D liquid crystal display, including a plurality of pixel units and circuit affecting on the pixel unit. The pixel unit is divided into main pixel area and sub pixel area, and the circuit is paid out between pixel units. The present invention also provides an FPR 3D liquid crystal display panel. As such, the present invention can improve opening ratio and penetration ratio of liquid crystal display panel in 3D display mode to increase luminance of liquid crystal display panel.
US08896751B2

A digital photographing apparatus and a method of controlling the same. A continuous shooting speed of the digital photographing apparatus may be improved by simultaneously performing a shutter operation and a read out operation of image data. A disclosed method of controlling a digital photographing apparatus includes displaying an image signal input through an image pickup device as a live view image, performing a first operation by driving a shutter, reading data from the image pickup device, and performing a second operation by driving the shutter during a time period overlapping the reading of the data.
US08896725B2

A hand-held or otherwise portable or spatial or temporal performance-based image capture device includes one or more lenses, an aperture and a main sensor for capturing an original main image. A secondary sensor and optical system are for capturing a reference image that has temporal and spatial overlap with the original image. The device performs an image processing method including capturing the main image with the main sensor and the reference image with the secondary sensor, and utilizing information from the reference image to enhance the main image. The main and secondary sensors are contained together within a housing.
US08896723B2

Provided is an image processing apparatus including a binning unit configured to calculate, based on, as a binning area, an area including two or more adjacent pixels in a unit area including m pixels in a lateral direction and n pixels in a perpendicular direction on an image sensor, a sum of output values of the pixels in the binning area as an addition output value for each of m×n binning areas that are different to each other; and a calculation unit configured to calculate a pixel value of each pixel in the binning area based on m×n addition output values obtained for the unit area.
US08896716B2

Upon detecting the start of a panning operation, an adder-subtracter applies an offset from an offset change circuit to the output of an HPF (High-Pass Filter) representing the shake amount of an image capturing apparatus to decrease the shake amount. The offset value is set to be larger as the value of shake correction data output from a focal length calculation circuit is closer to the correction limit of a blur correction circuit. Upon detecting the end of the panning operation, the offset value is returned to zero. This invention provides a blur correction apparatus capable of suppressing degradation of a blur correction effect even when in a panning state.
US08896712B2

A system and method for determining and correcting for imaging device motion during an exposure is provided. According to various embodiments of the present invention, multiple sets of image pixels are defined on an image sensor, where each set of pixels is at least partially contained in the output image area of the image sensor. Signals from each set of image pixels are read out once or more during an exposure, motion estimates are computed using signal readouts from one or more sets of image pixels, and signal readouts from one or more sets of the image pixels are processed to form the final output image.
US08896710B2

A zoom lens barrel capable, even if it has an image shake correction mechanism and a diaphragm mechanism, of decreasing a distance between lens groups of a photographing optical system of the lens barrel, whereby the lens barrel size can be reduced and the magnification can be increased, and capable of preventing a collision between diaphragm blades of the diaphragm mechanism and the lens groups from occurring when vibration, impact, or the like is applied to the lens barrel. When apart of an image shake correction lens intrudes into an aperture of diaphragm blades, a restricted portion of a lens holding member and a restricting portion of a diaphragm restrict a maximum movement of the lens holding member in a direction perpendicular to the optical axis, thereby restricting a maximum amount of movement of the image shake correction lens in the direction perpendicular to the optical axis.
US08896696B2

A method, and corresponding system, apparatus, and computer program product for automated collection and correlation for tactical information includes identifying an entity in imagery based on a field of view of the imagery using a processor, creating a relationship between the imagery and the entity, and storing the relationship in a database.
US08896695B2

The present invention provides a camera system having a compound array of imaging sensors disposed in a retinal configuration. The system preferably comprises a concave housing. A first imaging sensor is centrally disposed along the housing. At least one secondary imaging sensor is disposed along the housing, adjacent to the first imaging sensor. The focal axis of the second imaging sensor, in the preferred embodiment, intersects with the focal axis of the first imaging sensor within an intersection area.
US08896694B2

A wearable digital video camera (10) is equipped with wireless connection protocol and global navigation and location positioning system technology to provide remote image acquisition control and viewing. The Bluetooth® packet-based open wireless technology standard protocol (400) is preferred for use in providing control signals or streaming data to the digital video camera and for accessing image content stored on or streaming from the digital video camera. The GPS technology (402) is preferred for use in tracking of the location of the digital video camera as it records image information. A rotating mount (300) with a locking member (330) on the camera housing (22) allows adjustment of the pointing angle of the wearable digital video camera when it is attached to a mounting surface.
US08896690B2

A vehicle-based image acquisition system having an image sensor that has a characteristic curve assembled from linear segments. The system includes an arrangement for determining the distance of luminous objects imaged by the image sensor.
US08896673B2

A method for displaying 3D image is provided in the present invention. The method includes: 3D image signals, which comprise consecutive one frame of left-eye signal and one frame of right-eye signal, are received; the 3D image signals are processed by frequency multiplication, and n consecutive frames of left-eye signals and n consecutive frames of right-eye signals are obtained, n being the times number of the frequency multiplication and equal to or greater than 2; light-emitting diode (LED) driving signals drive the LED to display the n consecutive frames of left-eye signals and the n consecutive frames of right-eye signals; in the n consecutive frames of left-eye signals, the first frame of left-eye signal corresponds to an LED driving signal which is off, the nth frame of left-eye signal corresponds to an LED driving signal which is on, and in the n consecutive frames of right-eye signals, the first frame of right-eye signal corresponds to an LED driving signal which is off, the nth frame of right-eye signal corresponds to an LED driving signal which is on. The present invention also provides a TV set for displaying 3D image and a pair of glasses for viewing 3D image. By the present invention, the problem of crosstalk between leftimage and rightimage is solved, and backlight sources energy consumption and complete apparatus cost are reduced.
US08896671B2

An apparatus is provided for capturing images including a base, and image capture adjustment mechanism, a first camera, and a second camera. The base is constructed and arranged to support an alignable array of cameras. The image capture adjustment mechanism is disposed relative to the base for adjusting an image capture line of sight for a camera relative to the base. The first camera is carried by the base, operably coupled with the image capture adjustment mechanism, and has an image capture device. The first camera has a line of sight defining a first field of view adjustable with the image capture adjustment mechanism relative to the base. The second camera is carried by the base and has an image capture device. The second camera has a line of sight defining a second field of view extending beyond a range of the field of view for the first camera in order to produce a field of view that is greater than the field of view provided by the first camera. A method is also provided.
US08896664B2

The disclosed method for processing a broadcast signal for 3D (3-Dimensional) broadcast service comprises encoding 2D (2-Dimensional) video stream including a 2D video frame, encoding depth information including depth of a 3D image relative to a plane of a display, encoding signaling information for signaling the encoded 2D video stream and the depth information, wherein the signaling information includes a 3D service location descriptor including codec type information specifying encoding type of the encoded depth information, generating the broadcast signal including the encoded 2D video stream, depth information and signaling information, and transmitting the generated broadcast signal.
US08896659B2

In an example embodiment, there is disclosed an apparatus comprising an interface and conferencing logic coupled with the interface. The conferencing logic is operable to receive via the interface data representative of a conference call for a meeting, the data representative of the meeting comprises data representative of a meeting time and data representative of a meeting participant. The conferencing logic is operable to receive via the interface data representative of a callback number and data representative of a callback time from the meeting participant. The conferencing logic is operable to initiate communications with the meeting participant at the callback time at the callback number. The conferencing logic is operable to couple the meeting participant with the conference call upon establishing communications.
US08896655B2

A method is provided in one example and includes capturing panoramic image data through a first camera in a camera cluster, and capturing close-up image data through a second camera included as part of a spaced array of cameras. The presence of a user in a field of view of the second camera can be detected. The close-up image data and the panoramic image data can be combined to form a combined image. In more specific embodiments, the detecting includes evaluating a distance between the user and the second camera. The combined image can reflect a removal of a portion of panoramic image data associated with the user in a video conferencing environment.
US08896642B2

Disclosed herein is a display apparatus, including: a plurality of subpixels disposed adjacent each other and forming one pixel which forms a unit for formation of a color image; the plurality of subpixels including a first subpixel which emits light of the shortest wavelength and a second subpixel disposed adjacent the first subpixel; the second subpixel having a light blocking member disposed between the second subpixel and the first subpixel and having a width greater than a channel length or a channel width of a transistor which forms the second subpixel.
US08896635B2

