US08959659B2
A software authorization system has a server end and a user end. A software authorization method includes acquiring a software identification code of a protected software when the user end downloads the protected software from the server end; transmitting the software identification code and an inherent user identification code to the server end; acquiring a first key and main key by the server end according to the user identification code and the software identification code, respectively, so as to generate a second key by operating the main key and the first key and transmit the second key to the user end; restoring the main key by the user end with the second key combined with the first key; and decrypting the protected software by the main key. Therefore, the protected software is hard to be decrypted.
US08959652B2
A method and system for graduated security in an identity management system utilize differing levels of time sensitivity, channel security and authentication security to provide a multi-dimensional approach to providing the right fit for differing identity requests. The differing levels of security can be selected by user preference, membersite request or homesite policy.
US08959646B2
Methods, systems, and computer-readable storage media for analyzing security of dataflows in programs. In some implementations, actions include processing source code using static analysis to: identify one or more dataflows and one or more candidate sanitizers, each candidate sanitizer being associated with a respective dataflow, and provide an executable sub-program for each candidate sanitizer to provide one or more executable sub-programs, processing the one or more executable sub-programs using dynamic analysis to: execute the one or more executable sub-programs, and provide dynamic analysis results, providing combined results based on the static analysis and the dynamic analysis, the combined results including the dynamic analysis results, and assigning a priority to each result in the combined results.
US08959643B1
A method for detecting a malicious activity in a network. The method includes obtaining file download flows from the network, analyzing, the file download flows to generate malicious indications using a pre-determined malicious behavior detection algorithm, extracting a file download attribute from a suspicious file download flow of a malicious indication, wherein the file download attribute represents one or more of the URL, the FQDN, the top-level domain name, the URL path, the URL file name, and the payload of the suspicious file download flow, determining the file download attribute as being shared by at least two suspicious file download flows, identifying related suspicious file download flows and determining a level of association between based at least on the file download attribute, computing a malicious score of the suspicious file download flow based on the level of association, and presenting the malicious score to an analyst user of the network.
US08959641B2
A method of foiling a document exploit type attack on a computer, where the attack attempts to extract malware code from within a document stored on the computer. The method includes monitoring the computer in order to detect repeated function calls made by a given process in respect of the same function but different file descriptors; and in the event that such repeated function calls are detected or the number of such repeated function calls exceeds some threshold, terminating the process that initiated the function calls.
US08959640B2
The present invention relates to a method of controlling the download of anti-virus software updates to a device. The device is configured to transmit an update query to a network device requesting information on whether any updates are available for the anti-virus software. When the device receives the response it stores the response in the cache. The cache can then be queried following a trigger and, if the cache indicates an update to the anti-virus software is available the device downloads an update to the anti-virus software. In an alternative embodiment the device may download and install an update upon receiving the response to the query if the response to the query indicates that an update is available. The query may be transmitted during a scan or upon determining a change in a connection at a device.
US08959631B2
Systems, methods, and computer storage media for traffic segmentation in prevention of DDoS attacks are provided. Data associated with one or more users of a particular service or network is collected. Legitimate properties associated with the data are identified. In embodiments, the legitimate properties are shared with one or more related services. One or more requests are received for the service or related services and request properties are identified. The legitimacy of the one or more requests is predicted based on a comparison of the legitimate and request properties.
US08959629B2
The embodiments provide a runtime validation apparatus including a runtime interceptor configured to intercept a server request for a requested web resource and a response including response data, and an output validation policy identifier configured to identify an output validation policy from a database storing a plurality of output validation policies based on the requested web resource. The identified output validation policy may represent a template that encompasses allowed responses for the requested web resource. The runtime validation apparatus may further include a validation evaluator configured to compare the response data with the template, and a validation controller configured to permit the response to be transmitted if the response data complies with the template and block the response if at least a portion of the response data does not comply with the template.
US08959627B2
A method of engaging in network communications by a device includes spawning a first virtual machine for a network connection that virtualizes network capabilities of a device; receiving a packet communicated from a transmitting device at the first virtual machine of the device; determining that the packet is corrupted, said determination being based on information from an application running on the device; in response to said step of determining that the packet is corrupted, quarantining the packet; spawning a second virtual machine for a network connection that virtualizes network capabilities of the device; and communicating, using the second virtual machine, a message to the transmitting device.
US08959621B2
There is provided a system and method for human verification by a contextually iconic visual public Turing test. There is provided a method comprising receiving a request to verify whether a client is human controlled, selecting, by contextual criteria, a plurality of images each having one or more associated tags from a database, generating a challenge question and a corresponding answer set based on associated tags of a subset of the plurality of images, presenting the plurality of images and the challenge question to the client, receiving a submission to the challenge question from the client, and responding to the request by verifying whether the submission is contained in the answer set to determine whether the client is human controlled. The contextual criteria may comprise subject matter, branding, or intended audience of a content provider sending the request, thereby facilitating human responses while deterring automated systems.
US08959620B2
A method for composing an authentication password associated with an electronic device is implemented by a password composing system including a display, a receiving unit, and a processing unit. In the method, the display is configured to display a start point, and a plurality of displayed paths. The receiving unit is configured to detect a set of user-input movements of a contact point at the display. The processing unit is configured to determine whether the user-input movements conform with a predefined valid user-input gesture, store a plurality of codes corresponding to the valid user-input gestures, and to compose the authentication password according to valid ones of the series of the user-input movements.
US08959613B2
A system for managing access to resources in a plurality of servers by a plurality of client computers by using an operating system independent Secure Shell (SSH) protocol running in each server and using a central policy database that centrally stores access rules which specify access to the servers for a plurality of users/accounts. Each time a target server receives a user request to establish an SSH session, it retrieves associated access rules from the central policy database to obtain the latest access rules. Based on the retrieved rules and the identity of the user and the identity of the client computer, the target server determines whether the user has permission to establish the SSH session with the target server. Using a centralized database and requiring the servers to always retrieve the latest access rules from a central database provides consistent application of the access rules across all servers and all client computers.
US08959608B2
A mobile device includes a session maintainer application, a native application and a shell application and a link to a web application. If a user is seeking to access a native application, and an active session has not been established, user login credential is obtained, a session token is obtained upon verification of the user login credential, and the obtained session token is provided to the native application. If the user is seeking to access a web application, and an active session has not been established, a session token is obtained upon verification of the user login credential and the obtained session token is provided to the shell application. If an active session has been established then the obtained session token is automatically provided to the native or shell application when the user subsequently seeks access to the respective application.
US08959604B2
A client device is coupled with a server. The client device prompts a user to enter a number associated with a mobile device, which can be the client device, and generates data including a code. The code is typically hidden from the user when the code is generated and is saved on the client device. The client device transmits the number entered by the user and the code generated by the client device to the server, which sends a message, including the code, to the mobile device associated with the number. The client device prompts the user to enter the code included in the message. Validity of the number is based on one or more factors, including the accuracy of the code entered by the user. In addition, validity of the number can also be based on whether the second user input was entered within a predetermined time limit.
US08959603B2
An authentication system by which character strings in squares are selected by a rule determined by a user out of a table in which character strings are assigned to obtain a one-time password. The user memorizes a rule of successively selecting three out of the positions of the squares in a table having five rows and five columns, for example. To each square (402) in the table (401) to be presented to the user, a randomly generated two-digit number is assigned. The table (401) is presented to the user, who arranges the numbers in the squares (402) on the basis of the user's own rule to generate a six-digit number used as a one-time password for authenticating the user. Therefore, the rule for obtaining a one-time password is easy for the user to memorize and a long one-time password can be obtained.
US08959593B2
A system transfers applications and datasets (files) from a server to a client device and assigns to each file a lease key that will expire at a specified time. A file cannot be accessed unless its lease key is validated. Upon expiration of a lease key, the client device will connect to the server to determine if the lease key may be renewed. If the lease key may be renewed, a new lease key is created and access to the associated application or dataset is restored. If the lease key may not be renewed, the file may be deleted or rendered inaccessible. If rendered inaccessible, the file may be restored in the future without having to re-transmit it from the server to the client device. The server may also revoke a lease key before it expires.
US08959591B2
A method of serving a resource to a client via a computer network is provided. The method may include providing a follow location handler logically positioned on a WAN side of an HTTP server. At the follow location handler, the method may include receiving a POST request from the client, and forwarding the POST request to the HTTP server. At the HTTP server, the method may include receiving the POST request, creating a modified data object based upon the form data, generating a link to the modified data object, and returning the link. At the follow location handler, the method may include intercepting the link to the modified data object from the server, sending a GET request to the server to retrieve the modified data object, and, in response, receiving the modified data object. The method may further include forwarding the modified data object to the client.
US08959590B2
In a method for enabling the use of a consumable unit in a consumption device of a consumption arrangement, a first item of authorization information assigned to the consumable unit is transmitted from the consumption arrangement to a remote data center. The data center implements a first verification of the first item of authorization information and, as a function of this verification, a second item of authorization information assigned to the consumable unit is generated. The second item of authorization information is transmitted to the consumption arrangement, which implements a second verification of the second item of authorization information, dependent on which use of the consumable unit in the consumption device is enabled. The outcome of either the first or second verification is also used for an accounting for use of the consumable unit when, the first verification indicates that the consumable unit was previously unused.
US08959576B2
Method, apparatus, and system for qualifying CPU transactions with security attributes. Immutable security attributes are generated for transactions initiator by a CPU or processor core that identifying the execution mode of the CPU/core being trusted or untrusted. The transactions may be targeted to an Input/Output (I/O) device or system memory via which a protected asset may be accessed. Policy enforcement logic blocks are implemented at various points in the apparatus or system that allow or deny transactions access to protected assets based on the immutable security attributes generated for the transactions. In one aspect, a multiple-level security scheme is implemented under which a mode register is updated via a first transaction to indicate the CPU/core is operating in a trusted execution mode, and security attributes are generated for a second transaction using execution mode indicia in the mode register to verify the transaction is from a trusted initiator.
US08959572B2
A method may include sending, by a client device, an access request to an authentication server device. The access request may include a request to access an administered resource. The method may include in response to the client device not complying with an administrative policy associated with the administered resource, receiving, from the authentication server device, one or more instructions regarding installation of a client application, receiving, by the client device, a client application in accordance with the instructions, and installing the client application on the client device.
US08959571B2
A system, method and machine readable medium for automated policy building in a policy module of a network traffic management device is disclosed. Parsed network traffic data is received at a policy builder of a network traffic management device. The received network traffic data is analyzed in accordance with one or more threshold conditions specified by a user, via a user interface, for an existing policy. The existing policy is modified by the policy builder if the one or more threshold conditions for the network traffic have been met.
US08959569B2
A system includes a virtual machine (VM) server and a policy engine server. The VM server includes two or more guest operating systems and an agent. The agent is configured to collect information from the two or more guest operating systems. The policy engine server is configured to: receive the information from the agent; generate access control information for a first guest OS, of the two or more guest operating systems, based on the information; and configure an enforcer based on the access control information.
US08959562B2
A method includes displaying content on a television, detecting a personal display device in proximity of the television, detecting a selection of content displayed on the television, detecting an instruction associated with the selection, displaying, based on the instruction, information associated with the selection on the personal display device and displaying on the television an alert indicating that the information associated with the selection is on the personal display device.
US08959556B2
Methods and apparatus for identifying the operating state of an audio-video (AV) device are described. Example methods and apparatus include monitoring messages transmitted via a data bus in a first AV device, wherein the data bus is communicatively coupled to a processor and an AV network controller of the first AV device, and wherein the AV network controller is further communicatively coupled to a second AV device external to the first AV device. The example method also involves extracting messages associated with an operation of the second AV device from the monitored messages, analyzing the extracted messages for data associated with an operating state of the second AV device, and sending a command to the AV network controller to request data missing from the extracted messages and associated with the operating state of the second AV device. Additionally, the example methods and apparatus include identifying the operating state of the second AV device by analyzing the extracted messages and a response from the second AV device associated with the command.
US08959546B2
A multi-functional display device and a method for displaying an electronic programming guide (EPG) in the same are disclosed herein. The multi-functional display device may include a display for displaying broadcast programs or data, a network interface configured to receive event information associated with a social network service (SNS) account for an individual or entity, a storage device configured to store at least one channel number and at least one SNS account information assigned to the at least one channel number, and a controller for controlling the multi-functional display device. The controller may map the event information to one of the at least one channel numbers and may construct an EPG that includes the mapped event information and the corresponding channel number for display on the display.
US08959543B2
According to one embodiment, a first displaying device comprises an acquisition module, a display controller and a game time controller. The acquisition module is configured to obtain information related to a first terminal from a second displaying device. The first terminal of the second displaying device is coupled to a game device while a second terminal of the second displaying device is coupled to a network. The display controller is configured to display the information to indicate whether the first terminal is being coupled to the game device or not. The game time controller is configured to measure a time for which the first terminal is coupled to the game device, based on the information obtained by the acquisition module, and to prompt the second displaying device to exclude the connection between the first terminal and the game device, when the measured time reaches a predetermined time set in advance.
US08959542B2
Methods, systems, and products evaluate performance of a viewer watching programming. A prompt is displayed, and the viewer enters a response to the prompt. The performance of the viewer is based at least partly on a time of the response.
US08959540B1
User engagement in unwatched videos is predicted by collecting and aggregating data describing user engagement with watched videos. The data are normalized to reduce the influence of factors other than the content of the videos on user engagement. Engagement metrics are calculated for segments of watched videos that indicate user engagement with each segment relative to overall user engagement with the watched videos. Features of the watched videos within time windows are characterized, and a function is learned that relates the features of the videos within the time windows to the engagement metrics for the time windows. The features of a time window of an unwatched video are characterized, and the learned function is applied to the features to predict user engagement to the time window of the unwatched video. The unwatched video can be enhanced based on the predicted user engagement.
US08959538B2
A method and system of managing content at a network site can allow easier use by business users. A higher level of abstraction can be used to allow business users to create their own objects that may reference or contain other objects or records as managed by a content management system. Business users do not have to learn programming code in order to work those objects, which are content types. A graphical user interface (“GUI”) can be used to help the business users to create, modify, and delete content types. The GUI and the ability for business users to the create content types greatly shortens the time between receiving software to operate a network site and launching content at that network site.
US08959535B2
Methods for controlling inputs and outputs between two connected electronic devices by a user with a number of corresponding applications are presented including: responsive to a first input at a first device, executing at least one of the number of corresponding applications at the first device to generate a first output; forwarding the first output including information representing at least a portion of a first intended display from the first device to a second device by at least one of the number of corresponding applications through at least one application programming interface (API) at the first device associated with interacting with the second device, and where an executable code that includes a device driver at the second device is configured to display the at least the portion of the first intended display based on the information included in the first output.
US08959529B2
A method for conveying a data packet received from a network to a virtual machine instantiated on a computer system coupled to the network, and a medium and system for carrying out the method, is described. In the method, a guest receive pointer queue of a component executing in the virtual machine is inspected in order to identify a location in a guest receive packet data buffer that is available to receive packet data. Data from the data packet received from the network is copied into the guest receive packet data buffer at the identified location. A standard receive interrupt is raised in the virtual machine. Thus, the kernel places the data packet received from the network into a memory space accessible to the virtual machine without any intervention by a virtual machine monitor component of the virtualization software.
US08959527B2
A task is marked as dependent upon a preceding task. The task that is attempted to be taken for execution from a head of a pending task queue that is marked is deferred. The deferred task is removed from the pending task queue and placed in a deferred task queue. The deferred task is reinserted back into the pending task queue for execution upon determining that the preceding tasks are completed.
US08959523B2
A virtual machine placement framework is described to enable a data center operator to develop a placement scheme to satisfy its particular constraints while simultaneously optimizing resource utilization. To generate a placement solution, the virtual machine placement problem is first characterized as a “bin packing” problem. The framework provides simple interface tools and processing modules, and a pluggable architecture for receiving placement algorithms. To generate a solution, an administrator creates an XML representation that abstracts physical entities (e.g., data center, subnet, rack, physical server, and the like) into a hierarchical tree of bins. The administrator also defines a set of “rules” that govern (direct) the placement of the virtual machines by placing constraints on the placement scheme. Using the hierarchical tree and the rules, the framework is executed to generate a placement as a solution to a bin packing problem, preferably on a layer-by-layer basis.
US08959522B2
For full exploitation of parallel processors for data processing, a set of parallel processors is partitioned into disjoint subsets according to indices of the set of the parallel processors. The size of each of the disjoint subsets corresponds to a number of processors assigned to the processing of the data chunks at one of the layers. Each of the processors are assigned to different layers in different data chunks such that each of processors are busy and the data chunks are fully processed within a number of the time steps equal to the number of the layers. A transition function is devised from the indices of the set of the parallel processors at one time steps to the indices of the set of the parallel processors at a following time step.
US08959514B2
A mechanism for a virtual machine (VM) monitor display split using multiple client devices in a virtualization system is disclosed. A method of the invention includes receiving, by a remote access protocol server, resolution data of a monitor of a virtual machine (VM), receiving resolution data for each monitor of multiple client devices forming a logical client unit, determining, based on the resolution data of the VM monitor and the resolution data of the monitors of the multiple client devices, client devices of the multiple client devices in the logical client unit to display the monitor of the VM, dividing, based on the resolutions of the determined client devices, the monitor of the VM into a number of portions that is equal to a number of the determined client devices, and mapping each of the portions of the monitor of the VM to a monitor of the determined client devices.
US08959510B2
In one embodiment, a mechanism for providing a trusted environment for provisioning a virtual machine is disclosed. In one embodiment, a method includes beginning an initialization process of a virtual machine (VM) hosted by a VM host server, obtaining by the VM as part of the initialization process a one-time password from the VM host server, the one-time password provided to the VM host server from a management server that created the one-time password, and authenticating the VM with an identity server using the one-time password.
US08959502B2
The present disclosure provides a method and system for processing table of content (TOC) access overflow in an application. The method may determine whether there occurs a TOC access overflow within an object file during linking the object file that may be generated from the compiling. If the TOC access overflow occurs within the object file, then the source file corresponding to the object file may be re-compiled so as to generate an object file having no TOC access overflow, and the object file may be re-linked to generate an executable file of the application. The present disclosure may adopt two-pass compiling and a dual-instruction TOC access in a form of two pieces of instructions that may be generated for TOC entries within which TOC overflows generally occur.
US08959495B2
Techniques are described for unifying static and dynamic compiler optimizations in source code bases. In an embodiment, a first compiler compiles source code of a target function to generate ahead-of-time (AOT) compiled machine code. A second compiler compiles the source code to generate an intermediate representation (IR) of the target function. In response to determining that the target function should be just-in-time (JIT) compiled, the AOT-compiled machine code for the target function is linked to the IR of the target function. During runtime, a physical processor executes AOT-compiled machine code of an executable program. When the target function is encountered for the first time, a JIT compiler is invoked. The JIT compiler generates JIT-compiled machine code for the target function. The physical processor executes the JIT-compiled machine code in place of the AOT-compiled machine code for the target function.
US08959493B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, system and computer program product for USING range validation during assembly of an assembly language program. In an embodiment of the invention, a method for USING range validation during assembly of an assembly language program has been provided. The method can include parsing assembler language source code loaded for assembly in an assembler executing in memory of a computer. The method also can include identifying a USING statement in the source code establishing a base address as the content of a register. Finally, in response to additionally identifying a subsequent statement in the source code that modifies the content of the register, a warning of an invalid USING range can be generated.
US08959491B2
In various embodiments, a method, system, and computer program product for injecting error code include logic and/or program instructions configured for determining critical points in executing code of software under test, building a testcase to invoke the software under test, determining an appropriate response action for each critical point based on an error encountered at each critical point, injecting a critical point segment into the executing code at a corresponding critical point, and outputting a unique identifier of each critical point segment, the testcase being configured to issue commands, with each command limiting which of one or more critical points remains active based on one of: a number of times the one or more critical points have been accessed in the executing code, a number of times a critical point has been skipped, and an amount of times a critical point has been accessed versus skipped.
US08959483B2
Disclosed herein are techniques for testing a page. In some implementations, an intermediate representation of a page is created. The page may be defined by a page description implemented in a markup language. The page description may refer to data accessible via a data model. The intermediate representation may include at least a portion of the data accessible via the data model. The intermediate representation may be capable of being rendered to create a rendered page. The rendered page may be capable of being displayed on a display device. A determination may be made as to whether a test value for a portion of the intermediate representation matches an expected value for the portion of the intermediate representation. When the test value does not match the expected value, an indication of an error may be stored.
US08959478B2
A method for generating a slice from a plan-based representation of a program is provided. The method comprises constructing a plan representation of a program, wherein the plan representation comprises a plurality of nodes, edges, and ports; and receiving one or more slicing criteria from a user. The slicing criteria comprise one or more variable occurrences or statements from the program, according to which a slice is generated from the plan representation.
US08959476B2
Various technologies and techniques improve the process for creating and displaying context menus and tooltips. Procedures for listening for events, enabling, retrieving and displaying context menus and tooltips reside in a central service model. The developer accesses the central service model and specifies content for a context menu or tooltip. Rich media content such as audio, video, and graphic output can be included in context menus and tooltips. Shapes and effects of displayed content can also be customized.
US08959469B2
A method of preparing a programmable integrated circuit device for configuration using a high-level language includes compiling a plurality of virtual programmable devices from descriptions in said high-level language. The compiling includes compiling configurations of configurable routing resources from programmable resources of said programmable integrated circuit device, and compiling configurations of a plurality of complex function blocks from programmable resources of said programmable integrated circuit device. A machine-readable data storage medium may be encoded with a library of such compiled configurations. A virtual programmable device may include a stall signal network and routing switches of the virtual programmable device may include stall signal inputs and outputs.
US08959468B2
Defect-describing (or “cut”) layer(s) for describing defects associated with different sides of a 3-dimensional (3D) structure enable fault modeling to determine the effect of position and location of defects on transistor performance. One or more defect-describing layers are used to identify the coordinates and sides of the 3D structures of the defects. The defect-describing layer(s) enables fault-modeling for 3D structures to understand the effects of faults on different locations, especially for defects associated with the fins of the finFET devices. Faults are injected to different locations and sides of fins and are modeled with different test vectors, test parameters and testing devices to identify detectable faults. The fault modeling would help identify the sources of defects and also improve layout design of finFET device structures.
US08959465B2
Techniques are provided for determining how thick or how deep to make the phased regions of a lithography mask. One example embodiment provides a method that includes: providing a first mask layout design including a first test set, and providing a second mask layout design including a second test set, wherein the second test set is larger than the first test set; simulating critical dimensions through focus of structures of interest in the first test set for a range of phase depths/thicknesses, and selecting an initial preferred mask phase depth/thickness based on results of the simulating; and generating a fast thick-mask model (FTM) at the initial preferred phase depth/thickness, and correcting the second test set of the second mask layout design using the FTM, thereby providing an optimized mask layout design. A mask having the optimized mask layout design may be implemented to give the optimum patterning.
US08959462B2
A method, an article of manufacture, and a system for designing a mask. The method for designing a mask is implemented by a computer device having a memory, a processor device communicatively coupled to the memory, and a module configured to carry out the method including the steps of: generating an optical domain representation from a design pattern and an imaging light; and optimizing the optical domain representation under a constraint that values of negative excursions at predetermined evaluation points must be greater than or equal to predetermined negative threshold values assigned to the predetermined evaluation points; where: the optical domain representation is a variable representation of a wavefront; the imaging light is light that is transmitted through the mask; the negative excursions are in an object domain representation of the optical domain representation; and the predetermined evaluation points are in the object domain representation.
US08959459B2
A gaming system and a method for conducting a wagering game that allows accurate determination of a player gesture input. A gaming terminal for playing the wagering game including a controller is disclosed. A touch surface is provided for actuation by a player gesture associated with an input to the wagering game. A sensor array underlies the touch surface to sense the motion of the gesture. The sensor array is coupled to the controller. The controller determines a trajectory represented by the gesture based on the sensed motion from the sensor array. A display is coupled to the controller to display movement of an object image based on the trajectory represented by the gesture.
US08959458B2
A method of controlling a mobile terminal, and which includes displaying, on a display module of the mobile terminal, a first screen corresponding to a current operating mode and including a plurality of objects relevant to the current operating; receiving an input signal indicating a screen reconfiguration event has occurred on the mobile terminal, the screen reconfiguration event including at least one of a predefined movement of a main body of the mobile terminal and a blow signal being obtained by blowing onto the mobile terminal; and reconfiguring, via a controller on the mobile terminal, the first screen by removing at least one of the plurality of objects that do not meet a predefined screen reconfiguration condition from the first screen, and displaying a second screen obtained by the reconfiguration of the first screen on the display module based on the received input signal.
US08959457B2
A user selection interface system comprises one or more rotatable selectors linked to selectable characteristics, and a display linked to the selectors, for display of an image that corresponds to the selected characteristics. The interface is typically linked to a database comprising stored images and other information which corresponds to the selectable characteristics, whereby an image that corresponds to an item which meets a selected characteristic is retrieved and displayed. Information other than the corresponding image may also be retrieved and displayed. In some embodiments, the stored images comprise a single image, which matches all the selected characteristics, or a composite image that is based upon stored images which correspond to different selected characteristics. In some embodiments, the user selection interface comprises a graphic user interface or a mechanical interface. Some preferred embodiments of the interface provide links for merchandising functions, such as for ordering, purchasing, inventories, and/or shipping.
US08959453B1
Methods are described for maximizing the size of a video displayed in a display area of a video player. The maximum height of the video is determined using its aspect ratio and the dimensions of the display area in the video player. The control panel is removed from the display in the video player if this allows the video to be shown at its maximum height while preserving the video's resolution. The control panel is displayed in the video player if the video can be shown at its maximum height without removing the control panel from the display.
US08959444B2
In an embodiment, a command is received that designates a base shape. A navigation order of a plurality of shapes relative to the base shape is determined, where the plurality of shapes are adjacent to the base shape. The navigation order is presented by presenting identifiers of the plurality of shapes and an ordered sequence of the plurality of shapes. Focus is moved between the plurality of shapes in the navigation order after the navigation order is presented.
US08959439B2
In one embodiment, an industrial automation device having a visual component is provided that includes a user viewable screen displaying a visual representation of a first object, wherein the first object comprises a plurality of properties, connections, and text associated with the object, second object, wherein the second object comprises a plurality of properties, connections, and text, and wherein the output from the first object is coupled to the second object via a connection, wherein the output of the first object is converted from a first type to a second type. A method is also provided that includes receiving a signal into a first object, outputting data from the first object, wherein the data has a first type, converting the data into a second type, and receiving the data into a second object.
US08959427B1
The disclosure describes exemplary methods and systems for building search-friendly websites from templates on a browser based or web-enabled stand-alone website builder application. The website builder application is an HTML page with JavaScript function calls and HTML content blocks enclosed with JavaScript functions. Each HTML content block includes HTML content and HTML IDs. The HTML page includes style scripts that update to reflect retailer implemented template property changes. When the user chooses a different layout for the website template, inputs to a JavaScript moving function in the form of HTML IDs of the origin HTML content and a destination HTML content block cause the JavaScript moving function to re-write the HTML content of the origin HTML content block to the destination HTML content block. The JavaScript moving function removes the origin HTML content block. The CSS styling from the destination HTML content block automatically applies to the static HTML content.
US08959417B2
A memory controller provides low-latency error correcting code (ECC) capability for a memory. In some implementations, the controller is configured to receive a memory access command that includes an address and a length associated with data that is to be transferred to or from the memory device, and transfer one or more bytes of data and one or more bytes of ECC information to or from locations of the memory device associated with the address and the length.
US08959409B2
In wireless communication networks that use ARQ/HARQ feedback protocols, when a first device receives an apparent HARQ ACK from a second device, the first device may make a new transmission using a HARQ Channel ID whose previous usage was under conditions indicating a likelihood of error in the ACK. When the second device receives the new transmission, the reuse of that HARQ Channel ID in a new transmission rather than a retransmission lets the second device know that its previous NAK transmission was incorrectly received as an ACK.
US08959404B2
A method for controlling access operations of a flash memory includes: receiving first source data from a host; generating a plurality of first scrambled signals according to a plurality of pseudo random sequences and the first source data; obtaining a plurality of transmission powers of the first scrambled signals; and selecting a target scrambled signal from the first scrambled signals according to the transmission powers for storing to the flash memory. An associated flash memory device and an associated flash memory controller are also provided.
US08959401B2
In a system operations management apparatus, a burden to a system administrator when providing a decision criterion in detection of a failure in the future is reduced. The system operations management apparatus 1 includes a performance information accumulation unit 12, a model generation unit 30 and an analysis unit 31. The performance information accumulation unit 12 stores performance information including a plurality of types of performance values in a system in time series. The model generation unit 30 generates a correlation model including one or more correlations between the different types of performance values stored in the performance information accumulation unit 12 for each of a plurality of periods having one of a plurality of attributes. The analysis unit 31 performs abnormality detection of the performance information of the system which has been inputted by using the inputted performance information and the correlation model corresponding to the attribute of a period in which the inputted performance information has been acquired.
US08959399B2
An industrial controller module (13a) is provided with a routine of program instructions (29a) for storing a log of I/O table state changes (31) in a defined portion of memory (23). Upon the occurrence of a trigger event, a file of the state changes (37) is saved in the memory (23). Each entry (32) in the log of I/O table state changes (31) includes a timestamp (33) and values of each word of I/O state data (36) that changed at a time of the timestamp. Logs of state change data (16a), including timestamp data can also be saved for intelligent sensors and actuators (16) and uploaded with the log of controller processor state data (31) to a computer (20) with a diagnostic program (21a) for playing back the state changes and synchronizing changes of the intelligent sensors and actuators (16) with changes of the controller processor module (13a).
US08959397B2
A computer-on-Module debug card assembly and a control system thereof comprising: a carrier module with a carrier board and electronic components thereon wherein the carrier board is provided with a plurality of I/O connectors and at least a bus; a debug module electrically connected to the carrier board and comprising a debug card and electronic components thereon wherein the debug card is equipped with a detecting component, at least a bus, and a plurality of switch buttons used to check switching; a COM express system electrically connected to the debug card and comprising a COM express board and electronic components thereon wherein the COM express board is provided with modular components and at least a bus. As such, it is able to identify messages for a CPU-bearing COM express board and a carrier board in the COM express system during debugging, streamlining the procedure and saving time.
US08959395B2
A system and method for distributed fault detection. In an exemplary method, unplanned application exits and crashes may be detected at a node local level. Further, application hangs may be detected using at least one of a script and a binary at the node local level. Also, node crashes and operating system crashes may be detected using node to node heart-beating.
US08959382B2
A method of communicating in an electronic system or apparatus is disclosed. The method includes using a processor to communicate with a peripheral. The method further includes using the peripheral to request a clock signal. The method also includes selectively control communication of the clock signal to the peripheral in response to the request.
US08959376B2
Methods, systems, and power sharing servers that include a computer processor; a computer memory operatively coupled to the computer processor; a power supply unit coupled to a power domain unit via a power supply unit port; an intravoltage port configured to receive a shared power cable coupled to an intravoltage port of a different power sharing server; and a transfused power card coupled to the power supply unit via a primary input power line, the transfused power card further coupled to the intravoltage port via a shared power line, the transfused power card configured to export electrical current via an intravoltage port when the transfused power card is receiving electrical current, above a threshold, from the power supply unit, and import electrical current via the intravoltage port when the transfused power card is not receiving electrical current, above the threshold, from the power supply unit.
