US09021611B2

The disclosure relates to methods of beam pen lithography using a tip array having a plurality of transparent, elastomeric, reversibly-deformable tips coated with a blocking layer and apertures defined in the blocking layer to expose tip ends of the tips in the array. The tip array can be used to perform a photolithography process in which the tips are illuminated with a radiation that is channeled through the tips and out the apertures to expose a photosensitive substrate. Also disclosed are tip arrays formed of polymers and gels, apparatus including the tip arrays and radiation sources, and related apparatus for selectively masking tips in the tip array from radiation emitted from the radiation source.
US09021608B2

The invention provide systems and methods for management of digital media objects, comprising first and second client digital data processors (e.g., personal (or private) computers, laptops, dedicated music devices, electronic book readers, and so forth) that are in communications coupling with one or more stores (e.g., dedicated disk drives, flash drives, cloud storage, etc.). At least one digital media object (DMO) or copy thereof is stored in one or more of those stores and is accessible by at least one of the first and second client digital data processors.
US09021605B2

To protect sensitive data in program code, a method includes providing a programming interface with a capability of allocating a protected region of memory which can only be accessed by authorized code. Sensitive data present in program code is stored in the protected region of memory. The method includes marking parts of code in a program as authorized or not authorized to access the sensitive data, and determining if that part of a program which is executing is authorized to access protected data by reference to the marking.
US09021600B1

Disclosed herein is an improved (digital) supply chain (ISC) product. The disclosure covers a simple explanation of the improved supply chain as a service business model, a review of key digital cinema (D-Cinema) topics, a description of the Digital Cinema supply chain, and finally, a description of the improved supply chain product and process.
US09021590B2

A system and method that facilitates and effectuates detection of malware secreted and/or hidden in plain sight on a machine. The system and method in order to achieve its aims generates a list of all loaded modules, identifies from the list a set of modules common to more than a threshold number of processes, and eliminates from the list those modules included in an authentication list. The resultant list is prioritized based, in one instance, on the number of occurrences a particular module makes in the resultant list, and thereafter the list is distributed analyst workstations.
US09021534B2

There is provided a method for guiding viewer selection of television content. The method comprises receiving a request for delivery of television content from a remote system; establishing an identity of the remote system; accessing a viewing history corresponding to the remote system in response to receiving the request; identifying a desirable subset of content items from available television content based upon a first plurality of discrimination criteria including the viewing history; determining a display subset of content items from the desirable subset, to be provided for selection by the remote system, according to a second plurality of discrimination criteria including the viewing history; and delivering an interface to the remote system for enabling a viewer of the remote system to select content items from the display subset.
US09021530B2

A method and system for playing background music and key tone based on an embedded browser, and a digital television receiving terminal. The method comprises: analyzing and downloading web data, intercepting protocol registration events, and sending a background music start command when the background music need to be played; analyzing transport stream (TS) data pushed by a server, obtaining data required for playing the background music, and playing the background music; and receiving a key operation command from a user, analyzing the TS data pushed by the server when playing the background music, obtaining data required for playing key tone, and playing the key tone instructed in the key operation command. With the preceding method, system and digital television receiving terminal, defects in concurrently playing multi-channel audio data are overcome and the background music and key tone can be played concurrently.
US09021520B2

A process for providing a print-augmented broadcast signal for transmission to one or more convention broadcast receiver includes receiving a broadcast signal comprising (i) standard content for a particular broadcast program and (ii) a non-content portion. Supplemental content which is associated with the standard content of the particular broadcast program is additionally received. Next, the supplemental content is combined onto the non-content portion of the broadcast signal to form a print-augmented broadcast signal, the print-augmented broadcast signal comprising the standard content, which can be rendered on a conventional broadcast receiver, and the supplemental content, which is printable on-demand at a destination conventional broadcast receiver substantially concurrently with the rendering of the standard content.
US09021510B2

A service module that provides for discovery of one or more network interfaces connecting a prospective remote procedure call (RPC) client, facilitates the provision of RPC programs in a network including multi-horned systems. When a request for a network address to an RPC application providing an RPC program is received from the RPC client, the RPC bind daemon discovers from the module, using the client response address, over which interface(s) the client is accessible. The daemon then selects an address of a network path to the RPC application that the prospective client can access and returns the corresponding network address. The service module monitors the network stack for RPC get address requests and builds tables of client address entries with corresponding network interface identifiers. The entries are retired according to an aging policy.
US09021499B2

Utilization of the processor modules is monitored. A varying load pattern including at least one of a bursty behavior or an oscillatory behavior of the processor modules is identified. Distribution of logical devices between processor modules is performed.
US09021493B2

Resources in a computing environment are managed, for example, by a hardware controller controlling dispatching of resources from one or more pools of resources to be used in execution of threads. The controlling includes conditionally dispatching resources from the pool(s) to one or more low-priority threads of the computing environment based on current usage of resources in the pool(s) relative to an associated resource usage threshold. The management further includes monitoring resource dispatching from the pool(s) to one or more high-priority threads of the computing environment, and based on the monitoring, dynamically adjusting the resource usage threshold used in the conditionally dispatching of resources from the pool(s) to the low-priority thread(s).
US09021491B2