A display device includes first transistors provided for every scanning line and second transistors having a first electrode connected to each scanning line and a second electrode to which a reference potential is inputted. A first electrode of the first transistor is connected to any one of gate lines belonging to a first group. A control electrode of the first transistor is connected to any one of gate lines belonging to a second group. A control electrode of the second transistor is connected to any one of reverse gate lines belonging to a second group. A scanning line drive circuit intermittently outputs, when the scanning line drive circuit outputs a non-selective scanning voltage to any one of the gate lines belonging to the second group, a selective reversal scanning voltage to a reverse gate line corresponding to the gate line in the reverse gate lines belonging to the second group.
US08896634B2

An information-processing device comprises: a reception means for receiving an instruction to display an object image(s) on a display means for displaying an image, via an operation means for receiving an operation; a determination means for determining a number of the object image(s) when the object image(s) is displayed on the display means in response to the instruction; and a display control means for, in a case where the number determined by the determination means is equal to or larger than three and equal to or smaller than a threshold value, arranging and displaying the object images at positions such that, when points respectively determined in adjacent object images are connected by line segments, a figure formed by the line segments represents a polygon having a number of vertices corresponding to the determined number, and, in a case where the number determined by the determination means exceeds the threshold value, arranging and displaying the object images in rows extending in a predetermined direction in a display area of the display means.
US08896628B2

There is provided an image processing device including: a data storage unit storing feature data indicating a feature of appearance of one or more physical objects; an environment map building unit for building an environment map based on an input image obtained by imaging a real space and the feature data, the environment map representing a position of a physical object present in the real space; a control unit for acquiring procedure data for a set of procedures of operation to be performed in the real space, the procedure data defining a correspondence between a direction for each procedure and position information designating a position at which the direction is to be displayed; and a superimposing unit for generating an output image by superimposing the direction for each procedure at a position in the input image determined based on the environment map and the position information, using the procedure data.
US08896623B2

According to one embodiment, a method of controlling a mobile device includes detecting, by the mobile device, one or more objects associated with a displayed first page and located on a page other than the displayed first page; receiving, by the mobile device, a selection of at least one object of the one or more detected objects; and displaying, by the mobile device, the at least one selected object on the first page.
US08896622B2

Methods and apparatus for marker-based stylistic rendering may be used to automatically synthesize the stylistic range of various stylistic rendering techniques. An image processing pipeline may automatically generate stylistic images, such as Hedcut stipple images. Using virtual markers to determine locations in the image to which physical markers are to be attached, the tone of an original source image may be automatically reproduced via placement of stipple dots or other physical markers, while at the same time allowing for stylistic refinement of placement and appearance of the physical markers, e.g. along strong features in the source image.
US08896612B2

The video output system in a computer system reads pixel information from a frame buffer to generate a video output signal. In addition, a full-motion video may also be displayed. Reading from both the frame buffer and the full-motion video buffer when displaying the full-motion video window wastes valuable memory bandwidth. Thus, the disclosed system provides a system and methods for identifying where the video output system must read from the frame buffer and where it must read from the full-motion video buffer while minimizing the amount of area it reads from both the frame buffer and the full-motion video buffer.
US08896609B2

A video content generation device generates video data synchronized with music data based on motion data, representing a motion graph including nodes, edges, and weights, and metadata indicating a synchronization probability per each node between the motion graph and a musical tune. A music data storage unit stores the predetermined amount of music data and their musical characteristics in connection with the predetermined number of beats, in a reproduction order, retrieved from the musical tune. An optimum path search unit searches an optimum path connecting between nodes, each of which is selected per each beat with a high synchronization probability, on the motion graph with motion characteristics matching with musical characteristics based on the predetermined amount of music data. Video data synchronized with music data is generated based on synchronization information for correlating motion data to music data along with the optimum path.
US08896604B2

A computer implemented system produces an optimization graph in an online advertising system. The system presents at a computer, a supply of advertising inventory and advertising demand contracts, where each advertising inventory is presented as a supply node and each advertising demand contract is presented as a demand node. The system processes the supply of advertising inventory and the advertising demand contracts. For example, the system partitions the supply nodes into supply partitions and determines whether each supply node is eligible for each demand node. In addition, the system determines the number of eligible supply nodes to be drawn from each supply partition for each demand node.
US08896599B2

An image processing apparatus is provided. The image processing apparatus may include a first calculator to generate a first shadow map with respect to a static object included in a three-dimensional (3D) model, at a first viewpoint within the 3D model, a second calculator to generate a second shadow map with respect to a dynamic object included in the 3D model, at the first viewpoint, and a third calculator to generate a third shadow map with respect to the 3D model at the first viewpoint by synthesizing the first shadow map and the second shadow map. The image processing apparatus may decrease an amount of calculation necessary when performing three-dimensional (3D) rendering for a plurality of frames.
US08896597B2

A system, method, and computer program for modifying a solid model representation that is manipulated in a computer having software instructions for design, comprising: a computer system, wherein the computer system includes a memory, a processor, a user input device, and a display device; a computer generated geometric model stored in the memory in the memory of the computer system; and wherein the computer system receives user input and accesses at least one data file having a plurality of geometric model definitions that define a geometric model; converts the geometric model definitions into a geometric representation of the geometric model; calculates a plurality of geometric conditions between at least one geometry identified by a user and the geometric model to create a set of constraints; and calculates a modified geometric model with a modified geometry according the set of constraints to display to the user; and appropriate means and computer-readable instructions.
US08896596B2

An image signal processing apparatus includes a receiving unit that receives a display signal including an image signal containing both two-dimensional and three-dimensional images and a region information in each predetermined unit in the image signal and separates the image signal and the region information from the display signal, a display control unit that generates a first display control information for controlling rendering positions of the first and second regions in the image signal according to the region information and a second display control information for selectively displaying a three-dimensional image in a region corresponding to the rendering position of the second region based on the region information, and a processing unit that generates a display image signal indicating an image where the first and second region are arranged according to the first display control information based on the image signal and the first display control information.
US08896594B2

An adaptive depth sensing system (ADSS) illuminates a scene with a pattern that is constructed based on an analysis of at least one prior-generated depth map. In one implementation, the pattern is a composite pattern that includes two or more component patterns associated with different depth regions in the depth map. The composite pattern may also include different illumination intensities associated with the different depth regions. By using this composite pattern, the ADSS can illuminate different objects in a scene with different component patterns and different illumination intensities, where those objects are located at different depths in the scene. This process, in turn, can reduce the occurrence of defocus blur, underexposure, and overexposure in the image information.
US08896593B2

A system includes a computing device for producing a representation of a graphical element on a two dimensional set of image points. A metric value is calculated for each image point in the two dimensional set of image points. The computer device is configured to assign a visual property to image point in the two dimensional set of image points based upon the corresponding metric value. The computing device is also configured to present the assigned visual properties of the two dimensional set of image points as being offset from another two dimensional set of image points to provide a three dimensional appearance of the graphical element.
US08896586B2

A gate driver for controlling a display apparatus is provided. The gate driver includes a logic circuit, a plurality of buffers, and a charge sharing module. The logic circuit generates a plurality of switch signals. The buffers are coupled to the logic circuit. Each of the buffers determines to provide a first voltage or a second voltage according to one of the switch signals to generate a gate driving signal. The charge sharing module is coupled to the output ends of the buffers and allows the output ends of the buffers to share charges according to a plurality of sharing signals during a forward edge and a backward edge of a square wave of each of the gate driving signals. Furthermore, a gate driving method for controlling a display apparatus is also provided.
US08896575B2

A pressure-sensitive touch screen including a housing, at least one light receiver rigidly mounted in the housing, a display flexibly mounted in the housing substantially above the at least one receiver, which depresses in response to pressure of a touch, and a calculating unit connected to the at least one light receiver for receiving outputs indicating amounts of received light by the at least one receiver, and for determining that the display is being depressed based on an increase in an output of the at least one receiver.
US08896568B2

A touch sensing method adapted for a touch panel is provided. The touch sensing method includes following steps. An average value of touch values generated by a touch object on the touch panel is calculated during a first frame period. An amplitude value of the touch values generated by the touch object on the touch panel is calculated based on the average value during a second frame period. Whether the touch object is a target to be sensed is determined based on the amplitude value. Furthermore, a touch sensing apparatus is also provided.
US08896565B2

The present invention in one aspect relates to an in-cell touch panel. In one embodiment, the in-cell touch panel includes at least one touch sensing device configured such that when a touch occurs, it responsively generates a first sensing signal and a second sensing signal that is different from the first sensing signal, and at least one reverse amplification circuit electrically coupled to the at least one touch sensing device for amplifying the difference between the first and second sensing signals.
US08896558B2

A portable computer includes a base, a display module, at least one support element and at least one sliding assembly. The base includes a first area and a second area. The display module includes a connect end and a display face. Each support element comprises a first end pivoted on a portion of the display module other than the display face and a second end pivoted on the rear end of the base. Each sliding assembly includes a rod element disposed at least in the second area and a sleeve sliding element connected with the connect end and moved along the rod element.
US08896557B2