US08959375B2
A system and method for power management of storage resources are disclosed. A method may include detecting an occurrence of an event associated with a storage resource disposed in an array of storage resources. The method may further include transitioning the storage resource into a specified power state in response to the detection of the occurrence of the event. A system may include a storage resource and a power management module communicatively coupled to the storage resource. The storage resource may be disposed in an array of storage resources. The power management module may be operable to detect an occurrence of an event associated with the storage resource, and may be operable to transition the storage resource into a specified power state in response to the detection of the occurrence of the event.
US08959374B2
A method of power management for devices in a data storage fabric is disclosed. The data storage fabric includes a PHY having a first power condition and a second power condition coupled to a power condition independent device on the data storage fabric. The power condition independent device detects a change in the power configuration of the PHY from the first power condition to the second power condition. The power condition independent device then changes its power state to a comparable power state preselected to correspond with the second power condition.
US08959370B2
The invention concerns scheduling an application comprised of precedence constrained parallel tasks on a high-performance computer system. The computer system has a plurality of processors each enabled to operate on different voltage supply levels. First, a priority order for the tasks based on the computation and communication costs of the tasks is determined. Next, the based on the priority order of the tasks, assigning each task both a processor and a voltage level that substantially minimizes energy consumption and completion time for performing that task when compared to energy consumption and completion time for performing that task on different combinations of processor and voltage level. It is an advantage of the invention that the scheduling takes account not only completion time (makespan), but also energy consumption. Aspects of the invention include a method, software, a scheduling module of a computer and a schedule.
US08959368B2
Methods and systems for powering-off a Bluetooth device from a linked device are provided. A device can transmit a Bluetooth signal to a linked device to instruct the linked device to power-off. In this manner, the user need only turn off one device manually which results in all linked devices being powered off. This process can be initiated by a user through a device directly linked with the device to be powered-off or through a device that is indirectly connected, through one or more Bluetooth networks, with the device to be powered-off. This process can also be automatically initiated by a device when a set of predetermined conditions exist. Once instructed to do so, a device can initiate a predetermined power-off process which can involve terminating any ongoing functions and turning off various subsystems. In accordance with the present invention, a user can initiate a power-off of all the devices on a Bluetooth network through a single device.
US08959359B2
A method for improving the security of secret authentication data during authentication transactions is provided that includes converting the secret authentication data of a user into scrambled secret authentication data by associating a different text-string with each item of information included in the secret authentication data. The method also includes capturing the scrambled secret authentication data with a communications device, and conducting an authentication transaction with the captured authentication data.
US08959340B2
A method is provided for transferring data linked to an application installed on a security module associated with a mobile terminal, the data being stored in a first secure memory area of the security module, suitable for receiving a request to access the data, to read the data, and to transmit or store the data after encryption. A method is also provided for accessing these data suitable for transmitting a request to access, to receive and to decrypt the encrypted data. A security module, a management server, and a system implementing the transfer and access methods are also provided.
US08959317B2
A microcomputer includes: a plurality of register lists having a plurality of register patterns, respectively, wherein each of plurality of register patterns designates registers, data of which are to be saved in a data memory; an instruction fetch control circuit configured to fetch instruction code from an instruction memory in response to an interrupt request issued based on occurrence of an interrupt factor; and a register data saving control circuit configured to acquire one register pattern from one of the plurality of register lists in response to the interrupt request, and issue a microinstruction based on the acquired register pattern in response to the interrupt request. An instruction executing section is configured to execute the microinstruction prior to the fetched instruction code, to save the data of registers designated based on the acquired register pattern in the data memory.
US08959315B2
A multithreaded processor comprises a plurality of hardware thread units, an instruction decoder coupled to the thread units for decoding instructions received therefrom, and a plurality of execution units for executing the decoded instructions. The multithreaded processor is configured for controlling an instruction issuance sequence for threads associated with respective ones of the hardware thread units. On a given processor clock cycle, only a designated one of the threads is permitted to issue one or more instructions, but the designated thread that is permitted to issue instructions varies over a plurality of clock cycles in accordance with the instruction issuance sequence. The instructions are pipelined in a manner which permits at least a given one of the threads to support multiple concurrent instruction pipelines.
US08959310B2
An approach is provided which a system selects a first virtual function from a plurality of virtual functions executing on a network adapter that includes a memory area. Next, the system allocates, in the memory area, a memory corresponding to the first virtual function. The system then stores one or more translation entries in the allocated memory partition, which are utilized to send data traversing through the first virtual function. As such, the system sends, utilizing one or more of the translation entries, the data packets from the network adapter to one or more destinations. In turn, the system dynamically resizes the memory partition based upon an amount of the memory partition that is utilized to store the one or more translation entries.
US08959303B2
According to one embodiment, an information processor includes an operator and an address protector. The address protector includes a register access interface, an address table, and an access determination module. The register access interface is configured to receive address protection information from the operator. The address table is configured to store the received address protection information. The access determination module is configured to determine whether an access to an address specified by the operator is allowable based on the address protection information, and configured to output an interrupt signal to the operator when the access is unallowable.
US08959293B2
Techniques are described herein that are capable of optimizing (i.e., deduplicating) data in a virtualization environment. For example, optimization designations (a.k.a. deduplication designations) may be assigned to respective regions of a virtualized storage file. A virtualized storage file is a file that is configured to be mounted as a disk or a volume to provide a file system interface for accessing hosted files. In accordance with this example, each optimization designation indicates an extent to which the respective region is to be optimized (i.e., deduplicated). In another example, a virtualized storage file is mounted to provide a virtual disk that includes hosted files. In accordance with this example, optimization designations are assigned to the respective hosted files. In further accordance with this example, each optimization designation indicates an extent to which the respective hosted file is to be optimized.
US08959291B2
Described embodiments provide a multi-port memory system that has a plurality of memory banks and an equal number of mapping memory banks, each one of the data memory banks corresponding to one of the mapping memory banks. The multi-port memory reads, from one of the mapping memory banks selected by a read logical bank number, a read physical bank number identifying which one of the data memory banks data is to be read. The memory system also calculates, from at least one physical bank number read from the mapping memory banks other than the mapping memory bank selected by the read logical bank number, a write physical bank number indicating which one of the data memory banks is to be written. The calculation uses a hash of the physical bank numbers, such as by using an Exclusive-OR. This arrangement allows for simultaneous read/write access of the memory with fixed latency.
US08959287B1
A method is used in managing caches for reporting storage system information. A cache is created. The cache includes information associated with a set of storage objects of a data storage system. The information of the cache is made available to a virtual system. The virtual system uses the information for reporting storage system information. The virtual system is notified for retrieving updated storage system information from the cache.
US08959286B2
A storage subsystem combining solid state drive (SSD) and hard disk drive (HDD) technologies provides low access latency and low complexity. Separate free lists are maintained for the SSD and the HDD and blocks of file system data are stored uniquely on either the SSD or the HDD. When a read access is made to the subsystem, if the data is present on the SSD, the data is returned, but if the block is present on the HDD, it is migrated to the SSD and the block on the HDD is returned to the HDD free list. On a write access, if the block is present in the either the SSD or HDD, the block is overwritten, but if the block is not present in the subsystem, the block is written to the HDD.
US08959279B2
Populating a first stride of tracks from a first cache to write to a second stride in a second cache
Provided are a computer program product, system, and method for managing data in a cache system comprising a first cache, a second cache, and a storage system. A determination is made of tracks stored in the storage system to demote from the first cache. A first stride is formed including the determined tracks to demote. A determination is made of a second stride in the second cache in which to include the tracks in the first stride. The tracks from the first stride are added to the second stride in the second cache. A determination is made of tracks in strides in the second cache to demote from the second cache. The determined tracks to demote from the second cache are demoted.
US08959276B2
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention disclose a method and system for executing data permute and data shift instructions. In a step, an exemplary embodiment encodes a control index value using the recoding logic into a 1-hot-of-n control for at least one of a plurality of datum positions in the one or more target registers. In another step, an exemplary embodiment conditions the 1-hot-of-n control by a gate-free logic configured for at least one of the plurality of datum positions in the one or more target registers for each of the data permute instructions and the at least one data shift instruction. In another step, an exemplary embodiment selects the 1-hot-of-n control or the conditioned 1-hot-of-n control based on a current instruction mode. In another step, an exemplary embodiment transforms the selected 1-hot-of-n control into a format applicable for the crossbar switch.
US08959275B2
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention disclose a method and system for executing data permute and data shift instructions. In a step, an exemplary embodiment encodes a control index value using the recoding logic into a 1-hot-of-n control for at least one of a plurality of datum positions in the one or more target registers. In another step, an exemplary embodiment conditions the 1-hot-of-n control by a gate-free logic configured for at least one of the plurality of datum positions in the one or more target registers for each of the data permute instructions and the at least one data shift instruction. In another step, an exemplary embodiment selects the 1-hot-of-n control or the conditioned 1-hot-of-n control based on a current instruction mode. In another step, an exemplary embodiment transforms the selected 1-hot-of-n control into a format applicable for the crossbar switch.
US08959274B2
In one embodiment, an interface may include various mechanisms to handle incoming clock and data signals. More specifically, the interface includes a first multiplexer to receive a first data signal via a serial peripheral interface (SPI) bus coupled to a first pin and a second multiplexer to receive a first clock signal via the SPI bus coupled to a second pin of the first IC and a second clock signal via an inter-integrated circuit (I2C) bus coupled to a third pin. In addition, the interface may include a decoder to receive the second clock signal and a second data signal via the I2C bus coupled to a fourth pin.
US08959268B2
The disclosure provides a technique of enabling to appropriately confirm the state of a partner apparatus in high-speed serial communication. An information processing apparatus includes a master and a slave which is connected with the master by a plurality of signal lines. The master and the slave are configured to perform a handshake by changing a signal level of a respective data signal line for a period of time longer than a cycle of a clock each other.
US08959267B2
Provided is a method for controlling and driving constituent elements of an external device connected to user equipment. The method may include obtaining external device information from the external device when coupled to the user equipment, obtaining application information based on the obtained external device information, and running an application tailored for the external device based on the obtained application information.
US08959260B2
According to one embodiment, the host controller includes a register set to issue command, and a direct memory access (DMA) unit and accesses a system memory and a device. First, second, third and fourth descriptors are stored in the system memory. The first descriptor includes a set of a plurality of pointers indicating a plurality of second descriptors. Each of the second descriptors comprises the third descriptor and fourth descriptor. The third descriptor includes a command number, etc. The fourth descriptor includes information indicating addresses and sizes of a plurality of data arranged in the system memory. The DMA unit sets, in the register set, the contents of the third descriptor forming the second descriptor, from the head of the first descriptor as a start point, and transfers data between the system memory and the host controller in accordance with the contents of the fourth descriptor.
US08959247B2
Aspects of customized delivery of content by a broadband gateway are provided. A broadband gateway may be operable to determine one or more characteristics of acquired content. The gateway may be operable to determine, based on the determined characteristics, whether the acquired content may be compatible with a device. In instances that the acquired content is not compatible with the device, the gateway may transcode the acquired content to make it compatible with the device. The one or more characteristics may comprise an identity or a type of a provider associated with the acquired content, a quality of the acquired content, power consumption associated with communicating the acquired content to a destination device, or power consumption associated with presenting or otherwise processing the acquired content on a destination device.
US08959227B2
A cluster server manages allocation of free blocks to cluster clients performing writes in a clustered file system. The cluster server manages free block allocation with a free block map and an in-flight block map. The free block map is a data structure or hardware structure with data that indicates blocks or extents of the clustered file system that can be allocated to a client for the client to write data. The in-flight block map is a data structure or hardware structure with data that indicates blocks that have been allocated to clients, but remain in-flight. A block remains in-flight until the clustered file system metadata has been updated to reflect a write performed to that block by a client. After a consistency snapshot of the metadata is published to the storage resources, the data at the block will be visible to other nodes of the cluster.
US08959224B2
A method and apparatus for processing of data packets by a data processing component comprising a plurality of processing resources. A metric value for a current configuration of the processing resources that are processing the data packets is identified. A new configuration of the processing resources is selected using the metric value. The current configuration of the processing resources is changed to the new configuration and data packets are distributed to the new configuration for processing as the data packets are received.
US08959223B2
A method, apparatus, and program product build a high resiliency system pool in a computing system by analyzing hardware resources configured on a plurality of computing nodes in the computing system. The plurality of computing nodes in the computing system are analyzed to determine whether redundant hardware resources are configured thereon, an identifier associated with the computing node is adjusted in response to the determined redundant hardware resources configured thereon, and the computing nodes are added to a high resiliency virtual system pool for use by the system in assigning tasks to perform, in monitoring system health, in monitoring hardware resource events.
US08959202B2
Client terminals report an easy-to-calculate identifier such as the Internet URL or a cryptographic hash of the content to a server. The server collects and counts the reported identifiers so as to obtain preliminary statistics. By aggregating these reported identifiers into the preliminary statistics, identifiers are revealed that are likely popular content. The server selects one or more identifiers from the preliminary statistics and makes these available to at least a subset of clients. The clients that obtain these one or more identifiers then access content and compute the easy-to-calculate identifiers as usual. If the computed identifier matches one of the identifiers obtained from the server, the client will additionally extract a watermarked identifier or compute a digital fingerprint of the content in question and report this to the server. The server then uses the received identifier or fingerprint to create final statistics by aggregating the preliminary statistics.
US08959195B1
Techniques are disclosed for measuring and attesting to service levels offered by a service provider in a computing system implemented with a distributed virtual infrastructure. In one example, a method comprises the following steps. Information is maintained relating to one or more services offered by one or more service providers in accordance with a distributed virtual infrastructure. One or more service level claims associated with the one or more services are validated. A subscriber is sent validation results for at least a portion of the one or more services.
US08959194B1
Techniques are described for merging device schemas to manage different versions of network devices in the same device family. In one example, a computing device includes an interface to receive a first schema to be used for managing a first version of a device in a device family and a second, different schema to be used for managing a second version of the device, a computer-readable medium encoded with instructions for a schema merger module, and a processor to execute the schema merger module to merge the first schema and the second schema to produce a resulting merged schema to be used for managing both the first version of the device and the second version of the device, wherein the resulting merged schema expresses differences between the first schema and the second schema and includes a single instance of each common portion between the first schema and the second schema.
US08959192B1
User-context management techniques can be performed on a context server. The context server may receive user-context information from a client device. The context server may store the user-context information at a context repository in accordance with a particular context model and in accordance with a particular set of rules. Resources accessed by the client device may retrieve the user-context information.
US08959188B2
Creating service accounts involves receiving an account identifier entered by a user via a user interface to initiate registering a user device with a network account. One or more host names are determined based on a domain name portion of the account identifier. The one or more host names need not be preconfigured on the user device. Connections are attempted with each of the one or more host names. Each of the connection attempts uses one or more application protocols associated with a type of the network account. It is determined that at least one of the connection attempts results in a successful connection, and a user account is configured on the user device based on a host and protocol combination associated with the successful connection.
US08959181B2
A method and apparatus for creating and posting media is provided. For example, the invention allows a user to quickly create, signal process, encode, and transfer media files to a server for storage, posting, distribution, and retrieval. Thus, media such as audio, video, display, photo, spreadsheet, Web Clips, and HTML pages can be combined into a media file for uploading to a server and accessed from listings posted at web sites. In accordance with embodiments, a user downloads and installs a plug-in at the user's client computer. The user then registers and logs onto the server to perform various tasks. For example, the user can create a combined audio and photo media file at the client computer, in accordance with server based control parameters received from the system server. The plug-in then allows the user to perform digital signal processing and encoding of the media file at the client computer. After the file is encoded, it may be uploaded to a server for storage, posting, distribution, and retrieval. A file management system provides copies and listings of the file to other servers and web sites as permitted. Thus, other user having access to the database or web site lists via other client computers may select the file for retrieval. In accordance with another aspect of the invention, an information management system provides file and file list rankings based upon selection or click through of files and file listings.
US08959178B2
A transmission apparatus for transmitting content data to a receiving apparatus includes an establishing unit configured to establish a state where the content data can be transmitted to the receiving apparatus, a reception unit configured to receive a transmission request of the content data from the receiving apparatus in the established state where the content data can be transmitted, and a control unit configured to perform control such that, while a number of transmissions of the content data is equal to or greater than a predetermined number, the control unit does not transmit the content data to the receiving apparatus having issued the transmission request but keeps the state where the content data can be transmitted to the receiving apparatus and, when the number of transmissions of the content data becomes less than the predetermined number, the control unit permits the content data to be transmitted to the receiving apparatus.
US08959172B2
Methods, apparatus, and products are disclosed for self-pacing DMA data transfer operations for nodes in a parallel computer that include: transferring, by an origin DMA on an origin node, a RTS message to a target node, the RTS message specifying an message on the origin node for transfer to the target node; receiving, in an origin injection FIFO for the origin DMA from a target DMA on the target node in response to transferring the RTS message, a target RGET descriptor followed by a DMA transfer operation descriptor, the DMA descriptor for transmitting a message portion to the target node, the target RGET descriptor specifying an origin RGET descriptor on the origin node that specifies an additional DMA descriptor for transmitting an additional message portion to the target node; processing, by the origin DMA, the target RGET descriptor; and processing, by the origin DMA, the DMA transfer operation descriptor.
US08959171B2
The disclosed embodiments relate to an apparatus and method for acknowledging a data transfer. The first protocol may generate a request for a data transfer. The second protocol may receive the request for a data transfer from the first protocol. With the request, the second protocol may determine if the request for the data transfer contains a request for acknowledgement of completion of the data transfer. The second protocol may send a request corresponding to the request for data transfer to a third protocol. If the request for data transfer does contain a request for acknowledgement of completion of the data transfer, then the second protocol may set a variable in memory to wait for an event to correspond to the completion of the request and send an acknowledgement to the first protocol upon the occurrence of the event.
US08959167B2
Particular embodiments evaluate a plurality of messages. Each message may be associated with an author. Information may be logged for each message, such as information associated with the author, information associated with one or more designated recipients of the message, and time information. Correlation values may be determined for one or more sets of designated recipients based on at least a portion of the logged information. Particular embodiments may determine an association amongst a plurality of users over time. The determination may be based on the correlation values. At least one of the plurality of users may comprise at least one of the designated recipients.
US08959154B2
A system and method for connecting remote player devices to regulated host gaming devices in a network to provide remote game play. A host gaming device is configured to provide game information to a plurality of remote player devices to allow remote play of the host game device. Whether each remote player device is permitted to receive gaming data is based upon, at least in part, the geographic location of the remote player device.
US08959151B1
A system and method for providing per-page multi-party communication sessions to users are disclosed. The system includes a communication module and a session module. The communication module receives page identification data identifying a web page navigated to by a user. The session module determines a multi-party communication session associated with the web page based at least in part on the page identification data and attribute data describing a communication attribute. The session module adds the user to the multi-party communication session associated with the web page.
US08959131B2
Apparatus for processing data includes processing circuitry 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26 and decoder circuitry 14 for decoding program instructions. The program instructions decoded include a floating point pre-conversion instruction which performs round-to-nearest ties to even rounding upon the mantissa field of an input floating number to generate an output floating point number with the same mantissa length but with the mantissa rounded to a position corresponding to a shorter mantissa field. The output mantissa field includes a suffix of zero values concatenated the rounded value. The decoder for circuitry 14 is also responsive to an integer pre-conversion instruction to quantize and input integer value using round-to-nearest ties to even rounding to form an output integer operand with a number of significant bits matched to the mantissa size of a floating point number to which the integer is later to be converted using an integer-to-floating point conversion instruction.
US08959126B2
A device management apparatus is capable of communicating with a plurality of devices connected thereto via a network. The device management apparatus includes a storage unit that stores therein setting items and setting values for the devices; an acquiring unit that acquires, from each of the devices, a file describing a setting item currently set in the device and a current setting value of the setting item; a determination unit that determines whether the acquired file includes a setting item not being stored in the storage unit; and a storage controller that causes the storage unit, if the acquired file includes a setting item not being stored in the storage unit, to store therein the setting item not being stored in the storage unit and a current setting value of the setting item.
US08959124B2
A plurality of functions to configure a unit of a storage volume is maintained, wherein each of the plurality of functions, in response to being applied to the unit of the storage volume, configures the unit of the storage volume differently. Statistics are computed on growth rate of data and access characteristics of the data stored in the unit of the storage volume. A determination is made as to which of the plurality of functions to apply to the unit of the storage volume, based on the computed statistics.
US08959123B2
Generally described, the present invention is directed to a network operating system that provides more effective ways of leveraging the connectivity of computer networks. In one embodiment, an XML virtual machine is implemented that accepts high-level application code written in an XML programming language as input. Functionality is provided to interpret or translate the application code written in an XML programming language into code that is suitable for execution across computer platforms. Moreover, the XML virtual machine supports the Model View Controller (MVC) design paradigm that facilitates true data abstraction from applications to a common data model. Multi-instance applications, with each instance potentially supporting multiple views, may be created and executed.
US08959121B2
A first record of a first component of a service is provided from a memory to a requester of the first component of the service. The first record of the first component of the service is edited using a processor of a computer in accordance with a request from the requester of the first component of the service. A second component of the service is provided in accordance with the edited first record of the first component of the service in the memory.
US08959118B2
A method for inserting a file in a search tree (B-tree) implemented on a file system, includes: (a) in response to a current node being a root node or an internal node, determining a child node; (b) repeating (a) until a leaf node is detected; (c) in response to a number of leaf nodes at a level of the leaf node exceeding an upper limit of files or a number of child nodes of a current node exceeding an upper limit of sub-directories, balancing the level of the leaf node or child nodes; and (d) inserting the file at the level of the leaf node.
US08959112B2
A computer-implemented method of semantically linking, by a computing device, a citing document to a cited document in a corpus of documents includes locating at least one citation present in the citing document, determining a reason-for-citing for at least one citation, and determining a cited-text-area present in the cited document, wherein the cited-text-area corresponds with the reason-for-citing. The method further includes populating a citation entry of a citation-pairing metadata file with a citing-document identifier, a reason-for-citing identifier, a cited-document identifier, and a cited-text-area identifier. The citation-pairing metadata file includes a plurality of citation entries and is stored separately from the citing document and the cited document.
US08959107B2
Methods and systems for collecting database performance data. During operation a database server can receive a set of T-SQL statements, wherein the database server executes on a computer system and provides access to a database. Next, the database server can execute the set of T-SQL statements, thereby causing the database server to: (1) create an external script which, when executed by the computer system, collects performance data in a file; (2) execute the external script on the computer system; (3) wait for the external script to complete execution; and (4) load the performance data from the file into a table in the database.
US08959104B2
Systems and methods for determining query suggestions based upon content items are provided. Content items may include, without limitation, a search query result item, e.g., displayed on a search results web page, an advertisement, and a query-based query suggestion. Once determined content-item-based query suggestions are presented to the user. If desired, such presentation may be dynamically exposed in response to a user action, for instance, in response to a user hovering over a portion of the associated content item for at least a predetermined period of time.
US08959099B2
Techniques described herein enable searching for multimedia content and for downloading or scheduling the recording of the multimedia content. The multimedia content may have been previously stored on one or more databases. The client device may download or schedule the recording of multimedia content in one step, for example, in one touch. When desired multimedia content is not available, the multimedia content is added to the client device's wish list. When the client device's does not have a wish list, the client device's wish list may be created on the spot. During the scheduling of the recording, a tag associated with the multimedia content is checked to determine whether the multimedia content is live or delayed. When the tag indicates the multimedia content is live or delayed, the client device prompts with a suggestion to add extra time to the end of the recording of the multimedia content.
US08959094B2
As described herein, a database machine is provided with specialized hardware that can be used to accelerate the sort function. This hardware lowers the computation cost of performing a raw sort operation over the result rows. The hardware may be embodied in a direct circuit (e.g., ASIC), a programmable circuit (e.g., FPGA), a parallel compute engine (e.g., GPU) or any parallel computer. A hardware-assisted sort procedure provides for the early return of up to K results. This early return feature is critically valuable in database operations because often an entire result set is not required. For requests that require only the first L results, when L<=K the query can be satisfied with only a single pass over the data. The hardware- or GPU-assisted sort procedure, referred to herein as “scraper sort,” may be based on modifications of well-known, existing parallel sort algorithms.
US08959092B2
The present disclosure comprises systems and methods for providing a stream of only those photographs (including those inter-mixed with videos and hybrid types (animated gifs, animated photo bursts, etc.)) that may be of interest to particular users in a social network based on consideration of user social graphs and other external signals generated for the photographs based on predefined criteria to determine user interest levels. The systems and methods obtain photographs, retrieve social graphs for particular users, evaluate and filter photographs, rank them, and limit the number of photographs provided for viewing from a single source. Accordingly, only photographs that are determined to be most interesting to particular users are provided for display to them.
US08959063B2
The present disclosure describes methods, systems, and computer program products for managing incident reports can include receiving alert messages from multiple tenants and aggregating the alert messages into a reduced, correlated incident reports. For example, the method includes receiving, from a number of tenants, alert reports that represent at least one system alert incident associated with the tenants. The alert reports can be collected and analyzed for duplicate reports. The analysis for duplicate reports can include identifying a number of duplicate alert reports and correlating each identified duplicate alert reports into a correlated incident report. The correlated incident report can be aggregated into a summarized incident report for processing.
US08959058B1
A data backup manager links data backup robustness to an external state. The data backup manager monitors the external state. Responsive to the external state, the data backup manager adjusts parameters controlling data backup, such as backup frequency, backup content, and backup retention time. The data backup manager can increase these parameters responsive to an increase in an external distress state level, and decrease them in response to a decrease in the external distress state level.
US08959056B1
Method and apparatus for evaluating a backup policy in a computer network is described. In one example, a control limit is established for each of a plurality of backup tasks in the backup policy based on a set of backup statistics. An aggregate requirement for the backup policy is computed by combining control limits for the plurality of backup tasks. The aggregate requirement is compared with aggregate capabilities of the computer network. The backup policy is evaluated based on the results of the comparison.
US08959039B2
A hierarchy of computing modules is configured to learn a cause of input data sensed over space and time, and is further configured to determine a cause of novel sensed input data dependent on the learned cause. At least one of the computing modules has a sequence learner module configured to associate sequences of input data received by the computing module to a set of causes previously learned in the hierarchy.
US08959038B2
The present invention relates to a prosthetic device including a prosthetic joint which accurately transitions between a loose mode and a stiff mode to more accurately mimic a human gait. The prosthetic joint includes a state controller which utilizes a sensor to detect prosthetic joint movement data, and compares it with prosthetic joint movement decision values to determine when a solenoid should be energized to place the prosthetic joint in the loose mode. An optimization unit connects to the prosthetic joint in a prosthetic joint system. The optimization unit generates a plurality of data files containing prosthetic joint movement data corresponding to an amputee walking without stumbling. By iteratively analyzing the prosthetic joint movement data, the optimization unit adjusts the prosthetic joint movement decision values to ensure that the prosthetic joint does not prematurely enter a stumble recovery state.
US08959037B2
A system for generating personalized channels of multimedia content. The system comprises an interface to one or more multimedia sources, wherein the multimedia sources provide multimedia content to the personalized channels of multimedia content; and a server for receiving multimedia content from the one or more multimedia sources through the interface and for serving selected multimedia content to users of the system over one or more of the personalized channels; wherein a user of the system receives personalized multimedia content gathered by the server into the one or more of the personalized channels responsive of preferences of the user as observed by the system for the user, wherein the server is further configured to remove multimedia content from the one or more personalized multimedia content channels based on the preferences of the user.
US08959036B2
Remote monitoring and control of the interior environment of a refrigerated shipping container is described. A communications and monitoring device is coupled to a data communications port of a controller of a shipping container. The device is able to receive an operational parameter directly from the controller, without having to install additional instrumentation within the interior of the refrigerated shipping container, and send the operational parameter to a remote station. The device is also able to receive data to control the operation of the refrigerated shipping container from a remote station and send this control data to the controller of the refrigerated shipping container through the data communications port.
US08959032B2
A system and method of transaction processing is provided. The system includes a central server, which, after receiving transaction and recipient information from an initiator, sends a verification code to the initiator. The server also sends instructions for the initiator to send the code to a recipient via an outside communication channel. The server receives the verification code from the recipient, and verifies the transaction. In this manner, security may be maintained.
US08959029B2
A coin processing and redemption system includes a coin processing machine configured to receive a batch of coins in an input region and process the batch of coins to determine a value thereof. A dispensing device is provided and is configured to output a redemption ticket bearing a code. The coin processing machine is configured to associate the redemption ticket code with a coin processing transaction prior to the determination of a value of a batch of coins.
US08959028B2
A remote data acquisition and transmission system for vending machines may be provided. The system may comprise a vending machine and at least one host device. The vending machine may comprise a vending machine controller; and an Internet Protocol (IP) network interface operable to communicate operation data to and from the vending machine controller. The at least one host device may be communicatively coupled to the IP network interface via at least one IP network, and the host device may be operable to communicate operation data to and from the IP network interface.
US08959023B2
A computing device may receive an incoming communication and, in response, generate a notification that indicates that the incoming communication can be accessed using a particular application on the communication device. The computing device may further provide an audio signal indicative of the notification and automatically activate a listening mode. The computing device may receive a voice input during the listening mode, and an input text may be obtained based on speech recognition performed upon the voice input. A command may be detected in the input text. In response to the command, the computing device may generate an output text that is based on at least the notification and provide a voice output that is generated from the output text via speech synthesis. The voice output identifies at least the particular application.
US08959005B2
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for determining a building envelope. In one aspect, a method includes generating two-dimensional analytical faces; generating a three-dimensional shell bounding box that encompasses the analytical faces; determining, for each analytical face, one or more sample points; performing a flood-fill algorithm from a reference grid cell through other grid cells in the shell bounding box; casting one or more primary rays from each grid cell encountered by the flood-fill algorithm that does not contain any of the sample points but that directly neighbors a grid cell that does contain a sample point; for each ray, identifying as an exterior face the first analytical face within a vicinity of the grid cell from which the ray is cast that is intersected by the ray; and generating a building envelope based on the identified exterior faces.
US08958998B2
An electronic battery tester for testing a storage battery includes test circuitry configured to provide a battery test output related to a condition of the battery. A memory stores a battery tester address of the battery tester, and communication circuitry transmits the battery test output formatted with the battery tester address on a communication link to a remote location.
US08958997B2
A system includes an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), one or more power supplies, and a processing device. The processing device to execute instructions which cause the processing device to determine a total output current of the one or more power supplies, enable the UPS, determine an output current of at least the UPS, determine a current sharing percentage for at least the UPS, and compare the current sharing percentage for the UPS with an expected current sharing percentage range.
US08958993B2
There are provided a switching-device remaining lifetime diagnosis method and a switching-device remaining lifetime diagnosis apparatus, wherein as status amount history data, there are accumulated status amounts related to a deterioration status of a switching device, estimated based on measurement data obtained through measurement of performance characteristics of the switching device; based on the accumulated status amount history data, there are created a plurality of system data pieces in which the status amounts are arranged with the respective abscissas of an elapsed time during an operation period of the switching device, the number of operations of the switching device, an inoperative time of the switching device, and an accumulated operation time of the switching device; based on the created system data pieces, the remaining lifetime of the switching device is estimated.
US08958987B2
A method and device for determining a shifted circular segment on the basis of an initial circular segment, the shifted circular segment being shifted by a shift distance, the method being implemented by a computer dedicated to flight management, comprises: determining a shifted final point terminating a shifted circular segment, on the basis of the final point terminating the initial circular segment, through a shift of the final point determined on the basis of the shift distance and in the direction of shift, through the use of a straight line passing through the center of the initial circular segment and the final point of the initial circular segment, and determining a shifted circular segment on the basis of the initial circular segment by construction of a circular segment between the shifted final point associated with the preceding shifted segment and the shifted final point associated with the shifted segment.