A system, and computer usable program product for a dual mode reader writer lock are provided. A contention condition is determined in using an original lock. The original lock manages read and write access to a resource by several processes executing in the data processing system. The embodiment creates a set of expanded locks for use in conjunction with the original lock. The original lock and the set of expanded locks forming the dual mode reader writer lock, which operates to manage the read and write access to the resource. Using an index within the original lock, each expanded lock is indexed such that each expanded lock is locatable using the index. The contention condition is resolved by distributing requests for acquiring and releasing the read access and write access to the resource by the several processes across the original lock and the set of expanded locks.
US09021490B2

Embodiments of the presently claimed invention automatically and systematically schedule jobs in a computer system thereby optimizing job throughput while simultaneously minimizing the amount of time a job waits for access to a shareable resource in the system. Such embodiments may implement a methodology that continuously pre-conditions the profile of requests submitted to a job scheduler such that the resulting schedule for the dispatch of those jobs results in optimized use of available computer system resources. Through this methodology, the intersection of the envelope of available computer system shareable resources may be considered in the context of the envelope of requested resources associated with the jobs in the system input queue. By using heuristic policies, an arrangement of allocations of available resources against requested resources may be determined thereby maximizing resource consumption on the processing system.
US09021488B2

Performing device management scheduling based upon a trap mechanism is provided. A scheduling context, upon receipt from a server, is installed. The scheduling context may have at least one of a first element specifying information including at least one command for device management and a second element specifying a trap-based condition to execute the command. The command in the message specified by the first element is executed, if an occurrence of a particular event specified by the second element is found.
US09021477B2

A computer-implemented method of load balancing including calculating an expected cost set associated with an application-specific task of an application executing on a processing resource in a cloud computing environment, and communicating the expected cost set from the processing resource to a cloud management system. Resource mapping of applications currently executing in the cloud computing environment are retrieved, the application-specific task is assigned to a specific computational resource in the cloud computing environment based on the expected cost set and the resource mapping of applications currently executing in the cloud computing environment. A task to VM (virtual machine) assignment is determined based on the assignment of the application-specific task to the specific computational resource. The task to VM assignment is transferred from the cloud management system to the application executing on the processing resource in the cloud computing environment.
US09021470B2

Embodiments relate to systems and methods for provisioning software to machines in a set of diverse networks. A provisioning (or “cobbler”) server can interact with a remote installation client to initiate a software provisioning process to machines installed on two or more diverse networks, such as local area, wide area, virtual private, or other networks. The remote installation clients in different networks can report the network interface types and configurations of their networks to the cobbler server. During provisioning, the administrator can specify one software distribution to the entire set of diverse networks, and the cobbler server can generate different distribution versions tailored to the network configurations of the various different networks. In embodiments, the cobbler server can maintain a set of network configuration templates to automatically set network settings such as static IP addresses, gateway information, hostname information, network mask information, and other settings for the different network types.
US09021459B1

Techniques are described for providing high availability (HA) during an in-service software upgrade (ISSU) of a network device, e.g., a router, by running a pair of virtual machines on each of a primary control unit and a backup control unit within the router. First virtual machines may be run on the primary and backup control units to provide high availability for the router. Upon receiving an ISSU request for the router, second virtual machines may be initialized on the primary and backup control units. If the ISSU of the primary control unit fails such that the first and second virtual machines on the primary control unit are executing different software systems, the virtual machines on the backup control unit may provide high availability for the router. Similarly, the virtual machines on the primary control unit may provide high availability for the router during the ISSU of the backup control unit.
US09021455B2

A computer-implemented process for creating a packed data object, the computer-implemented process comprising providing instrumentation to an enhanced runtime by an enhanced compiler for a computer executable program portion, detecting a special class in the computer executable program portion by the enhanced runtime, creating an internal representation of a packed data object header using the instrumentation, calculating a size of elements for a packed data object associated with the computer executable program portion, determining a type of packed data object using information in the packed data object header, and responsive to a determination that the type of packed data object is an on-heap packed data object, storing the packed data object header and associated packed data object data together for the packed data object in a memory heap.
US09021451B2

In one embodiment, a method for call graph analysis is provided. The method includes determining a plurality of nodes in a call graph. The plurality of nodes represent resource consumption of functions of a software program executed in a software system. A simplification factor is determined. A first set of nodes in the plurality of nodes is then eliminated based on exclusive values for the plurality of nodes, inclusive values for the plurality of nodes, and the simplification factor. An inclusive value for a node is a first amount of resources consumed by the node and any descendent nodes of that node. An exclusive value for the node is a second amount of resources consumed by the node. A simplified call graph is output including a second set of nodes in the plurality of nodes. The second set of nodes does not include the eliminated first set of nodes.
US09021450B2