A touch pad includes a first transparent substrate and a second transparent substrate. The first transparent substrate has a plurality of first axial electrodes and at least one hollow channel. The second transparent substrate has a plurality of second axial electrodes. Each of the second axial electrodes has a plurality of first sensing electrode regions and at least one second sensing electrode region. The first sensing electrode regions are provided on both sides of the second sensing electrode region and arranged to extend along a second direction. The central portion of the second sensing electrode regions is formed with a hollow region. By means of the first axial electrode and the second axial electrode, the touch pad of the present invention has an increased signal-to-noise ratio and an enhanced anti-jamming capability.
US08896550B2

A navigation system is provided. A medium insertion port is disposed on the front surface of a main unit and a portable recording medium is loaded into or unloaded from the main unit through the medium insertion port. A display unit is disposed on the front surface of the main unit and can move between a closed position where the medium insertion port is covered and an opened position where the medium insertion port is exposed. A limitation section limits the movement of the display unit to the opened position. A limitation removing section removes the limitation by the limitation section. An operation section receives an operation on the navigation system. The operation section can receive an operation other than an operation to be intrinsically received by the operation section. The limitation removing section removes the limitation by the limitation section when the operation section receives the operation other than the operation to be intrinsically received.
US08896549B2

The invention is directed to a computer-implemented method and system for duplicating an object using a touch-sensitive display. The method comprises: (i) displaying a selected first object on the touch-sensitive display; (ii) detecting a first user interaction and a second user interaction on the selected first object; (iii) detecting a movement of the first user interaction outside the selected first object; (iv) displaying a second object which tracks the movement of the first user interaction on the touch-sensitive display, the second object being a duplication of the first object; and (v) positioning the second object according to a last detected location of the first user interaction on the touch-sensitive display.
US08896547B2

Disclosed herein is a pointer detection apparatus, including: a conductor pattern including a plurality of first conductors disposed in a first direction and a plurality of second conductors disposed in a second direction; a multi-frequency signal production circuit configured to produce a plurality of signals of different frequencies; a first conductor selection circuit configured to selectively supply the signals of different frequencies to those first conductors, between which N ones of the first conductors are interposed, N being a predetermined integer equal to or greater than 0; a second conductor selection circuit configured to selectively receive detection signals from the second conductors; and a signal detection circuit configured to obtain signals of individual frequencies, corresponding to the signals of different frequencies produced by the multi-frequency signal production circuit, which are representative of coupling states at cross points between the first conductors and the second conductors and are received from said second conductor selection circuit.
US08896546B2

A high integrity touch screen system includes, but is not limited to, a display screen, a first sensor array to detect a touch on the display screen and to generate a first set of touch position coordinates, a first processor connected to the first sensor array and configured to receive the first set of touch position coordinates, a second sensor array to detect the touch on the display screen and to generate a second set of touch position coordinates and a second processor connected to the second sensor array and configured to receive the second set of touch position coordinates. The first processor and the second processor cooperate to compare the first set of touch position coordinates with the second set of touch position coordinates and to invalidate the touch when the first set of touch position coordinates and the second set of touch position coordinates do not substantially coincide.
US08896545B2

A display system configured for multi-touch input is provided. The display system comprises a display surface, a local light source to illuminate the display surface with infrared light, and an image-producing display panel. The image-producing display panel comprises a plurality of image sensor pixels positioned within a sensor layer of the image-producing display panel. The image-producing display panel further comprises an angularly-selective layer positioned between the display surface and the sensor layer, wherein the angularly-selective layer is configured to transmit light having a first range of incidence angles with the surface normal of the angularly-selective layer to a first sensor pixel of sensor layer, and to reflect light having a second range of incidence angles from a second sensor pixel of the sensor layer, where the second range is greater than the first range of incidence angles with respect to a surface normal of the sensor layer.
US08896542B2

A portable terminal device has enclosures with a movable portion, a display section that displays visible information showing an operation target area, and a touch sensor that detects a position on a display screen of the display section touched by a user's finger, or the like. A shape detection section detects a change in the shape of the enclosure; an input operation management section manages a position detected by the touch sensor and an operation target area of each of pieces of visible information displayed on the display section in an associated manner; and a display control section automatically makes a change to at least display positions of the respective pieces of visible information about the operation target displayed on the display section in accordance with a change in shape of the enclosure detected by the shape detection section.
US08896540B2

According to an aspect, a character input device includes a display unit, an input detecting unit, and a control unit. The display unit displays a screen having a character entry area and a virtual keyboard. The virtual keyboard includes a plurality of keys each of which corresponds to a character. The input detecting unit detects a touch by an operator. The control unit detects a key selection operation and an input determination operation through the input detecting unit. Upon detecting the key selection operation for the first key, the control unit displays the first key in the character entry area as a character to be input. Upon detecting the input determination operation, the control unit displays the first character in the character entry area as an input character.
US08896538B2

A mobile phone manages display area 12 as twelve partial areas obtained by dividing the display area into a matrix of four rows and three columns, which is identical to an arrangement of keys of a numeric keypad; if plural windows are displayed in a partial area arranged in the same position as a pressed key, assigns a key to each of the windows displayed in the partial area, the key being for selecting the window, and notifies the keys; and if one of the notified keys is pressed, selects a window to which the pressed key has been assigned.
US08896536B2

An embodiment of a method for contactlessly controlling an electronic apparatus, performed by a processor of the electronic apparatus. A camera module of the electronic apparatus is turned on to capture a series of images upon detecting that an object is in close proximity to the electronic apparatus. A contactless control procedure is performed while the camera module thereof is in use. The control operation comprises determining a control operation according to the captured images; performing the control operation to an electronic device of the electronic apparatus upon obtaining an instruction based on analyzing the captured images; and turning off the camera module responsive to not obtaining an instruction within a predetermined time period.
US08896529B2

At least some exemplary embodiments of the invention enable the use of context-dependent gestures, for example, in order to assist in the automation of one or more tasks. In one exemplary embodiment, an apparatus senses a predefined gesture and, in conjunction with context information (e.g., location information), performs a predefined action in response to the gesture. As non-limiting examples, the gesture may involve movement of the apparatus (e.g., shaking, tapping) or movement relative to the apparatus (e.g., using a touch screen). In one exemplary embodiment of the invention, a method includes: obtaining context information for an apparatus, wherein the context information includes a predefined context; and in response to sensing a predefined movement associated with the predefined context, performing, by the apparatus, a predefined action, wherein the predefined movement includes a movement of or in relation to the apparatus.
US08896526B1

A smartwatch and a control method thereof are disclosed. According to an embodiment, the smartwatch includes a tilt sensor unit configured to sense a tilt of the smartwatch; a display unit configured to display an image; and a processor configured to control the tilt sensor unit and the display unit, wherein, when a front of the display unit is directed in a predetermined direction, the processor is further configured to acquire, using the tilt sensor unit, a first rotation angle in a first direction when the smartwatch rotates in the first direction based on a rotation axis of the smartwatch and perform a first command corresponding to the first direction when the first rotation angle exceeds a first threshold angle.
US08896520B2

An electrophoretic display apparatus includes a first substrate and a second substrate; an electrophoretic layer that is allocated between the first substrate and the second substrate; and a first electrode and a second electrode that are each formed in an island shape, for each pixel, at the electrophoretic layer side of the first substrate, and are mutually independently driven. The first and second electrodes form a comb-teeth shaped electrode in a plan view, which include a plurality of branch portions and a trunk portion combining the plurality of branch portions, and each of first ones of the branch portions, which are located at respective edge portions of a pixel area, has a width smaller than a width of each of second ones of the branch portions, which are branch portions other than the first branch portions.
US08896514B2

A display device including a display panel displaying a still image and a moving image and a signal controller controlling signals to drive the display panel, wherein the signal controller includes a frame memory storing image data of the still image and providing the image data to the display panel, and the display panel is driven with a first scan ratio when displaying the moving image and is driven with a second scan ratio that is lower than the first scan ratio when displaying the still image.
US08896513B2

The present disclosure generally relates to gamma bus wiring techniques that saves space in a display such as a liquid crystal display. In certain embodiments, a voltage offset associated with gamma bus amplifiers configured to provide analog voltage levels to a pixel may reduce at least some of the visual performance characteristics of the attached display when it transitions between different voltage values provided by different gamma bus amplifiers. The voltage offsets associated with the gamma bus amplifiers may be distributed between multiplexers that are coupled to gamma bus amplifiers by interlacing the wires routed from a resistor string to the multiplexers.
US08896510B2

A display device includes an image signal modifier for modifying input image signals based on the difference between the input image signal for a pixel in a first row and the input image signal for the pixel in the adjacent row. The gate-on voltages includes a pre-charging voltage and a main charging voltage, the main charging voltage for the first row overlaps the pre-charging voltage for the second row and the pre-charging voltage for the first grow overlaps the main charging voltage for the second row for a predetermined time. The first data voltage is applied to the pixels of the first and second rows after application of the main charging gate-on voltage for the first row and the pre-charging gate-on voltage for the row, and the second data voltage is applied to the pixel of the second row after application of the main charging gate-on voltage for the second row.
US08896496B2