US08958981B2
A mobile device and navigation device communication system utilizing near field communication to easily capture and transfer address data and simplify programming of the navigation device is disclosed. When a mobile device receives a text message a mobile navigation communication application determines if there is an address included in the text message and if found extracts the address and encodes the address. The user then places the mobile device in close proximity to the navigation device and the data exchange is performed via near field communication. After the data exchange is complete the navigation device decodes the data into the address and searches its database to find an address match. The navigation device then displays the address for the user to confirm. After confirmation the navigation device displays the route or driving directs from the user's current location to the destination address.
US08958972B1
Various methods and systems are provided for initiating and executing a fuel routine for a vehicle. In one embodiment, a method comprises sending from a controller of a vehicle a fuel request to a fuel tender to reduce a pressure of gaseous fuel on the fuel tender and adjusting one or more vehicle operating parameters to allow consumption of the gaseous fuel at an engine of the vehicle when the pressure of the gaseous fuel is below a threshold supply pressure.
US08958968B2
A traction control device for a motorcycle eliminates a need for a waiting time for detecting an amount of change in a vehicle state and a subsequent prediction time, and can execute quick traction control. The traction control device includes an engine driving force control unit, for calculating a real slip ratio of the motorcycle, setting a target slip ratio according to a driving state of the motorcycle, and controlling a driving force of an engine so that the real slip ratio becomes the target slip ratio. The traction control device also includes a throttle grip opening degree sensor for detecting an opening degree of a throttle grip; and a bank angle sensor for detecting a bank angle of the motorcycle. The engine driving force control unit calculates the target slip ratio on a basis of the throttle opening degree and the bank angle of the motorcycle.
US08958958B2
In hybrid construction machine employing a hydraulic motor and an electric motor for the driving of the swing structure, satisfactory operability of a combined operation of the swing structure and other actuators is secured irrespective of the operating status of the electric motor.A control device of the hybrid construction machine executes control selected from: hydraulic/electric complex swing control for driving the swing structure by total torque of the electric motor and the hydraulic motor when a swing operating lever device is operated; and hydraulic solo swing control for driving the swing structure by the torque of the hydraulic motor alone when the swing operating lever device is operated. The control device controls drive torque or driving force of each of the electric motor, the hydraulic motor and a second hydraulic actuator so that the relationship between the position or the speed of the second hydraulic actuator and the swing angle or the swing speed of the swing structure in the combined operation when the swing operating lever device and a second operating lever device are operated at the same time during the hydraulic/electric complex swing control is substantially identical with the relationship in the combined operation during the hydraulic solo swing control.
US08958956B1
A battery supervisor system having an integral smart winch controller is provided for a vehicle equipped with an electric winch system and especially for off-road vehicles such as all-terrain-vehicles (ATVs), utility-task-vehicles (UTVs). and extreme-terrain-vehicles (XTVs) which are generally equipped with small batteries. The purpose of this invention is to prevent over discharge of the vehicle battery to a point where it would be difficult or impossible to start the vehicle engine and to prevent damage to the electric winch system, either of which has the potential of stranding an operator in a remote area. The battery supervisor monitors the state-of-charge of the vehicle's battery to automatically control the power to the winch and the vehicle's accessory loads. In addition, the smart winch controller takes a unique approach to protecting the winch by controlling the short term pulse (or pulses) of energy delivered to the winch and by forcing a fixed off time for the winch system to cool down, in lieu of trying to determine if components in the winch system are experiencing excessive temperatures and then turning the winch off.
US08958955B2
Equipment and processes generate a seating solution by obtaining occupant data, calculating body dimensions from the occupant data, and calculating a best-fit body arrangement for an occupant. Occupant data may be obtained in various ways using available computational devices and software or by manually measuring the relevant dimensions on the occupant. A user interface for inputting occupant metrics and/or occupant measurements may be provided in a mobile terminal included in the vehicle or separate from the vehicle, thus giving users increased flexibility while maximizing simplicity and usability for the user or other personnel obtaining the data. Once an occupant's best-fit body arrangement is determined, it may be altered by changing the predetermined criteria to achieve optimum comfort, safety, and therapeutic benefit as well as used for providing improved comfort on a continuous basis and/or in response to detected or predicted vehicle, road, or atmospheric conditions.
US08958954B2
Early actuation of an active device of a vehicle (e.g., a seat belt tensioner) is provided by applying rate of change of brake pressure to monitored brake pressure, so as to produce a modified brake pressure characteristic which is advanced in time. The active device is actuated at a brake pressure threshold.
US08958944B2
The present invention provides a technique for controlling creep torque to prevent a vehicle from rolling backward on an upward slope. In particular, a gradient of a road is calculated in real time from a detection value of a sensor and vehicle acceleration. A maximum creep torque for preventing roll-back caused by gravity according to the gradient is calculated using the gradient and vehicle information. A first creep torque reference is calculated based on the maximum creep torque and the vehicle speed. A second creep torque reference is calculated based on the maximum creep torque and the vehicle acceleration. A torque command value according to an operation state of a brake is calculated based on the first creep torque reference value and the second creep torque reference value and the gradient. In response, a torque output of a driving motor is controlled according to the calculated torque command value.
US08958941B2
A method for detecting the blockage of the purge valve (4) of a vapor filter (3) for a hybrid fuel drive vehicle including at least one internal combustion engine (1) and one electric generator/motor, includes a step of making the electric motor drive the internal combustion engine (1) so as to keep the internal combustion engine (1) at a constant speed, during a start-up phase or a phase preliminary to stopping, and at least one sequence of the following steps during this time that the internal combustion engine is kept at a constant speed: a step of opening the purge valve (4); a step of measuring at least one operating parameter of the electric motor; a step of comparing the values of the measured parameter before and after opening the purge valve (4) and of determining whether the variation in the parameter is above a predetermined threshold.
US08958929B2
In a vehicle control apparatus which performs a remote operation of a vehicle using a remote control, a remote operation of the vehicle which is not intended by a driver is prevented.When traveling control of a vehicle is performed through a remote operation from a remote control 3, a stop position of a vehicle 2 is set by a stop position setting device 9, and a movement course of the vehicle 2 is calculated by the vehicle course calculation device 10. In addition, the vehicle 2 is moved along the calculated movement course in response to a driving operation from the remote control 3, but if a driving operation from inside of the vehicle and a driving operation from the remote control 3 come into conflict, the driving operation from the remote control 3 is canceled, and the driving operation from inside of the vehicle is prioritized.
US08958915B2
An object of the present invention is to provide a robot system controlling method and robot system which perform link angle control and joint stiffness control through feedback control.
US08958912B2
Robots may manipulate objects based on sensor input about the objects and/or the environment in conjunction with data structures representing primitive tasks and, in some embodiments, objects and/or locations associated therewith. The data structures may be created by instantiating respective prototypes during training by a human trainer.
US08958906B2
In an example embodiment, a router that is configured to pass a pneumatic carrier therethrough and comprises a solid continuous curved tube, a tube rotational support, and a drive. The tube includes a first open end and a second open end opposed of the first open end. The tube rotational support is in operative supporting connection with the tube and enables the tube to rotate about an axis. The first open end is generally aligned with the first opening. In a first rotational position of the tube, the second open end is generally aligned with a first of the plurality of second openings. In a second rotational position of the tube, the second open end is generally aligned with a second of the plurality of second openings. The drive is operative to cause the tube to move between the first and second rotational positions.
US08958905B2
A method of analyzing minerals received within a mining shovel bucket includes collecting data associated with ore received in the bucket, where the bucket includes at least one active sensor, where the ore includes one or more mineral, and where the ore is within a field of the active sensor. The method further includes determining a content of the minerals using the data, transmitting information relating to the content of the minerals to a decision support system, and sorting or processing the ore based on an output of the decision support system. Collecting data associated with the ores may include generating source signals, applying the source signals to the active sensor, collecting a response from the active sensor, and comparing the response with a reference or threshold. Other features are disclosed.
US08958896B2
A routing screen is presented on an electronic device by a user interface application in response to receiving a notification that an external audio device is connected to the electronic device. The routing screen displays representations of an internal audio device and the external audio device. In one aspect, the representations are buttons. In another aspect, the representations are entries in a list. If a user selects one of representations, the user interface application causes the audio signals to be routed to the audio device represented by the selection. An application control screen having a set of objects that represent functions for an audio application may also be displayed. One of the objects on the application control screen is modified in response status changes in the external audio device. A user may select this object to access the routing screen when the external audio device is connected.
US08958895B2
An information processing system includes a storage section that stores a plurality of templates respectively corresponding to a plurality of preset sounds, an acquisition section that acquires external sound data corresponding to an external sound detected by a sound detection section, a determination section that compares the external sound data with each of the plurality of templates, and determines the type of preset sound corresponding to the external sound, and an execution section that executes a process corresponding to the determined type of preset sound.
US08958893B2
The present disclosure is directed to a device. The device includes a flexible carrier and at least one implantable circuit arranged on the flexible carrier. The device further includes at least one meandering electrical trace disposed on the flexible carrier and arranged to establish an electrically conductive path between a first contact point and a second contact point associated with the at least one implantable circuit. The at least one meandering electrical trace is configured to maintain the electrically conductive path during flexing of the flexible carrier.
US08958885B2
One embodiment relates to a medical device including a sensor to provide signals indicative of a detected posture state of a patient. A memory stores one or more defined vectors, each defined vector being associated with a tolerance describing a relationship with the defined vector. A processor determines a respective similarity between the detected vector and each of one or more of the defined vectors and classifies a posture state of the patient based on whether any similarity has a relationship to the respective defined vector that is described by the associated tolerance. In one embodiment, the similarity is determined without regard to a coordinate system of the patient. Another embodiment relates to determining the similarity based on at least one of an inner product, a length of the defined posture vector and a length of the detected vector.
US08958884B2
A system and method for programming a neurostimulation device coupled to a plurality of electrodes implanted adjacent tissue of a patient are provided. A first electrode configuration corresponding to a first mode of programming the neurostimulation device is defined. A second programming mode of programming the neurostimulation device different from the first programming mode is selected. A second electrode configuration is defined based on the first electrode configuration in response to the selection of the second programming mode. The neurostimulation device is programmed using the second programming mode.
US08958879B2
Embodiments of the invention provide apparatus and methods for stimulating L cells in the intestinal tract to produce incretins for the treatment of conditions including diabetes and obesity. Many embodiments provide a method and apparatus for the treatment of diabetes by electrically stimulating L-cells to secrete incretins to stimulate or otherwise modulate the production of insulin. Particular embodiments provide a swallowable capsule for stimulating L-cells in the intestinal tract as the capsule moves through the tract. The capsule can include two or more electrodes for providing electrical stimulation to L-cells, a power source for powering one or more components of the capsule, a sensor for sensing the location of the capsule in the intestinal tract; a controller and a waveform generator for generating the electrical signals emitted by the electrodes to stimulate the L-cells to secrete incretins such as GLP-1 to stimulate insulin production for glucose regulation of diabetic conditions.
US08958875B2
Implantable medical devices switch from a constant current mode of operation to a constant voltage mode of operation. The switching may be based on the device determining that tissue impedance stability has occurred. The determination may be a measurement of output voltage stability of the constant current source or based on other factors such as an amount of time that has elapsed. The switching may be as the result of an externally generated request such as by a clinician via an external device. The implantable medical device may begin constant voltage mode by utilizing stimulation parameters based on those initially programmed for constant current mode and based upon a measurement of voltage amplitude being output by the constant current source prior to the switch.
US08958870B2
A therapy program may be modified based on information indicative of a change in a therapy field, which may represent a region of a patient's tissue to which therapy is delivered. Upon receiving information indicative of a therapy field change, an algorithmic model of a present therapy field may be generated and compared to an algorithmic model of a baseline therapy field, which indicates a therapy field that provides efficacious therapy to the patient. If a characteristic of the present therapy field differs from the baseline therapy field model, the current therapy program may be modified. In another example, upon receiving information indicative of a therapy field change, the current therapy program may be modified, and an algorithmic model of a therapy field based on the modified therapy program may be compared to a baseline therapy field model to determine whether the modified therapy program is a suitable alternative.
US08958869B2
Methods for determining structural integrity of a bone within the spine of a patient, the bone having a first aspect and a second aspect, wherein the second aspect separated from the first aspect by a width and located adjacent to a spinal nerve. The methods involve (a) applying an electrical stimulus to the first aspect of the bone; (b) electrically monitoring a muscle myotome associated with the spinal nerve to detect if an onset neuro-muscular response occurs in response to the application of the electrical stimulus to the first aspect of the bone; (c) automatically increasing the magnitude of the electrical stimulus to until the onset neuro-muscular response is detected; and (d) communicating to a user via at least one of visual and audible means information representing the magnitude of the electrical stimulus which caused the onset neuro-muscular response.
US08958861B2
A catheter for the treatment of tissue, particularly for the treatment of cardiac tissue to alleviate cardiac arrhythmias includes a handle housing a combination of steering components, electronic circuitry and/or infusion tubing. An interior notch in the handle around a circumference of the handle perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the handle provides a means for access to the sealed handle in case a repair to the interior components is necessary during manufacture or reprocessing. The circumferential frangible connection of the two halves of the handle provides access without the use of cutting or drilling devices that could damage the interior components.
US08958853B1
A mobile device, comprising: a processor; and a memory including instructions that when executed by the processor cause it to perform the steps of: receiving a user selection to automatically enter an inactive mode in response to an action within the mobile device indicating the device is being used in a moving vehicle; receiving a communication from a wireless communication module; if the mobile device is not in inactive mode, providing a notification to the user that a communication has been received; if the mobile device is in inactive mode, transmitting an away message via the wireless module.
US08958840B2
A method and an apparatus for efficiently transmitting or reporting a Power Headroom Report (PHR) of a User Equipment (UE) are provided. The method of transmitting the PHR of the UE in a mobile communication system includes configuring an extended PHR including an indicator corresponding to a variation factor of a maximum transmission power of the UE, and transmitting the extended PHR from the UE to a Base Station (BS). The BS may be notified of a maximum transmission power of the UE and a variation factor corresponding to the maximum transmission power in order to enable efficient scheduling.
US08958837B2
Methods and apparatuses for reducing time to receive a call failure indication in a wireless communications system are provided. A request to initiate a call with a target user equipment (UE) is received from an originating UE. A call setup message that corresponds to the request is sent to a network node, and an internet control message protocol (ICMP) message indicative of the network node lacking a dedicated bearer to a radio access network that corresponds to the target UE can be received in response to the request. Based on the ICMP message, a status failure message is sent to the originating UE indicating failure of the call.
US08958836B2
A method for implementing coordinated resource allocations includes establishing one or more wireless connections using a first channel with one or more endpoints via at least one remote transceiver. The method further includes determining a schedule that assigns a first number of resource blocks to each endpoint of the one or more endpoints. The method additionally includes receiving one or more neighboring transceiver schedules determined by one or more neighboring base stations. Each neighboring transceiver schedule indicating a different number of resource blocks assigned to each neighboring remote transceiver connected to the respective neighboring base station. The method also includes determining one or more time slots and subcarriers within the first channel to assign to each resource block for each endpoint of the one or more endpoints based on the schedule and the neighboring transceiver schedules. The method further includes determining a power distribution for each resource block for each endpoint.
US08958835B2
Wireless communication methods determine a position of a first wireless base station. A wireless communication frequency to be used by the first wireless base station is determined by identifying a common frequency that can be used at a plurality of locations surrounding and spaced apart from the position of the first wireless base station that was determined. The first wireless base station may be a femto-base station and the frequency may be an unlicensed frequency. Related systems and devices are also described.
US08958826B2
A mobility pattern mining device includes: a data collecting unit configured to collect a user's historical data; a stay point obtaining unit configured to obtain stay points of the user from the historical data; an extracting unit configured to obtain a semantic tree for a certain topic and extract topic related stay points from the stay points of the user by using the semantic tree for the certain topic; a determining unit configured to determine a candidate mobility pattern of the user based on the topic related stay points; and a selecting unit configured to select a frequent mobility pattern which best matches the candidate mobility pattern of the user from a frequent mobility pattern database related to the certain topic, wherein the database is set in advance based on historical data for a plurality of users to obtain mobility patterns about topics for users.
US08958825B2
A system and a method for providing a robot interaction service utilizing a location-based service of a mobile communication terminal. The system for providing a robot interaction service utilizing location information of a mobile communication terminal, includes: a mobile communication terminal for performing a mobile communication service through a wireless communication network, measuring a current location thereof and transmitting the measured location information to a predetermined robot terminal through a communication network; and a robot terminal for receiving the location information from the mobile communication terminal, determining a robot behavior based on the received location information, and controlling the operation thereof according to the determination result.
US08958816B2
A method, computer program product and system for improving the localization of a wireless communication device within an area covered by a transceiver infrastructure includes triggering the wireless communication device to emit a positioning signal. A positioning signal is received from the wireless communication device by a further wireless communication device at a known position within the area covered by the transceiver infrastructure. The transceiver infrastructure includes at least three transceivers. A forwarding positioning signal is transmitted from the further wireless communication device to at least one of the transceivers. The wireless communication device is located based on the forwarding positioning signal.
US08958812B2
A cell load balancing method, a cell load measuring method, and devices thereof are provided. The cell load balancing method includes: acquiring information of the load of a current cell and information of the load an adjacent cell; determining a target cell in which a mobility parameter needs to be modified thereof according to the information of the load of the current cell and the information of the load of the adjacent cell; sending a parameter modification request to the determined target cell; and modifying parameters of the current cell according to content of the parameter modification request if the parameter modification response message is a parameter modification response indicating modification successful. With the above solution, a load balancing solution can be better implemented in a network, thereby improving a capacity of the network, improving a success rate of user access, and reducing access delay.
US08958801B2
An apparatus and method for efficiently manage a neighbor cell list in a mobile communication system. A method for operating a base station in a mobile communication system includes generating a neighbor cell list including at least one cell, including at least one cell among the at least one cell in a first list disallowing a handover, and disallowing a handover to the at least one cell included in the first list.
US08958791B2
This patent discloses a method to communicate between a femtocell base station and mobile devices. The method may include identifying as an alert group a set of mobile devices presently in communication with the femtocell base station and whose unique identifiers are preregistered with the femtocell base station. A first mobile device and a second mobile device may be in the set of femtocell service region mobile devices. The femtocell base station may receive a call from a third mobile device. If the call is for the second mobile device, then the method may send a paging message from the femtocell base station. The paging message may include a first unique identifier associated with the first mobile device.
US08958789B2
An optical medium, such as fiber, is tapped to provide an antenna port wherever radio service coverage is desired. Each antenna port is a bi-directional remote unit that receives a digital optical signal from a host unit and transforms the signal to a radio frequency signal for transmission by the remote unit. The remote unit receives radio frequency signals that are converted to digital signals and summed with signals from other remote units and converted to an optical signal for transmission to the host unit.
US08958788B2
An electrical apparatus control system includes: a control apparatus that is connected to a control target electrical apparatus and functions as a small-sized base station; a wireless terminal that wirelessly connects to the control apparatus; and a server that holds target apparatus data including a list of control target electrical apparatuses set for each control apparatus. The wireless terminal acquires the target apparatus data set for the control apparatus from the server via the control apparatus, and transmits operation data for controlling a control target electrical apparatus, to the control apparatus on the basis of a performed operation. The control apparatus controls the control target electrical apparatus on the basis of the operation data received from the wireless terminal.
US08958785B2
Systems and methods for terminating telephony communications to a mobile telephony device that is roaming outside of its native service area make use of a forwarding termination service. The forwarding termination service causes the native mobile telephony service provider that provides service to the mobile telephony device to forward incoming telephony communications directed the native telephone number of the mobile telephony device to a forwarding access number. The forwarding termination service receives telephony communications directed to the forwarding access number, and then terminates the telephony communication to the mobile telephony device via any one of multiple different methods. The mobile telephony service provider can be instructed to implement and cancel call forwarding instructions by dialing a special character string on the mobile telephony device.
US08958784B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, system and computer program product for telephone call co-processing in a mobile telephony environment. In an embodiment of the invention, a method of telephone call co-processing in a mobile telephony environment is provided. The method includes monitoring a resource state of a selected mobile telephone, such as cellular network signal strength or battery charge. The method additionally includes detecting weakness of the resource state sufficient to inhibit the maintenance of a telephone call in the selected mobile telephone. Finally, the method includes, in response to detecting weakness of the resource state, identifying a different mobile telephone proximate to the selected mobile telephone and utilizing the different mobile telephone to process a telephone call.
US08958783B2
A system and method for transferring information over a short range are disclosed. The system and method can be used for a variety of applications, including administrative provisioning of information to particular users, providing information relating to a user during a conference call, handing off calls to or from another phone, for other application deployment, for pass of control, and similar applications. The system includes a first device capable of short-range communication and having a client application thereon and a second device capable of short-range communication and having a client or an administrator application thereon. Information is passed between the first device and the second device using short range communication.
US08958774B2
An apparatus for performing communication by a dual network terminal is disclosed. The dual network terminal is a dual network and dual standby terminal, and the apparatus includes an application subsystem, a 3G wireless communication subsystem, a 2G wireless communication subsystem and an identity identification module. The 3G wireless communication subsystem is connected with 2G wireless communication subsystem, and wireless protocol stacks of the 3G wireless communication subsystem and 2G wireless communication subsystem include a virtual identity identification card administration module respectively. A method for performing communication by a dual network terminal is disclosed, including the 3G wireless communication subsystem reading information of identity identification card in the first virtual identity identification card administration module of 2G wireless communication subsystem into an owned second virtual identity identification card administration module, communicating with 3G network by using information of identity identification card in the second virtual identity identification card administration module.
US08958771B2
Providing automated customer care for a mobile phone is described herein. By way of example, a system can include component(s) that can automatically detect and transmit an error in interfacing a mobile phone with a communication network. The system also can include a customer care component(s) that can receive the error, initiate an error resolution process, and automatically provide a plurality of options with which to contact customer care and/or utilize customer care resources.
US08958770B2
The described subject matter relates to an architecture that can dynamically detect and/or automatically remedy service usage inequities in a communications network. In particular, based upon a comparison of incoming call detail records (CDRs) to various subscriber information (e.g., service plan, blacklisted devices for the service plan, historic or current billing cycle usage, etc.), the architecture can identify when a usage inequity occurs or is likely to occur, substantially in real time.
US08958765B2
An improved user interface is provided for a front control panel (104) of a vehicular mobile radio (100) operating in a public safety environment. A multifunction control indicator is formed of a mode indicator light ring (126) co-located about a perimeter of a multifunction control knob (124). The multifunction control knob (124) controls two or more radio functions, such as volume and channel change. The mode indicator light ring (126) generates different lighting configurations in response to the multifunction control knob (124) being pressed to change radio functions. Numerous radio functions can be monitored and controlled via the multifunction control knob (124) and mode indicator light ring (126).
US08958760B2
Electronic devices may have multiple wireless integrated circuits such as a pair of baseband processor integrated circuits and may have multiple antennas such as a pair of antennas. An electronic device may be operated in different modes depending on the operating environment of the electronic device. When both antennas are unblocked, both baseband processors and both antennas may be used in transmitting signals. When one antenna is not available, the device may be operated in a mode in which the available antenna is used and both baseband processors are used or in a mode in which the available antenna is used and only one of the baseband processors is used. Operating mode decisions may be made so as to minimize the potential for intermodulation distortion and absorbed radiation.
US08958756B2
A cognitive radio (CR) communication apparatus and method is provided. A cognitive radio (CR) communication apparatus includes a signal receiving unit which receives signals from a primary user of a primary system and a secondary transmitter of a secondary system, the received signals including an element associated with at least one known signal of the secondary transmitter, and a determination unit which determines whether a signal of the primary user exists from among the received signals based on the element associated with the at least one known signal.
US08958751B2
A system, apparatus and method is disclosed for multiband wireless communication. Frequency bands and/or transmission formats are identified as available within a range for wireless communication. The system evaluates signal quality metrics for each frequency band and selects a communication method based on the evaluation. Multiple frequency bands and communication methods can be utilized by the system such that a combination of licensed, unlicensed, semilicensed, and overlapped frequency bands can be simultaneously used for communication. The system monitors communications and can report link performance for adaptive control of the selected communication methods.
US08958750B1
The peak detection method using blind source separation extracts true peaks from noisy peaks in a more robust way that does not require any a priori information. Information regarding true peak location is obtained by thresholding the output of a wavelet transform. The value of the threshold is dependent on noise variance. While noise variance is normally unknown, the present method implements a blind source separation technique to calculate the noise variance. The blind source separation technique does not require information of the incoming signal or the channel noise, and hence is suitable for CR (cognitive radio) peak detection.
US08958739B2
A conveying device has a conveying belt configured to convey a sheet. A printing device is configured to print an image on the sheet that is conveyed by the conveying device in a conveying direction. A plurality of sensors is arranged to be spaced away from each other in a main scanning direction that is perpendicular to the conveying direction. The plurality of sensors is configured to emit light to different detection regions on an outer peripheral surface of the conveying belt and to receive light reflected by the conveying belt. A controller is configured to execute a skew-detection-mark printing process of controlling the printing device to print a skew detection mark at positions passing the respective detection regions so that the skew detection mark extends over an end of the sheet in the conveying direction and the outer peripheral surface of the conveying belt.
US08958738B2
A cleaning apparatus restrains the scattering of toners in an intermediate transfer member cleaning apparatus thereby to restrain the scattering toners from dirtying the inside of the apparatus. A cleaning container has an anti-scatter portion that enters into a fur brush. The anti-scatter portion blocks a bias roller from a space outside the cleaning apparatus.
US08958737B2
A lubricant supplying device includes a compressing spring that has one end coming into contact with a holding member in order to bias a solid lubricant toward a lubricant supplying roller and a casing that covers the outside of the device. Then, the casing includes an opening portion that allows the other end of the compressing spring, having the one end coming into contact with the holding member, to be exposed therethrough, and the casing further includes a cover member that is installed in the opening portion in a removable manner so that the cover member comes into contact with the other end of the compressing spring.
US08958735B2
An image heating rotatable member for heating an image on a recording material, comprising a base layer; a heat generation layer, provided on the base layer, for generating heat by being supplied with electric power; an electrode layer, provided outside of the heat generation layer with respect to a widthwise direction and having an electric resistance which is smaller than that of the heat generation layer, for supplying the electric power to heat generation layer; an elastic layer provided on the electrode layer and having a length longer than that of the electrode layer measured in the widthwise direction; and a parting layer provided on the elastic layer and having a length which is substantially equal to the length of the electrode layer measured in the widthwise direction.
US08958733B2
The disclosed fixing pressure member has a simple structure, is produced through simplified production processes, causes no problem due to continued use thereof, and exhibits excellent durability. Also disclosed is a method for producing such. The fixing pressure member employed in a fixing unit of a fixing device includes a sliding sheet having a sliding surface which slides with respect to the inner peripheral surface of a belt of the fixing unit, and an elastic member provided inside the sliding sheet. The sliding sheet is formed of a resin fiber woven fabric, a resin fiber knitted fabric, a resin nonwoven fabric, or a resin film. The elastic member and sliding sheet are formed through integral molding such that the elastic member is bonded to at least the inner surface of the sliding sheet opposite the sliding surface. The sliding surface has thereon an embossment formed through an embossing process.
US08958728B2
An image forming apparatus includes a toner case and an attachment member. The toner case has a transmission coupling. The attachment member has a drive coupling, an advance/retreat member and a lever. The advance/retreat member advances and retreats between a first position and a second position being closer to the drive coupling than the first position. The lever is moved between a first operation position to move the advance/retreat member to the first position and a second operation position to move the advance/retreat member to the second position. When the toner case is attached to the attachment member, the toner case engages with the advance/retreat member. In this time, when the lever is moved from the first operation position to the second operation position, the toner case together with the advance/retreat member approaches to the drive coupling and the transmission coupling is connected to the drive coupling.
US08958725B2
A powder container includes a body and a pair of walls that blocks one longitudinal end of the body and the other longitudinal end of the body. Powder is accommodated within the powder container which is mounted to an apparatus using the powder in a posture where a longitudinal direction of the body is a transverse direction of the apparatus. The powder container has an opening, through which the powder is supplied to the apparatus, formed in a lower position of the body in a posture where the powder container is mounted to the apparatus. The powder container includes a shutter and a shield. The shutter is, prior to mounting the powder container to the apparatus, in a closed location to block the opening and, when the powder container is mounted, is moved along an outer peripheral surface of the body to an opened location to open the opening.
US08958720B2
The photosensitive member cartridge includes: a photosensitive member; a mounting portion; and a shaft. The photosensitive member has an axis extending in an axial direction. The mounting portion is configured to accommodate a developing cartridge therein. The shaft extends in the axial direction. The shaft includes: a first abutment portion configured to be abuttable on the developing cartridge when the developing cartridge is mounted in the mounting portion; and a positioned portion configured to be subjected to positioning with respect to a main casing of an image forming apparatus when the photosensitive member cartridge is mounted in the main casing of the image forming apparatus.
US08958716B2
An image forming apparatus, includes: an image heating device for heating an image on a sheet; a cooling belt for cooling the sheet in close contact with the sheet heated by the image heating device; a heat sink for cooling the cooling belt; a first fan for forming airflow in the heat sink; and a second fan for forming airflow in a space between the image heating device and the cooling belt.
US08958712B2
A power control method for performing phase control is provided. The method includes generating a zero-crossing signal that indicates a first level if an absolute value of AC voltage is smaller than a predetermined value, and indicates a second level if the absolute value of the AC voltage is larger than the predetermined value; detecting a zero-crossing width and a non-zero-crossing width, the zero-crossing width being a time width for a case where the absolute value of the AC voltage is smaller than the predetermined value, the non-zero-crossing width being a time width for a case where the absolute value is larger than the predetermined value; detecting a frequency and a voltage value of the AC voltage based on the zero-crossing width and the non-zero-crossing width; and performing phase control depending on the frequency and the voltage value.
US08958700B2
The spatial light communication device is constituted with a spatial light transmitter which is installed in a fixed manner in a plurality of places, stores preset ID information of its own and has a light emitting portion for emitting spatial light on which the ID information is superimposed, and a spatial light receiver which is connected to a handheld terminal, has a light receiving portion for receiving spatial light emitted from the light emitting portion of the spatial light transmitter and also has a light receiving circuit for amplifying and outputting a light receiving signal of the light receiving portion. The spatial light receiver is provided with a connector portion which is connected to a microphone input terminal of the handheld terminal as a terminal for outputting a light receiving output signal of the light receiving circuit to the handheld terminal.
US08958699B2
The embodiments herein relate to a method in an optical network unit (103), referred to as an ONU, for providing wireless connectivity capability to the ONU (103). The ONU (103) is comprised in a communications network (100). The ONU (103) is interconnected to an optical line terminal (101), referred to as an OLT, via a wireline communications link (104) and a wireless communications link (113). The ONU (103) is configured to support a sleep mode. The ONU (103) obtains information about entry into the sleep mode. The ONU (103) identifies whether the wireless communications link (113) is activated or deactivated, and activates the wireless communications link (113) if the wireless communications link (113) is identified as deactivated. The ONU (103) enters sleep mode, and provides wireless connectivity capability to the ONU (103) by means of the wireless communications link during the sleep mode.
US08958697B2
A system and method for managing the optical layer network data communications of an optical fiber data network by an optical transceiver module is disclosed. The management of the optical layer network data communications comprising data link layer functions or layer 2 functions in an OSI model. Benefits include reduction in reduced cost of network deployments from consolidation of network equipment, such as switches, and reduction in power consumed as well as enabling point-to-multipoint network connections from previously only point-to-point network connection.