A disclosed method includes accessing one or more seeding specifications and a program including computer-readable code and applying the one or more seeding specifications to the program to identify for analysis seeds including strings for corresponding identified string variables. The method includes tracking flows emanating from the identified seeds. The tracking includes computing an integral offset into a tracked string variable for any statements causing such a computation. The tracking also includes providing a string representation based on the computed integral offset, wherein the provided string representation comprises a value of the integral offset and an indication of the corresponding tracked string variable. The tracking further includes modeling string manipulations of the tracked string variables using the string representations. Apparatus and program products are also disclosed.
US09021438B2

A web application is tested on multiple testing environments provided by testing appliances. The testing environments are described by a platform, managing an appliance, a browser used for loading the web application, and a browser version. An automatic testing framework is used for handling the parallelized test execution on all of the testing environments. Within the testing framework the testing environments are defined and prepared for the test execution. A consolidated configuration file is generated for the web application's configuration and the tests classes. The testing framework provides a local server to host the web application which is later loaded in the testing environments. The testing framework processes the test and uses a communication with the appliances to send commands and to execute the test on all of the testing environments. A unified test report is generated that accumulates the results from all of the testing environments.
US09021436B2

Although a software developer writing software for a mobile device typically performs the development and some of the debugging of the application on a software development computer, the application also has to be debugged as it passes through the deactivate, terminate and reactivate states as it executes on the mobile device. To debug an application the developer can launch the debugger on the software development computer. The debugger can launch the application on the mobile device. If an event that terminates the application occurs, the debugger connection is terminated. In accordance with aspects of the subject matter disclosed herein, the debugger is automatically reattached to the restarted (activated) application. Reattaching the debugger automatically to the restarted application allows the developer to debug the mobile device application as an application passing through multiple states rather than debugging multiple instances of an application.
US09021435B2

Methods, devices and systems for providing a user interface in an on-demand software service environment are described. Some implementations involve receiving an indication of a component definition to instantiate. The component definition may be a portion of a component definition data structure. Such implementations may also involve instantiating the provided component, instantiating all remaining attributes of the component definition data structure to produce a component instance data structure and transmitting an intermediate representation of the indicated component to a client device. The intermediate representation may comprise a version of the component instance data structure. The intermediate representation may allow the client device to create an instance of the component in memory.
US09021431B2

A system and method for developing, deploying and implementing computer applications for a power system has an open software framework for developing mobile applications. The mobile applications are developed by combining predefined modules having functionality to monitor a power system, change configuration settings within devices installed on the power system and allow utility personnel to quickly respond to events occurring on the power system.
US09021430B2

A method and apparatus for authoring an architecture for transforming a single-core based embedded software application to a multi-core based embedded software application, and a method of determining an architectural pattern in a multimedia system. It is possible to perform an architecture authoring operation by using an architectural decision supporter, without prior knowledge and accumulated knowledge regarding a software architecture. Additionally, it is possible to prevent an error from occurring during authoring of an architecture, by using a concurrency-related software architectural pattern that is already evaluated. Thus, it is possible to improve overall quality of software, and to reduce a development time.
US09021424B2

A multi-document editor system includes a repository for storing a plurality of documents having code fragments. The system further includes a graphical user interface having an editor window within a display region, the editor window for displaying a rendering of the plurality of documents. A program editor module provides a unified editor control to the editor window for editing the plurality of documents.
US09021420B2

A computer-implemented business process deployment system and method are disclosed. The system includes memory which stores a design tool which receives a business process description and generates a deployment package composite based thereon. The business process description includes a set of business process activities for a business process, each of the business process activities in the set depending on abstract services for implementing the business process activity. An abstract bindings repository stores mappings between the abstract services and corresponding real services employed by an associated real service employing system. The deployment package composite is configured to bind the abstract service dependencies to the real services in the abstract bindings repository to generate a deployable business process composite that is deployable in the associated real service employing system. A processor implements the design tool.
US09021418B2

Certain example embodiments described herein relate to systems and/or methods for systems and/or methods for improved creation of metamodels. More particularly, certain example embodiments described herein relate to automating the creation of metamodels from one or more example models. In certain example embodiments, nodes, edges, and multiplicities of at least one model are automatically identified. A preliminary metamodel is created by adding a metaclass for each automatically identified node and edge. A connection is made between each said added metaclass edge to at least two said added metaclass nodes via first and second associations. Detection of multiple relations is performed by determining whether any of said added metaclass edges are connected to more than two added metaclass nodes. The preliminary metamodel is refined or optimized, e.g., so as to reduce the occurrence of multiple relations.
US09021413B2

The present invention relates to device matching in an integrated circuit. In one embodiment, an integrated circuit of matched devices can include: N main-devices to be matched by 4×K sub-devices configured to form K device arrays, where each of the device arrays includes four sub-device groups arrayed symmetrically around a vertical axis and a horizontal axis, where each of the sub-device groups includes N sub-devices arrayed with equal distance along a direction of the vertical axis, where K and N are integers, and N is larger than two; metal lead wires arrayed in parallel and with equal distance, and configured to connect the main-devices; a common connecting wire configured to connect common nodes of the sub-devices together; and where four sub-devices arrayed in the four sub-device groups, and other sub-devices arrayed in other sub-device groups, are coupled to form 4×K sub-devices to match the main-devices.
US09021406B2