A configurable antenna element comprises a conductor encased in a foam substrate with a pressure sensitive adhesive applied to a surface of the foam substrate for application of the configurable antenna to a surface.
US08896494B2

A present invention relates to a monopole wideband antenna, that is a wall mounted handing type antenna capable of providing easy frequency adjustment and operating at broad frequency band range. Moreover, the monopole wideband antenna of the invention can be applied in various electronic devices, and is advantageous in its low cost and small size since it can be fabricated directly using a means of print formation upon a circuitboard.
US08896492B2

In a U-shaped deformed folded dipole antenna, a first parallel section having a feeding point includes first and second L-shape sections, and a second parallel section without a feeding point includes first and second opposing side portions and a connecting side portion coupling ends of the first and second opposing side portions. Portions of the first and second L-shape sections arranged in parallel with the first and second opposing side portions have a width W1. Portions of the first and second L-shape sections arranged in parallel with the connecting side portion have a width W2. The first and second opposing side portions have a width W3. The connecting side portion has a width W4. An impedance of the deformed folded dipole antenna is controlled by setting the width W2 to be larger than the widths W1, W3, and W4.
US08896485B2

Method and system to guide people around urban environments indoor and outdoor, provide real time accurate update of way points information to the user navigation system and or to his cellular phone via FM-RDS according to the user location, The information will display on the existing cellular phone or Bluetooth device and interface to existing GPS navigation system.
US08896473B2

A digital-to analog-converter (DAC) has a MSB resistor ladder with a plurality of series connected resistors, wherein the MSB resistor ladder is coupled between a first and second reference potential, a LSB resistor ladder with a plurality of series connected resistors, and a plurality of switching units for connecting one of the series connected resistors of the MSB resistor ladder with the LSB resistor ladder, wherein each switching unit has a first switch for connecting a first terminal of an associated MSB resistor with a first terminal of the LSB resistor ladder and a second switch for connecting a second terminal of the associated MSB resistor with a second terminal of the LSB resistor ladder and wherein each switch is configured form a resistor of similar value of the resistors of the LSB resistor ladder when switched on.
US08896472B2

An N-bit digital-to-analog converter (DAC) includes N input stages each of which generates the same amount of current and includes a pair of similarly sized transistor switches responsive to differential bits. The 2M−1 input stages associated with the M most significant bits of the DAC are connected in parallel and deliver their currents differentially to the DAC's current summing nodes. Each of the remaining (N−M) stages includes a resistive network that supplies a current defined by a binary weight of the stage's bit position within the DAC. The (N−M) stages deliver their currents to the current summing nodes differentially. The DAC further includes an impedance attenuator adapted to maintain the impedance of the current summing nodes and the voltage difference between the current summing nodes within a range defined by a gain of a differential amplifier disposed in the impedance attenuator.
US08896463B2

A fixed network for automatically reading a utility meter system has been developed. The network includes multiple meter interface units (MIUs) that each collect data from a designated utility meter. The collected data is transmitted to a primary data collector. The network includes multiple data collectors and each MIU identifies its own primary data collector based on signal quality between the collector and the MIU. The network includes a central host computer that is used to receive the collected data from the primary data collectors.
US08896461B2

In a distributed meter data management (MDM) system of a smart grid, a network computing device, such as a network router deployed in the field, may receive data from one or more utility meters, sensors, control devices, or other utility data collection devices that are communicatively coupled to the network computing device. The network computing device may process the data received from the utility data collection devices to generate processed data usable by a consumer. The network computing device may also send data to and/or receive data from a centralized control system, MDM system, and/or smart grid analytic applications at a utility central office. The network computing device may then provide the processed data directly to the consumer, with or without first sending the data to a centralized MDM system of the utility.
US08896457B2

A wireless device includes a sensor module that generates sensor data in response to an impact to the protective headgear. A device processing module generates event data in response to the sensor data, wherein the device processing module includes an event detection module that analyzes the sensor data and triggers the generating of the event data in response to detection of an event in the sensor data. A short-range wireless transmitter transmits a wireless signal that includes the event data.
US08896455B2

An intrusion detection system disclosed herein includes a detector circuit that measures a change in value of impedance of an interconnection circuitry. A decoder coupled to the detector decodes the measured value of the change in the impedance of the interconnection circuitry to determine existence of an abnormal condition. In an example implementation of the intrusion detection system, the change in the value of the impedance of the interconnection circuitry is represented by a change in the phase delay on the interconnection circuitry. An implementation of the intrusion detection circuit terminates communication using the interconnection circuitry upon detection of the abnormal condition. The intrusion detection system is further configured to interpret the abnormal condition as a communication signal to the interconnection circuitry.
US08896448B2

An approach is provided for mapping a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag to a network routable address.
US08896441B2

The system and method for tracking people provides for the tracking of individuals in large crowds, such as the tracking of individual pilgrims during the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca. A polling request is initially transmitted from a tracking station to a mobile device associated with a particular person of interest. Upon receipt of the polling request, a location signal is transmitted back to the tracking station. The location signal includes positional and time data representative of the location of the mobile device at the time of transmission. Additionally, a supplemental location signal is also transmitted to the tracking station, the supplemental location signal being representative of the location of the mobile device when the mobile device is detected within proximity of a fixed sensor. A visual display image of the path of the person of interest is then displayed at the tracking station overlaid on a geographic map.
US08896437B2

A system includes at least one sensor and an equipment health monitoring (EHM) unit. The at least one sensor is configured to measure one or more characteristics of an asset, where the asset includes a piece of equipment. The EHM unit includes at least one sensor interface configured to receive at least one input signal associated with the asset from the sensor(s). The EHM unit also includes at least one processing unit operable to be pre-configured to identify a specified fault in the asset using the input signals and an asset-specific model that includes a combination of standard subsystem models. The EHM unit further includes at least one output interface configured to provide an indicator identifying the fault. The standard subsystem models could include standardized fault models configured to identify faults for standard assets.
US08896434B2

A charging port includes an inlet, a charging-in-progress lamp, and a communication-in-progress lamp. The inlet is configured to be connectable with a charging cable. During external charging by a charger, the charging-in-progress lamp indicates that external charging is being performed. Specifically, while the charging-in-progress lamp receives from a charging ECU a signal which indicates that external charging is being performed, the charging-in-progress lamp is lit. The communication-in-progress lamp is provided adjacently to the charging-in-progress lamp for indicating, while PLC-based communication by means of the charging cable is in progress, that PLC is being performed. Specifically, the communication-in-progress lamp is lit while the communication-in-progress lamp receives from the charging ECU a signal indicating that PLC is being performed.
US08896429B2

The invention relates to a tactile man-machine interface comprising an interfacing surface comprising a means for transforming impacts on the interfacing surface into input electrical signals and a data interfacing means, configured for data communication with at least a first and a second device In this configuration, it becomes possible to provide data communication between the first and second devices without having to bring the two devices in contact. Furthermore, the invention relates to a separating element comprising such a tactile man-machine interface and system, such as vending machines, automatic teller machines etc, comprising such a separating element.
US08896428B2

A dosage cap records and displays dosage information about a medicine, including, the projected time that the next dosage of medicine is needed, the time interval between numerous administrations of the medicine, the time and/or date that the last dose was administered, the current daily intake amount, the date the dose was administered, or scheduled administration of the medicine. The time and date of the last dosage of medicine administered can be reset and updated when a subsequent dose of medicine is administered. The cap secures over a medicine container lid to provide easy visibility of the dosage information to a user. A shaft extends downwardly from the cap to secure the cap to the medicine container lid by penetrating the lid with a sharp point. A fastener attaches to the end of the shaft for securing the cap to the medicine bottle lid.
US08896423B2

This invention relates to a physiological sensor which acquires pre-programmed data from an electrode or an electrode array using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. The source of the sensor may be authenticated by means of a wireless interface between an RFID transponder affixed to the electrode array, and an RFID interrogator embedded in the patient interface cable. The criteria for use are then verified to ensure that they are met by the electrode array before beginning signal acquisition. If the criteria are not met, a message is provided to the user via the monitor.
US08896419B2

Against the background of continually growing problems of product piracy, in particular due to the further expansion and liberalization of international trade, there is great demand for automated and reliable inspection of the authenticity of products. Thus, methods and systems are provided for inspecting a product as an original product of a product producer by authenticating at least one RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag allocated to the product using an asymmetrical challenge response protocol.
US08896418B2