US08958690B2
A camera module includes a lens barrel having at least one lens disposed in an optical axis direction, a housing having the lens barrel disposed therein, and a case coupled to the housing to cover the outer surfaces of the housing. The case may include at least one of a protrusion part protruding inwardly from an upper edge of the case, a coupling forming part protruding outwardly from the upper edge of the case, and a coupling part protruding from an outer surface of the case. The protrusion part, the coupling forming part or the coupling part may be formed integrally as one piece with the case.
US08958683B2
A media data playback device is capable of simultaneously parsing and decoding two different sections of streaming media, where one section of the streaming media comprises a replay section. The device shows replay progress of the replay section on a progress bar and allows switching positions during replaying of the replay section.
US08958675B2
Multimode optical fiber systems with adjustable chromatic modal dispersion compensation are disclosed, wherein the system includes a VCSEL light source and primary and secondary optically coupled multimode optical fibers. Because the VCSEL light source has a wavelength spectrum that radially varies, its use with the primary multimode optical fiber creates chromatic modal dispersion that reduces bandwidth. The compensating multimode optical fiber is designed to have a difference in alpha parameter relative to the primary multimode optical fiber of −0.1≦Δα≦−0.9. This serves to create a modal delay opposite to the chromatic modal dispersion. The compensation is achieved by using a select length of the compensating multimode optical fiber optically coupled to an output end of the primary multimode optical fiber. The compensating multimode optical fiber can be configured to be bend insensitive.
US08958666B2
A system includes an optical transmitter that outputs an optical signal having a substantially Gaussian waveform and an optical receiver that is optically coupled to the optical transmitter and has an impulse response essentially matching the waveform. The impulse response and waveform preferably match in the time domain. The transmitter and receiver may be average-power-limited, using, for example, an erbium-doped fiber amplifier. To achieve a high signal-to-noise ratio, the waveform may be designed to minimize jitter, sample duration, matching parasitics, and inter-symbol interference (ISI). Such a waveform may be a return-to-zero (RZ) Gaussian or Gaussian-like waveform and may be transmitted in a variety of modulation formats. Further, the system may be used in WDM or TDM systems. A method for characterizing the time domain impulse response of an optical element used in the optical receiver is provided, where the method is optionally optimized using deconvolution and/or cross-correlation techniques.
US08958665B2
An optical device may include a substrate; an arrayed waveguide grating provided on the substrate and having first and second slabs; multiple first waveguides extending from the first slab, the multiple first waveguides may supply respective first optical signals to the first slab; multiple second waveguides extending from the second slab, the multiple second waveguides may supply respective second optical signals to the second slab; a third waveguide extending from the second slab, the third waveguide outputting a third optical signal from the second slab, the third optical signal including the first optical signals; a fourth waveguide extending from the first slab, the fourth waveguide may output a fourth optical signal from the first slab, the fourth optical signal including the second optical signals; and a first scattering device optically coupled to a portion of an edge of the first slab between the multiple first waveguides and the fourth waveguide.
US08958657B2
An image processing apparatus that converts a frame rate by creating a sub-frame from an input frame and outputting the sub-frame, the image processing apparatus includes a generation unit configured to generate the sub-frame from the input frame, a calculation unit configured to calculate a feature amount of brightness of the input frame, and a control unit configured to perform control so as to reduce luminance of the sub-frames generated by the generation unit based on the feature amount calculated by the calculation unit.
US08958653B2
An apparatus is provided for decoding last position information indicating a horizontal position and a vertical position of a last non-zero coefficient in a predetermined order within a current block to be decoded, the current block being included in a picture and including a plurality of coefficients. The apparatus includes one or more processors, a communication unit, and storage coupled to the one or more processors and the communication unit. The communication unit is configured to transmit a request for a bitstream to an external system, and receive the bitstream from the external system. The one or more processors are configured to obtain the bitstream, perform first arithmetic decoding, perform second arithmetic decoding, derive a horizontal component of the last position information, and derive a vertical component of the last position. A system for decoding and a displaying method are also provided.
US08958647B2
Whether an obtained candidate face image is registered or not is appropriately determined. A similarity degree calculating unit calculates the degree of similarity between a candidate face image extracted by a face image extracting unit and a registration face image registered in a storage unit. An in-class variance calculating unit calculates an in-class variance of the degree of similarity of the registered person identified by a registered person identifying unit, and an inter-class variance calculating unit calculates an inter-class variance of the degree of similarity of each registered person registered in the storage unit. A variance ratio calculating unit calculates a variance ratio between the inter-class variance and the in-class variance, and on the basis of the calculated variance ratio, a registration determining unit determines whether a target face image is to be registered or not.
US08958635B2
A digital image including a plurality of pixels is processed. Each pixel has at least one colorimetric component. The processing of the image includes processing for each pixel of a group of pixels of the image and for each colorimetric component of the pixel. In this processing, a modification is made to the value of the colorimetric component so as to obtain a modified value situated inside or outside a colorimetric range. A comparison is made of the modified value to the upper and lower limits of the associated colorimetric range. If the corrected value is outside the associated colorimetric range, a corrected value equal to an additional value is assigned to the corresponding colorimetric component of the pixel. The additional value is chosen to be unique and included in the associated colorimetric range and different from the values of the limits of the associated colorimetric range.
US08958631B2
A system and method for creating a gesture and generating a classifier that can identify the gesture for use with an application is described. The designer constructs a training set of data containing positive and negative examples of the gesture. Machine learning algorithms are used to compute the optimal classification of the training data into positive and negative instances of the gesture. The machine learning algorithms generate a classifier which, given input data, makes a decision on whether the gesture was performed in the input data or not.
US08958630B1
Systems, methods, and machine-readable media for generating a classifier configured to label segments of an image, are discussed. According to one aspect, the system may include a training module, a labeling module, and an update module. The training module may be configured to train a first sub-classifier based on photographic data for a set of pre-labeled image segments and a second sub-classifier based on 3-dimensional point data for the set of pre-labeled image segments. The labeling module may be configured to generate a labeling solution comprising a plurality of associations between an image segment from the set of unlabeled image segments and a label. The update module may be configured to update the set of pre-labeled image segments based on the labeling solution. The training module may also be configured to train the first sub-classifier and the second sub-classifier based on the updated set of pre-labeled image segments.
US08958625B1
An image analysis embodiment comprises generating a bulge mask from a digital image, the bulge mask comprising potential convergence hubs for spiculated anomalies, detecting ridges in the digital image to generate a detected ridges map, projecting the detected ridges map onto a set of direction maps having different directional vectors to generate a set of ridge direction projection maps, determining wedge features for the potential convergence hubs from the set of ridge direction projection maps, selecting ridge convergence hubs from the potential convergence hubs having strongest wedge features, extracting classification features for each of the selected ridge convergence hubs, and classifying the selected ridge convergence hubs based on the extracted classification features.
US08958623B1
Systems and methods are disclosed for correcting for artificial deformations in anatomical modeling. One method includes obtaining an anatomic model; obtaining information indicating a presence of an artificial deformation of the anatomic model; identifying a portion of the anatomic model associated with the artificial deformation; estimating a non-deformed local area corresponding to the portion of the anatomic model; and modifying the portion of the anatomic model associated with the artificial deformation, based on the estimated non-deformed local area.
US08958621B2
An OCT image of an eye which has been subject to a DSAEK corneal transplant, in which a Descement's membrane in the cornea has been replaced by a graft, is processed to identify the outline of the graft. The process includes the steps of: computationally extracting the boundary of the cornea including the graft; computationally detecting the corners of the graft; computationally extracting points on the boundary between the graft and the original cornea; and computationally fitting the points on the boundary between the graft and the original cornea smoothly into a curve. The outline of the graft is then displayed. A graft profile may be generated, indicating the thickness of the graft at each point along its length.
US08958620B2
A method for cardiac imaging for determining a myocardial region of interest (ROI) is disclosed. The method includes acquiring functional imaging data of a subject, where the functional imaging data includes at least the myocardium. A ROI encompassing at most the myocardium from the acquired functional imaging data, and diagnostic parameters relating to the myocardium are estimated and quantified based on the determined ROI. In one embodiment, the ROI is determined from a projection image representation utilizing histogram based thresholding and ray casting based localization to determine the extents of the ROI. In another embodiment, the ROI is determined from a volumetric image representation utilizing clustering Manhattan distance based cleaning to determine cardiac angles used for reorienting the left ventricle.
US08958618B2
A computer implemented method identifying calcification in a patient image data set including blood vessels. The method includes: obtaining an image data set including voxels each having an intensity value; forming the intensity values into an intensity value group covering an intensity range; defining plural intensity thresholds across the intensity range and including its end values; for each intensity threshold, partitioning the intensity values into two sub-groups according to intensity threshold, and calculating an information criterion based on intensity threshold; generating an information criterion measure curve that plots the calculated information criteria against intensity threshold; locating a maximum in the information criterion measure curve and setting the corresponding intensity threshold as a calcification threshold; and partitioning the intensity values into two sub-groups using the calcification threshold, identifying voxels corresponding to intensity values in the sub-group above the calcification threshold as representing calcification in the patient.
US08958615B2
A system and method for generating a patient-specific anatomical atlas, e.g., includes, for each patient of a patient population: obtaining a respective anatomical atlas, and registering, by a computer processor, the respective anatomical atlas to an anatomical image of a current patient to obtain a respective registered anatomical atlas, and further includes, determining, by the processor, an average of the registered anatomical atlases.
US08958608B2
Iris recognition can be accomplished for a wide variety of eye images by correcting input images with an off-angle gaze. A variety of techniques, from limbus modeling, corneal refraction modeling, optical flows, and genetic algorithms can be used. A variety of techniques, including aspherical eye modeling, corneal refraction modeling, ray tracing, and the like can be employed. Precomputed transforms can enhance performance for use in commercial applications. With application of the technologies, images with significantly unfavorable gaze angles can be successfully recognized.
US08958607B2
An image of a portion of a person's body is accessed, the image having been captured by an image capture device. Using the image, measurements of characteristics in the image are obtained, the characteristics in the image having been selected based on a statistical analysis of characteristics (i) in a plurality of first images taken directly of a person and (ii) in a plurality of second images taken of an image of a person. Based on a liveness function, a score for the image is determined using the obtained measurements of the characteristics in the image. A threshold value is accessed. The score of the image is compared to the accessed threshold value. Based on the comparison of the score of the image to the accessed threshold value, the image is determined to be have been taken by the image capture device imaging the portion of the person's body.
US08958605B2
In one embodiment, a method includes performing optical character recognition (OCR) on an image of a financial document and at least one of: (a) correct OCR errors in the financial document using at least one of textual information from a complementary document and predefined business rules; (b) normalize data from the complementary document using at least one of textual information from the financial document and the predefined business rules; and (c) normalize data from the financial document using at least one of textual information from the complementary document and the predefined business rules. Exemplary systems and computer program products are also disclosed.
US08958600B2
Methods and apparatus are described for monocular 3D human pose estimation and tracking, which are able to recover poses of people in realistic street conditions captured using a monocular, potentially moving camera. Embodiments of the present invention provide a three-stage process involving estimating (10, 60, 110) a 3D pose of each of the multiple objects using an output of 2D tracking-by detection (50) and 2D viewpoint estimation (46). The present invention provides a sound Bayesian formulation to address the above problems. The present invention can provide articulated 3D tracking in realistic street conditions.The present invention provides methods and apparatus for people detection and 2D pose estimation combined with a dynamic motion prior. The present invention provides not only 2D pose estimation for people in side views, it goes beyond this by estimating poses in 3D from multiple viewpoints. The estimation of poses is done in monocular images, and does not require stereo images. Also the present invention does not require detection of characteristic poses of people.
US08958590B2
A listening device including an ITE part adapted for being located in an ear canal of a user and a BTE part adapted for being located behind an ear of the user, the ITE and BTE parts being at least mechanically connected by a connecting element, the listening device including a rechargeable energy source and electric charge terminals for allowing the charging of the rechargeable energy source when electrically connected to charging terminals of a charging station, wherein the electric charging terminals of the listening device are located: in or on the ITE part; in or on the connecting element; in an electrical connector of the connecting element connectable to the BTE part; or in an electrical connector of the BTE part connectable to the electrical connector of the connecting element, wherein the ITE part includes a receiver, wherein the BTE part includes a hermetically closed outer housing.
US08958581B2
A polymer speaker is configured to include an electrostrictive element having an elastomer or resin dielectric layer and a plurality of electrode layers arranged on the front and back surfaces of the dielectric layer. The electrode layers are formed from a conductive material including a polymer binder and a conductor and having a modulus of elasticity of 100 MPa or less. The spring constant of the electrode layers in the surface direction is smaller than the spring constant of the dielectric layer in the surface direction. The volume resistivity of the electrode layers is 200 Ω·cm or less. The polymer speaker provides a practical sound pressure in a wide frequency region from low frequencies to high frequencies.
US08958574B2
According to one embodiment, a strain and pressure sensing device includes a semiconductor circuit unit and a sensing unit. The semiconductor circuit unit includes a semiconductor substrate and a transistor. The transistor is provided on a semiconductor substrate. The sensing unit is provided on the semiconductor circuit unit, and has space and non-space portions. The non-space portion is juxtaposed with the space portion. The sensing unit further includes a movable beam, a strain sensing element unit, and first and second buried interconnects. The movable beam has fixed and movable portions, and includes first and second interconnect layers. The fixed portion is fixed to the non-space portion. The movable portion is separated from the transistor and extends from the fixed portion into the space portion. The strain sensing element unit is fixed to the movable portion. The first and second buried interconnects are provided in the non-space portion.
US08958573B2
A system for controlling an electronic device, including an accessory coupled to the device having a control interface for receiving at least one input and a tone generator, the accessory configured to, in response to an input, generate a corresponding control tone using the tone generator, and send the control tone and a calibration sequence to the device. The device is operable to receive the calibration sequence and control tone. The device includes a zero-crossing detector operable to determine at least one of the start or ending of each of the calibration sequence and the control tone and having a circuit operable to determine the periods of the calibration sequence and the control tone based on the zero-crossing detector output.
US08958567B2
In some embodiments, a method applying reverberation to audio from at least one client of a set of clients which share a virtual environment, including by asserting position data and at least one input audio stream to a server, selecting (in the server) a reverberation filter for each input audio stream in response to the position data and generating wet audio by applying to the input audio an early reverberation part of the selected reverberation filter. Typically, a client applies a late reverberation filter to the wet audio using metadata from the server. In other embodiments, a server selects a reverberation filter for application to audio in response to position data, asserts the audio and metadata indicative of the filter, and a client applies the filter to the audio using the metadata. Other aspects are systems, servers, and client devices configured to perform any embodiment of the method.
US08958563B2
A method for generating a public key for an electronic device is provided, wherein the method comprises generating a public key 103 based on a private key and a unique identifier associated with the electronic device 200.
US08958556B2
A method of secure cryptographic calculation includes formulating a first list of first random quantities, formulating a first non-linear substitution operator masked with at least part of the first list, and formulating a second list determined from the first list. The second list includes second random quantities respectively determined from the first random quantities. A second non-linear substitution operator masked with at least part of the second list is formulated. At least two successive implementations of a cryptographic calculation algorithm are performed that includes N rounds of calculations carried out successively to obtain output data based on input data and of a secret key, with a data path of the cryptographic calculation algorithm being masked.
US08958548B2
The disclosed technology generates two relative prime numbers and, then, using the relative prime numbers converts a super-increasing (SI) knapsack into a non-super increasing (NSI) knapsack. The NSI knapsack becomes a public key and the corresponding SI knapsack, along with the two relative prime numbers, becomes a private key. A message is encrypted using a subset S of the private key that totals a number N. The message, the public key and the number N are transmitted to a recipient, who knows the value of the two relative prime numbers. The recipient uses the relative prime numbers to convert the public key into the private key and, then, generates the subset S by solving the private key with respect to the number N. Using the subset, the message is decrypted.
US08958543B1
A system and machine-implemented method for automated communication relating to configuring a communication channel, selectively configurable between receiving a new inbound communication session and initiating a new outbound communication session, for receiving a new inbound communication session, processing an inbound communication session, determining the inbound communication session has terminated, determining that an outbound communication is pending in response to termination of the inbound communication session, and reconfiguring the communication channel for outbound communication and establishing an outbound communication session in response to the determination that an outbound communication is pending.
US08958540B2
A method for providing a remote PBX service by a customer's phone service provider. More than one telephone number is assigned to one customer's telephone communication link in communication with at least one telephone. A connect signal is received by the customer's phone service provider including one of the telephone numbers assigned to the customer's telephone communication link. A called telephone code is generated indicative of the number included in the connect signal. The called telephone code is sent to the customer's telephone communication link whereby a user of the customer's telephone communication link is capable of knowing which of the more than one telephone numbers assigned to the customer's telephone communication link was called prior to answering the telephone connected to the customer's telephone communication link. Thus, the customer's phone service provider provides the remote PBX service for the customer without the necessity of a local PBX.
US08958535B2
A method for transferring participation authorization for a scheduled conference call. A conference call server includes a memory for storing conference call scheduling information with respect to a scheduled conference call session, the conference call scheduling information including participant authorizations for eligible communication devices of the scheduled conference call session. The method includes: receiving, in a first communication device, an invitation message containing at least some of the conference call scheduling information with respect to the scheduled conference call session, displaying an interface in relation to the scheduled conference call session, the interface including an option to transfer participant authorization for the scheduled conference call session to a second communication device, and sending a communication to the conference call server for adding participant authorization of the second communication device and removing participant authorization of the first communication device.
US08958534B2
Methods, systems, and computer readable media for facilitating a remote deposit to a prepaid card account are disclosed. In one example, the method includes receiving, via an application programming interface (API) supported by a central switch node, a web based service message containing a load request from an acquiring entity. The method further includes utilizing, at the central switch node, the load request to identify an issuing entity that hosts a prepaid card account associated with the load request from among a plurality of issuing entities and communicating the load request from the central switch node to the issuing entity.
US08958529B2
The present invention provides a radiographic imaging device including: a detecting section that detects a dose of radiation that has been irradiated when imaging a radiographic image corresponding to irradiated radiation; and a determining section that determines whether the radiographic image is a valid image on the basis of the dose of radiation that has been detected by the detecting section.
US08958525B2
A radiation source is relatively moved with respect to a radiation detector, on which a plurality of short-circuited pixels formed by short-circuiting TFT switches are arranged across the entire surface thereof. Radiation is irradiated onto a subject at a plurality of radiation source positions, in association with movement of the radiation source. A plurality of images corresponding to each of the plurality of the radiation source are obtained. Positions of detection short-circuited pixels for detecting a dose of radiation are set, respectively corresponding to the plurality of radiation source positions. The dose of radiation output from the radiation source is controlled, based on electric signals read out from the detection short-circuited pixels, at each of the plurality of radiation source positions.
US08958517B2
In a clock-adjustment circuit, a phase-detection circuit receives a first clock associated with a first clock domain and a second clock associated with a second clock domain, and determines a phase relationship between the first clock and the second clock. Then, the phase-adjustment circuit in the clock-adjustment circuit adjusts a phase of the first clock relative to the second clock if the determined phase relationship is associated with a metastable range of a first-in first-out (FIFO) buffer that transfers data from the first clock domain to the second clock domain, thereby reducing latency associated with the FIFO buffer.
US08958514B2
An apparatus includes a data flow circuit and a clock recovery circuit. The data flow circuit is configured to extract client data, which is encapsulated in an inner frame that is encapsulated in at least an outer frame, and to output the extracted client data in accordance with a client clock signal. The clock recovery circuit includes a first clock recovery module that is configured to recover a first clock signal that matches payload data in the outer frame, and a second clock recovery module that is configured to derive from the first clock signal a second clock signal that matches the client data in the inner frame, and to produce the client clock signal from the second clock signal, for use by the data flow circuit.
US08958511B2
A system and method for detecting broadband global positioning system (GPS) jamming is provided, the system including a local oscillator maintainer to maintain a plurality of local oscillators, a frequency band selector to select a frequency band in which jamming is to be detected, in response to receipt of a radio frequency (RF) signal, an oscillating signal output unit to allow an oscillating signal to be output from a local oscillator identified based on the selected frequency band, among the plurality of local oscillators, and an intermediate frequency (IF) signal generator to generate an IF signal using the RF signal and the oscillating signal.
US08958508B2
A method and system for measuring noise of a machine are disclosed by the present invention, and the method includes: acquiring a first noise interference set, searching for noise interferences which are less than a preset noise interference threshold from the first noise interference set to obtain a second noise interference set, and then calculating an average value of the second noise interference set; and determining whether the average value of the second noise interference set is less than or equal to a set threshold, and if the average value of the second noise interference set is less than or equal to the set threshold, the current noise of the machine is equal to the average value of the second noise interference set. With the present invention, a more accurate measurement value of the noise of the machine can be obtained.
US08958503B1
A method includes determining a mean square error σh2 of an estimate h of a communication channel, and receiving a data symbol y. The received data symbol y corresponds to a data symbol x transmitted over the communication channel. The method also includes determining a likelihood value for a bit in the transmitted data symbol x. Determining the likelihood value for the bit in the transmitted data symbol x includes calculating a quantity according to ⅇ - y - hx 2 σ z 2 + σ h 2 x 2 , where σz2 is a noise power associated with the communication channel. The method also includes calculating the likelihood value for the bit in the transmitted data symbol x as a function of the calculated quantity.
US08958497B2
Embodiments of the invention are generally directed to simultaneous transmission of clock and bidirectional data over a communication channel. An embodiment of a transmitting device includes a modulator to generate a modulated signal including a clock signal and a data signal, the clock signal being modulated by a first signal edge of the modulated signal and the data signal being modulated by a position of a second signal edge of the modulated signal; a driver to drive the modulated signal on a communication channel; an echo canceller to subtract reflected signals on the communication channel; and a data recovery module to recover a signal received on the communication channel, the received signal being encoded by Return-to-Zero (RZ) encoding, the signal being received simultaneously with driving the modulated signal on the communication channel.
US08958490B2
Transmitter apparatus to broadcast coded orthogonal frequency-division multiplexed (COFDM) radio-frequency carriers conveying digital television (DTV) signals encoded using Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) coding concatenated with subsequent low-density parity-check coding (LPDC) transmits the same coded DTV signals twice some time apart. The coded DTV signals are mapped to quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) of the COFDM carriers. Preferably, the circular Fourier transforms of COFDM symbols in the earlier transmissions are rotated one half revolution respective to the circular Fourier transforms of corresponding COFDM symbols in the later transmissions. Receiver apparatus combines the earlier and later transmissions of twice-transmitted COFDM signals as part of iterative procedures for de-mapping QAM and decoding the concatenated BCH-LDPC coding of the DTV signals.
US08958487B2
In one embodiment, a transmitter circuit is provided for data transmission from endpoint devices to collector devices over power distribution lines. The transmitter includes an amplifier circuit configured to receive and convert a first data signal to a pulse density modulation (PDM) encoded signal using high frequency pulses that introduce high frequency components. A low-pass filter of the transmitter is configured to filter the high frequency components of the PDM encoded signal to produce a second data signal, which is an amplification of the first data signal. A coupling circuit of the transmitter is configured to communicatively couple the second data signal from the low-pass filter to the power distribution lines. The coupling circuit filters the frequency of the AC and prevents high voltage of the power distribution lines from damaging the transmitter.
US08958484B2
A system and method generates super-resolution images and videos using motion-compensated low-resolution images and videos. An image is selected as a primary image from a plurality of low-resolution images and the rest of the low-resolution images are registered as secondary images with respect to the primary image. Each registered secondary image is transformed to a motion compensated image. A mask value for a pixel in each motion compensated image is estimated. The super-resolution image of the primary image is generated by combining the mask values and the motion compensated secondary images. Similarly, a low-resolution video is segmented into a plurality of video objects, each of which is represented by an alpha layer. A super-resolution frame of the segmented video object is generated. The super-resolution frames of each segmented video object are combined using the alpha layers to create a super-resolution frame of the resulting video.
US08958482B2
Systems and methods for encrypting a plaintext logical data object for storage in a storage device operable with at least one storage protocol, creating, reading, writing, optimization and restoring thereof. Encrypting the plaintext logical data object comprises creating in the storage device an encrypted logical data object comprising a header and one or more allocated encrypted sections with predefined size; encrypting one or more sequentially obtained chunks of plaintext data corresponding to the plaintext logical data object thus giving rise to the encrypted data chunks; and sequentially accommodating the processed data chunks into said encrypted sections in accordance with an order said chunks received, wherein said encrypted sections serve as atomic elements of encryption/decryption operations during input/output transactions on the logical data object.
US08958479B2
A compressed dynamic image encoding device is provided, in which a motion vector is generated by searching a reference image for an image area most similar to an image area of a video input signal; a motion-compensated reference image is generated from the motion vector and the reference image; a prediction residual is generated, by subtracting the motion-compensated reference image from the video input signal; the reference image is generated, by adding the motion-compensated reference image and the result of processing performed to the prediction residual; and an encoded video output signal is generated by the processing performed to the prediction residual. The reference image comprises on-screen reference images, located inside a video display screen, and an off-screen reference image located outside the video display screen, and the off-screen reference image is generated based on the positional relationship of plural similar reference images of the on-screen reference images.
US08958475B2
A method comprises encoding a set of frames of multimedia data, encoding null data for a period following the set of frames of multimedia data, modulating the encoded set of frames and the null data, wherein modulating the null data creates a null interval over the period, transmitting the encoded set of frames via a transmitter, and blanking the transmitter during the null interval.
US08958474B2
A system and method for effectively encoding and decoding a wide-area network based remote presentation scheme makes use of a scalable video codec (SVC) to encode multiple screen data. A RGB frame of each screen is converted into YUV444 which is subsequently converted into two YUV420 frames. The V frame of the YUV444 is divided into four sub-frames. Two of those sub-frames are combined with the Y frame to create the first YUV420 frame. A second YUV420 frame is created by combining the remaining two V sub-frames with the U frame. The two YUV420 frames are encoded separately by using SVC or together by using Multi-View Codec. An SVC decoder receives and decodes two such YUV420 frames. Those decoded YUV420 frames are then used to obtain the YUV444 frame which is subsequently converted in to RGB frame to display the image on a screen.
US08958472B2
A system includes an encoder that performs quantization on a rectangular block of quantized transform coefficients and a decoder that performs dequantization on a rectangular block of transform coefficients. The decoder is configured to receive a W×H block of quantized transform coefficients, wherein W is a row width of the block and H is a column height of the block. The decoder is further configured to apply dequantization processing to the W×H block of quantized transform coefficients to generate a block of transform coefficients, which are used to generate a picture corresponding to the W×H block of quantized transform coefficients. The dequantization processing comprises applying a first dequantization algorithm when an output M of a function M=log2(√{square root over (W·H)}) is equal to an integer value, and applying a second dequantization algorithm when the output M is equal to a non-integer value.
US08958466B2
Through the use of a least squares minimization concept, the loop length, the number of bridged taps and length of the bridged taps on a transmission line can be determined from readily available modem data. In particular, the loop length, the number of bridge taps and the length of bridged taps can be estimated by comparing a measured frequency domain channel impulse response of the transmission line to a model of a loop that is comprised of multiple sections and multiple bridge taps.
US08958445B2
A DC-coupled laser drive circuit (1) includes (i) a voltage drop section (14) provided between a power source and a pre-driver (12) and (ii) a voltage drop amount controlling section (16) for controlling, according to an output of the pre-driver (12), an amount of a voltage drop in the voltage drop section (14).
US08958444B2
A device (100) for generating a coherent Smith-Purcell radiation including an electrically conducting diffraction grating (102), laterally delimited by two electrically conducting external sidewalls (104); and a source (101) for generating an electron beam (103) and for emitting it so that it passes above the diffraction grating (102). The device (100) also includes one electrically conducting intermediate wall (105), parallel to the external sidewalls (104), located inside the diffraction grating (102) to form several similar elementary diffraction gratings (1061,1062). The source (101) emits an electron beam (103) with a speed and a current density adapted such that each elementary diffraction grating (1061,1062) emits a Smith-Purcell radiation on the fundamental mode. The elementary diffraction gratings (1061,1062) interact with each other to reduce the saturation time necessary for the Smith-Purcell radiation to be produced.
US08958433B2
A wireless network is disclosed that allows an access point (AP) to keep a station (STA) in an awake state for an extended duration by periodically sending “keep-awake” frames to the STA. The keep-awake frames may be NULL frames having an asserted “more data” bit. For some embodiments, the AP transmits a beacon frame to the STA, wherein the beacon frame includes an asserted traffic indication bit that causes the STA to remain in the awake state for an additional wake-up period. Then, the AP transmits a sequence of keep-awake frames to the STA, wherein each keep-awake frame causes the STA to remain in the awake state for an additional time period.
US08958432B2
In one embodiment, edge devices can be configured to be coupled to a multi-stage switch fabric and peripheral processing devices. The edge devices and the multi-stage switch fabric can collectively define a single logical entity. A first edge device from the edge devices can be configured to be coupled to a first peripheral processing device from the peripheral processing devices. The second edge device from the edge devices can be configured to be coupled to a second peripheral processing device from the peripheral processing devices. The first edge device can be configured such that virtual resources including a first virtual resource can be defined at the first peripheral processing device. A network management module coupled to the edge devices and configured to provision the virtual resources such that the first virtual resource can be migrated from the first peripheral processing device to the second peripheral processing device.
US08958424B2
The invention is directed to counting data packets marked according to tri-color marking techniques. Packets of a packet flow that are marked according to a three color (or tri-color) marking scheme are counted using a counter implemented on a ternary content addressable memory (TCAM). Advantages of some embodiments of the invention are to enable the use of generic and cost-efficient TCAMs to quickly obtain the counts of all three colors of packets in such a packet flow. These counts can be used to provide detailed statistics on characteristics of the packet flow, which can be useful for debugging and accounting purposes.
US08958423B2
In a network node positioned inside a Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) core network, a method of establishing a multicast Virtual Private Network (MVPN) comprising receiving a packet for multicast data from a Virtual Private Network (VPN) via a provider edge (PE) node positioned on the edge of the MPLS core network, wherein the network node is a root node and the PE node is a leaf node of a multicast Label Switched Path (mLSP) established in the MPLS core network, swapping an upstream label in the packet that is assigned to the PE node with a downstream label assigned to a next hop of the mLSP, and forwarding the packet to the next hop.
US08958421B2
A system and method for transmitting data in a communication system. First encapsulated data is received at a first node, and second encapsulated data associated with the first encapsulated data is generated at the first node. The first encapsulated data and the second encapsulated data are transmitted independently to one or more further nodes.
US08958419B2
Techniques are described for optimizing broadcast and collect primitives in switch fabrics. A switch is described for use in a switch fabric that includes a plurality of switches configured to interconnect a plurality of host devices. The switch includes a plurality of ports configured to receive and transmit data, and switch logic configured to facilitate transfer of the data among the ports. The switch logic is configured to implement a collect function in which responses from multiple destination host devices are collected and aggregated for transmission to a source host device. A first portion of the switch logic is configured to identify, count, and discard the responses in a data plane of the switch. A second portion of the switch logic is configured to generate an aggregated response in a control plane of the switch and introduce the aggregated response into the data plane for transmission toward the source host device.
US08958417B2
A method and system for call capacity control in a mesh network are disclosed. The mesh network uses on-device SIP proxy and includes multiple client devices, mesh points (“MPs”), and mesh access points (“MAPs”). The method of updating call capacity information (“CCI”) is also disclosed. Adaptive Wireless Routing (“AWR”) protocol is used to establish connectivity among all the mesh access points. Messages are sent to one or more of the plurality of nodes on a periodic basis or as triggered by changes in the call capacity of an MAP, wherein the routing update messages include call capacity information. CAC modules on mesh portals or mesh access points can use the call capacity information to build up a CCI database for all the MAPs in the mesh cloud to assist in the CAC decision-making.