In accordance with one aspect of this invention, a pattern inspection method includes acquiring optical images regarding figure patterns arranged in each of frame regions, for each of the plurality of frame regions; measuring linewidth dimensions of the figure patterns, for each of the frame regions; operating an average value of each linewidth dimension shift between linewidth dimensions of figure patterns in a reference image corresponding to the frame region concerned and the linewidth dimensions of the figure patterns in the optical image, for each of the frame regions; extracting a specific frame from the frame regions by comparing the average value of the frame region concerned, with average values of frame regions around the frame region concerned, for each of the frame regions; and inspecting the specific frame for dimensional defects of linewidth dimensions.
US09021403B2

A touch input gesture made on a touch sensitive display is described for providing a quick and efficient method for initiating the opening of a text input box. The initiation of opening the text input box following the touch input gesture may be made during the running of a separate application. Further, certain characteristics related to the shape, size and length of the touch input gesture will be referenced to determine certain characteristics of the text input box that is initiated in response to the touch input gesture.
US09021395B2

Included are: a plural-push information management unit; a screen attention degree determination unit; a selection operation history collection unit; a selection probability calculation unit calculating a user's selection probability for each category; and a display style determination unit causing pieces of push information in a category having a higher probability to be displayed in a more easily selectable display style. The categories include a relevance category including pieces of push information regarding content displayed on the screen. The selection probability calculation unit calculates a selection probability of the relevance category having a first attention degree as a screen attention degree to be higher than that having the second attention degree lower than the first attention degree; and calculates a selection probability having a first number as the number of selection times to be higher than that having a second number smaller than the first number.
US09021390B1

Methods and systems executing an embedded application within the context of a first client application are provided. One method includes executing application logic to adjust states of one or more display objects and rendering one or more of the one or more display objects that are associated with a stage definition in a display region of the first client application. In response to a trigger event, the method causes the first application to generate a interface component, such as a pop-up, in the display region and pausing the rendering of the embedded application. The pausing includes generating a static image based on the states of the one or more display objects associated with the stage definition, associating the static image with the stage definition and disassociating the one or more display objects from the stage definition.
US09021376B2

A computer-implemented method, system, and/or computer program product aid a user with time management before a future event. An event alert is received and displayed on a user interface at a computer. In response to receiving the event alert, an irremovable countdown icon is automatically generated and displayed on the user interface. The irremovable countdown icon, which represents an amount of time remaining before the future event, cannot be removed from the user interface until after the future event has started.
US09021374B2

A system and method for creating a dashboard in multi-tenant database environment is provided. The method may include, but is not limited to receiving, by a processor, positional data and one of a component type and a data source within a database in the multi-tenant database environment for a dashboard object via a first drag and drop operation, receiving, by the processor, the other of the component type and the data source within the database in the multi-tenant database environment for the dashboard object via a second drag and drop operation, and generating, by the processor, display data for the dashboard based upon the dashboard object in real time based upon the received component type, the received positional data and the received data source.
US09021369B2

Techniques are disclosed to facilitate user matching in a virtual environment. Social interactions of a first user in the virtual environment are monitored. A request to participate in a desired activity is received from the first user. A set of users currently eligible to participate in the first desired activity is retrieved. A match is programmatically generated between the first user and at least a second user of the retrieved set of users, based on the monitored social interactions. The first user and the second user participate in the desired activity in the virtual environment.
US09021363B2

Systems and techniques for centralized user preference management for electronic decision making devices are provided. A user preference profile is received. A user preference profile manager may transmit a user preference from the user preference profile to a requesting user transaction terminal. the user preference manager may also receive a dynamic user preference from a user preference profile and extend the user preference profile with the dynamic user preference, where the dynamic user preference includes a preference definition and the preference definition includes read and write access controls for the dynamic user preference. Then the user manager may update the user preference profile based on data received from the user transaction terminal.
US09021350B2

A device control system does not require changing the application in conjunction with changes in process content or changes in the type or specifications of a device. A style sheet database stores a plurality of style sheets describing information conversion rules for XML documents. A communication interface acquires output data from an application, and acquires an XML document containing information specifying the target device to which the output data is output and an output style sheet. Based on the output style sheet, an XML document converter converts the XML document acquired from the communication interface to an XML document including device control information for the target device. A device-specific XML document input/output unit outputs the XML document acquired from the XML document converter to the device control service corresponding to the target device.
US09021349B1

The present disclosure relates to a computer-implemented method for generating an electronic design automation differences report is provided. The method may include modifying instructions configured to generate a report of an electronic design and generating a data file based upon, at least in part, the modified instructions. The method may further include converting the data file to a second data file using, at least in part, the template. The method may also include generating a report viewer, based upon, at least in part, the second data file.
US09021347B2