A wireless unit for a wireless vehicle system includes a receiver for receiving a vehicle-originating signal, a transmitter for transmitting a reply signal, a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) for determining a received signal strength of the vehicle-originating signal, a memory for storing sensitivity data, and a control unit in electrical communication with the receiver, the transmitter, the RSSI and the memory. The receiver has a sensitivity, and the memory is for storing sensitivity data corresponding to the sensitivity of the receiver. The control unit is configured to communicate with the transmitter to direct the transmitter to transmit the reply signal. The reply signal includes received signal strength data used for determining a distance between the wireless unit and an associated vehicle-side transmitter on an associated vehicle. The received signal strength data is based on the received signal strength and the sensitivity data.
US08896406B2

A laminated coil includes a plurality of circular conductive plates in the form of a flat plate, each of the circular conductive plates being laminated via an insulating material in an axis direction. The plurality of circular conductive plates each include a plurality of concentric circular arc parts having different inner diameter and outer diameter from each other, and a connection part interconnecting the plurality of circular arc parts. The plurality of circular conductive plates are arranged such that the connection parts thereof face each other and the circular arc parts thereof are juxtaposed to each other in a radial direction.
US08896403B2

An inductive electronic module, comprising a core element having an inner limb (12; 29a) and at least two lateral limbs (14, 16; 33a, 35a; 37a, 39a) associated the inner limb on both sides, the core element being provided with windings (N1, N2, N3, N4) for forming a transformer. A first winding (N1, N2: 47, 49; 51, 53) is implemented as a series connection composed of two partial windings. A first partial winding is formed on a first lateral limb, and a second partial winding is formed on a second lateral limb.
US08896402B2

An apparatus is disclosed, which includes a hinged armature and a yoke. In at least one embodiment, the hinged armature is supported in a cutout in the yoke and can pivot between at least two positions, the cutout in the yoke having an edge, on which the hinged armature is supported.
US08896399B2

An acoustic wave device includes: a substrate; a dielectric film formed on the substrate; opposing comb-shaped electrodes located between the substrate and the dielectric film, each of the opposing comb-shaped electrodes including an electrode finger, wherein at least one of the substrate and the dielectric film is a piezoelectric substance, an upper surface of the dielectric film, which is located above a gap between a tip of an electrode finger of one of the opposing comb-shaped electrodes and the other of the opposing comb-shaped electrodes, is inclined against an upper surface of the substrate in an extension direction of the electrode finger, and an inclination angle of the upper surface of the dielectric film against the upper surface of the substrate is equal to or larger than 30° and equal to or smaller than 50°.
US08896394B2

An electronic component includes a laminate including a plurality of insulator layers and a mounting surface. The mounting surface is defined by the outer edges of the plurality of insulator layers that are continuously joined together. An LC parallel resonator is embedded in the laminate, and includes a coil and a capacitor. An unbalanced signal is inputted to the LC parallel resonator. A coil is embedded in the laminate. The coil is electromagnetically coupled to the coil, and outputs balanced signals. Outer electrodes are provided on the mounting surface, and are grounded. A ground conductor layer of the capacitor is connected to an outer electrode by extending to the mounting surface.
US08896386B2

A calibration device arranged for calibrating an oscillating frequency of an oscillator includes: a phase locking device arranged to track a first reference clock generated by the oscillator until a feedback clock is phase-aligned with the first reference clock, and then arranged to track a second reference clock generated by the oscillator until a phase difference between the second reference clock and the feedback clock is a static phase difference, wherein the feedback clock is generated by dividing an output oscillating signal of the phase locking device by a divisor; an adjusting circuit arranged to adjust the divisor into an updated divisor to reduce the static phase difference between the second reference clock and the feedback clock; and a calibrating circuit arranged to calibrate the oscillating frequency of the oscillator according to the updated divisor, wherein the second reference clock is generated by varying a control signal of the oscillator.
US08896385B2

Systems and methods for operating with oscillators configured to produce an oscillating signal having an arbitrary frequency are described. The frequency of the oscillating signal may be shifted to remove its arbitrary nature by application of multiple tuning signals or values to the oscillator. Alternatively, the arbitrary frequency may be accommodated by adjusting operation one or more components of a circuit receiving the oscillating signal.
US08896380B2

A high frequency amplifier is characterized wherein a power amplification element and at least one of temperature compensation elements are adjacently provided on a first semiconductor layer, a first wiring pattern connected to the power amplification element, a second wiring pattern connected to the temperature compensation element, and a ground electrode are provided on at least one of second semiconductor layers existing in layers different from the first semiconductor layer, and the ground electrode is formed on the second semiconductor layer corresponding to a region that substantially projects a crevice part on which the temperature compensation element and the power amplification element are provided, on the same plane as the first semiconductor element.
US08896378B2

A differential amplifier circuit includes a differential operational amplifier that includes a differential pair circuit and operates based on a constant bias current supplied from a bias current source circuit, and the differential amplifier circuit includes a bias current generator circuit. A current monitor circuit detects two currents flowing through the differential pair circuit in correspondence with differential input voltages inputted to the differential pair circuit, and detects a minimum current of the two currents for a difference voltage of the differential input voltages as a monitored current. A current comparator circuit compares the monitored current with the constant bias current. A current amplifier circuit amplifies a voltage corresponding to the comparison result, and controls currents flowing through the differential pair circuit based on an amplified voltage, and the bias current generator circuit performs negative feedback adaptive control such that the bias current increases as the monitored current decreases.
US08896375B2

Provided is a hybrid envelope amplifier having improved efficiency, and more particularly, to an envelope amplifier using a dual switching amplifier and having improved efficiency in which power consumption is reduced by controlling a switching current of a switching region according to a magnitude of an envelope input signal, thereby improving efficiency compared to a conventional hybrid envelope amplifier. The envelope amplifier using a dual switching amplifier and having improved efficiency comprises a linear amplifier and a switching amplifier, wherein the switching amplifier includes two or more switching stages that are selectively operated according to a magnitude of an input signal.
US08896371B2

Voltage and current mode reconfigurable nth-order filters (RNOFs), fabricated in a 0.18 μm CMOS process, utilize an inverse-follow-the-leader-feedback (IFLF) signal path with summed outputs, resulting in a follow-the-leader-feedback-summed-outputs (FLF-SO) filter topology. The FLF-SO filter uses multi-output current amplifiers (CAs). Inverse-follow-the-leader-feedback-summed-outputs (IFLF-SO) and inverse-follow-the-leader-feedback-distributed-outputs (IFLF-DI) structures are realized by employing 3n+4 transconductance amplifiers (TCAs) for voltage mode processing and two TCAs for current mode signals. A plurality of programmable current division networks (CDNs) tune a digitally controlled current follower (DCCF). A multi-output Digitally Controlled Current Amplifier (MDCCA) controls gain by providing independent filter coefficient control. Forward path output gains are set to unity. Alternatively, a multi-output digitally controlled CCII block (MDCCCII) uses CCII in the first stage. Such filters provide independent tuning of both numerator as well as denominator coefficients and are reconfigurable without the need of switches due to CDNs setting undesired output current to zero.
US08896367B1

The charge pump system includes a clock generator, a boosting unit determination device, a charge pump circuit, and a voltage regulator. The clock generator is used for generating a clock group. The boosting unit determination device is used for generating a number control signal. The charge pump circuit is used for receiving an operating voltage, the number control signal and the clock group, and generating an output voltage. The charge pump circuit includes plural boosting units. A first portion of the plural boosting units are controlled by the clock group according to the number control signal. The operating voltage is converted into an output voltage by the first portion of the plural boosting units. The voltage regulator is used for receiving the output voltage and converting the output voltage into a specified regulated voltage.
US08896357B2

A system may include a clock and data recovery circuit that includes one or more analog components. The system may also include a digital control circuit configured to control the clock and data recovery circuit. The digital control circuit and the clock and data recovery circuit may be formed on a single substrate.
US08896356B1

A ramp output control device includes a driver configured to receive at least two inputs from a microcontroller. The driver includes a time duration register configured to store a current clock count until a preset time duration is reached. The driver also includes a ramp output register configured to store a current output value at an output of the device. The driver also includes a calculation block configured to determine whether to increase the current output value at the output based on the at least two inputs.
US08896352B2

A driver includes a first driver stage having at least one input node and at least one first output node. The first driver stage includes a T-coil structure that is disposed adjacent to the at least one first output node. The T-coil structure includes a first set of inductors each being operable to provide a first inductance. A second set of inductors are electrically coupled with the first set of inductors in a parallel fashion. The second set of inductors each are operable to provide a second inductance. A second driver stage is electrically coupled with the first driver stage.
US08896351B2

According to one embodiment, a line driver circuit comprises a plurality of output stages each operable to produce an output signal and one or more pre-output stages operable to perform one or more common functions. The line driver circuit also comprises circuitry operable to selectively couple one or more of the output stages to the one or more pre-output stages based on a wireline communication technology implemented by the line driver circuit.
US08896340B2