US08958413B2
An Internet protocol (IP)-private branch exchange (PBX) system and a method for linking the system with a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) terminal. The IP-PBX system and method allow the VoIP terminal to be registered at an extension of the IP-PBX system, the VoIP terminal supporting a protocol, e.g., H.323 or session initiation protocol (SIP), standardized by a standardization organization, e.g., the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), or the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).
US08958409B2
A method for transmitting an information unit of a specific layer above a physical layer through a plurality of frequency allocation bands managed by the specific layer and transmitting control information identifying each of the plurality of frequency allocation bands. The control information includes a second ID into which a first ID has been converted, the first ID identifying each of the plurality of frequency allocation bands in the physical layer, the second ID identifying each of the plurality of frequency allocation bands managed by the specific layer in the specific layer. To accomplish this, a timing offset is applied to the entirety of a frame or to a preamble (synchronous channel) so that the timing offset is used as the ID. Applying a timing offset to the entirety of a frame or to a preamble (synchronous channel) can achieve an advantage of PAPR reduction.
US08958399B1
A method and apparatus for controlling connectivity within a wireless network. In one embodiment, connectivity control device is provided within the wireless network to disrupt the communications with neighboring nodes of any computer within a protected network. In one embodiment of the invention, all of the wireless computers within a network are logged within the connectivity control device e.g., the wireless interface card identification number is logged. When a computer within the protected network attempts to connect to a neighboring wireless node, the connectivity control device transmits a signal that disrupts the communication with a neighboring wireless node. This disruption may occur by sending a disjoin frame or signal, or other form of communication, to disconnect the unauthorized access. In another embodiment of the invention, the connectivity control device may transmit disruptive communications continuously to ensure that the computers that are not authorized for access to the neighboring wireless node cannot connect to the neighborhood wireless nodes.
US08958376B2
A method of scheduling wireless data transmissions between a mobile terminal and a base station using multiple system carrier signals is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of receiving (101) the mobile terminal information from the base station indicating available system carriers; detecting (102) at least one dynamic parameter indicative of the mobile terminal's current capability to handle non-contiguous system carriers; determining (103) from the dynamic parameter whether a situation has occurred where the mobile terminal's capability to handle non-contiguous system carriers has been reduced; modifying (104), in such case, feedback information to be transmitted to the base station; and transmitting (105) the modified feedback information to the base station. By modifying the feedback information in this way the mobile terminal reduces the likelihood that the base station allocates non-contiguous system carriers to the mobile terminal in situations where it has a reduced capability of handling such system carriers.
US08958374B2
A base station for transmitting common information which is used in common by plural mobile stations includes a common information generating unit configured to generate the common information; a lower-layer control information generating unit configured to generate lower-layer control information indicating a radio resource where the common information is to be placed; a multiplexing unit configured to multiplex the lower-layer control information and the common information into one or more frequency blocks among a plurality of frequency blocks included within a system bandwidth, the system bandwidth being divided into the plurality of frequency blocks each corresponding to a minimum value of maximum transmission and reception bandwidths used by the plural mobile stations; and a transmitting unit configured to transmit the multiplexed lower-layer control information and common information.
US08958369B2
The disclosure provides a method for processing Channel State Information (CSI), and a User Equipment (UE). The method comprises: a UE measuring a channel on a CSI reference signal (CSI-RS) resource when a neighboring cell performs coordinated muting on the resource corresponding to the CSI-RS (S102); the UE obtaining a first Channel Quality Indicator (CQI), according to the measuring of the channel when a neighboring cell performs coordinated muting on the resource corresponding to the CSI-RS (S104). The disclosure can improve the channel estimation quality of the CSI-RS.
US08958355B2
To provide a radio base station apparatus, mobile terminal apparatus and transmission power control method for enabling conventional inter-cell interference reduction techniques and ULCoMP to be used together, a radio base station apparatus of the invention is characterized by having a ULCoMP processing section (2085) that applies ULCoMP to a mobile terminal (1001) when a difference (PL2−PL1) between a pass loss PL1 between the mobile terminal (1001) and a base station apparatus (2001) connected to the mobile terminal (1001) and a pass loss PL2 between the mobile terminal (1001) and a base station apparatus (2002) with the lowest pass loss for the mobile terminal (1001) is within a predetermined range, and a transmission power control section (2089) that performs transmission power control for application of ULCoMP when the ULCoMP is applied, while performing transmission power control for non-application of the ULCoMP when the ULCoMP is not applied.
US08958354B2
The subject matter disclosed herein relates to wireless communication of messages between a wireless access point and one or more mobile stations. Example embodiments may comprise wireless communication of messages of variable length partitioned among one or more beacon signals transmitted from the wireless access point.
US08958353B2
A UE side Broadcast/Multicast Control (BMC) protocol layer determines those Cell Broadcast Service (CBS) messages (and their repetitions) which the UE shall read or ignore in a succeeding CBS schedule period, based on the CBS Schedule Message contents (Message Description Type and New Message Bitmap) received in a current CBS schedule period, the CBS messages already stored in the BMC, and the CBS messages to be received. In this manner, the UE may ignore CBS messages it has already received, without knowledge of the CBS message serial numbers, and thus conserve resources such as battery power.
US08958348B2
A Hybrid Push-to-Talk (PTT) function for use in wireless communications networks, such as cellular mobile telephone networks. The cellular mobile telephone network includes a Real-Time Exchange (RTX) that interfaces to at least one Mobile Switching Center (MSC) in the cellular mobile telephone network to provide instant two-way half-duplex voice messaging within a group of users. In the Hybrid PTT function, first or initial talkbursts or volleys are transmitted by the RTX from an originating mobile to terminating mobiles on pre-established Internet Protocol (IP) sessions between the RTX and the mobiles. In addition, circuit channels are established by the RTX with the mobiles through the MSC in parallel with the first talkburst or volley. Thereafter, second or subsequent talkbursts or volleys are transmitted by the RTX from the originating mobile to the terminating mobiles on the circuit channels.
US08958347B2
A multi-participant conference system and method is described. The multi-participant system includes a PSTN client, at least one remote client and a first participant client. The PSTN client communicates audio data and the remote clients communicate audio-video data. The first participant client includes a voice over IP (VoIP) encoder, a VoIP decoder, a first audio mixer, and a second audio mixer. The VoIP encoder compresses audio data transported to the PSTN client. The VoIP decoder then decodes audio data from the PSTN client. The first audio mixer mixes the decoded audio data from the PSTN client with the audio-video data from the first participant into a first mixed audio-video data stream transmitted to the remote client. The second audio mixer mixes the audio-video data stream from the first participant with the audio-video data stream from each remote client into a second mixed audio transmitted to the PSTN client.
US08958345B2
A system and method for enhancing lifetime and throughput in a distributed wireless network is disclosed herein. The method may include sensing, by a first machine, different parameters of at least one neighboring machine; updating, by the first machine, at least one parameter of said first machine based on said sensed parameters of said neighboring machine; generating, by the first machine, a signed-graph on the basis of the updated parameter, wherein said generated graph comprises at least two nodes representing said updated parameter and at least one edge interconnecting said two nodes; iteratively updating, by the first machine, the at least one parameter at different time-scales until convergence is achieved; and communicating, by the first machine, inter-layer updates in individual layers of a transmission protocol stack of the first machine due to said update of at least one parameter.
US08958342B2
A wireless device receives a message indicating transmission of a sounding reference signal in a symbol on subframe n on a first cell in a first cell group. The symbol overlaps in time with transmission of a packet on at least one of: subframe n and n+1 in a second cell in a second cell group. The wireless device transmits the sounding reference signal if a power parameter is less than a maximum allowable transmission power in the symbol. A calculation of the power parameter considers transmission power of the packet according to a pre-configured rule.
US08958337B1
A network device determines whether the network device has a local link for a link aggregation group (LAG), and identifies, when the network device has a local link for the LAG, the network device as a designated forwarder for the LAG. The network device also identifies, when the network device does not have a local link for the LAG, a closest network device to the network device, with a local link for the LAG, as the designated forwarder for the LAG.
US08958334B2
Systems and methods for implementing a differential signal to noise ratio (DSNR) based rate adaptation for wireless networks are disclosed. The described methods probabilistically adapt the rate of data transmission based on an assessment of the causes of data loss. The described methods include determining a DSNR for data transmission during a predetermined window of time and adapting the transmission rate in a probabilistic manner responsive to the differential SNR and a differential SNR threshold for the data transmission.
US08958322B2
A method, an apparatus and a system for authorizing a policy and charging control rule are provided. The method includes: receiving a resource allocation request message, where the resource allocation request message indicates that a resource is allocated on a designated bearer; sending ARP information of the designated bearer to a PCRF; and receiving QoS of PCC rule authorized by the PCRF according to the ARP information of the designated bearer, and performing bearer binding according to the QoS of the authorized PCC rule. In the present invention, the PCRF acquires the ARP information of the designated bearer, so that the PCC rule authorized by the PCRF can be bound to the designated bearer, and the user equipment on the designated bearer can be successfully allocated the resource.
US08958319B2
A first base station (14) in a wireless communication system (10) operating according to a synchronised time division duplex scheme comprises an antenna (24), a radio communication unit (26) and an interference handling module (28). The interference handling module comprises an interference investigating unit (30) and a transmission control unit (34) configured to provide a sounding frame in which a variable downlink time interval has a pre-defined size long enough to provoke interference, order the interference investigating unit to obtain and analyse a link quality data parameter in a non-downlink time interval and determine whether interference from another base station is present. The transmission control unit is further configured to order the radio communication unit (26) to reduce the size of following variable downlink time intervals according to an interference reduction scheme for obtaining time intervals with a guaranteed reduced size if interference from another base station is present.
US08958317B2
A method of a user equipment performing random access in a multi-carrier system comprises receiving mapping information through downlink component carriers, sending a random access preamble through uplink component carriers, and receiving a random access response through a specific downlink component carriers determined based on the mapping information.
US08958315B2
A multiprocessor system used in a car, home, or office environment includes multiple processors that run different real-time applications. A dynamic configuration system runs on the multiple processors and includes a device manager, configuration manager, and data manager. The device manager automatically detects and adds new devices to the multiprocessor system, and the configuration manager automatically reconfigures which processors run the real-time applications. The data manager identifies the type of data generated by the new devices and identifies which devices in the multiprocessor system are able to process the data.A communication system for a mobile vehicle, home, or office environment includes multiple processors. The multiple processors each run an Open Communication system that controls how data is transferred between processors based on data content as opposed to the links that connect the processors together. The open communication system enables data or messages to be effectively transferred and processed for real-time applications or other server based applications that may be running on the multiple processors in a secure environment regardless of processors, locations, or data links.
US08958312B2
A system operator provisions, or loads, a user's communication device, such as a cable modem, with multiple sets of loopback mode parameters that each facilitate a loopback test, and associates each set with multiple loopback numbers, or variable values. The loopback variables may be MIBs assigned to the device's manufacturer for use in initiating a loopback test of a user device. An operator may initiate a loopback test from a central computer device located remotely from the user device. The initiating device may be coupled to an operator's private IP network, or to a network coupled to the user device. The initiating device sends one of the loopback values in a SIP Invite message to the user device, without the use of SIP extensions, in a call. The user device recognizes the loopback value, auto-answers the call, and performs actions according to the provisioned parameters corresponding to the loopback value.
US08958309B2
A communication method using random linear coding is disclosed. The communication method using a random linear code comprises receiving first code blocks randomly linear-coded from a transmitter; demodulating the first code blocks using a decision distance determined in accordance with a channel status; determining whether an error has occurred in the first code blocks, using the decision distance, and transmitting a NACK signal to the transmitter, the NACK signal including information of the number of the code blocks where an error has occurred. Since a block error rate can be controlled in accordance with channel status, throughput can be improved.
US08958303B2
A flow setup table in a base station breakout component allows for servicing non-cacheable IP data flows at the breakout component without the need for network address translation. For each broken out IP flow at the breakout component, the flow setup table holds a mapping between tunnel IDs and the IP related information. The flow setup table data is sent to the breakout component at the gateway. The gateway breakout component uses the flow setup table to forward non-cacheable data requests to the internet and return data received from the internet back to the base station breakout component. The base station component then sends the non-cacheable data in the correct tunnel to the user equipment requesting the data.
US08958299B2
A method and apparatus of managing power save in a wireless network is provided. A direct link with a peer station (STA) is established by exchanging a Tunneled Direct Link Setup (TDLS) setup request frame and a TDLS setup response frame through an access point (AP). The peer STA enters power save mode (PSM). Traffic data that are destined for the peer STA in the PSM are buffered and a peer traffic indication (PTI) frame is transmitted to the peer STA in the PSM. The PTI frame includes a traffic identifier (TID) field and a sequence control field. Unnecessary allocation of service period can be prevented.
US08958291B2
System(s), device(s), and method(s) are provided to route data in a mesh network of devices that can communicate wirelessly through a plurality of technologies. One or more of such devices receive broadcast message(s) from a destination device intended to receive the data, and generate a first radio link quality metric (RLQM) value based on the broadcast message(s). A source device originates and delivers a quantum of data with an embedded first RLQM value. A set of intermediate devices relays the quantum of data if a forwarding criterion is fulfilled; the forwarding criterion is based in part on the first RLQM value and a second RLQM value generated by an intermediate device in the set of intermediate devices based on the broadcast message(s). The intermediate device exploits an optical interface to transmit the quantum of data. The destination device broadcasts an acknowledgement signal in response to receiving intended data.
US08958290B2
A digital interface system that includes a first circuit that transmits a set of voltage levels and a second circuit that receives the set of voltage levels and generates a set of voltage differential levels based on the set of voltage levels. The set of voltage differential levels corresponds to a first predetermined value. Each of the voltage levels is different from another of the voltage levels.
US08958285B2
A method performed by network devices that includes operating in a normal mode, where the network devices form a virtual chassis that corresponds to a single logical network device; detecting when a failure within the virtual chassis occurs; executing a splitting process to form one or more new virtual chassis in correspondence to the failure; determining whether one of the one or more new virtual chassis operates as a functioning virtual chassis based on whether at least one of a set of criteria is satisfied, where the functioning virtual chassis operates according to resources configured for the virtual chassis; and operating as a nonfunctioning virtual chassis when it is determined that the one of the one or more virtual chassis does not satisfy the at least one of the set of criteria, where the nonfunctioning virtual chassis operates in a pass-through mode.
US08958279B2
A machine readable information storage medium, a reproducing method and apparatus which reproduces data from the storage medium, and a recording method and apparatus for recording data on the storage medium. The information storage medium includes a control area which stores within a data structure information usable by the recording or reproducing apparatus to record or reproduce the data on or from the storage medium. The information stored within the data structure includes a version corresponding to a specification, a revision number of recording speed, and an extended part version field.
US08958274B2
In accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a method for measuring a quality parameter of an optical storage system comprising a non-diffraction-limited optical storage medium and a readout device, the method comprising the process of deriving an impulse response of the optical storage system, and the process of analyzing the impulse response to determine at least one of a width of the impulse response and a skewness of the impulse response as the quality parameter.
US08958272B1
An apparatus for energy assisted magnetic recording of a storage disk includes a plurality of dielectric waveguide cores configured to receive incident light energy from an energy source and direct the incident light energy to a target, and a near field transducer (NFT) formed at an air bearing surface of a magnetic recording device. The NFT is configured to focus the light energy received from the plurality of waveguide cores and to transmit the focused light energy onto the storage disk surface to generate a heating spot on the storage disk. The NFT includes a plurality of propagating surface plasmon polariton (PSPP) elements configured as plasmonic metal ridges. Each of the PSPP elements has a width approximately equivalent to the width of the heating spot and is disposed above a surface of a single waveguide core in a longitudinal alignment.
US08958261B1
The present invention provides the low power protection circuit including a first voltage detector, a pulse generating circuit, a SR latch, and an output logic operation circuit. The low power protection circuit is adapted for a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) with dual operating voltages. The first voltage detector generates a high-voltage pump enable signal by detecting a voltage level of the power-up signal. The pulse generating circuit generates a power-up pulse according to the power-up signal. The SR latch receives the power-up pulse, the high-voltage pump enable signal and an inverted power-up signal, and generates an output signal. The second voltage detector generates a low-voltage pump enable signal by detecting a voltage level of the output signal. The output logic operation circuit generates a pump enable signal according to the low-voltage pump enable signal and the high-voltage pump enable signal.
US08958260B2
Semiconductor devices comprising at least one voltage sensor for sensing an operating voltage associated with an operational circuit of the semiconductor device. The at least one voltage sensor is configured to generate a signal indicative of a state of the operating voltage. Methods of monitoring a voltage in a semiconductor device include determining a magnitude of an operating voltage for an operational circuit in a semiconductor device. A signal may be generated indicating a state of the operating voltage.
US08958255B2
A semiconductor storage apparatus according to the present invention includes a plurality of memory cells, a plurality of word lines, a plurality of pairs of bit lines, a plurality of sense amplifiers, a pair of common data lines, a data-to-be-written output circuit configured to, in writing data, set voltages of the common data lines forming the pair, a column selection signal output unit configured to output a plurality of column selection signals, and a plurality of column selection gates, in which in writing the data, the column selection signal output unit selectively turns on one of the column selection gates by setting each of voltages of the column selection signals to one of a level of a higher-potential power supply voltage and a level of a lower-potential power supply voltage, before activating the sense amplifiers.
US08958252B2
To provide a signal processing circuit including a nonvolatile memory circuit with a novel structure, the signal processing circuit includes an arithmetic portion, a memory, and a control portion for controlling the arithmetic portion and the memory. The control portion includes a set of a volatile memory circuit and a first nonvolatile memory circuit for storing data held in the volatile memory circuit, the memory includes a plurality of second nonvolatile memory circuits, and the first nonvolatile memory circuit and the second nonvolatile memory circuit each include a transistor having a channel in an oxide semiconductor layer and a capacitor in which one of a pair of electrodes is electrically connected to a node which is set in a floating state when the transistor is turned off.
US08958249B2
A set of memory cells can be erased by individually erasing portions of the set in order to normalize the erase behavior of each memory cell and provide more consistent erase rates. An erase voltage pulse can be applied to the set of memory cells with a first group of cells biased for erase and a second group biased to inhibit erase. The erase depth is made shallower as the device is cycled more.
US08958248B2
Flash memory arrays are described. In one embodiment, a flash memory array includes memory sectors of Two-Transistor (2T) AND memory cells. Within each of the memory sectors, a row of sector selection transistors is configured such that writing data onto a memory column within the memory sector is controlled by applying a voltage to a bit line, independent from the row of sector selection transistors. Other embodiments are also described.
US08958245B2
The non-volatile memory cell includes a coupling device and a first select transistor. The coupling device is formed in a first conductivity region. The first select transistor is serially connected to a first floating gate transistor and a second select transistor, all formed in a second conductivity region. An electrode of the coupling device and a gate of the first floating gate transistor are a monolithically formed floating gate; wherein the first conductivity region and the second conductivity region are formed in a third conductivity region; wherein the first conductivity region, the second conductivity region, and the third conductivity region are wells.
US08958243B2
A group classification method includes the following steps. Firstly, a voltage shift parameter table is established. The voltage shift parameter table includes a first positional parameter table corresponding to a first neighboring cell. Then, MN ICI patterns are determined according to N neighboring cells having a significant ICI effect. If the central cell has a first storing state, MN central cell threshold voltage shifts corresponding to the MN ICI patterns are determined according to the voltage shift parameter table, and the first storing state is divided into plural sub-regions. Afterwards, the central cells corresponding to a first number of ICI patterns are classified into a first group of the first storing state. The central cell threshold voltage shifts corresponding to the first number of ICI patterns lie in a first sub-region of the first storing state.
US08958240B2
A magnetic thermally-assisted switching device includes a reference layer, a storage layer magnetised along a variable direction, a spacer that separates the reference layer and the storage layer, and magnetically decouples them, a device for heating the pinning layer so that, during heating, the temperature of the pinning layer exceeds its blocking temperature such that the direction of magnetisation of the storage layer is no longer pinned, a device for applying a writing magnetic torque tending to align the magnetisation of the storage layer along one of two stable magnetisation directions once the blocking temperature is reached. The device also includes a device for applying a magnetic polarisation field at least during the heating phase before the blocking temperature is reached such that the direction of magnetisation of the storage layer is always along the direction of the magnetic polarisation field at the moment that the blocking temperature is reached.
US08958233B2
The present disclosure includes apparatuses and methods including stabilization of resistive memory. A number of embodiments include applying a programming signal to a resistive memory cell, wherein the programming signal includes a first portion having a first polarity and a second portion having a second polarity, wherein the second polarity is opposite the first polarity.
US08958227B2
Multiple integrated circuits (ICs) die, from different wafers, can be picked-and-placed, front-side planarized using a vacuum applied to a planarizing disk, and attached to each other or a substrate. The streets between the IC die can be filled, and certain techniques or fixtures allow application of monolithic semiconductor wafer processing for interconnecting different die. High density I/O connections between different IC die can be obtained using structures and techniques for aligning vias to I/O structures, and programmably routing IC I/O lines to appropriate vias. Existing IC die can be retrofitted for such interconnection to other IC die, such as by using similar techniques or tools.
US08958226B2
A static, ternary content addressable memory (TCAM) includes a key cell and a mask cell coupled to intermediate match lines. The key cell is coupled to a first pull-down transistor and a first pull-up transistor. The mask cell is coupled to a second pull-down transistor and a second pull-up transistor. The first pull-down transistor and second pull-down transistor are connected in parallel and the first pull-up transistor and second pull-up transistor are connected in series. A match line output is also coupled to the first pull-down transistor and second pull-down transistor and further coupled to the first pull-up transistor and second pull-up transistor.
US08958225B2
An electric power converter has a semiconductor module that has a switching element therein, cooling pipes that contact with heat radiating surfaces of the semiconductor module and cool the semiconductor module, and a capacitor module formed by sealing a capacitor element therein by a potting material. A piled unit is formed by piling the semiconductor module and the cooling pipes. A direction in which the semiconductor module and the cooling pipes are piled is defined as a piling direction. The piled unit is sandwiched between the capacitor module disposed in a first end side in the piling direction of the piled unit and a pressing member disposed in a second end side in the piling direction of the piled unit. The first end of the piled unit is contacted to a potting surface that is a surface of the potting material in the capacitor module.
US08958219B2
A non-isolated inverter including a DC input-side, a capacitor connected in parallel with the DC input-side, an AC output-side connected in parallel with a load, and first and second bridge-arm units is provided. The first and second bridge-arm units are connected in parallel with the capacitor. The first bridge-arm unit includes a series forward-connection of upper and lower switch-elements, where a common-node of upper and lower switch-elements and a supplying terminal of the second bridge-arm unit are respectively connected to two terminals of the AC output-side. The upper and lower switch-elements are respectively turned on in positive and negative half cycles of an output current of the non-isolated inverter, and the generation of common-mode currents in the non-isolated inverter is suppressed under a clamping action between the upper and lower switch-elements due to there are no high-frequency voltages on the parasitic-capacitors from the non-isolated inverter to the ground.
US08958218B2
An energy conversion system for use with an alternative energy source is disclosed. The alternative energy source can generate either an AC or a DC voltage. A first power converter is connected between the source and a DC bus, and a second power converter is connected between the DC bus and the grid or another load. The first power converter is configured to operate during periods of low energy generation. The energy captured will be stored in an electrical storage medium. When sufficient energy is stored, this energy is subsequently transferred to the grid or load via the second power converter. The second power converter is configured to operate intermittently during periods of low power generation, transferring energy from the DC bus when sufficient energy is stored and turning off when the stored energy drops to a point at which the second power converter can no longer be operated efficiently.
US08958215B2
The present invention has an objective to provide a circuit board for a peripheral circuit which can transmit outside heat which generates from a high exothermic element, such as a power semiconductor element, while attaining reduction in size and weight, reduction in surge, and reduction in a loss, in high-capacity modules including power modules, such as an inverter.[Solution Means] In a high-capacity module, by laminating a peripheral circuit using a ceramic circuit board with electrode(s) constituted by thick conductor and embedded therein on a highly exothermic element, overheating of the module is prevented by effective heat dissipation via the circuit board while attaining reduction in size and weight, reduction in surge, and reduction in a loss in the module.
US08958212B2
An electronic device includes a circuit board, a connector and an electronic module. The connector includes an insulating body and a first terminal set. The insulating body includes a concave. The first terminal set is fastened on the insulating body and is electrically connected to the circuit board. The electronic module is detachably disposed in the concave and includes a second terminal set. The second terminal set contacts the first terminal set to be electrically connected to the circuit board.
US08958198B2
An electrical cell apparatus includes a first current collector made of a multiplicity of fibers, a second current collector spaced from the first current collector; and a separator disposed between the first current collector and the second current collector. The fibers are contained in a foam.
US08958196B2
An electric circuit connected to a thermal switch with three terminals and a method for connecting the switch are realized. In an electric circuit of a common power supply, an external connection wire (first terminal) of a thermal switch arranged close to a current limiting resistor is connected to a load side (rectifier circuit), the current limiting resistor is connected between the external connection wire (first terminal) and an external connection wire (second terminal), and an external connection wire (third terminal) is connected to the output side of a power supply switch. Thus, the current limiting resistor is connected and arranged to an internal resistor unit of the thermal switch in series and to a switch unit (contact) in parallel.
US08958191B2
A fire protection device for preventing damage to a domestic appliance from a malfunction which occurs in the appliance. The fire protection device includes at least one fault current circuit breaker, which disconnects the electrical supply from the appliance when a fault current is sensed. The fire protection device also includes at least one gas sensor which also disconnects the electrical supply from the appliance when a predetermined quantity of a control gas is sensed in the appliance.
US08958187B2
Apparatus and methods for active detection, timing, and protection related to transient electrical events are disclosed. A detection circuit can generate a first activation signal in response to a transient electrical stress event across a first node and a second node. A blocking circuit is configured to bias the base of a first driver bipolar transistor to slow down discharge of accumulated base charge of a first driver bipolar transistor, which permits the first driver bipolar transistor to remain activated for a longer period of time than had the base of the first driver bipolar transistor been biased to the same voltage as the emitter of the first bipolar transistor. Shut-off circuitry can be included in some embodiments to prevent a discharge circuit from activating during normal operating conditions.
US08958178B2
Reducing slider bounce within a hard disk drive. A force is received at a first material while the first material is in contact with a disk of a hard disk drive; the first material comprising a portion that is flexible in a first direction and is substantially non-flexible in a second direction. The first direction is a direction that is normal to the disk and the second direction is a direction that is parallel to a surface of the disk. The force is substantially absorbed by the portion that is flexible to reduce the force associated with interaction between the first material and the disk, thereby reducing slider bounce within the hard disk drive.
US08958168B1
A method and system provides an EAMR transducer. The transducer is coupled with a laser for providing energy and has an air-bearing surface (ABS) configured to reside in proximity to a media during use. The EAMR transducer includes a composite near field transducer (NFT), a write pole and at least one coil for energizing the write pole. The write pole is configured to write to a region of the media. The composite NFT is for focusing the energy onto the region of the media. The composite NFT includes at least one metal and at least one insulator therein.
US08958166B2
Sliding-window based data processing includes receiving an analog signal, converting the analog signal to a series of digital samples synchronous to a sampling clock, performing a first discrete Fourier transform on a first portion of the series of digital samples, performing a second discrete Fourier transform on a second portion of the series of digital samples, performing a third discrete Fourier transform on a third portion of the series of digital samples, generating a first series of zero phase start values by calculating a zero phase start value based on the first discrete Fourier transform in a sliding-window at a series of time increments across the servo preamble, storing the zero phase start values, and averaging the stored zero phase start values at the end of the servo preamble.
US08958149B2
Regarding a sighting telescope comprising a reversing system which is configured between an objective and is fitted an ocular and fitted with an objective-proximate field lens and at least two mutually displaceable optical elements near the ocular, further comprising an objective-proximate image plane situated between the objective and the field lens and spaced from latter, further with an ocular-proximate image plane situated between the reversing system and the ocular, where, when displacing the said optical elements, an intermediate image projected by the objective into the ocular-proximate image plane is erected and reproduced at a variable magnification in the ocular proximate image plane, and at a magnification of at least 4×, the invention stipulates configuring a correcting field lens element between the objective-proximate image plane and the field lens.
US08958136B2
An image reading apparatus configured to read images of both surfaces of a document is provided. The image reading apparatus may include a first image reading device configured to read an image of a first surface of a document, a second image reading device configured to read an image of a second surface of the document, and a document conveying mechanism configured to convey the document from the second image reading device to the first image reading device. The first image reading device has a first reading range, and the second image reading device has a second reading range, which is smaller than the first reading range.
US08958133B2
A signal processing apparatus includes a pulse signal producing section configured to produce image creating signals for image formation in response to image data by using an image processing clock corresponding to each pixel of the image data; a measuring section configured to measure a difference between an actual value and an ideal value of a signal width of the image creating signal at the time of measurement; and a processing section configured to correct the image data so as to cancel the difference at the time of an actual action.
US08958126B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide a printing system and a printing method for determining an ink-saving amount. The printing system comprises: a rasterizer processor configured to load a content file, and perform a raster process according to a predetermined ink-saving parameter so as to output a raster image; a computer-to-plate (CTP) device configured to output an imaging CTP plate according to the raster image; and a CTP output device configured to print a one-bit Tiff image according to the imaging CTP plate; and an ink-saving amount determination device coupled, in parallel with the CTP device, to the rasterizer processor and configured to acquire a raster image when the ink-saving parameter is disabled and compares the raster image with a raster image acquired from the rasterizer processor when the ink-saving parameter is enabled, so as to determine the ink-saving amount available for the content file.
US08958123B2
The present invention provides an image forming apparatus that forms a test pattern for controlling the amount of color material, suppresses increase of the color material amount, and prevents image defects such as spattering, poor fixation due to granularity, or the like. To accomplish this, the image forming apparatus forms a test pattern on printing material using color material of a plurality of colors, reads the formed test pattern, and controls the color material amount of each color by changing an image forming condition in accordance with a result of the reading. Note that the image forming apparatus forms a mixed pattern image using color material of a plurality of chromatic colors, and controls the amount of color material of a single color based on the mixed pattern image.
US08958120B2
A print control apparatus includes an obtaining unit and a specification unit. The obtaining unit obtains positional information for specifying positions of ends of a print medium detected by a sensor when the print medium is conveyed along a conveyance path such that a print medium center is aligned with a conveyance path center. The specification unit specifies, when positions of both ends of the print medium are specified by the obtained positional information, a width of the print medium in accordance with the specified positions of both ends, and specifies, when the position of only one end of the print medium is specified by the positional information, a width corresponding to a length twice as long as a distance between the specified position of the one end of the print medium and a position corresponding to the conveyance path center as the width of the print medium.
US08958113B2
An image input/output apparatus includes an execution unit configured to execute a job for inputting or outputting image data, a storage unit configured to store the image data or reference information referring to the image data as history information, an output unit configured to output image data identified based on history information, and a control unit configured to perform control not to store the history information in the storage unit if an attribute of the job indicates that the job is a media print job for printing image data stored in an external storage media and perform control to store the history information if the attribute does not indicate that the job is the media print job.
US08958103B2
For a device from which identification information (serial number) cannot be obtained when configuration information of the device has been changed, log information is obtained from the device and is compared to stored log information, thereby confirming identity of the device. The device whose identity can be confirmed is continued to be monitored.
US08958099B2
An information processing system includes a management terminal and a client terminal capable of communicating with each other. The client terminal includes a first controller configured to issue an instruction to perform first certain processing according to first setting information. The management terminal includes a setting information generator configured to generate the first setting information according to information inputted by a user operation, and a setting information application unit configured to, upon detection of a client terminal capable of performing communication, send the first setting information generated by the setting information generator to the client terminal and applies the generated first setting information to the first setting information set in the first controller.