An information processing method comprises the steps of: inputting an input information of a multi-dimensional array; calculating an accumulated information value corresponding to a position of each element of the input information; and holding the accumulated information value in a buffer having a size of predetermined bits, wherein in the holding step, when an accumulated information value calculated in the calculating step overflows with respect to the size, a part not more than the predetermined bits of the calculated accumulated information value is held as the accumulated information value.
US09021343B1

A data storage device includes a non-volatile memory having a three-dimensional (3D) memory configuration. The data storage device may further include selection circuitry configured to select data for a parity operation in accordance with a parity scheme. The parity scheme may correspond to a string-based and group-based striping pattern.
US09021336B1

Apparatus and methods provide relatively low uncorrectable bit error rates, low write amplification, long life, fast and efficient retrieval, and efficient storage density such that a solid-state drive (SSD) can be implemented using relatively inexpensive MLC Flash for an enterprise storage application. Both primary parity symbols for primary codewords and secondary parity symbols for secondary codewords are generated. The secondary parity symbols are spread out across each page of a group of pages.
US09021333B1

Apparatus and methods provide relatively low uncorrectable bit error rates, low write amplification, long life, fast and efficient retrieval, and efficient storage density such that a solid-state drive (SSD) can be implemented using relatively inexpensive MLC Flash for an enterprise storage application.
US09021322B2

The peripheral circuitry (350, 360, ESD, BH) of an integrated circuit die on a wafer is tested without physically contacting the bond pads of the die.
US09021320B2

A programmable Built In Self Test (pBIST) system used to test embedded memories where the memories may be operating at a voltage domain different from the voltage domain of the pBIST. A plurality of buffer and synchronizing registers are used to avoid meta stable conditions caused by the time delays introduced by the voltage shifters required to bridge the various voltage domains.
US09021319B2

A method of operation of a non-volatile memory system includes: generating a test stimulus for a page in a memory array; measuring a test response from the page in the memory array based on the test stimulus; calculating a measured effective life of the page from the test response; and determining a use plan according to the measured effective life for accessing the page.
US09021313B2

A system and method are provided for enhancing approximate computing by a computer system. In one example, an interface is provided comprising a variable-identifier module and a bit-priority module. The variable-identifier module is configured to identify one or more variables of data that are to be processed by the computer system with approximate precision. Approximate precision is a precision level at which a hardware device does not guarantee full data-correctness for the one or more variables. The bit-priority module is configured to assign bit-priorities to the one or more variables. The bit-priorities include relative levels of importance among bits of each of the one or more variables. The relative levels of importance include at least high-priority bits and low-priority bits.
US09021307B1

A technique for verifying the safety of tenant data in a data center includes creating a topological map of storage constructs used for storing the tenant data within the data center. The topological map includes a logical storage device, a physical storage device, and a set of hardware structures disposed between the logical and physical storage devices. The constructs of the topological map are evaluated to generate an individual assessment of fault tolerance of each construct, and a set of rules are applied to generate an overall assessment of the safety of the tenant data. In an example, an administrator may operate this technique on a tenant application and generate a report for the tenant summarizing the results.
US09021305B2

Provided are a computer program product, system, and method for processing main cause errors and sympathetic errors in devices in a system. Error data for the devices in the system are analyzed to determine a main cause error for one of the devices that cause at least one sympathetic error in the system. A main cause event object for the determined main cause error and at least one sympathetic event object for the determined at least one sympathetic error resulting from the main cause error are generated. A determination is made from the at least one sympathetic event object of at least one sympathetic event action to perform. The determined at least one sympathetic event action is performed to recover from the at least one sympathetic error represented by the at least one sympathetic event object providing the at least one sympathetic event action.
US09021284B2

One embodiment of the present invention relates to a low-power micro-controller unit having both a standby micro-controller optimized for low power consumption and a main micro-controller optimized for high performance. A power supply is coupled to the main micro-controller and the standby micro-controller. The power supply provides power to one or more of the low-power, standby micro-controller and the high performance, main micro-controller by separate power supply paths, depending on system needs. The separate power supply paths allow the main micro-controller and the standby micro-controller operate independent of each other. During a low-power standby operating mode, power can be disconnected to the main micro-controller, while providing power to the standby micro-controller, thereby eliminating the leakage current associated with the large number of transistors in the main micro-controller, while still retaining the computational capabilities of the standby micro-controller.
US09021283B2

An apparatus having a processing unit and a monitor for monitoring activity associated with said processing unit. The monitor enables selective lowering of the frequency of clock signals, or stopping and starting of clock signals, being received by said processing unit in response to a changing level of activity associated with said processing unit.
US09021282B2

A system and method for performing power conservation actions is described. In some examples, the system determines a power conservation policy based on information from the system, and implements that policy in an enterprise or in one or more buildings, such as within a data storage environment. In some examples, the system adds or modifies global filters or system performance based on information from the system.
US09021278B2

An electric vehicle can be configured to execute an association procedure with one or more charging stations in a charging facility to securely connect to and receive electric power from one of the charging stations. The electric vehicle can broadcast one or more service matching messages to the charging stations and, in response, can receive attenuation information from one or more of the charging stations. The electric vehicle can analyze the attenuation information received from the charging stations to identify with which charging station the electric vehicle should associate (e.g., to determine which charging station should provide electric power to the electric vehicle). The electric vehicle can then associate with (and receive electric power from) the identified charging station.
US09021271B1