Semiconductor modules are provided. The semiconductor module includes semiconductor chips with one or more ranks. The semiconductor module includes a mode register configured for storing a first information signal whose logic level is set or determined according to a number of the ranks and an on-die termination (ODT) controller configured for generating an internal control signal for activating an ODT circuit in response to the first information signal. The internal control signal is enabled during a read operation or disabled during a write operation.
US08896334B2

A system for measuring soft starter current includes a current monitoring system including a controller and a current transfer device that includes a first thyristor and a first conductor coupled to the first thyristor and configured to convey a first current flowing through the first thyristor, wherein the first current includes current flowing through the first thyristor when the first thyristor is in an off state. The system also includes a first current sensor configured to sense the first current and a first current measurement circuit coupled to the first current sensor and coupleable to the controller and configured to output a first output value to the controller representative of the first current flowing through the first thyristor. The controller is configured to determine an impending inoperability of the first thyristor based on the first current and alert a user if the first current indicates the impending inoperability.
US08896331B2

A measurement instrument for measuring the impedance of a device under test (DUT) includes a first source of either a voltage or a current and a second source of either a voltage or a current, wherein the first source is connectable in a first feedback relationship with the DUT and the second source is connectable in a second feedback relationship with both the DUT and the first source. The first and second sources are operated respectively as a current source responsive to the current through the DUT and a voltage source responsive to the voltage across the DUT or operated respectively as a voltage source responsive to the voltage across the DUT and a current source responsive to the current through the DUT. The second feedback relationship has a narrower bandwidth than the first feedback relationship. The resulting voltage across the DUT and the current through the DUT establish the measured impedance of the DUT.
US08896330B2

A method and apparatus for monitoring an AC line for impedance change. In one embodiment, the method, comprises superimposing a tone on an AC current coupled to the AC line, wherein the tone is a higher frequency than an AC voltage waveform on the AC line; applying a correlation over a sampled AC voltage waveform, obtained by sampling the AC voltage waveform, to generate a correlated signal; and determining whether at least one change in characteristic of the correlated signal occurs.
US08896329B2

A device, a system and a method for detecting an irregularity in a structure of an aircraft are proposed. The device includes a resonant circuit with a resonance frequency and a probe for tuning the resonance frequency of the resonant circuit. The resonant circuit and the probe are operatively connected in such a way that the probe changes the resonance frequency of the resonant circuit if the structure changes due to a formation of an irregularity.
US08896327B2

In one embodiment, a method includes applying a first current to a capacitance of a touch sensor. The application of the first current to the capacitance for a first amount of time modifies the voltage at the capacitance from the reference voltage level to a first pre-determined voltage level. The method also includes applying a second current to an integration capacitor. The second current is proportional to the first current. The application of the second current to the integration capacitor for the first amount of time modifies the voltage at the integration capacitor from the reference voltage level to a first charging voltage level. The method also includes determining whether a touch input to the touch sensor has occurred based on the first charging voltage level.
US08896323B2

Systems and methods for radiation-tolerant overcurrent detection are disclosed. In some embodiments, an integrated circuit may include a plurality of overcurrent detectors, each of the plurality of overcurrent detectors configured to detect a candidate overcurrent event. The integrated circuit may also include a voting circuit coupled to the overcurrent detectors, the voting circuit configured to indicate an overcurrent in response to receiving a selected number of candidate overcurrent events from the overcurrent detectors. At least one of the overcurrent detectors may be subject to detecting the candidate overcurrent in error, at least in part, due to exposure to ionizing radiation.
US08896322B2

A method for dispensing and detecting solid pharmaceutical articles includes: forcing an article through a dispensing channel and past a sensor configured and positioned to detect the article passing through the dispensing channel, wherein the article includes one of the solid pharmaceutical articles; generating a detection signal using the sensor responsive to the article passing through the dispensing channel, wherein the detection signal indicates a time that the article takes to traverse the sensor; and determining whether the article is a complete article or an article fragment responsive to a comparison of the time indicated by the detection signal and an article fragment travel time representing an expected travel time for a complete article to traverse the sensor that is determined independent of physical attributes of the solid pharmaceutical articles.
US08896320B2

A measuring device is provided: the measuring device including: a power supply configured to provide electric power to a chip via at least one of a chip connection and a chip-carrier connection; a chip arrangement receiving portion configured to receive a chip arrangement, the chip arrangement including a chip and a chip-carrier connected to the chip via one or more chip-to-chip-carrier connections; a detection portion including a plate; a detection circuit coupled to the plate and configured to detect an electrical signal from the plate; wherein the plate is configured such that it covers at least part of at least one of the chip, the chip-carrier, and the chip-to-chip-carrier connection; and wherein the plate is further configured such that at least part of the at least one of the chip, the chip-carrier, and the chip-to-chip-carrier connection is uncovered by the plate.
US08896316B2

In a device having capacitive loads in which a plurality of capacitive loads are connected in parallel, power is supplied from an AC power source to a load group comprising the plurality of capacitive loads, the load group is divided into a plurality of small load groups, and a current detecting sensor for detecting a current which flows in at least one small load group at a side which is closer to the load side than a branch point at which the load group is divided into the plurality of small load groups and a current abnormality detecting part for determining an abnormality of a load by a current detecting signal which is detected by the current detecting sensor are equipped.
US08896300B2

The invention herein disclosed provides a 2D coil and a method of using the 2D wound EC sensor for reproducing the Eddy Current Testing (ECT) response of a prior art 3D orthogonal sensor. The 3D orthogonal sensor is conventionally wound onto a 3D core, with at least some of the surfaces being un-parallel to the surface be inspected. Using the herein disclosed 2D configuration allows the use of printed circuit board technologies for the manufacturing of these EC sensors. The herein disclosed method and the associated 2D EC sensors are particularly useful for reproducing the EC effect of conventional orthogonal probe arrays.
US08896298B2

A rotation detector component detects a rotational state of a rotor and sends a rotational detection signal. A signal transmission component is electrically connected with a lead frame of the rotation detector component to transmit the rotational detection signal to an external device. A body portion holds the rotation detector component and a part of the signal transmission component. The body portion is integrally molded of a first resin to cover a joint portion between the lead frame and the signal transmission component, the rotation detector component, and a part of the signal transmission component. The rotation detector component has corners including at least two exposed corners, which are exposed from the body portion.
US08896294B2

Magnetic members are arranged along a straight line and can be placed face-to-face with spin-valve magnetoresistive elements. The magnetic pole faces of the magnetic members which can be face-to-face with the spin-valve magnetoresistive elements have different magnetic polarities from the magnetic pole faces of neighboring magnetic members. The magnetic members are arranged at a uniform pitch. Each magnetic member is spaced from neighboring magnetic members. X/P is from 40% to 60%, where X is length of each magnetic member along an arrangement direction of the magnetic members, and P is pitch of the magnetic members along the arrangement direction.
US08896291B2

In a power line takeoff clamp assembly and method of use thereof an electrical power distribution line is clamped to a body of the clamp assembly. A power takeoff supported by the body clamped to the power line generates direct current from alternating current flowing in the power line. One or more sensors supported by the body clamped to the power line sense one or more values related to an electrical current flowing in a power line. A wireless transceiver supported by the body clamped to the power line communicates data regarding the one or more sensed values. Each sensor and the wireless transceiver utilize direct current generated by the power takeoff for the operation thereof.
US08896282B2

There is disclosed a converter controller which can simply and early detect an abnormality of an auxiliary circuit constituting a soft switching converter. On turning off a first switching element, a controller detects a voltage between both the ends of a snubber capacitor and a voltage between both the ends of the first switching element, to obtain a difference voltage. The controller compares the obtained difference voltage with a voltage threshold value stored in a memory (not shown) to judge whether or not the difference voltage is larger than the voltage threshold value. When the difference voltage is smaller than the voltage threshold value, the controller judges that an auxiliary circuit is normal, to end processing, whereas when the difference voltage is not less than the voltage threshold value, the controller judges that a failure (an open failure) occurs in the auxiliary circuit, to shift to a fail safe operation, thereby ending the processing.
US08896278B2

A multi-phase switching converter and control method thereof. The multi-phase switching converter includes a plurality of switching circuits and a controller. The output terminals of the plurality of switching circuits are coupled together to provide an output voltage to a load. The controller is configured to generate a plurality of control signals to turn on the plurality of switching circuits successively. When a load current increase is detected, the controller operates in an overlap mode and at least two switching circuits subsequent to the current switching circuit are turned on simultaneously. After the overlap mode, the controller resumes to the interleave mode and turns on the plurality of switching circuits successively from the switching circuit subsequent to the at least two switching circuits.
US08896270B2