US08958091B2
An image-forming system comprising an image-forming device and a portable terminal. The image-forming device has a state-detecting part and a panel part that includes a plurality of light-emitting elements, the panel part adapted such that a turned-on/turned-off pattern of the plurality of light-emitting elements is switched, and optical signals destined for the portable terminal and including information on the state of the image-forming device. The portable terminal has an image-capturing part, a storage part for storing an application, a display part for displaying an image and a screen, and a processing part a processing part for identifying, based on the application, the information on the state of the image-forming device included in the optical signals from image data obtained as a result of the image-capturing part capturing an image of the panel part, and for displaying, the state of the image-forming device on the display part.
US08958089B2
The present invention provides a facsimile apparatus which provides a facsimile function to a cooperative image forming apparatus connected to a network, the facsimile apparatus comprising a receiving unit configured to perform facsimile reception via a public line, a determining unit configured to, when the receiving unit receives data to be transferred to the cooperative image forming apparatus, determine whether a license of the cooperative image forming apparatus which can be provided with the facsimile function is valid or invalid, and a control unit configured to restrict transfer of the data to the cooperative image forming apparatus based on a determination result by the determining unit.
US08958087B2
An image processing apparatus and a network relay device are configured to be communicable with each other by communication means in which power consumption is smaller than that in a network controller connected to a wired LAN. A control unit of the image processing apparatus, while switching a first power saving mode to a second power saving mode in which power consumption is smaller by stopping power supply to the network controller, starts power supply to the network controller to switch the second power saving mode to a normal mode when a return notification is sent via the communication means.
US08958084B2
An image processing apparatus includes a connection unit that is connected to an external storage device, an image reading unit that reads image data to be stored on the external storage device at least, a controller that controls power to be supplied to the image reading unit by selecting between a standard mode and a power-saving mode consuming power less than in the standard mode. When the external storage device is connecting to the connection unit while the power-saving mode is selected, the controller determines whether the external storage device is enable to be written or not. The controller supplies power to the image reading unit in the standard mode if the controller determines the external storage device is enable to be written, or supplies power to the image reading unit in the power-saving mode if the controller determines the external storage device is not enable to be written.
US08958078B2
A two-dimensional, position-sensitive sensor-based system for positioning an object having six degrees of freedom in space, used for positioning of a silicon table and mask table of a lithography machine. The system comprises mainly a semiconductor laser 1, an optical fiber collimator 2, optical fibers 3, 7, 10, and 13, an optical fiber splitter 4, filter plates 6, 9, and 12, three PSD sensors 5, 8, and 11, and a signal processing system. Laser emitted by the semiconductor laser 1 is irradiated onto the optical fiber collimator 2, then transmitted respectively via three paths, and received by the PSD sensors 5, 8, and 11 after having background light filtered out by the filter plates 6, 9, and 12, while the positions of laser spots on the three PSD sensors 5, 8, and 11 are processed by the signal processing system to acquire the position and orientation.
US08958072B2
A photometer has a light source, a sensor, a liquid-core light guide which defines an optical path between the light source and the sensor and through which a liquid to be analyzed can be guided, and at least one port for the liquid. The port for the liquid to be analyzed runs through the light source.
US08958070B2
An optical sensor includes a substrate having an upper surface, a plurality of protrusions on the substrate, wherein each of the plurality of protrusions is defined by a base at the upper surface of the substrate and by one or more sloped surfaces oriented at oblique angles relative to the upper surface, and two or more structural layers in the sloped surfaces. The surfaces of the two or more structural layers can adsorb molecules of a chemical or biological substance.
US08958064B2
The invention relates to an inspection device for monitoring containers, particularly bottles, comprising at least one transport path for supplying and removing the containers, a lighting unit, and optical measuring unit, and a control unit, wherein the lighting unit is surrounded by a transparent hollow body mounted in a rotatable fashion about the central axis, and the hollow body may be driven by a motor, either directly or via appropriate operative connections. Ideally, the hollow body is a tube made of a material or mixture of materials that is transparent to rays in the optically visible wavelength range, in the infrared range, and/or in the ultraviolet range, wherein the material is at least partially transparent to said rays.
US08958063B2
An illumination device for providing near isotropic illumination, and particularly an illumination system for detecting the defect in a transparent substrate and a detection system including the same are presented. An illumination system includes: an illumination system for detecting the defect in a transparent substrate, including light source receptacle in bar shape; first spot light sources, each emitting a respective first light, the respective first lights being substantially parallel to each other and the first spot light sources being arranged to a first line of spot light sources along the longitudinal direction of the receptacle; and second spot light sources, each emitting a respective second light, the respective second lights being substantially parallel to each other and the second spot light sources being arranged to a second line of spot light sources along the longitudinal direction of the receptacle.
US08958062B2
In order to enable inspections to be conducted at a sampling rate higher than the pulse oscillation frequency of a pulsed laser beam emitted from a laser light source, without damaging samples, a defect inspection method is disclosed, wherein: a single pulse of a pulsed laser beam emitted from the laser light source is split into a plurality of pulses; a sample is irradiated with this pulse-split pulsed laser beam; scattered light produced by the sample due to the irradiation is focused and detected; and defects on the sample are detected by using information obtained by focusing and detecting the scattered light from the sample. Said defect inspection method is configured such that the splitting a single pulse of the pulsed laser beam into a plurality of pulses is controlled in such a manner that the peak values of the split pulses are substantially uniform.
US08958058B2
Apparatuses, systems, and methods to monitor the integrity of a container protected by a refractory material are disclosed having a first radiation detector to measure an external surface temperature of the container, a first radiation source to measure a thickness of the refractory material, and a central controller configured to display to a user the measurement of the external surface temperature of the container and the measurement of the thickness of the refractory material.
US08958054B2
A protrusion is provided on a barrier member which at least partly confines a liquid between a projection system and a substrate. The protrusion is closer to the projection system than other parts of the barrier member to promote a meniscus of liquid to adhere between the protrusion and the projection system.
US08958047B2
A display device includes a first substrate having a light shielding layer, and a second substrate having a first metal layer, a semiconductor layer formed over the first metal layer, and a second metal layer formed over the semiconductor layer. A sealing member fixes the first substrate and the second substrate, with a first scale mark formed over the first substrate, and a second scale mark formed over the second substrate and which forms a pair with the first scale mark. The light shielding layer has a first opening portion, and the first scale mark is arranged inside the first opening portion. The second scale mark is formed of a first part of the second metal layer, and a first part of the semiconductor layer and a first part of the first metal layer are overlapped with and extend off from the first part of the second metal.
US08958046B2
A display substrate includes a base substrate, a gate line portion, a data line portion, and a pixel portion. The base substrate includes a display area divided into first to fourth divided display areas, and first to fourth peripheral areas. The gate line portion includes a plurality of first gate lines, and a plurality of second gate lines. The data line portion includes a plurality of first data lines, and a plurality of second data lines. The pixel portion is disposed in the display area to be electrically connected to the first and second gate lines and the first and second data lines, respectively.
US08958038B2
A liquid crystal display device includes first and second substrates, at least one of which is transparent, a liquid crystal layer which is disposed between the first and second substrates, a pixel electrode and a common electrode which are formed on one of the first and second substrates and which apply an electric field to the liquid crystal layer, a plurality of active elements which is connected to the pixel electrode and the common electrode, an alignment film which is disposed on at least one of the first and second substrates and has one surface contacting the liquid crystal layer, and an underlying layer which is disposed on at least one of the first and second substrates and contacts the other surface of the alignment film. The pixel electrode is laminated on the common electrode having a plane shape through an isolation film.
US08958035B2
A wide variety of different alignment polar angles can be created in the alignment layers of a liquid crystal display with just a small number of UV exposure steps by using one or a combination of overlappable UV masks, where the one or more combinations of overlappable UV masks simultaneously define a maximal transmission region, an intermediate transmission region and a nontransmitting (blocking) region. UV rays are irradiated through masks in different irradiation directions while the mask or masks are disposed in different orientations.
US08958031B2
A liquid crystal display includes a light guide plate, a light source, first and second liquid crystal display panels, a main circuit board, and a heat discharging member. The light guide plate includes first and second exiting surfaces, and a side surface extending from the first and second exiting surfaces. The light source faces the side surface and provides light to the side surface. The first and second liquid crystal display panels receive the light exiting from the first and second exiting surfaces, respectively. The main circuit board applies an electrical signal to at least one of the first and second liquid crystal display panels. The light source and the main circuit board are mounted on the heat discharging member, and the heat discharging member discharges heat generated by the light source.
US08958028B2
The patterning of objects (e.g., protective poly-films, heat-spreaders, and other components placed proximate to the backlight of an LCD) with multiple beads or raised protrusions is disclosed. The beads or protrusions can have a uniform or non-uniform size and can be arranged such that they have a uniform or non-uniform pattern density. The beads or protrusions can be patterned on a surface of the object to provide separation between a non-raised surface of the object and a surface of an adjacent item, such as a reflector film.
US08958023B2
A liquid crystal module includes a rear frame, a molded frame, a light guide plate, a light source, a liquid crystal pane and a positioning structure. The light source is disposed along a first end face of the light guide plate. The positioning structure positions the light guide plate relative to the rear frame. The positioning structure has an engagement portion and a drawn protrusion that engages with the engagement portion. The engagement portion is provided on a second end face of the light guide plate with the second end face being different from the first end face. The drawn protrusion is provided on the rear frame by drawing a part of the rear frame with the drawn protrusion being integrally formed with the rear frame as a one-piece, unitary member.
US08958022B2
A liquid crystal display device includes: a main frame having a rectangular ring shape; a reflecting plate on the main frame; a light guide plate on the reflecting plate; a light emitting diode (LED) assembly along at least one side of the main frame, the LED assembly having a plurality of LEDs and an LED printed circuit board (PCB), the LED PCB including a first portion having the plurality of LEDs thereon and a second portion perpendicular to the first portion; an LED housing contacting the LED PCB; a plurality of optical sheets on the light guide plate; a liquid crystal panel on the plurality of optical sheets; a bottom frame under the reflecting plate, the bottom frame including a horizontal plate contacting the reflecting plate and a sidewall perpendicular to the horizontal plate, the sidewall contacting the LED housing; and a top frame covering a front edge portion of the liquid crystal panel, the top frame, the main frame and the bottom frame coupled to each other.
US08958020B2
An electric and electronic sensor for selecting high resolution operative programs and functions of different types of media, connected to an interface device (2) for an appliance for processing a plurality of high resolution operative programs and functions of different types of media, integrated with a television receiver screen (7), for setting and performing the operative programs and functions of different types of media for personal computers and television receivers, and displaying them on the television receiver screen (7). The sensor includes a set of sensors (12-18) connected to a microprocessor (1) of the interface device (2) and adapted to select the operative programs and functions.
US08958016B2
A method is disclosed including but not limited to continuously displaying a selected channel in a new picture in picture display; and removing the selected channel from a first plurality of video channels to form a second plurality of video channels for selecting a second set of video channels from the second plurality of video channels A computer program and system for performing the method are also disclosed.
US08958012B2
A method and apparatus for processing moving image ancillary information, based on a script, is provided. The method includes receiving a user command for inputting ancillary information, where the ancillary information includes a script for a moving image being played. The method further includes storing the ancillary information input by a user, searching for and extracting the stored ancillary information during playback of the moving image, and outputting the extracted ancillary information to an image display screen using the script.
US08958001B2
In association with an imaging device which generates a portion of an image from a plurality of channels within a first row by sampling each channel during a sampling time corresponding to the channel, circuitry offsets sampling times of at least first and second channels within the first row, thereby reducing noise correlation between the first and second channels in the first row. Pixel sampling times may be defined by start times of the channels within a row, end times or both. Offsetting may be accomplished using a predetermined set of sampling time values or by randomizing sampling time values.
US08957999B2
A method of suppressing a dark halo in an imager includes the steps of: extracting an edge value from an image; determining a chroma zone associated with the edge value extracted from the image; and modifying the edge value based on the chroma zone associated with the extracted edge value. The modified edge value from the imager is then provided to a user. The step of determining the chroma zone includes determining a chroma value of Cr and Cb in a Y-Cr-Cb color space; and modifying the edge value includes multiplying the edge value by a predetermined gain value, k, depending on the chroma value of Cr and Cb. If the value of Cr is greater than zero, then the gain value k is set close to zero, in order to suppress the dark halo in the modified edge value. On the other hand, if the value of Cr is less than zero, then the gain value k is set close to one, in order to sharpen the modified edge value in the image.
US08957997B2
An image sensor includes a storage unit configured to store at least a portion of image data, a homogeneous pixel determination unit configured to determine whether dead pixels exist in homogeneous pixels having the same color characteristic as a center pixel in a window of the image data, and an offset correction processing unit configured to calculate a difference value between the center pixel and homogeneous pixels determined as normal pixels by the homogeneous pixel determination unit, and correct a center pixel value by using the calculated difference value.
US08957996B2
A solid-state imaging device includes: a pixel unit in which a plurality of pixels that perform photoelectric conversion are arranged in the form of a matrix; a pixel signal reading unit performing reading of a pixel signal in a signal line from the pixel unit in the unit of plural pixels, and performing column signal processing with respect to an input signal; and an evaluation pattern generation unit receiving a control signal and a signal line interception signal and generating a pseudo-evaluation pattern according to the control signal.
US08957995B2
A black image captured in a light-shielded state is obtained, and the streak intensity is determined for each pixel of the black image from the absolute value of an AC component in a region containing the pixel. An extraction image which extracts streak-like fixed pattern noise in a captured image is generated using a black image obtained by applying, to the obtained black image, the first filter for reducing random noise in the first direction.
US08957991B2
An imaging apparatus includes an imaging unit configured to capture an object image, a smoothing unit configured to smooth a dynamic range of luminance of an image signal generated based on the object image captured by the imaging unit, and a color conversion unit configured to perform a color conversion with respect to a color of the image signal whose dynamic range is smoothed by the smoothing unit and is specified by a user.
US08957987B2
An image sound annotation system including an image capture device having an input-output port which receives a secure digital memory card including an image audio annotation program which can be used with an audio capture device to store an image file in association with a audio file in a memory element for subsequent retrieval and display of an image associated with the image file with concurrent playback of the sound associated with the audio file.
US08957985B2
The present invention is directed to performing imaging processing for dividing a video signal obtained by an imaging unit into a plurality of areas, and detecting in parallel respective evaluation values of video signals of the plurality of areas, reducing the video signal obtained by the imaging unit, detecting an evaluation value of the reduced video signal, and controlling an operation of the imaging apparatus using either the evaluation values of video signals of the plurality of areas or the evaluation value of the reduced video signal.
US08957974B2
An image stabilization control apparatus including a mechanism which causes a vibration when the mechanism moves is disclosed. The apparatus comprises a vibration correction unit configured to correct image shake occurring due to vibration applied to the image stabilization control apparatus. A correction value of an angular velocity of the vibration is calculated based on signals based on the angular velocity and an acceleration of the vibration, frequency bands of the signals are narrowed. During the mechanism is moving, the image shake is corrected by driving the vibration correction unit based on the angular velocity of the vibration which is corrected by the corrected value calculated before the mechanism moves.
US08957972B2
Disclosed is a method and tool that performs glass-to-glass testing of a test AV system. The test AV system may be a transmitter device that senses AV stimuli and transmits an AV signal to a receiver device that displays video and provides an audio out/speaker of the audio. A light source and a sound source may be placed at the transmitter device. A light sensor and microphone/direct audio out connection may be placed at the receiver device. The automatic test tool may cycle synchronized light/sound stimuli to the transmitter device and measure the delay/latency times for audio, video, and AV synchronization at the receiver device. The automatic test tool may be comprised of a computer running user interface/test management software connected to a low cost FPGA that controls the video/sound sources and sensors to accurately measure both video and audio glass-to-glass latency/synchronization in a continuous, automatic, and self-calibrating manner.
US08957969B2
An apparatus for capturing video footage of at least one moving object on a racecourse or sporting field. The video footage includes sequential still pictures each containing a respective image of the at least one moving object. The apparatus including at least one camera mounted on a pan tilt head being configured to follow the movement of the at least one moving object, to thereby capture the video footage, and a controller in communication with the pan tilt head, for controlling the pan and tilt thereof. The controller being used to set the position of a first and a second biasing devices with respect to the limits of a picture frame of said at least one camera. The first and second biasing means are ordered hierarchically by the controller.
US08957967B2
A system includes a video sensing device, a computer processor coupled to the video sensing device, and a display unit coupled to the computer processor. The system displays on the display unit a field of view of the video sensing device, and displays a three dimensional widget within the field of view. The widget includes one or more features for altering one or more of a location or size of the widget, thereby altering an area in the field of view covered by the widget. The system then alters one or more of a pan, a tilt, and a zoom of the video sensing device as a function of the alteration of the location or size of the widget, thereby altering the field of view of the video sensing device.
US08957955B2
The present invention relates to a computer-implemented quality assurance system, which includes the steps of retrieving quality assurance and supporting information from a database; receiving information on technical variables from monitoring of the patient, and on radiographic equipment in the performance of an imaging study; generating a quality assurance score after said imaging study based on said technical variables and said quality assurance and supporting information; and performing a quality assurance analysis of the imaging study based on the quality assurance score.
US08957953B2
An imaging device and an endoscopic device can be further miniaturized. A vertical selection unit simultaneously resets charge accumulation units of a plurality of pixels, and then a horizontal selection unit sequentially selects a plurality of first pixel signals corresponding to voltages of the charge accumulation units of the plurality of pixels and inputs the first pixel signals to an output unit. Further, a vertical selection unit simultaneously transfers the signal charges generated by the charge generation units in the plurality of pixels to the charge accumulation units, and then a horizontal selection unit sequentially selects a plurality of second pixel signals corresponding to the voltages of the charge accumulation units of the plurality of pixels and inputs the second pixel signals to the output unit.
US08957949B2
A method and a device for estimating the coefficient of friction by a 3D camera. The 3D camera records at least one image of the vehicle's surroundings. The image data of the 3D camera is used to produce a height profile of the road surface in the entire space ahead of the vehicle. Based on the height profile, the local coefficient of friction of the road surface that is to be expected in the space ahead of the vehicle is estimated.
US08957946B2
Methods, apparatuses and systems directed to using viewport state data objects (VSDO) to render a series of video frames according to render instructions to achieve video compression. In a particular implementation, the video compression format exposes the VSDO and render instructions to a video render client, allowing the video render client to finish rendering a sequence of video frames from different spatial locations and view transform parameters. Implementations of this video compression format further allow any arbitrary client with enough graphics processing power and bandwidth to retransmit novel, completely rendered viewports to thin clients without taxing the root remote render devices.
US08957940B2
Video content is received at a computing device that camera views provided by video cameras that are aligned to capture images of participants within a defined space. Each camera view is at a first resolution and the video cameras are aligned such that a field of view (FOV) for each camera overlaps a portion of the FOV of at least one other adjacent camera. Positions of participants depicted within the video content are detected, where at least one participant is captured by overlapping FOVs of two adjacent camera views. A target view is generated from the first number of camera views, the target view having a second resolution that is lower than the first resolution, and the target view includes a view of the at least one participant captured within the overlapping FOVs of two adjacent camera views. The target view is displayed at a display device.
US08957922B2
A display apparatus that can execute single unit calibration that is performed by displaying an image stored in the display apparatus in advance, and link calibration that is performed by displaying an image based on an image signal which is input from an external apparatus, comprises an execution unit that performs periodic calibration in which the single unit calibration and the link calibration are periodically executed and a determination unit that determines whether an image signal from the external apparatus is input or not, wherein the execution unit executes the link calibration during a period in which the determination unit determines that an image signal from the external apparatus is input, when the link calibration could not be executed during the periodic calibration.
US08957920B2
A scene comprising a set of visual elements may allow a user to perform “zoom” operations in order to navigate the depth of the scene. The “zoom” semantic is often applied to simulate optical visual depth, wherein the visual elements are presented with different visual dimensions and visual resolution to simulate physical proximity or distance. However, the “zoom” semantic may be alternatively applied to other aspects of the visual elements of a scene, such as a user selection of a zoomed-in visual element, a “drill-down” operation on a data set, or navigation through a portal in a first data set to view a second data set. These alternative “zoom” semantics may be achieved by presenting the effects of a “zoom” operation within the scene on the visual presentation of the visual element in a manner other than an adjustment of the visual dimensions and resolution of the visual element.
US08957916B1
Methods and systems are disclosed herein that may help to present graphics in a see-through display of a head-mountable display. An exemplary method may involve: (a) receiving image data that is indicative of a real-world field of view associated with a head-mountable display (HMD); (b) analyzing the image data to determine at least one undesirable portion of the real-world field of view, wherein the at least one undesirable portion is undesirable as a background for display of at least one graphic object in a graphic display of the HMD; (c) determining at least one undesirable area of the graphic display that corresponds to the at least one undesirable portion of the real-world field of view; and (d) causing the at least one graphic object to be displayed in an area of the graphic display such that the graphic object substantially avoids the at least one undesirable area.
US08957911B2
A method and an apparatus are provided for editing a display of a touch display apparatus. A first screen including at least one object is displayed. An object on the first screen is designated. The touch display apparatus is converted to an edit mode for editing the display, when the object is designated. When a movement of the touch display apparatus is detected, the first screen is converted into a second screen according to at least one of a degree and a direction of the movement. The designated object is displayed on the second screen.
US08957907B2
A surface definition module of a hair/fur pipeline may be used to generate a shape defining a surface and an associated volume. A control hair module may be used to fill the volume with control hairs and an interpolation module may be used to interpolate final hair strands from the control hairs.
US08957903B2
An accelerator work allocation mechanism determines at run-time which functions to allocate to a hardware accelerator based on a defined accelerator policy, and based on an analysis performed at run-time. The analysis includes reading the accelerator policy, and determining whether a particular function satisfies the accelerator policy. If so, the function is allocated to the hardware accelerator. If not, the function is allocated to the processor.
US08957902B2
Novel method and system for distributed database ray-tracing is presented, based on modular mapping of scene-data among processors. Its inherent properties include scattering data among processors for improved load balancing, and matching between geographical proximity in the scene with communication proximity between processors. High utilization is enabled by unique mechanism of cache sharing. The resulting improved performance enables deep level of ray tracing for real time applications.
US08957896B2
A method is provided for a streaming hierarchy traversal renderer with particular application for feature films and other demanding content creation using scenes of high complexity that cannot fit in memory. The renderer organizes scene geometry into a spatial hierarchy, generates directional queries to be traced in the spatial hierarchy, performs a streaming hierarchy traversal over the directional queries, and uses the results of the directional queries to shade or render the scene. The traversal performs a single pass over the directional queries for splitting into one child stream of directional queries for each child node at each scene node in the hierarchy. A prioritized traversal of the hierarchy may also be carried out using various cost-metrics for optimized parallelism. The rendering may also bounce the directional queries to provide multi-pass global illumination.
US08957893B2
The present invention provides a three-dimensional (3D) display apparatus and a 3D system. The system comprises the 3D display apparatus and polarizer glasses. The 3D display apparatus comprises a display panel and a pattern retarder film. Retarder rows of the pattern retarder film are positioned to pixel row pairs of the display panel, respectively. The present invention can mitigate the image crosstalk problem exiting in the conventional 3D display.
US08957889B2
In a light-emitting device, supply of current is controlled using a transistor having a normal gate electrode (a first gate electrode) and a second gate electrode for controlling threshold voltage. The light-emitting device comprises one or more switches for selecting conduction or non-conduction between the first gate electrode and a drain terminal of the transistor. When the threshold voltage of the transistor is acquired, the first gate electrode and the drain terminal of the transistor are brought into conduction with the switch, and the threshold voltage of the transistor is shifted by controlling the potential of the second gate electrode.
US08957885B2
A method of driving a display panel includes outputting a gate signal to a gate line of the display panel, outputting a data voltage having an offset value of a first polarity to a first pixel during a P-th frame, and outputting a data voltage having an offset value of a second polarity opposite to the first polarity to a second pixel during the P-th frame, where P is a natural number, the first pixel and the second pixel are connected to a same data line of the display panel, and the offset value of the first polarity and the offset value of the second polarity compensate for each other.
US08957878B2
A stylus includes a stylus housing that supports a control circuit. The control circuit is configured automatically compare data quality as corresponds to stylus location-determination information being provided by at least two different stylus-based candidate non-passive location modalities to thereby select a particular stylus-based non-passive location modality and to then use that particular stylus-based non-passive location modality when transmitting stylus location-determination information to a corresponding electronic device.
US08957873B2
A display device (10) having a display element (20), such as a light-emitting device or a light-reflecting device, such as a MEMS device, and a glass touch panel (30) covering the display element, the outer surface (50) of the panel being textured. The panel is thin, having a thickness of 1.1 mm or less between the inner (40) and outer (50) surfaces.
US08957868B2
This document describes tools associated with symbol entry control functions. In some implementations, the tools identify a first finger that is in tactile contact with a touch screen. The first finger can select a subset of symbols from a plurality of symbols that can be entered via the touch screen. The tools can also identify whether one or more other fingers are in concurrent tactile contact with the first finger on the touch screen. The tools can select an individual symbol from the subset based on whether the one or more other fingers are in concurrent tactile contact with the first finger on the touch screen.
US08957865B2
In some embodiments, an electronic device with a display and a touch-sensitive surface displays a user interface object. The device detects a first contact and a second contact concurrently on the touch-sensitive surface. The device determines which contact of the first contact and the second contact is a topmost contact, a bottommost contact, a leftmost contact, and a rightmost contact on the touch-sensitive surface. While continuing to detect the first contact and the second contact, the device detects movement of the first contact across the touch-sensitive surface, and concurrently moves two edges of the user interface object that correspond to the first contact in accordance with the detected movement of the first contact, including horizontally moving one of the two edges and vertically moving the other of the two edges.
US08957861B2
A method is provided for recognizing input operations. The method comprises transmitting virtual key information defining a layout of virtual input keys. The method further comprises determining input position information based on a detected input member. The method also comprises determining a key input by comparing the virtual key information with the input position information.
US08957857B2
Disclosed is a device for controlling a mouse pointer, providing a display unit; an image photographing unit for photographing images of a first object and a second object; and a controller for setting a point between the first object and the second object detected from the photographed images as a position of a mouse pointer on the display unit, and when a distance between the first object and the second object is less than a predetermined distance, determining that a user selection instruction for the point has been input. The device detects movement of fingers using differential images according to the movement of the fingers, so that even when a continuously changing surrounding lighting or a user face having the similar color with the finger is included in a background, it is possible to accurately identify the movement of the fingers.
US08957850B2
Hand-held communication devices (10) include one or more sensors (78, 92) positioned so as to permit the user to perform optical finger navigation (OFN) and other types of finger navigation on a display (68) of the device (10) while the user holds the device (10) using the same hand.
US08957844B2
A display device comprises: a first substrate; LED light sources mounted on the first substrate; a backlight unit comprising a side surface on which light emitted from the LED light sources is incident and a back surface from which light is emitted in a direction different from the direction of the light incident on the side surface; and a panel disposed on the backlight unit and displaying a video image, wherein at least the first and second LED light sources adjacent to each other, among the LED light sources on the first substrate, are controlled differently from the other LED light sources on the first substrate based on the video image.
US08957830B2
A circuit board panel includes a plurality of circuit boards (PCB). One or more antenna boards (615) are formed in spare areas about the plurality of circuit boards (PCB). Antenna boards may also be coupled to circuitry on the circuit boards in a detachable manner.
US08957829B2
An antenna module includes a main body and a three-dimensional radiator embedded in the main body. The main body is made of foamed ceramic material. A method for making the antenna is also described.
US08957828B2
Antenna arrangement for a multi radiator base station antenna, the antenna having a feeding network based on air filled coaxial lines (15; 19), wherein the coaxial line being an integrated part of a back side of an antenna reflector (1), and wherein the coaxial line comprises an outer conductor (9) and an inner conductor (7; 14). Two parallel columns of radiators (11) are placed on a front side of the antenna reflector (1), the radiators (11) being fed from said feeding network.
US08957825B2
A decoupling circuit for enhancing isolation of two antennas is disclosed. The two antennas are substantially symmetrically disposed on a substrate. The decoupling circuit includes a first and second metal strips parallel disposed between the two antennas and electrically connected to a ground, a connection strip electrically connected between terminals of the first and second metal strips, to substantially form a doorframe structure, a first comb structure comprising a plurality of metal segments parallel to each other, disposed on the substrate, electrically connected to and perpendicular to the first metal strip, and a second comb structure comprising a plurality of metal segments parallel to each other, disposed on the substrate, electrically connected to and perpendicular to the second metal strip.
US08957816B2
A communication device (20) for communication between a movable piece of equipment (101) of a rotary rotor (5) and a stationary piece of equipment (102). Said communication device (20) is fitted with a set (10) of controlling swashplates including a rotary swashplate (11) and a non-rotary swashplate (12), the communication device (20) comprising a movable transfer unit (21) and a stationary transfer unit (22) for exchanging information respectively with the movable equipment (101) and with the stationary equipment (102). Each transfer unit (21, 22) is connected to a respective transmit-and-receive antenna (31, 32), including a movable antenna (31) connected to the movable transfer unit (21) and fastened to the rotary swashplate (11) and a stationary antenna (32) connected to the stationary transfer unit (22) and fastened to the non-rotary swashplate (12), the movable antenna (31) and the stationary antenna (32) being suitable for communicating with each other wirelessly.
US08957800B2
Provided is an electronic signal conversion apparatus and an operation method of the electronic signal conversion apparatus, including: a first converter to perform a compression and conversion of an input signal to a digital signal based on a first sampling; a second converter to perform a compression and conversion of the input signal to the digital signal based on a second sampling different from the first sampling; and a processor to restore the input signal using an output signal of the first converter and an output signal of the second converter.
US08957799B1
A current memory cell includes an amplifier, transistor, first and second capacitors, and first to third switching units. The amplifier includes first to third terminals. The transistor is coupled to first and second nodes, and ground. The first capacitor is coupled between the second node and ground. The second capacitor is coupled between a third node and ground. The first unit couples a current source to the first node during a first period and an output line to the first node during a second period. The second unit couples the first node to the second node during the first period. The third unit couples the first terminal to the second node and couples the second and third terminals to the third node during the first period, and couples the first terminal to the third node and couples the second and third terminals to the second node during the second period.
US08957798B1
An artifact-corrected time-interleaved analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for communications signals offers a significant increase in the available sample rate of ADCs by correcting timing and gain mismatches between ADC channels. These mismatches are corrected in the digital data section of a two-channel TI-ADC for band-pass input signals. This is a realistic communications system scenario as modern system designs lean towards having the ADC interface with the intermediate frequency (IF) signal in the analog section of a digital receiver rather than in the DC centered, analog down converted, in-phase and quadrature pair.
US08957797B2
The present invention relates to an analog-to-digital converting circuit with temperature sensing and the electronic device thereof. The present invention uses a first impedance device to receive a reference voltage and produces an input current according to a temperature. An analog-to-digital converting unit is coupled to the first impedance device and produces a digital output signal according to the input current. Thereby, according to the present invention, by integrating the first impedance device into the analog-to-digital converting circuit, the circuit area and the power consumption can be lowered, which further reduces the cost and improves the accuracy of temperature sensing.