A method is performed by a computer in communication with a hardware security module (HSM). The method includes (a) running a process virtual machine (PVM) on the computer, the PVM being configured to execute portable bytecode instructions within a PVM environment and (b) executing, within the PVM environment, instructions for (1) reading encrypted instruction code from data storage of the computer, (2) sending the encrypted instruction code to the HSM, (3) in response, receiving decrypted instruction code from the HSM, and (4) injecting the decrypted instruction code within an application running in the PVM environment for execution by the PVM. Embodiments are also directed to analogous computer program products and apparatuses.
US09021267B2

According to one embodiment of the invention, a method for setting permission levels is described. First, an application and digital signature is received by logic performing the permission assessment. Then, a determination is made as to what permission level for accessing resources is available to the application based on the particulars of the digital signature. Herein, the digital signature being signed with a private key corresponding to a first public key identifies that the application is assigned a first level of permissions, while the digital signature being signed with a private key corresponding to a second public key identifies the application is assigned a second level of permissions having greater access to the resources of an electronic device than provided by the first level of permissions.
US09021259B2

A client terminal is provided with a column encryption unit that, from an encryption key, a table identifier, and a column identifier, generates a column private key, a column public key, and a comparison value, from which the unit generates a concealed comparison value and a ciphertext, encrypting a particular column; and an encrypted table natural joining request unit that issues a natural joining request text that requests natural joining with regards to columns encrypted from the encryption key, the table identifier, and the column identifier. The natural joining request text contains as a table joining key the column private key generated by a group of generating elements and the encryption key from the table identifier of a first and second table and the column identifier of an a-th column and a b-th column. An encrypted database server executes natural joining using the table joining key, and returns the results.
US09021255B1

A method includes (a) receiving, at a computing device, a first certificate signing request (1CSR) from a certificate authority (CA), the 1CSR including an embedded second certificate signing request (2CSR), the 2CSR having been received by the CA from an entity seeking a signed certificate from the CA that validates an identity claim made by the entity in the 2CSR, the CA having performed a preliminary verification of the 2CSR prior to embedding it in the 1CSR, (b) verifying that the 1CSR came from the CA, (c) performing a verification procedure on the embedded 2CSR independent of the preliminary verification performed by the CA, to validate the identity claim made by the entity in the 2CSR, and (d) upon successfully validating the identity claim made by the entity in the 2CSR, sending a certificate to the CA, the certificate validating the identity claim made by the entity in the 2CSR.
US09021254B2

A security system for defending online users against fraudsters and malicious websites comprises a back-end network server and appropriate apps for each protected user device. An otherwise conventional network server is enhanced with application software instructions for a centralized software-as-a-service (SaaS) to respond to network requests from user devices operating variously under ANDROID-type, APPLE IOS-type, and MICROSOFT WINDOWS-type operating systems. The SaaS investigates, surveys, and watches websites. It calculates confidence scores related to financial fraud and the acceptability and risk to said users of visiting particular websites. It maintains a trusted network database of website URL's calculated to belong to financial websites that can be trusted and present acceptable levels of fraud and financial risk to its visitors. Each user device application provides for secure password management and access via a security browser to websites in the trusted network.
US09021247B2

A network control apparatus and method is provided. The method includes operations of informing a server of capability information including an encryption/decryption method, wherein the server provides the network control apparatus with control information used to control a network device using a general-purpose control web application, transmitting to the server a control information requesting message that requests the control information, receiving from the server the control information which has been encrypted using the encryption/decryption method, decrypting the encrypted control information according to the encryption/decryption method, and transmitting a control command for controlling the network device according to the decrypted control information.
US09021243B2

For increasing a free memory amount, a computer is provided with a main memory and a virtual memory area. Working sets having a predetermined size in a main memory are allocated to virtual address spaces. The area from which working sets are removed is a free memory area, and a cache area is set to a part of the area. During booting, a predetermined process not affecting the booting is suspended. The size of the working set of the suspended process is decreased by swapping out the memory page into the virtual memory area. As a result, the size of the free memory area increases, and along therewith, the OS increases the size of a cache area, thus enabling more boot files to be read ahead and reducing the boot time.
US09021241B2

Embodiments provide methods, apparatus, systems, and computer readable media associated with predicting predicates and branch targets during execution of programs using combined branch target and predicate predictions. The predictions may be made using one or more prediction control flow graphs which represent predicates in instruction blocks and branches between blocks in a program. The prediction control flow graphs may be structured as trees such that each node in the graphs is associated with a predicate instruction, and each leaf associated with a branch target which jumps to another block. During execution of a block, a prediction generator may take a control point history and generate a prediction. Following the path suggested by the prediction through the tree, both predicate values and branch targets may be predicted. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.
US09021238B2