A semiconductor integrated circuit includes a regulator including an output terminal; a switch connected to the output terminal of the regulator; a pull-down resistor connected to the switch; and a leak detection circuit configured to detect a leak current generated in the semiconductor integrated circuit, and turn on the switch when the leak current is detected so that the pull-down resistor is connected via the switch to the output terminal of the regulator and a voltage output from the output terminal of the regulator is pulled down by the pull-down resistor.
US08896267B2

A charging schedule creation unit creates a charging schedule of a power storage device by an external power supply. A charging control unit executes charging control of the power storage device in accordance with the charging schedule. A condition determination unit turns on a charging continuation flag to be output to the charging control unit when a predetermined charging continuation permitting condition holds in the case where charging is not completed in accordance with the charging schedule. When the charging continuation flag is on, the charging control unit executes charging control such that charging is continued even after a charging end timing in accordance with the charging schedule.
US08896265B2

A charge transfer device for a plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) includes a charging cable system that supplies electric power to the PEV. The charging cable system having a first end connected to a first electrical connector that connects to the PEV for a charging operation and a second, opposite end connected to a second electrical connector for connecting to a power outlet. A meter unit is located between the first and second ends of the charging cable system. The meter unit determines electrical power information for use during the charging operation. A communications unit is located between the first and second ends of the charging cable system. The communications unit communicates the electrical power information to a remote server.
US08896261B2

The excitation overcurrent detection unit for the doubly-fed electric machine is provided with a function to determine an excitation current magnitude relationship among three phases. The firing pulse is held to on-state or off-state to cause the largest-current phase and the second-largest-current phase to charge the DC capacitor by the operation of diodes. The conduction ratio of the third-largest-current phase or minimum current phase is controlled according to the detected current value to protect against a possible short-circuit across the DC capacitor. When the voltage of the DC capacitor exceeds a preset value, the voltage is suppressed by operating active or passive power devices.
US08896256B2

Reflected light can be effectively utilized by increasing a light receiving area. Incremental light receiving element groups are separated and arranged in the circumferential direction of a rotating unit while placing a light source therebetween. First and second absolute light receiving element groups are arranged at both sides of the outside and inside of the light source in the radial direction of the rotating unit. As a result, first and second absolute light receiving elements are continuously arranged, and also the incremental light receiving element groups and the absolute light receiving element groups can be arranged to surround the periphery of the light source from four directions.
US08896250B2

A method to avoid a single point of failure in a system that includes at least two monitoring devices, at least two power supplies and a switching device coupled between the monitoring devices and the power supplies. The method includes performing a test that can determine if two monitoring devices are receiving power from the power supply, generating an error code and varying a position of one or more switches in a switching device based on the error code.
US08896241B2

A controlled motion system having a plurality of movers controlled as they travel along both smart and simple sections of a track. The controlled motion system comprises a control system for controlling the speed of a mover as it travels along a simple section, and permits the pitch or distance between movers to increase or decrease as they travel along a simple section. In a preferred embodiment the controlled motion system includes at least one coupling feature having a driving feature on a simple section for engaging and operably driving a driven feature on each mover such that positive control of each mover is maintained throughout its transition from a smart section to a simple section.
US08896237B2

A method for operating a fluorescent lamp (5) having a nominal power (WLa) and stabilized with an EM ballast (B) comprises the steps of during normal operation, short-circuiting the lamp during a closing time interval (CTI) during each current period in order to operate the lamp at a reduced power. The method comprises the step of detecting whether the lamp is stabilized by means of an inductive ballast or by means of a capacitive ballast. If it is found that the ballast is capacitive, the timing of the closing time interval (CTI) is set such that the closing time interval (CTI) has a first closing time segment (CTS1) immediately before a zero-crossing of the current, having a first duration (Δ1) higher than zero, and a second closing time segment (CTS2) immediately after said zero-crossing of the current, having a second duration (Δ2) higher than zero.
US08896232B2

A lighting device includes a DC/DC power converter, a controller/processor electrically connected to the DC/DC power converter, a light emitting diode (LED) current control circuit communicably coupled to the controller/processor and electrically connected to the DC/DC power converter, and two or more LEDs comprising at least a first color LED and a second color LED electrically connected to the LED current control circuit. The LED current control circuit provides an on/off signal having a cycle time to each LED in response to one or more control signals received from the controller/processor such that the two or more LEDs produce a blended light having a specified color based on how long each LED is turned ON and/or OFF during the cycle time.
US08896225B2

A power supply device according to one embodiment is configured to control a lighting of semiconductor light-emitting elements, wherein a dimming signal is canceled during a predetermined time period (T) from a timing immediately after power-ON, so as to light on light-emitting diodes to have a predetermined light amount, for example, a minimum light amount. After an elapse of the predetermined time period (T), cancellation of the dimming signal is released to light on the light-emitting diodes to have a light amount instructed by the dimming signal.
US08896219B1

A Light Emitting Diode (LED) driver circuit for driving an LED string has a switch-mode power supply coupled to the LED string. A control circuit is provided and has a first terminal coupled to a pulse width modulated input and a second terminal coupled to the switch mode power supply. A disconnect switch is coupled to a third terminal of the control circuit and the LED string.
US08896218B2

A lighting device includes a DC/DC power converter, a controller/processor electrically connected to the DC/DC power converter, a light emitting diode (LED) current control circuit communicably coupled to the controller/processor and electrically connected to the DC/DC power converter, and two or more LEDs comprising at least a first color LED and a second color LED electrically connected to the LED current control circuit. The LED current control circuit provides an on/off signal having a cycle time to each LED in response to one or more control signals received from the controller/processor such that the two or more LEDs produce a blended light having a specified color based on how long each LED is turned ON and/or OFF during the cycle time.
US08896217B2

Electrical and mechanical connection for a series connected LED lamp to an appropriate electrical circuit. The circuit contains additional series connected light producing elements. To enable continuous operation of all the other light producing elements in the series circuit, the socket contains a device to bypass the series current to the remaining circuit elements in the case of a defective lamp or connection. Operation of the bypass device is controlled within the socket with operational parameters controlled either from within the socket or in conjunction with an external element in the lamp. The operation of the bypass circuit is latching, once operating the bypass will continue to operate until reset preventing unwanted flicker in the case of intermittent connections. The method of resetting the bypass circuit may be either manual or automatic. The socket bypass may contain a time delay to allow internal bypass circuits included within the lamp to operate before the socket bypass activates.
US08896207B2

The present invention is directed to a fluorescent light fixture assembly including a ballast and a novel lighting element that includes an array of LEDs and at least one converter module that enables the existing ballast providing an AC power input to supply DC power to the LED array. The lighting element includes a body that contains the LED array and the converter modules and shares the configuration of the lighting element that is to be retrofitted. The lighting element receives power from the pre-existing ballast, wherein the converter module provides a constant current source to power the LED array. Thus, the lighting element, including the converter module, replaces the conventional fluorescent light tube in a cost-effective retrofit manner with the existing ballast.
US08896200B2

A pixel structure of an organic light emitting display device includes a substrate and a plurality of display pixel units disposed on the substrate. Each of the display pixel units includes a first sub-pixel, a second sub-pixel and a third sub-pixel disposed adjacently to one another. The first sub-pixel in each of the display pixel units is disposed adjacently to three first sub-pixels respectively disposed in three adjacent display pixel units to form a first pixel unit. The second sub-pixel in each of the display pixel units is disposed adjacently to three second sub-pixels respectively disposed in three adjacent display pixel units to form a second pixel unit. The third sub-pixel in each of the display pixel units is disposed adjacently to three third sub-pixels respectively disposed in three adjacent display pixel units to form a third pixel unit.
US08896197B2

A lighting device comprising first and second groups of non-white light sources emitting light outside a first area on a 1976 CIE Chromaticity Diagram bounded by a curves 0.01 u′v′ above and below the blackbody locus and within a second area enclosed by saturated light curves from 430 to 465 nm and from 560 to 580 nm and segments from 465 to 560 nm and from 580 to 430 nm and a supplemental light emitter in the range of 600 to 640 nm. Also, a lighting device, comprising a first string of non-white phosphor converted light sources with excitation sources having dominant wavelengths that differ by at least 5 nm, a second string of non-white light sources, and a third string of supplemental light emitters in the range of 600 to 640 nm.
US08896195B2

This invention relates to a filament for electron emission cathode which is employed in an electron microscope, a critical dimension examine tool, an electron beam lithograph machine, an electron beam tester and other electron beam related systems as an electron source. Embodiments of the present invention discloses method with which a Re (Rhenium) is used as heat source such that vibration issue of prior tungsten filament can be depressed.
US08896194B2