US08957789B2
A vehicle support information system mounted in a vehicle, the vehicle support system including: a man-detecting unit; a vehicle-position detecting unit; a communication unit; a man-position/waiting-score calculating unit; a stopping-vehicle determining unit determining whether or not the vehicle should be stopped, based on a man position and a waiting score of an at least one potential-crossing-man; a travelling controller for stopping the vehicle when the stopping-vehicle determining unit determines that the vehicle should be stopped; and a man-crossing-signal display unit displaying information to inform the at least one potential-crossing-man whether or not the at least one potential-crossing-man can safely cross the road, based on an instruction of the stopping-vehicle determining unit, wherein the man-position/waiting-score calculating unit outputs the man-position/waiting-score to the communication unit.
US08957786B2
A method of parking a running vehicle includes measuring a length of a parked vehicle that is proximate to a desired parking location, and estimating the width of the parked vehicle based on a regression equation. The running vehicle is parked based on the estimated width.
US08957785B1
A performance measuring system integrated with an article of clothing, the system has a computing unit for coordinating, processing and transmission of sensor data connected to a bus and an antenna. A sensor for measuring performance characteristics is connected to the bus; the bus facilitates transmission and reception of control and data values between the computing unit and the sensor. Also, an antenna is connected to the computing unit for communicating with other computing devices and transmission of sensor data. The other computing devices display the sensor data to a user or forward the sensor data onto another communication media such as the Internet or interactive television. A social networking system sharing athletic statistics using a webservice, a personal processing unit connectible to the webservice, and a computing unit having an activity program for at least one sensor. This system has an activity update service integrally associated with the webservice.
US08957784B2
Disclosed herein is an advanced metering infrastructure system that includes electronic meters, each of which being configured to measure and store an amount of energy consumed by each customer and provided with a slave communication modem, a data concentrator for collecting meter data from the electronic meters via a master communication modem that performs wired/wireless communication with the slave communication modems of the electronic meters, and a meter reading server for receiving and managing the meter data collected by the data concentrator. The master communication modem and each of the slave communication modems implement mutual communication interfaces using a protocol stack. The protocol stack includes a network layer, an application layer, and a modem performance analysis layer disposed between the network layer and the application layer and configured to analyze quality of a communication link between the master communication modem and each slave communication modem.
US08957783B2
A method is provided for a system including a plurality of remote sensor apparatus and a portable receiver. The portable receiver includes an RFID reader. The remote sensor apparatus has an RFID unit. The method includes reading RFID stored in the RFID unit of one or more of the plurality of remote sensor apparatus using the RFID reader. The method also includes registering the one or more of the plurality of remote sensor apparatus using the received RFID. The method further includes receiving data from a first active remote sensor apparatus. The data includes sensor data collected from sensors installed in the first active remote sensor and RFID of the first active remote sensor apparatus. The method also includes processing the sensor data, if the RFID of the first active remote sensor apparatus matches the RFID of any of the one or more of the plurality of remote sensor apparatus.
US08957769B2
A method of operating a vehicle includes receiving a radio frequency signal and determining that the radio frequency signal has at least one characteristic indicative of the vehicle entering a tunnel. A setting of a vehicle system is automatically modified in response to the determining step.
US08957755B2
A multi-layer fuse and its manufacturing method are provided. The multi-layer fuse comprises a ceramic substrate, back electrodes, front electrodes, fuse wire, protective layers and metal ends, wherein the fuse wire is prepared in multiple layers and the adjacent layers of fuse wire are connected in a head-to-tail style; the two lead-outs of the fuse wire as a whole are respectively connected to the two front electrodes located at the two ends of the substrate, and each layer of the fuse wire is deposited with a protective layer. During manufacturing, all protective layers but the upmost one leaves the tail of each layer of fuse wire uncovered so that the head-to-tail series connection is possible.
US08957753B2
Exemplary embodiments are directed to a current transformer having a toroidal magnetic core around which an even number of shielding coils is wound. The shielding coils are operatively associated two by two to form corresponding couples. The shielding coils of each couple are wound on parts of the toroidal magnetic core opposite to each other and are connected in parallel to each other for obtaining a magnetic flux in them. The magnetic flux in a first shielding coil of a couple of shielding coils has an opposite direction with respect to a magnetic flux in a second shielding coil of the couple. The couples of shielding coils are connected in series.
US08957748B2
Traditional contactors utilize a magnetic circuit that requires its coil to be continuously powered up to hold contacts together. They are heavy and bulky with the type, quality and size of materials used to develop sufficient magnetic force to hold contacts together. They are inefficient, costly and are a safety concern due to potential overheating which could result into fire or damage to connected loads. The current invention utilizes a solenoid actuator assembly with locking and unlocking mechanism in place of the yoke and armature assembly used in traditional magnetic contactors. It does not require the coil to be continuously powered up during operation and the contactor could be manually, electronically or electrically controlled thereby avoiding unnecessary power loss. They are very efficient, safe to users and connected loads, and have long service life expectancy. They are also more cost-effective and smaller in size than traditional magnetic contactors.
US08957741B2
The present application relates to a combined-branched-ferrite element including at least two branched-ferrite elements, the branched-ferrite elements having three branches. At least one of the three branches in the ferrite elements is connected to a branch of another one of the ferrite elements to form at least one connected-branch. The unconnected branches are input/output (I/O) branches and include input/output (I/O) apertures in respective I/O branch planes that divide the respective I/O branches into resonator sections and return-path sections. At least one connected-aperture in the at least one connected-branch that connects two ferrite elements is in a respective connected-branch plane that separates the connected-branch so that: the resonator section of the connected-branch for a first-branched-ferrite element is a return-path section of the connected-branch for a second-branched-ferrite element; and the resonator section of the connected-branch for the second-branched-ferrite element is a return-path section of the connected-branch for the first-branched-ferrite element.
US08957728B2
Embodiments of circuitry, which includes an operational transconductance amplifier and a passive circuit, are disclosed. The passive circuit is coupled to the operational transconductance amplifier. Further, the passive circuit receives an input signal and the operational transconductance amplifier provides an output current, such that the passive circuit and the OTA high-pass filter and integrate the input signal to provide the output signal.
US08957719B2
A clock synchronization circuit is configured to capture an input data bit according to an input clock signal, and to synchronize and output the input data bit. The clock synchronization circuit includes a clock buffer for generating an internal clock signal according to the input clock signal and transmitting the internal clock signal to a clock line. The clock synchronization circuit further includes a D flip-flop for capturing and outputting the input data bit at an edge timing of the internal clock signal. The clock buffer includes an inverter core portion and an electric current suppressing portion. The inverter core portion is configured to generate the internal clock signal through alternately supplying an electric current to the clock line and drawing the electric current from the clock line according to the input clock signal. The electric current suppressing portion is configured to suppress an amount of the electric current.
US08957713B2
Methods and devices provide for determining whether to operate a radio frequency synthesizer in a first mode of operation or a second mode of operation based on a reference frequency signal. The radio frequency synthesizer includes a digitally-controlled oscillator configured to generate an oscillator signal having an output frequency. A digital frequency locked-loop is configured to control the output frequency of the oscillator signal in a first mode of operation based on a first control signal. A digital phase locked-loop is configured to control the output frequency of the oscillator signal in a second mode of operation based on a second control signal. A controller determines whether to operate in the first mode or second mode based on a reference frequency signal. The controller generates the first or second control signal based on the determination of operating in the first or second mode, respectively.
US08957711B2
Phase slope is controlled in a phase locked loop wherein a phase error signal controlling a controlled oscillator has a proportional component and an integral component, by determining whether the proportional component falls within a range bounded by upper and lower limit values. The proportional component is combined with the integral component if the proportional component falls within the range to provide the phase error signal. Otherwise, the proportional component is modified to meet a phase slope requirement while leaving the integral component unmodified. The modified proportional component is combined with the unmodified integral component to provide the phase error signal.
US08957708B2
An output buffer has a first transistor and a voltage mitigation second transistor. The first transistor is configured to generate a voltage value corresponding to the power-supply voltage in response to an input signal. The second transistor is provided between an output line and the first transistor. A gate terminal of the second transistor is applied with a power-supply bias voltage which turns the second transistor on and makes a voltage between gate and source terminals of the second transistor constant in accordance with a power-supply voltage.
US08957706B2
The present disclosure provides a dynamic comparator with equalization function including a preamplifier, switched latch and dynamic transconductance circuit. The preamplifier amplifies input signals of the dynamic comparator. The dynamic transconductance circuit is inserted between the preamplifier and the switched latch for operating in a reset mode or a comparison mode. When operating in the reset mode, the dynamic transconductance circuit in conjunction with the switched latch performs voltage equalization of output signals of the switched latch, or when operating in the comparison mode, the dynamic transconductance circuit in conjunction with the switched latch receives the output signals generated by the preamplifier and carries out signal transconductance. The switched latch generates output signals as a comparison result of the dynamic comparator based on the transconductance signals generated by the dynamic transconductance circuit. The present disclosure provides a dynamic comparator that reduces the power consumption and increasing the operating speed.
US08957702B2
A signalling circuit for a signal channel of a communication network comprises a communication network terminal connectable to the signal channel and to a voltage supply; an input terminal connectable to receive a transmit signal; a driver device comprising a first driver terminal connected to the communication network terminal, a second driver terminal connected to ground, and a driver control terminal connected to the input terminal; wherein the driver device is arranged to connect the communication network terminal to ground in response to a transition from a low to a high voltage driver control signal state of a driver control signal received at the driver control terminal. And the signalling circuit comprises a feedback circuit connected to the first driver terminal and the driver control terminal and comprising a capacitive device; and a pull-down device arranged to connect the driver control terminal to ground after a predefined delay after a transition of the transmit signal from a low to a high voltage transmit signal state.
US08957693B2
To provide an IC device testing socket, capable of improving signal transmission efficiency during testing an IC device, without deteriorating the replacement workability of contact pins. A substrate 2 has dielectric layers 22-25 embedded in a base material 21 constituted by dielectric material such as glass epoxy. Each dielectric layer has a conductive layer, such as copper, formed on both sides thereof. Each of contact pins 3 extends generally perpendicular to surfaces 26 and 27 of substrate 2, and penetrates substrate 2. A through hole 28, into which each contact pin may be pressed, is formed in base material 21 of substrate 2, each high-dielectric layer and conductive layer. A conductive material 281, such as copper, is formed on an inner surface of each through hole 28.
US08957690B2
The present invention relates to a micro contact probe used for a probe card. An exemplary embodiment of the present invention provides a micro contact probe including a coating layer of a nanostructure such as carbon nanotubes formed on a surface thereof to reduce contact resistance when contacting a semiconductor chip. According to the micro contact probe of which the surface is coated with the nanostructure, contact resistance between the probe and the semiconductor chip is lowered and the high frequency characteristics are improved, such that a more accurate measurement can be obtained.
US08957685B2
An electrical charge detection device for measuring the electrical charge of a dry cell battery comprises electrically conductive arms joined with a rivet pin at their proximal ends with curved tips at their distal ends. The junction formed by the proximal ends has a light source mounted on the planar top surface and is in electrical contact with the pin. The curved tips at the distal ends of the arms are angled to form inward curved prongs that connect with the polar ends of a power source such as a battery. When the arms are squeezed together, one tip contacts the cathode of the battery and the other touches the anode so that any charge in the battery will travel up the arms thereby lighting the bulb. The degree of brightness illuminated by the bulb is indicative of the electrical strength or power remaining therein.
US08957683B2
Disclosed dielectric logging tools and methods employ three or more receive horn antennas positioned between at least two transmit antennas, which can also be horn antennas. The logging tools can operate in the range between 100 MHz and 10 GHz to provide logs of formation permittivity, formation conductivity, standoff distance, and electrical properties of material in the standoff gap. Logs of water-saturated porosity and/or oil movability can be readily derived. The presence of additional receive antennas offers a significantly extended operating range, additional depths of investigation, increased measurement accuracy, and further offers compensation for tool standoff and mudcake effects. In both wireline and logging while drilling embodiments, at least some disclosed dielectric logging tools employ a set of three axially-spaced receive antennas positioned between pairs of axially-spaced transmit antennas. At least some disclosed methods employ absolute amplitude and phase measurements in response to alternate firings of the transmit antennas.
US08957682B2
In a method and a magnetic resonance system to automatically determine parameters of a phase contrast flow measurement, a phase contrast pre-measurement with a flow coding sequence is implemented in a predetermined volume segment of an examination subject, and the flow coding sequence is varied in terms of its parameters so that a pre-measurement is respectively implemented for multiple different parameter sets of the flow coding sequence. A model is automatically determined with which a dimension of a phase error can be determined for each parameter set in the flow measurement, in that phase values of the pre-measurement which is implemented with the flow coding sequence with the respective parameter set are analyzed. Those parameters of the flow measurement at which the dimension of the phase error is smallest are automatically determined.
US08957681B2
A magnetic resonance imaging (“MRI”) system and method for producing an image of a subject with the MRI system in which signal contributions of water and fat are separated are provided. A plurality of in-phase echoes formed at a plurality of different echo times are sampled to acquire k-space data. The in-phase echoes include signal contributions from water and fat that are in-phase with each other. The signal contributions from water and fat are then separated by fitting only those echo signals that are in-phase echo signals to a signal model that models a fat spectrum as including multiple resonance peaks. From these signal contributions, an image of the subject depicting a desired amount of signal contribution from water and a desired amount of signal contribution is produced.
US08957680B2
A magnetic sensor includes a substrate, and a pattern forming region on the substrate, the pattern forming region having a substantially quadrangle shape. The pattern forming region includes a magnetic detection element pattern that includes a plurality of linear parts arranged parallel to each other at a predetermined inclination angle to two sides of the quadrangle shape, and a plurality of turning parts configured to alternately connect both end portions in a longitudinal direction of adjacent linear parts of the plurality of linear parts. The magnetic detection element pattern further includes a first pattern, and a second pattern with a resistance change ratio less than the first pattern. An area of the magnetic detection element pattern is less than an area of the pattern forming region in a plane view.
US08957679B2
The assembly for measuring at least one component (x, y, z) of an applied magnetic field (H) including a surface area made of soft-magnetic material that is applied in the chip plane and separated into two partial regions (5) by a gap (6). The gap (6) is composed of gap sections having different longitudinal directions, and magnetic field sensitive elements (2) are accommodated in one or more gap sections disposed parallel to each other. The sensitivity direction (4) of the magnetic field sensitive elements (2) and the connecting line (6″) of the outer gap openings can form angles of 45° or 90°, and several surface areas can be present in the chip plane in order to completely capture all magnetic field components (x, y, z). Magnetoresistive sensor elements can advantageously be utilized as magnet-sensitive elements (2).
US08957669B2
A magnet held in a magnet holder is constrained against radial or axial instability, or against both, by a shape on either component in contact with complementary shape on the other component, the shaped components generally defining a tab-and-slot arrangement. The magnet component may be a bonded magnet and in one embodiment may be formed in place by injection molding. The magnet also will exhibit improved magnet properties when magnetized to have lines of polarity matching a path defined by the bulk of the magnetic material as governed by the location of tabs on the magnet. The invention is useful in magnet-sensor assemblies found in industrial applications and in automotive applications such as power steering systems.
US08957664B2
A device and a method for detecting a crowbar circuit in a wind turbine are provided, wherein the wind turbine comprises a converter electrically connected to the crowbar circuit, and the method comprises: electrically coupling a detection module to the crowbar circuit; inputting a first control signal into the crowbar circuit, to turn on the crowbar circuit; providing a three-phase voltage signal to the crowbar circuit via the converter, wherein voltage signals in any two adjacent phases has a predetermined phase angle difference; reading the first detection signal outputted by the detection module, to determine whether the crowbar circuit is normally thrown into the wind turbine; inputting a second control signal to the crowbar circuit, to turn off the crowbar circuit; and reading again the second detection signal outputted by the detection module, to determine whether the crowbar circuit is normally cut out from the wind turbine.
US08957658B2
A switching power-supply device includes a main switching element connected between a power-supply and an output terminal; a driving circuit that drives the main switching element; a capacitor that feeds power to the driving circuit; a charging circuit that charges the capacitor when the main switching element is switched from an on-state to an off-state; a switching control circuit that performs switching control of alternately switching the main switching element to the on-state and the off-state via the driving circuit; a voltage detection circuit that detects a voltage between both ends of the capacitor, and a driving control circuit that switches a state of prohibiting driving of the main switching element and a state of permitting driving of the main switching element, based on a difference between an output voltage output from the output terminal and a preset reference voltage and the voltage between both ends of the capacitor.
US08957655B2
A hold-up circuit coupled to a first node to receive an input voltage and to provide a hold-up voltage includes an inductor, a constant on-time buck-boost control circuit configured to drive a high-side power switch and a low-side power switch to operate in a buck mode and a boost mode of operation, and an energy storage capacitor. When the input voltage is greater than a predetermined threshold, the buck-boost control circuit is configured in the boost mode to drive the low-side power switch with constant on-time pulses and to charge the energy storage capacitor under non-synchronous operation. When the input voltage is less than a predetermined threshold, the buck-boost control circuit is configured in the buck mode to drive the high-side power switch with constant on-time pulses and to drive the low-side power switch under synchronous operation to provide the hold-up voltage to the first node.
US08957652B2
There is provided an output circuit for supplying an output current to a load coupled to an output terminal in response to an input signal. The output circuit includes an output transistor for supplying the output current to the output terminal, an output-drive circuit for driving the output transistor, a constant-current limiting circuit for generating a current control signal for limiting the output current to a predetermined current value, and a control circuit for implementing a control such that the output current is controlled on the basis of the current control signal if a voltage at the output terminal is at a predetermined voltage, or less after the input signal is supplied while the output transistor is driven by the output-drive circuit if the voltage at the output terminal is in excess of the predetermined voltage.
US08957649B2
Aspects of manual multi-phase voltage control are described. In one embodiment, a voltage regulator controller includes switches for coupling power from an energized phase to a de-energized phase. For example, the voltage regulator controller may include a first power switch electrically coupled to drive circuitry of a first voltage regulator, a first phase output voltage of a multi-phase power delivery system, and a second phase output voltage of the multi-phase power delivery system. In certain aspects, the first power switch selectively toggles an electrical coupling between the drive circuitry of the first voltage regulator and one of the first phase output voltage and the second phase output voltage. Powering a voltage regulator of a de-energized phase with power from an energized phase may peg the operation of the voltage regulator, as necessary, to maintain the balance of the power distribution system, for example.
US08957639B2
Operating a battery management and protection system includes generating a set of events each of which has a respective frequency F/n1, F/n2 . . . F/nm, where ni are integers. One or more of the events are provided to one or more modules in the system. The events, which are generated and provided to the modules independently of a central processing unit, trigger performance of respective actions by the modules.
US08957638B2
To solve a problem in that, even after a charge inhibition signal is input from an input terminal and a charge control transistor is turned OFF, if a load is connected between external terminals (EB+, EB−), a discharge current flows, and to solve another problem of power consumption of a charge/discharge control circuit (22), provided is a charge/discharge control circuit for controlling charge/discharge of a secondary battery, the charge/discharge control circuit including: a switch circuit for controlling a current that flows through the charge/discharge control circuit; a control circuit for controlling an operation of the switch circuit; and an input terminal to which a signal for controlling an operation of the charge/discharge control circuit is input from outside. In this way, when a signal is input to the input terminal from outside, the discharge current is interrupted, thereby reducing current consumption of the charge/discharge control circuit.
US08957632B2
A system and method for enabling compatibility of wired charging with wireless charging are disclosed. The system includes an interface circuit, a wired charging unit and a wireless charging unit. The interface circuit is configured to connect the wired charging unit and the wireless charging unit to a power management unit; the wired charging unit is connected to the power management unit via an interface circuit and is configured to charge the power management unit by using a charging circuit in the power management unit; and the wireless charging unit is connected to the power management unit via the interface circuit and is configured to charge the power management unit by using the same charging circuit as that used by the wired charging unit. The method includes that an interface circuit connects a wired charging unit and a wireless charging unit to a power management unit, and the wireless charging unit and the wired charging unit use the same charging circuit in the power management unit to charge the power management unit. The system and method may avoid hidden dangers and guarantee display of the charging state of the terminal which is being charged in a wireless manner.
US08957608B2
A motor-driving device of an electric caulking gun has a micro-controller unit (MCU), a direction-changing module, a motor and a speed sensor. The direction-changing module and the speed sensor are electrically connected to the MCU. The direction-changing module is electrically connected to the motor, and the speed sensor detects a speed of the motor. The MCU is built in with a speed determination procedure comparing an actual speed of the motor acquired from the speed sensor with a preset speed. If the actual speed is lower than the preset speed, it indicates that the resistance at a tube nozzle of the electrical caulking gun increases and the direction-changing module increases the speed of the motor to maintain a preset caulk discharge rate. Given the motor-driving device, the operational inconvenience arising from the unstable caulk discharge rate of conventional electric caulking gun can be tackled.
US08957601B2
The disclosure is directed at a configurable light emitting diode (LED) dimmer for controlling a set of light fixture loads comprising: a power circuit; a primary digital controller for controlling the power circuit; a set of output current drivers, each of the set of output current drivers connected to one of the set of light fixture loads for controlling the associated light fixture load; a secondary digital controller for controlling the set of output current drivers; wherein the secondary controller transmits LED control information to control outputs of the set of output current drivers; and wherein the secondary digital controller provides digital feedback control information to the primary digital controller.
US08957598B2
The present invention provides a light emitting diode (LED) driving device, which comprises: a direct current/direct current (DC/DC) controller, for controlling an output segment that is used to generate an output voltage from an input voltage and supply the output voltage to an LED; an output current driver, for generating an output current of the LED; and an output discharging circuit, for performing, based on a predetermined control signal, discharging of the output voltage when a generation action of the output voltage and the output current stops.
US08957597B2
A luminaire is provided, which includes a first light source for providing an illumination light and a second light source passing through at least one image pattern for providing a patterned light. The first light source and the second light source are coupled to a driving circuit and covered by a lamp cover. The driving circuit is used to selectively drive at least one of the first light source and the second light source for providing the illumination light and/or the patterned light. A user may turn on or switch different patterns by touching a casing of the luminaire.
US08957593B2
This disclosure is directed to devices and methods for generating light with electrode-less plasma lamps. More particularly, the present invention provides plasma lamps driven by a radio-frequency source without the use of electrodes inside the bulb, and a pulse-width modulation device that provides RF power regulation, and related methods. The bulb comprises gaseous material with metal halides and/or light emitters that, when powered, substantially stays in an arc shape state. The switching pulse-width modulation device is operable at specific modulation frequencies, duty cycles, and durations to stabilize or control the arc state/mode, which enables consistent and high efficiencies.
US08957586B2
An organic EL panel including at least a light-emitting part and a sealing structure. The light-emitting part further includes at least an organic EL element formed on a substrate. The sealing structure further includes a sealing adhesive layer that contacts a coating film. The organic EL panel emits light from the light-emitting part through the substrate. The organic EL element includes at least the organic layer formed on a first electrode. The organic EL element further includes a second electrode formed on the at least one organic layer. The organic EL panel further includes the coating film coating the light-emitting part. A surface of the sealing adhesive forms a convex part formed by an inorganic material. A surface of the coating film forms a concave part that contacts the convex part.
US08957585B2
A solid-state light emitting device comprises a light transmissive thermally conductive circuit board; an array of solid-state light emitters (LEDs) mounted on, and electrically connected to, at least one face of the circuit board; and a photoluminescence wavelength conversion component. The wavelength conversion component comprises a mixture of particles of at least one photoluminescence material (phosphor) and particles of a light reflective material. The emission product of the device comprises the combined light generated by the LEDs and the photoluminescence material. The wavelength conversion component can comprise a layer of the phosphor material and particles of a light reflective material applied directly to the array of LEDs in the form of an encapsulant. Alternatively the photoluminescence component is a separate component and remote to the array of LEDs such as tubular component that surrounds the LEDs.
US08957583B2
A method of fabricating an organic light-emitting display includes forming an organic light-emitting device (OLED) on a substrate, forming a first encapsulation layer, which has a first thin-film density and contains a first inorganic material, on the substrate, and forming a second encapsulation layer, which has a second thin-film density higher than the first thin-film density and contains a second inorganic material, on the first encapsulation layer.
US08957578B2
An organic light emitting display device may include a substrate, a first electrode, a light emitting structure, a second electrode and a nanostructure. The first electrode may be disposed over the substrate. The light emitting structure may be disposed over the first electrode. The second electrode may be disposed over the light emitting structure. A plurality of nanoparticles may be disposed over the second electrode. The plurality of nanoparticles is capable of causing surface plasmon resonance by light. At least some of the plurality of nanoparticles have materials, sizes and shapes determined to cause surface plasmon resonance by light having a predetermined wavelength and emitted from the light emitting structure.
US08957577B2
Techniques are provided for removing thermal gradients from an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display. In one embodiment, an OLED display device includes a thermally conductive layer placed between electronic components housed within the device and the OLED display. Heat given off by the electronic components is transferred from warm to cold regions of the thermally conductive layer to create a more uniform ambient temperature across the back of the OLED display. Some embodiments indicate a position of the thermally conductive layer within layers of an OLED display stack (e.g., between a glass substrate and polyimide layer). Some embodiments include a specific range of thermal conductivities and/or thicknesses desired for the thermally conductive layer.
US08957576B2
A pixel according to an embodiment includes: an organic light emitting diode (OLED); a first transistor coupled between a data line and a first node and configured to be turned on when a scan signal is supplied to a scan line; a third transistor coupled between a reference power source and a second node and configured to be concurrently turned on and off with the first transistor; a storage capacitor coupled between the first node and the second node; a second transistor coupled between a first power source and the OLED and having a gate electrode coupled to the first node; a fourth transistor coupled between the first power source and the second node and having a gate electrode coupled to a control line; and a fifth transistor coupled between the second transistor and the OLED and having a gate electrode coupled to an emission control line.
US08957539B1
A hybrid turbogenerator and a method of operation are provided to configure a gas turbine engine. In the context of a method, a hybrid turbogenerator including a gas turbine engine coupled to an electric motor-generator alternates between a standby mode and a charging mode. In the standby mode, the method at least partially closes one or more inlet guide vane(s) to limit air flow through a compressor and into a turbine. In the standby mode, the method provides power to both a power bus and the electric motor-generator from an energy storage device. In the charging mode, the method at least partially opens the inlet guide vane(s) to increase air flow through the compressor and into the turbine relative to the standby mode. In the charging mode, the method provides electric power from the electric motor-generator to both the power bus and the energy storage device.
US08957538B2
Apparatus is provided for use in power generation, including a fluid-flow-driven power generator for use in a fluid-containing pipe such as a drill pipe as used in oil and gas exploration and extraction. Parts of the generator are removable from the pipe—for example while a drill pipe is downhole within a drilling well—to leave a clear through bore for survey and fishing operations and to enable replacement of the removed parts. The flow-driven generator comprises an impeller connected to a magnet assembly to rotate the magnet assembly when fluid flows past the impeller. This causes relative movement between the magnet assembly and an adjacent electrical coil assembly, the relative movement and magnetic coupling generating an electrical current in the coil assembly. This generated electrical current is used to power electrical devices within the pipe.
US08957534B2
Some embodiments relate to a power generation system that includes a first side member and a second side member that is parallel to the first side member. At least one cross member extends between the first side member and the second side member. In some embodiments, the power generation system includes a first cross member and a second cross member. The first cross member includes a pair of flat mating surfaces that are parallel to the first cross member. The first cross member further includes a pair of angled mating surfaces that are at an angle relative to the first cross member. The power generation system further includes a power source that includes an alternator and an engine that drives the alternator to generate power. At least one of the engine and the alternator is mounted to the pair of flat mating surfaces or pair of angled mating surfaces.
US08957532B2
The present invention is related to a method for producing a resin compact containing an epoxy resin, a curing agent, a curing accelerator and an inorganic filler. The method includes a kneading and crushing process for preparing a first powder material obtained by mixing, heat-melting, kneading and crushing a first component containing the epoxy resin and the curing agent and the inorganic filler, but not containing the curing accelerator; a pulverizing process for preparing a second powder material obtained by pulverizing a second component containing the curing accelerator; a mixing process for preparing a resin composition by dispersing and mixing the first powder material and the second powder material; and a molding process for obtaining the resin compact by compression-molding the resin composition. This makes it possible to obtain a resin compact (particularly, a resin compact for encapsulation) having superior long term storage stability at room temperature, good curable property and fluidity.
US08957528B2
A transistor, a method and an apparatus for forming multiple connections to a transistor for reduced gate (FET/HEMT) or base (BJT/HBT) parasitics, and improved multi-finger transistor thermal impedance. Providing for a method and an apparatus that reduces a transistor's parasitics and reduces a transistor's thermal impedance, resulting in higher device bandwidths and higher output power. More particularly, providing for a method and an apparatus for applying compact, multiple connections to the gate of a FET (or HEMT) or the base of a BJT (or HBT) from many sides resulting in reduced parasitics and improved transistor thermal impedance.
US08957521B2
A mounted structure includes an electrode of a substrate, an electrode of a semiconductor element, and a mounted layers for bonding the electrode of the substrate and the electrode of the semiconductor element, and the mounted layers includes: a first intermetallic compound layer containing a CuSn-based intermetallic compound; a Bi layer; a second intermetallic compound layer containing a CuSn-based intermetallic compound; a Cu layer; and a third intermetallic compound layer containing a CuSn-based intermetallic compound, and the above layers are sequentially arranged from the electrode of the substrate toward the electrode of the semiconductor element to configure the mounted layers.
US08957518B2
The invention provides a molded interposer package and a method for fabricating the same. The molded interposer package includes a plurality of metal studs. A molding material encapsulates the metal studs leaving the bottom surfaces of the metal studs exposed. A first chip is disposed on the molding material, connecting to the top surfaces of the metal studs. A plurality of solder balls connects and contacts to the bottom surfaces of the metal studs.
US08957506B2
A quad flat non-leaded package including a leadframe, a chip, a plurality of first bonding wires and a molding compound is provided. The leadframe includes a plurality of first leads, and each first lead has a first portion and a second portion that extend along an axis. The length of the first portion is greater than the length of the second portion. The thickness of the first portion is greater than the thickness of the second portion. The chip is disposed on the leadframe and covers a portion of the first portions. The first bonding wires are connected between the chip and another portion of the first portions or the chip and the second portions, such that the chip is electrically connected to the first leads through the first bonding wires. The molding compound encapsulates a portion of the first leads, the chip and the first bonding wires.
US08957499B2
A method of manufacturing a capacitor includes forming a first ceramic film on a first base made of a metal, forming a second ceramic film on a second base made of a metal, forming a first copper electrode pattern and a first copper via-plug on a surface of one of the first and second ceramic films, the electrode pattern and the via-plug being separate from each other, bonding the first and second ceramic films together with the first electrode pattern and the via-plug therebetween, by applying a pulsed voltage between the first base and the second base while the first base and the second base are pressed so that the first ceramic film and the second ceramic film are pressed on each other, and removing the second base.
US08957495B2
Examples of the present disclosure provide devices and methods for processing a memory cell. A method embodiment includes removing a key-hole shaped column from a material, to define a profile for the memory cell. The method also includes partially filling the key-hole shaped column with a first number of materials. The method further includes filling the remaining portion of the key-hole shaped column with a second number of materials.
US08957481B2
The present application discloses a semiconductor structure and a method for manufacturing the same. Compared with conventional approaches to form contacts, the present disclosure reduces contact resistance and avoids a short circuit between a gate and contact plugs, while simplifying manufacturing process, increasing integration density, and lowering manufacture cost. According to the manufacturing method of the present disclosure, second shallow trench isolations are formed with an upper surface higher than an upper surface of the source/drain regions. Regions defined by sidewall spacers of the gate, sidewall spacers of the second shallow trench isolations, and the upper surface of the source/drain regions are formed as contact holes. The contacts are formed by filling the contact holes with a conductive material. The method omits the steps of etching for providing the contact holes, which lowers manufacture cost. By forming the contacts self-aligned with the gate, the method avoids misalignment and improves performance of the device while reducing a footprint of the device and lowering manufacture cost of the device.