A data processing system and method are disclosed. The system comprises an instruction-fetch stage where an instruction is fetched and a specific instruction is input into decode stage; a decode stage where said specific instruction indicates that contents of a register in a register file are used as an index, and then, the register file pointed to by said index is accessed based on said index; an execution stage where an access result of said decode stage is received, and computations are implemented according to the access result of the decode stage.
US09021236B2

Techniques are described for decoupling fetching of an instruction stored in a main program memory from earliest execution of the instruction. An indirect execution method and program instructions to support such execution are addressed. In addition, an improved indirect deferred execution processor (DXP) VLIW architecture is described which supports a scalable array of memory centric processor elements that do not require local load and store units.
US09021230B2

A storage device includes: a temporary buffer for sequentially storing data configuring a file requested to be written for every reception from outside; a data writing means for immediately separating the data in the temporary buffer into mutually corresponding data portion and marker portion classified by preset criteria and storing into a data storing means in an associated state, and deleting from the temporary buffer; an unseparated data writing means for storing the data that cannot be separated into the data portion and the marker portion among the data in the temporary buffer, into an unseparated data storing means; and a re-separation processing means for separating the data in the unseparated data storing means into the data portion and the marker portion by preset criteria and storing into the data storing means with the data portion and the marker portion associated, and deleting from the unseparated data storing means.
US09021226B2

An abstraction for storage class memory is provided that hides the details of the implementation of storage class memory from a program, and provides a standard channel programming interface for performing certain actions, such as controlling movement of data between main storage and storage class memory or managing storage class memory.
US09021222B1

A method is used for managing incremental cache backup and restore. I/O operations are quiesced at a cache module. A first snapshot of a storage object and a second snapshot of an SSD cache object are taken. The I/O operations at the cache module are unquiesced. A single backup image comprising the first snapshot and the second snapshot is created.
US09021213B2

A computerized method for sharing removable storage media in a network, the method comprising associating, in an index entry, a first piece of removable storage media in a first storage device with at least a first storage policy copy and a second storage policy copy; copying, to the first piece of removable storage media, data associated with the first storage policy copy; and copying, to the first piece of removable storage media, data associated with the second storage policy copy.
US09021205B2

A mechanism for page replacement for cache memory is disclosed. A method of the disclosure includes referencing an entry of a data structure of a cache in memory to identify a stored value of an eviction counter, the stored value of the eviction counter placed in the entry when a page of a file previously stored in the cache was evicted from the cache, determining a refault distance of the page of the file based on a difference between the stored value of the eviction counter and a current value of the eviction counter, and adjusting a ratio of cache lists maintained by the processing device to track pages in the cache, the adjusting based on the determined refault distance.
US09021201B2

A determination is made of a track to demote from the first cache to the second cache, wherein the track in the first cache corresponds to a track in the storage system and is comprised of a plurality of sectors. In response to determining that the second cache includes a the stale version of the track being demoted from the first cache, a determination is made as to whether the stale version of the track includes track sectors not included in the track being demoted from the first cache. The sectors from the track demoted from the first cache are combined with sectors from the stale version of the track not included in the track being demoted from the first cache into a new version of the track. The new version of the track is written to the second cache.
US09021191B2

Provided are a computer program product, system and method for managing Input/Output (I/O) requests to a storage device. A write request is received having write data for a logical address, wherein data for the logical address is at a first physical location in the storage device and has an indicated version number. Writing the write data to a second physical location in the storage device. Determining whether a preserve mode is enabled. In response to determining that the preserve mode is enabled, indicating the second physical location as having a current version number of the logical address and indicating the first physical location to have a previous version number of the logical address.
US09021185B2

A memory controller and methods for managing efficient writing to a flash memory are presented. Fresh data is written to at least one block of the flash memory. During a space reclamation process, other data, previously written to the flash memory, is relocated to at least one other block of the flash memory, such that the fresh data and the relocated data always are maintained in separate blocks of the flash memory. During writing, an update frequency level is selected for the fresh data from among multiple update frequency levels and the fresh data is written to a block that is associated with the selected update frequency level. During space reclamation, a plurality of blocks, space of which is to be reclaimed, is selected and the valid pages thereof are copied to at least one destination block.
US09021180B2

An abstraction for storage class memory is provided that hides the details of the implementation of storage class memory from a program, and provides a standard channel programming interface for performing certain actions, such as controlling movement of data between main storage and storage class memory or managing storage class memory.
US09021174B2

A device includes a first interface to receive a signal from a first communication link, wherein the receive signal includes out-of-band (OOB) information. A detector coupled to the first interface detects the OOB information. An encoder coupled to the detector encodes the OOB information into one or more symbols (e.g., control characters). A second interface is coupled to the encoder and a second communication link (e.g., a serial transport path). The second interface transmits the symbols on the second communication link. The device also includes mechanisms for preventing false presence detection of terminating devices.
US09021172B2

A data processing apparatus has performance monitoring circuitry for generating performance monitoring data. The performance monitoring circuitry includes a first event counter for counting occurrences of a first event and a second event counter for counting occurrences of a second event. A performance monitoring interrupt signal is indicated if, when the number of first events counted by the first event counter reaches a first threshold value, the number of second events by the second event counter meets an interrupt triggering condition.
US09021153B2