A spark ignition device has a ceramic insulator surrounded by a metal shell. The metal shell extends along a longitudinal axis to a distal end. A center electrode is received in the ceramic insulator and extends along the longitudinal axis. A ground electrode has an attachment end fixed by a weld joint to the distal end of the shell and a free end extending from the distal end to provide a spark gap. The weld joint includes a capacitive pulse discharge weld joint and a laser weld joint, which in combination inhibit material expulsion; provide a reliable, strong attachment of the ground electrode to the shell; provide an improved heat transfer path between the ground electrode and the shell, and facilitate repeatable and accurate positioning of the ground electrode to the shell. The weld joint includes a homogeneous mixture of the metal shell and the ground electrode.
US08896176B2

Provided is a rotor core of a motor, the rotor core, the rotor core including: a thin disk-shaped rotor core member; a shaft hole penetratively formed in a center of the rotor core member; a shaft press-fitted into the shaft hole; a plurality of magnet insertion holes penetratively formed at a position near to a periphery of the rotor core member for inserted coupling by a magnet; a plurality of teeth protrusively formed at an inner circumferential surface of the shaft hole, and a skived portion protrusively formed at a position corresponding to the plurality of teeth of the shaft, wherein the rotor core members are stacked each at a predetermined height, and the shaft is press-fitted into the shaft hole.
US08896165B2

A generator is provided. The generator has a stator with teeth and slots for windings, a rotor rotatable around the stator, a plurality of permanent magnets, and a cooling pipe arranged beneath the slots. Further, a wind turbine with such a generator is provided.
US08896151B2

An electric power system includes: an uninterruptible power supply including an AC switch provided between a commercial power supply and an output part, a secondary battery, and an inverter provided between the AC switch and secondary battery; an important load connected to the output part; a distributed power supply connected to the output part; total load power consumption detection section detecting the power consumption of all loads including the important load; charge/discharge power detection section detecting charge/discharge power of the secondary battery; output power detection section detecting the output power of the distributed power supply; important load power consumption detection section detecting the power consumption of the important load; and a controller that inputs thereto detection values from the total load power consumption detection section, charge/discharge detection section, output power detection section, and important load power consumption detection section and outputs a control command value for controlling the secondary battery.
US08896146B2

A power system for an automotive vehicle includes a plurality of power storage units, a multiplexer electrically connected with the power storage units, and a switching converter electrically connected with the multiplexer. The switching converter is configured to selectively act as a flyback switchmode power converter or a forward switchmode power converter.
US08896145B2

The invention is a power generator using intermittent fluid flow. The invention facilitates the harnessing of electric power from intermittent wind sources. The apparatus includes panels that are pivotally attached to a frame at a substantially vertical orientation and pivot towards an acute angle to the horizontal. As wind blows, the panels lift outward relative to the vertical. The motion may be transferred by actuating a hydraulic cylinder. This motion pressurizes the cylinder and the pressurized hydraulic fluid may later be transferred into electric power via a hydraulic generator. The panels may also include one or more photovoltaic cells which collect and convert sun light into electric power.
US08896115B2

A semiconductor wafer has an insulating layer over a first surface of the substrate. An IPD structure is formed over the insulating layer. The IPD structure includes a MIM capacitor and inductor. A conductive via is formed through a portion of the IPD structure and partially through the substrate. The conductive via can be formed in first and second portions. The first portion is formed partially through the substrate and second portion is formed through a portion of the IPD structure. A first via is formed through a second surface of the substrate to the conductive via. A shielding layer is formed over the second surface of the substrate wafer. The shielding layer extends into the first via to the conductive via. The shielding layer is electrically connected through the conductive via to an external ground point. The semiconductor wafer is singulated through the conductive via.
US08896114B2

A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor chip, a die pad having a chip mount surface for mounting the semiconductor chip, and an electrode terminal for connecting with the semiconductor chip through first and second wirings. The electrode terminal has a first surface including a connection point with the first wiring and a second surface including a connection point with the second wiring. The connection point with the first wiring is located at a first height from a reference plane extending from the chip mount surface. The connection point with the second wiring is located at a second height different from the first height from the reference plane.
US08896112B2

A multi-chip module (MCM) is described. This MCM includes at least two substrates that are mechanically coupled and aligned by positive and negative features on facing surfaces of the substrates. These positive and negative features may mate and self-lock with each other. The positive features may be self-populated into the negative features on at least one of the substrates using a hydrophilic layer in the negative feature. This hydrophilic layer may be used in conjunction with a hydrophobic layer surrounding the negative features on a top surface of at least one of the substrates.
US08896108B2

The invention enhances resistance to a surge in a semiconductor device having a semiconductor die mounted on a lead frame. An N type embedded layer, an epitaxial layer and a P type semiconductor layer are disposed on the front surface of a P type semiconductor substrate forming an IC die. A metal thin film is disposed on the back surface of the semiconductor substrate, and a conductive paste containing silver particles and so on is disposed between the metal thin film and a metal island. When a surge is applied to a pad electrode disposed on the front surface of the semiconductor layer, the surge current flowing from the semiconductor layer into the semiconductor substrate runs toward the metal island through the metal thin film.
US08896096B2

Provided is decoupling capacitor device. The decoupling capacitor device includes a first dielectric layer portion that is deposited in a deposition process that also deposits a second dielectric layer portion for a non-volatile memory cell. Both portions are patterned using a single mask. A system-on-chip (SOC) device is also provided, the SOC include an RRAM cell and a decoupling capacitor situated in a single inter-metal dielectric layer. Also a method for forming a process-compatible decoupling capacitor is provided. The method includes patterning a top electrode layer, an insulating layer, and a bottom electrode layer to form a non-volatile memory element and a decoupling capacitor.
US08896095B2

In a semiconductor device, a first semiconductor chip includes a first circuit and a first inductor, and a second semiconductor chip includes a second circuit and chip-side connecting terminals. An interconnect substrate is placed over the first semiconductor chip and the second semiconductor chip. The interconnect substrate includes a second inductor and substrate-side connecting terminals. The second inductor is located above the first inductor. The chip-side connecting terminals and the two substrate-side connecting terminals are connected through first solder balls.
US08896094B2

Methods and apparatus for forming a semiconductor device package with inductors and transformers using a micro-bump layer are disclosed. The micro-bump layer may comprise micro-bumps and micro-bump lines, formed between a top die and a bottom die, or between a die and an interposer. An inductor can be formed by a redistribution layer within a bottom device and a micro-bump line above the bottom device connected to the RDL. The inductor may be a symmetric inductor, a spiral inductor, a helical inductor which is a vertical structure, or a meander inductor. A pair of inductors with micro-bump lines can form a transformer.
US08896088B2

An electrical fuse has an anode contact on a surface of a semiconductor substrate. The electrical fuse has a cathode contact on the surface of the semiconductor substrate spaced from the anode contact. The electrical fuse has a link within the substrate electrically interconnecting the anode contact and the cathode contact. The link comprises a semiconductor layer and a silicide layer. The silicide layer extends beyond the anode contact. An opposite end of the silicide layer extends beyond the cathode contact. A silicon germanium region is embedded in the semiconductor layer under the silicide layer, between the anode contact and the cathode contact.
US08896085B2

A semiconductor light-emitting element manufacturing method including: a first step in which a first n-type semiconductor layer is laminated onto a substrate in a first organometallic chemical vapor deposition apparatus; and a second step in which a regrowth layer, a second n-type semiconductor layer, an active layer, and a p-type semiconductor layer are sequentially laminated onto the aforementioned first n-type semiconductor layer in a second organometallic chemical vapor deposition apparatus.
US08896084B2

A semiconductor device includes a first semiconductor region of a first conductivity type and formed of a material having a band gap wider than that of silicon; a first layer selectively disposed on a surface of and forming a first junction with the first semiconductor region; a second layer selectively disposed on the first semiconductor region and forming a second junction with the first semiconductor region; a first diode formed by a region including the first junction; a second diode formed by a region including the second junction; and a fourth semiconductor region of a second conductivity type and disposed in the first semiconductor region, between and contacting the first and second junctions. A recess and elevated portion are disposed on the first semiconductor region. The first and the second junctions are formed at different depths. The second diode has a lower built-in potential than the first diode.
US08896078B2

There is provided a light emitting apparatus including: at least one pair of lead frames; a light emitting device electrically connected to the lead frames to emit ultraviolet rays; a body including a side wall surrounding the light emitting device, and a groove portion formed in an upper surface of the side wall to receive an adhesive; and a lens part disposed above the light emitting device and fixed to the upper surface of the side wall of the body by the adhesive.
US08896072B2

A FinFET (p-channel) device is formed having a fin structure with sloped or angled sidewalls (e.g., a pyramidal or trapezoidal shaped cross-section shape). When using conventional semiconductor substrates having a (100) surface orientation, the fin structure is formed in a way (groove etching) which results in sloped or angled sidewalls having a (111) surface orientation. This characteristic substantially increases hole mobility as compared to conventional fin structures having vertical sidewalls.