US08957476B2
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide techniques and configurations associated with conversion of thin transistor elements from silicon (Si) to silicon germanium (SiGe). In one embodiment, a method includes providing a semiconductor substrate having a channel body of a transistor device disposed on the semiconductor substrate, the channel body comprising silicon, forming a cladding layer comprising germanium on the channel body, and annealing the channel body to cause the germanium to diffuse into the channel body. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.
US08957463B2
A gate tunable diode is provided. The gate tunable diode includes a gate dielectric formed on a gate electrode and a graphene electrode formed on the gate dielectric. Also, the gate tunable diode includes a tunnel dielectric formed on the graphene electrode and a tunnel electrode formed on the tunnel dielectric.
US08957461B2
A TMBS diode is disclosed. In an active portion and voltage withstanding structure portion of the diode, an end portion trench surrounds active portion trenches. An active end portion which is an outer circumferential side end portion of an anode electrode is in contact with conductive polysilicon inside the end portion trench. A guard trench is separated from the end portion trench and surrounds it. A field plate provided on an outer circumferential portion of the anode electrode is separated from the anode electrode, and contacts both part of a surface of n-type drift layer in a mesa region between the end portion trench and the guard trench and the conductive polysilicon formed inside the guard trench. The semiconductor device has high withstand voltage without injection of minority carriers, and relaxed electric field intensity of the trench formed in an end portion of an active portion.
US08957444B2
According to an embodiment, a semiconductor light emitting device includes a semiconductor layer, a first electrode, an second electrode, a first insulating film, a first interconnection and a second interconnection. The semiconductor layer includes a luminous portion and a non-luminous portion. The first electrode is provided on the luminous portion, and the second electrode is provided on the non-luminous portion. The first insulating film is provided on the semiconductor layer, the first electrode and the second electrode. The first interconnection having a first protrusion is provided on the first insulating film and electrically connected to the first electrode. The second interconnection having a second protrusion is provided on the first insulating film and electrically connected to the second electrode. A tip end of the first protrusion faces a tip end of a second protrusion, being apart therefrom with a minimum gap between the first interconnection and the second interconnection.
US08957441B2
The exemplary embodiments of the present invention include forming a photoconductor thin film on a front surface of a substrate; forming a photoconductor thin film pattern by patterning the photoconductor thin film; and forming a metal electrode on the photoconductor thin film pattern.
US08957437B2
An OLED display including: a substrate main body; a first transflective electrode formed on the substrate main body; an organic emission layer formed on the first transflective electrode; a second transflective electrode formed on the organic emission layer; and a dual brightness enhancement film (DBEF) disposed on a dual brightness enhancement film (DBEF) on at least one of a side of the first transflective electrode facing away from the organic emission layer, or a side of the second transflective electrode facing away from the organic emission layer.
US08957419B2
An organic light emitting display apparatus and a method of inspecting the same, the organic light emitting display apparatus including a plurality of sub-pixels; a plurality of conductive line portions connected to the sub-pixels, the plurality of conductive line portions including at least two conductive lines connected in parallel to one another; and inspection thin film transistors (TFTs) disposed adjacent to one end and both ends of at least one conductive line of the conductive lines connected in parallel to one another.
US08957415B2
A thin film transistor includes: a gate electrode on a substrate; a source electrode; a drain electrode positioned in a same layer as the source electrode and facing the source electrode; an oxide semiconductor layer positioned between the gate electrode and the source electrode or drain electrode; and a gate insulating layer positioned between the gate electrode and the source electrode or drain electrode. The oxide semiconductor layer includes titanium oxide (TiOx) doped with niobium (Nb).
US08957407B2
The present invention provides a novel anthracene derivative, a method for preparing the same, and an organic electronic device using the same. The anthracene derivative according to the invention can function alone as a light emitting host, in particular, as a blue host in an organic electronic device. Further, the anthracene derivative according to the invention can also function as a hole injecting or hole transporting material, an electron injecting or electron transporting material, or a light emitting material in an organic electronic device including a light emitting device. Therefore, the organic electronic device according to the present invention shows excellent characteristics in efficiency, drive voltage and stability.
US08957404B2
A hot hole transistor with a graphene base comprises on a substrate an emitter layer, a collector layer, and a base layer that comprises a graphene layer, wherein an emitter barrier layer is arranged between the base layer and the emitter layer, and a collector barrier layer is arranged between the base and the collector layers and adjacent to the graphene layer.
US08957397B2
A photon collimator, suitable for use in medical imaging equipment, is constructed from a block of photon-attenuating material, such as solid tungsten or molybdenum alloy that defines a plurality of integrally formed septa slats. Each slat has an elongated length dimension greater than thickness and depth dimensions, and is oriented in an opposed pattern array that is laterally spaced relative to its respective thickness dimension. An aperture channel is defined between each pair of opposed slats. Rows of integrally formed slats in one block or separately affixed blocks may be stacked on each other at skewed angles to form two-dimensional grids of apertures having polygonal cross sections. The slats may be formed by electric discharge or laser thermal ablation machining, such as by a sequential passing of an EDM wire cutting head along the pattern array, repeating sequential cutting of respective channel depth and width.
US08957391B2
An RF transformer for supplying power as part of a tank circuit, comprising: a primary side, having at least one main winding and at least one shorting winding, the at least one main winding being configured to receive an RF input; a secondary side, having a first winding inductively coupled to the at least one main winding of the primary side and a second winding inductively coupled to the at least one shorting winding of the primary side; and a switching arrangement, adjustable between a first state in which the at least one shorting winding of the primary side is shorted and a second state in which the at least one shorting winding of the primary side is not shorted, such that the resonant frequency of the tank circuit is changed by adjusting between the first and second states.
US08957386B1
Strontium halide scintillators, calcium halide scintillators, cerium halide scintillators, cesium barium halide scintillators, and related devices and methods are provided.
US08957385B2
A radiation sensing unit for a radiation detection system can include a scintillator and a photosensor optically coupled to the scintillator. In an embodiment, the radiation detection system may provide an output signal to a particular radiation flux that is substantially temperature independent over a normal operating temperature range for the scintillator. The radiation sensing unit may further include a controllable radiation source configured to emit radiation and another photosensor coupled to controllable radiation source. A radiation detection system can include a radiation sensing unit and a control module that is coupled to the controllable radiation source and the photosensors. The control module may control the controllable radiation source and control a power supply coupled to the second photosensor in response to signals from the photosensors. In another aspect, a dynode tap from a photomultiplier tube can be used during calibration. Methods of using the foregoing are disclosed.
US08957378B2
A THz radiation detector comprising a vertical antenna separated from a suspended platform by an isolating thermal air gap for concentrating THz radiation energy into a smaller suspended MEMS platform upon which a thermal sensor element is located. THz photon energy is converted into electrical energy via a thermally isolated air gap between plates of a coupling capacitor separated by a plurality of nano-tip spacers that determine the gap distance. The capacitor couples energy from the antenna to the thermal sensor.
US08957372B2
A scanning electron microscope has a first condenser lens (121) having a lens gap (121a) facing toward an electron source (50) and a second condenser lens (122) having a lens gap (122a) facing toward an objective lens (13). The first and second condenser lenses are disposed between the electron source (50) and the objective lens (13). First deflecting means (133) is disposed in a beam passage opening formed in the first condenser lens (121). Second deflecting means (136) is disposed in a beam passage opening formed in the second condenser lens (122). An aperture plate (113) having a plurality of apertures (113a) of different diameters is mounted between the first deflecting means (133) and the second deflecting means (136). An electron detector (102) having a beam passage aperture (102a) is mounted between the second deflecting means (136) and the objective lens (13).
US08957364B2
A photo-electric conversion device comprises a pixel array in which a plurality of pixels are arrayed, each pixel including a photo-electric converter, a floating diffusion portion, a transfer unit which transfers charges generated in the photo-electric converter to the floating diffusion portion, and an output unit which outputs a signal corresponding to a potential of the floating diffusion portion, a signal line which is connected to the plurality of pixels and transmits a signal output from each pixel, a load transistor including a drain connected to the signal line, and a source connected to a first reference potential, and a capacitance including a first electrode connected to a gate of the load transistor, and a second electrode connected to a second reference potential, wherein the signal line is arranged not to overlap the first electrode when viewed from a direction perpendicular to a light-receiving surface of the photo-electric converter.
US08957358B2
A device includes an image sensor chip including an image sensor therein. A read-out chip is underlying and bonded to the image sensor chip. The read-out chip includes a logic device selected from the group consisting essentially of a reset transistor, a source follower, a row selector, and combinations thereof therein. The logic device and the image sensor are electrically coupled to each other, and are parts of a same pixel unit. A peripheral circuit chip is underlying and bonded to the read-out chip. The peripheral circuit chip includes a logic circuit, a through via penetrating through a semiconductor substrate of the peripheral circuit chip, and an electrical connector at a bottom surface of the peripheral circuit chip. The electrical connector is electrically coupled to the logic circuit in the peripheral circuit chip through the through via.
US08957351B2
In a catalytic CVD equipment, a holder includes an antireflective structure for preventing reflection of a radiant ray that is ejected from the catalytic wire toward the side of the substrate.
US08957350B1
A device for preparing a thermoplastic material, with dry heat, for use in patient fixation. The device generates circulated heat to a threshold temperature. Once the thermoplastic material has become pliable, it is molded into a cast for fixation purposes. The circulated heat may be generated by a device having a housing and a support member movably attached to the housing. The device also includes a heating element and an array of circulation elements to push air centrally at the central region and drawing air from a periphery region concurrently.
US08957344B2
Various welding systems that provide communication over auxiliary or weld power lines are provided. The disclosed embodiments may include a multi-process welding power supply that is communicatively coupled to a pendant via an auxiliary conduit that facilitates the exchange of data and power between components of the welding system. In some embodiments, the pendant may also include auxiliary outlets that allow an operator to power auxiliary devices at the weld location. The disclosed embodiments further include a pendant with a wire spool and wire feeder drive circuitry that is configured to activate spooling during MIG welding. Embodiments are provided that also allow for bidirectional data communication over a power line in networked welding systems.
US08957342B2
A sealed solenoid, magnetically operated electric power switch is suitable for use as capacitor, line and load switch operating at transmission and distribution voltages that includes no dynamically moving seals through the sealed container housing the contactor portion of the switch. The sealed solenoid switch includes a magnetically operated drive system with an actuator that magnetically couples across the container wall to avoid the use of a moving or sliding seal as part of the drive system. The sealed solenoid switch may also include a ballast resistor and resistor contact located inside the sealed container to avoid another seal as part of the ballast system. A magnetic latch holds the switch in a closed position, and a spring holds the switch in the closed position, to avoid the need for an energizing current to maintain the switch in either position.
US08957338B2
A switch operator is provided that includes a single piece actuator shaft coupled to a single piece cap. According to certain embodiments, the actuator shaft may be snap fit to the cap. The cap may include an annular sleeve and an annular skirt that extend orthogonally from the cap. The sleeve includes recesses that receive tabs of the actuator shaft to couple the actuator shaft to the cap. In certain embodiments, the actuator shaft may include slots that allow the actuator shaft to flex upon attachment to from the cap. A bushing encircles the actuator shaft and extends into the cap where the bushing is disposed between the annular sleeve and a skirt. The actuator shaft also includes a pair of diametrically opposed slots that house a detent assembly. The detent assembly may be employed to retain the switch operator in the actuated position and in the unactuated position.
US08957335B2
The invention relates to an electrical isolating device (2) comprising a first connecting part (4a), a second connecting part (4b), an isolation point (6) which in the closed state forms a current path between the first and the second connecting parts (4a, 4b) and is located spatially between the connecting parts, wherein in the isolated state the isolation point (6) isolates the current path between the connecting parts (4a, 4b), and further comprising an auxiliary drive (8) which influences isolation of the isolation point (6). Particularly reliable isolation is ensured in that a flowable medium (10) driven by the auxiliary drive is disposed in such a way that it surrounds the isolation point (6) at least partially at least at the moment of isolation.
US08957334B1
Equipment including an assembly structure defining an interior, and including a panel and a viewing window in the panel. An electro-mechanical operating device is located within the interior. The electro-mechanical operating device has at least two visually-distinguishable operational states, and is positioned such that the operational state of the electro-mechanical operating device can be visually observed through the viewing window. An illumination device within the interior emits light of at least two different colors corresponding to the at least two visually-distinguishable operational states of the electro-mechanical operating device. Electrical circuitry includes a switch for sensing the operational state of the electro-mechanical operating device and connected for controlling the illumination device.
US08957313B2
A multilayer structure including a transparent conductive thin film and a molybdenum metal thin film, the transparent conductive thin film having a thickness of 35 nm or less.
US08957310B2
There is provided a cable protection and guide member that requires no assembly, allows cables to be readily installed and steadily protected, and suppresses dust, flexion noise and flexion vibrations. The member can also maintain a straight position of the cable, can achieve a flexional movement of the cable smoothly with a small radius of flexion, and can block the cable from jumping out of a cable accommodating space. The member comprises the rectangular-tube like cable accommodating space composed of a belt-like inner circumferential wall portion and of a large number of arm-like holding portions that are formed integrally with both right and left edges of the belt-like inner circumferential wall portion. Side wall base end portions of the arm-like holding portions are integrally molded by two color molding by using synthetic resin softer than any of the portions.
US08957309B2
A measurement apparatus is disclosed. The measurement apparatus includes a lid configured to be removably affixed to a case. The lid is formed from a substrate composed of a first material. An interior surface of the lid includes a surface coating of a second material. A raised seal is affixed to the substrate and extends beyond the interior surface in a direction orthogonal to the interior surface. The raised seal includes an elastic deformable layer adjacent to the substrate. The raised seal also includes a surface conforming layer configured such that, when the lid is affixed to the case, the surface conforming layer is adjacent to the case along a side opposite the elastic deformable layer. The surface conforming layer is composed of a material of a yield strength less than a normal force generated by fixation of the lid to the case.
US08957303B2
In an embodiment of the disclosure, there is provided a strain isolation layer assembly. The assembly has a rigid solar layer; a strain isolation layer having a discontinuous configuration, a vertical rigidity, and a horizontal shear flexibility; and an underlying substrate layer. The strain isolation layer is coupled between the rigid solar layer and the underlying substrate layer to form a strain isolation layer assembly, such that the strain isolation layer isolates the rigid solar layer to reduce one or more strains induced on the rigid solar layer.
US08957297B2
In one embodiment, a programmable pedalboard for a musical instrument is provided. The pedalboard includes a docking station for receiving a removable portable computer that provides a plurality of instrument effects. The docking station is configured to receive an audio signal from a musical instrument and to modify the audio signal from the musical instrument based on at least one instrument effect from the plurality of instrument effects.
US08957293B2
The invention relates in particular to a musical instrument string. The musical instrument string comprises a core, produced from a metal material, with a coating. The coating comprises an intermediate layer made of nickel or a nickel alloy applied to the core and a sheathing layer made of tin or a tin alloy applied to the intermediate layer.
US08957289B1
A novel maize variety designated X08C961 and seed, plants and plant parts thereof, produced by crossing Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc. proprietary inbred maize varieties. Methods for producing a maize plant that comprises crossing hybrid maize variety X08C961 with another maize plant. Methods for producing a maize plant containing in its genetic material one or more traits introgressed into X08C961 through backcross conversion and/or transformation, and to the maize seed, plant and plant part produced thereby. This invention relates to the maize variety X08C961, the seed, the plant produced from the seed, and variants, mutants, and minor modifications of maize variety X08C961. This invention further relates to methods for producing maize varieties derived from maize variety X08C961.
US08957279B2
The present invention relates to a novel mite composition comprising a population of a phytoseiid predatory mite species and a factitious host population comprising a species selected from the Glycyphagidae, which may be employed for rearing said phytoseiid predatory mite species or for releasing the phytoseiid predatory mite species in a crop. According to further aspects the invention relates to a method for rearing a phytoseiid predatory mite species, to the use of the mite composition and to a method for biological pest control in a crop, which employ the mite composition.
US08957278B2
An absorbent article has an absorbent composite that includes a water-insoluble fibrous matrix, a superabsorbent polymer composition that has an initial absorbent capacity of at least about 5 grams of saline per gram of superabsorbent polymer composition; and a first triggering mechanism having a first release time of between about 5 and 60 minutes, and a second triggering mechanism. The superabsorbent polymer composition may have a second absorbent capacity that is at least about 25% greater than the first absorbent capacity as measured by the mCRC Test.
US08957276B2
An aspect of the present invention is a method of processing a waste material that contains mercury or a mercury compound, and chlorine or a mercury chloride, the method including a step of adding a chlorine scavenger to the waste material, and stowing the waste material in a treatment vessel; and a step of subjecting the waste material to a blasting treatment by fitting an explosive to the treatment vessel and detonating the explosive inside a pressure-proof container.
US08957268B2
Methods are provided for refining natural oil feedstocks. The methods comprise reacting the feedstock in the presence of a metathesis catalyst under conditions sufficient to form a metathesized product comprising olefins and esters. In certain embodiments, the methods further comprise separating the olefins from the esters in the metathesized product. In certain embodiments, the methods further comprise hydrogenating the olefins under conditions sufficient to form a fuel composition. In certain embodiments, the methods further comprise transesterifying the esters in the presence of an alcohol to form a transesterified product.
US08957257B2
A process for a continuous production of a polyetherol first involves reacting a catalyst (5) with an alcohol starter (3) or an alkoxylated precursor, to give a mixture comprising an alcoholate and water. Water is then removed from the mixture. The process further involves feeding the alcoholate into a bubble column and feeding an alkylene oxide into the bottom of a compartment of the bubble column, such that the alkylene oxide rises in the alcoholate. The alkylene oxide then reacts with the alcoholate or a secondary product from the reaction between the alcoholate and alkylene oxide, to give the polyetherol.
US08957245B2
The invention relates to a process for preparing an isocyanate, which involves contacting fluid streams of amine, phosgene and inert medium in at least one mixing device, such that an inert medium stream is metered at least between one amine stream and one phosgene stream within the mixing device, and then reacting an amine with phosgene in a reaction chamber to form an isocyanate. In this process the inert medium stream is metered such that a point of first contact of the amine and the phosgene occurs at a distance from a surface of the mixing device, and a turbulent flow is present in the reaction chamber.
US08957238B2
The present invention provides a process for preparing a highly pure form of malathion having a reduced level of toxic impurities. In addition, the malathion prepared by the process of this invention is storage stable. The level of toxic impurities in the malathion, e.g., isomalathion, O,O,S-trimethyl phosphorodithioate (MeOOSPS), O,O,S-trimethyl phosphorothioate (MeOOSPO), O,S,S-trimethyl phosphorodithioate (MeOSSPO), malaoxon, isomalathion, diethyl fumarate, methyl malathion, dimethyl malathion, O,O-methyl,ethyl-S-(1,2-dicarboethoxy)ethyl-phosphorodithioate are lower than that of any other commercial preparation of malathion that may be used for pharmaceutical purposes.
US08957228B2
The present invention relates to a macrolide compound expected to have a cell growth-inhibiting activity and a novel anticancer drug utilizing the compound. Specifically, the invention relates to a compound represented by Formula (I) or (II) or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof and relates to a cell growth inhibitor and an anticancer drug each containing the compound or the salt as an active ingredient.
US08957226B2
The present invention relates to optically enriched or substantially optically pure 4-substituted-pyrrolidin-2-ones of formula (III), and their uses for the synthesis of 2-oxo-pyrrolidin-1-yl derivatives.
US08957224B2
A specific type of carbazole photoinitiator is capable of providing radiation curable compositions that are curable by UV LEDs and do not exhibit an unstable yellowing behavior in an image upon storage like ITX.
US08957222B2
A process for preparing the S or R enantiomer of a compound of formula A, the process comprising subjecting a compound of formula B to asymmetric hydrogenation in the presence of a chiral transition metal catalyst and a source of hydrogen, wherein X is CH2, oxygen, or sulphur; R1, R2 and R3 are the same or different and signify hydrogens, halogens, alkyl, alkyloxy, hydroxy, nitro, alkylcarbonylamino, alkylamino, or dialkylamino group; and R4 is alkyl or aryl, wherein the transition metal catalyst comprises a chiral ligand having the formula wherein p is from 1 to 6, and Ar means aryl group; wherein the term alkyl means hydrocarbon chains, straight or branched, containing from one to six carbon atoms, optionally substituted by aryl, alkoxy, halogen, alkoxycarbonyl or hydroxycarbonyl groups; the term aryl means an aromatic or heteroaromatic group, optionally substituted by alkyloxy, halogen, or nitro group; and the term halogen means fluorine, chlorine, bromine, or iodine.
US08957210B2
The present invention relates to the field of chemical synthesis, and in particular to a method for synthesizing 1-(2-fluorobenzyl)-1H-pyrazolo[3,4-b]pyridin-3-formamidine hydrochloride, which is an important intermediate of Riociguat that is an anti-thromboembolic-disease medicine. The method is characterized in that: 3-iodo-1H-pyrazolo[3,4-b]pyridine is used as a raw material; the raw material is reacted with fluorobenzyl bromide to form a compound (10); the compound (10) is reacted with zinc cyanide to form a compound (6); the compound (6) is reacted with sodium methoxide, ammonium chloride, acetic acid and methanol to form a compound (8); and the compound (8) is reacted with chlorine hydride gas to form 1-(2-fluorobenzyl)-1H-pyrazolo[3,4-b]pyridin-3-formamidine hydrochloride. The method has the characteristics of cheap and readily available raw materials, high yield, mild reaction conditions and the like, and is a synthesis method having a large-scale preparation value.
US08957206B2
The present invention is directed towards novel methods of synthesis of molindone, synthesis of the intermediates of molindone, and high-purity compositions of molindone. In particular, the invention relates to the methods of synthesis of molindone through the Mannich reaction.
US08957205B2
Novel cycloalkane carboxamide derivatives having an action that selectively inhibits cathepsin K, and a production process thereof, are provided, wherein the cycloalkane carboxamide derivatives are represented by the following general formula (I), or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof: (wherein R1 and R2 represent (substituted) alkyl groups, (substituted) alkenyl groups, (substituted) alkynyl groups, (substituted) aromatic hydrocarbon groups or (substituted) heterocyclic groups, ring A represents an alkylidene group having 5 to 7 carbon atoms, and ring B represents a formyl group or a hydroxymethyl group).
US08957204B2
The invention is directed to a process for the preparation of a cyclic carbamate starting with a chiral propargylic alcohol and/or a suitable salt thereof, which is reacted with a cyclization agent selected from phosgene, diphosgene, triphosgene and mixtures thereof, and in that the reaction is carried out in the presence of an aqueous base, and a water-immiscible organic solvent, said organic solvent mainly comprising at least one compound selected from C2-5-alkyl C2-5-carboxylates and mixtures of at least one C2-5-alkyl C2-5-carboxylate with at least one C5-8-alkane. Another aspect of the invention is directed to a process for the synthesis of said cyclic carbamate starting described above, wherein also a process for the preparation of the chiral propargylic alcohol is provided.
US08957203B2
Hepatitis C virus inhibitors having the general formula (I) are disclosed. Compositions comprising the compounds and methods for using the compounds to inhibit HCV are also disclosed.
US08957200B2
The present invention provides novel 3′,5′-linked bicyclic nucleosides and oligomeric compounds prepared therefrom. The bicyclic nucleosides provided herein are useful for enhancing one or more properties of the oligomeric compounds they are incorporated into such as nuclease resistance.
US08957191B2
This invention provides pH-responsive zwitterionic nucleotides and nucleic acids comprising said nucleotides, wherein said zwitterions are constituted from one or more anionic internucleoside linkages and one or more cationic moieties and said zwitterionic nucleotides further comprise either one or more hydrophobic moieties or one or more TEE's with the general structure (I) Hydrophobic element-pH-responsive hydrophilic elements (I).
US08957190B2
The present invention relates to a solid support having a heat-resistant biotin-binding protein attached thereto. The present invention also relates to the use of the solid support of the present invention having a heat-resistant biotin-binding protein attached thereto. The present invention further relates to technical fields such as purification, concentration, detection and/or capture of a biotin-linked substance by means of a heat-resistant biotin-binding protein. Such a biotin-binding protein used in the solid support of the present invention is heat-resistant and is therefore useful for use in assay systems involving exposure to a temperature of 70° C. or more.
US08957188B2
Monoclonal antibodies to carbohydrate antigens containing a terminal GalNAcα1-3Gal are provided. The antibodies of the present invention are found to specifically recognize GalNAcα1-3Gal with little cross-reactivity to other structurally similar antigens such as GalNAcα1-6Gal, blood group A, Forssman antigen and the Tn antigen on both solution assays and human tissue. Compositions comprising the monoclonal antibodies, as well as methods of diagnosis, treatment and prognostication are also provided.
US08957181B2
A preparation process for a cyclic conjugated polymer, includes the steps of deprotonating a monohalogenated cyclic conjugated compound of a 5- to 7-membered ring using a deprotonation catalyst comprising secondary amine represented by R1NHR2 (R1 and R2 are the same or different and are each a branched or cyclic alkyl group of 1 to 15 carbon atoms or a phenyl group) and a Grignard reagent represented by R3MgX (X is a halogen atom selected from chlorine, bromine and iodine, and R3 is a straight-chain or branched alkyl group of 1 to 6 carbon atoms) and polymerizing the deprotonated monohalogenated cyclic conjugated compound.
US08957172B2
Catalysts comprising a non-symmetrical Salan ligand with a carbazole moiety. Also disclosed are catalyst systems comprising the catalyst and an activator; methods to prepare the ligands, catalysts and catalyst systems; processes to polymerize olefins using the catalysts and/or catalyst systems; and the olefin polymers prepared according to the processes.
US08957168B1
Methods for controlling properties of an olefin polymer using an alcohol compound are disclosed. The MI and the HLMI of the polymer can be decreased, and the Mw and the Mz of the polymer can be increased, via the addition of the alcohol compound.
US08957164B2
An unsaturated polyester resin composition comprising an unsaturated polyester, an acetoacetate functional monomer; a multifunctional di- or tri-acrylate monomer; and an allyl ether-functional monomer/oligomer, wherein the resin composition is substantially free of styrene.
US08957162B2
The invention relates to an elastomer material including flexible polymer chains containing crosslinking bridges having covalent bonds and crosslinking bridges having noncovalent bonds. The invention also relates to a method for preparing such elastomer material.
US08957153B2
A room-temperature-curable silicone rubber composition comprises: (A) an organopolysiloxane having on silicon atoms in the molecular chain in one molecule at least two specific alkoxysilyl-containing groups; (B) an organopolysiloxane having on silicon atom in the molecular chain neither a hydroxyl group nor an alkoxy group; (C) an alkoxysilane or its partial hydrolysis and condensation product; (D) a condensation reaction catalyst; and optionally comprises (E) an adhesion promoter and/or (F) a reinforcing filler. The composition cures at room temperature due to contact with atmospheric moisture and exhibits an excellent adhesiveness to substrate in contact with the composition during the cure of the composition.
US08957142B2
A polyamide resin composition includes (A) a semi-aromatic polyamide resin, (B) an inorganic filler, (C) a white pigment and (D) a phosphinate salt. The polyamide resin composition can have excellent heat resistance, reflectance, photostability and/or discoloration resistance.
US08957141B2
A non-halogen flame retardant thermoplastic polyurethane composition containing: a) an organic non-halogenated flame retardant package which contains non-reacted components, i) an organic phosphate compound which is melamine free, ii) a mixture of an organic phosphate in combination with an organic phosphoric acid; and iii) a zinc oxide, b) a stabilizer, c) optionally inorganic flame retardant components, and d) optionally non-flame retardant additives, resulting in a TPU composition with excellent tensile strength and improved high flame performance and low smoke properties.
US08957140B2
To provide a novel triazine-based compound exhibiting an ultraviolet blocking effect even in the long-wavelength region and being useful as an ultraviolet absorber with excellent light resistance, and to provide an ultraviolet absorber and a resin composition, which can maintain a long-wavelength ultraviolet-blocking effect for a long period of time. A compound represented by the following formula (1): wherein each of R1a, R1b, R1c, R1d and R1e independently represents a hydrogen atom or a monovalent substituent excluding OH, provided that at least one substituent represents a substituent having a Hammett's σp value of 0.3 or more and substituents may combine with each other to form a ring, and each of R1g, R1h, R1i, R1j, R1k, R1m, R1n and R1p independently represents a hydrogen atom or a monovalent substituent, provided that substituents may combine with each other to form a ring.
US08957137B2
The invention relates to acid-resistant, hydraulically setting masses based on a) slag sand, b) one or more pozzolanas, c) one or more fillers, d) one or more polymers based on ethylenically unsaturated monomers, and water.
US08957134B2
A process for encapsulating pigment dispersions is provided where a pigment is dispersed with a polymeric dispersant in an aqueous solvent system. The free polymer dispersant in the pigment dispersion is limited to less than 0.12 grams per gram of pigment. This dispersed pigment is then encapsulated by adding acrylate monomers and optionally acrylic and vinyl monomers and polymerizing. In the encapsulated pigment dispersion the weight ratio of final free polymer to polymer found to the final encapsulated pigment is less than 0.9. The free polymer dispersant is measured by a centrifugation method and the final free polymer is measured by a density gradient centrifugation method. Such encapsulated pigment dispersions may be used in inkjet inks and are stable to heat, aging test conditions, and solvent challenges. Prints from these inks have better durability.
US08957129B2
Disclosed is an aqueous coating composition including at least one latex polymer derived from at least one monomer copolymerized or blended with a rhamnolipid and/or sophorolipid biosurfactant. Also provided is an aqueous architectural coating composition including at least one latex polymer derived from at least one monomer copolymerized or blended with a rhamnolipid and/or sophorolipid biosurfactant, at least one pigment, and water. Also provided is a method of preparing an aqueous architectural coating composition such as a latex paint including the above components.
US08957125B2
The invention is directed to a coating formulation for preparing a hydrophilic coating a hydrophilic polymer, a Norrish Type II photoinitiator, comprising a substituted benzohenone, xanthone, tioxanthone or anthraquinone, and more than 70 wt % of a carrier liquid; to a method of forming a hydrophilic coating on a substrate, the method comprising: applying a coating formulation to at least one surface of an article and allowing the coating formulation to cure for a time period less than 360 seconds; and to an article comprising at least one hydrophilic coating.
US08957121B2
A polyether siloxane of formula (I) R1—Si(CH3)2—O—[-Si(CH3)2—O—]n—[-Si(CH3)R—O—]m—Si(CH3)2—R2 (I) where R, R1 and R2 are the same or different, R in each occurrence is the same or different and represents —(CH2)x—O—(CH2—CR′R″—O)y—R′″, R′ and R″ are the same or different and each represent —H, —CH3, —CH2CH3 or phenyl, R′″ represents —H, alkyl or acyl, R1 and/or R2 each represent methyl or R, wherein the alkylene oxide units (CH2—CR′R″—O) within a polyether residue R can be the same or different and the polyether residues R within a polyether siloxane molecule of formula (I) can be the same or different, wherein on average (number average, averaged over all compounds of formula (I)) n+m+2=>10 to 200, m=0 to 40 for R1 and/or R2 representing R or m=1 to 40 for R1 and R2 representing —CH3, x=2 to 10, y=1 to 50, at least 25% of the R′″ radicals represent hydrogen and at least 50% of all polyether residues R which have an end group R′″=—H have a secondary or tertiary OH end group. The polyether siloxane has almost no primary but overwhelmingly secondary or tertiary OH groups.