The invention discloses a DMA system capable of being adapted to various interfaces. The DMA system includes the following advantages: 1) the software porting effort can be reduced when different interfaces are integrated into a SoC; 2) a flexible DMA that could provide protocol transparency and could be ported into different interfaces easily; 3) a scalable DMA that can support unlimited TX/RX scattering/gathering data segments; 4) a reusable DMA that provides user defined TX information (or RX information) and TX message (or RX message) field; and 5) a high performance DMA that support unaligned segment data pointers and unlimited scattering/gathering data segments, so as to reduce extra memory copies by CPU.
US09021147B1

A method and system for command queuing in disk drives may improve performance by queuing multiple commands and sequentially executing them automatically without firmware intervention. The method may use a number of queues, e.g., a staging queue for commands to be executed, an execution queue for commands currently being executed, and a holding queue for commands which have been executed but have not received a status report from a host. With the pipelined nature of queued commands, when data requested by one command are being sent to the host, the queue logic may already be fetching data for the next command. If an error occurs in the transmission, commands in the queues may backtrack and restart from the point where data were last known to have been successfully sent to the host.
US09021145B2

A function executing apparatus includes: a communication device which communicates with an external device; a function executing device which executes at least one preset function; and a controller. The controller determines whether the communication device can communicate with the external device. When the communication device can communicate with the external device, the controller executes a running-state determination processing for determining whether an application program corresponding to a certain function to be executed by the function executing device is running on the external device. When the application program corresponding to the certain function is running, the controller controls the function executing device to execute the certain function. When the application program corresponding to the certain function is not running, the controller executes an activation command processing for transmitting an activation command for activating the application program corresponding to the certain function, to the external device.
US09021139B1

A method and apparatus for controlling latency within a wireless system, and more specifically sharing, updating and storing status information between devices in a wireless network, is disclosed. An example method includes receiving, at a computing device, a communication including an indication that a mobile device is associated with a device on a network; transmitting stored status data, wherein the stored status data includes a status corresponding to the device, and wherein when the stored status data is received, the stored status data is used to display the status corresponding to the device; detecting updated status data corresponding to the device; updating the stored status data corresponding to the device using the updated status data corresponding to the device; and transmitting the updated status data, wherein the updated status data includes the updated status corresponding to the device, and wherein when the updated status data is received, the updated status data is used to display the updated status corresponding to the device.
US09021135B2

An intercepting proxy server processes traffic between an enterprise user and a cloud application. The intercepting proxy server provides interception of real data elements in communications from the enterprise to the cloud and replacing them with obfuscating tokens which are randomly generated. To the cloud application real data are only visible as tokens. Tokens included in results returned from the cloud, are intercepted by the intercepting proxy server, and replaced with the corresponding real data elements. The obfuscating tokens are not computationally related to the original sensitive value. Each intercepted real data element is stored in a local persistent storage layer, and indexed by the corresponding obfuscating token, allowing the real data element to be retrieved when the token is returned from the cloud, for delivery to the user.
US09021127B2

A system, method, and computer-readable medium for updating request routing information associated with client location information are provided. A content delivery network service provider receives a DNS query from a client computing device. The DNS query corresponds to a resource identifier for requested content from the client computing device. The content delivery network service provider obtains a query IP address corresponding to the client computing device. Based on routing information associated with the query IP address, the content delivery network service provider routes the DNS query. The process further includes monitoring performance data associated with the transmission of the requested resource and updating routing information associated with the query IP address based on the performance data for use in processing subsequent requests form the client computing device.
US09021121B2

An apparatus and method are presented for a maximum speed criterion for a velocity gesture. The apparatus includes a processor, a memory, a determination module and a transmission module. The determination module determines, through a wireless communication infrastructure mode, an amount of wireless network activity. The transmission module sets a rate of data transmission in a peer to peer mode based on the amount of wireless network activity.
US09021115B2

A message is provided to a tracking server system in response to a client system referencing a predetermined resource locator that corresponds to a resource external to the tracking server system. The tracking server system indirectly provides for the client system to have an informational element selectable by the client system, where the informational element is graphically identified on the client system with informational content obtainable from a content server system through use of a content resource locator. The informational element includes a tracking resource locator, referencing the tracking server system, and data identifying the informational element. The selection of the informational element causes the client system to use the tracking resource locator to provide the data to the tracking server system and to use the content resource locator to obtain the informational content from the content server system.
US09021114B2

In one embodiment, a method of connecting to a client computing device is provided. The method is performed at a computing device, and in this method a connection is made to the client computing device. An inventory of the client computing device is then accessed. This inventory is stored in a storage device accessible by way of a computer network. Here, the storage device is separate from the client computing device and the computing device. A connection failure between the computing device and the client computing device is detected and thereafter, the inventory from the storage device is retrieved by way of the computer network. A reconnection to the client computing device can then be made based on the retrieved inventory.
US09021098B1

In general techniques are described for allocating global identifiers to forwarding units of a network device. A network device having one or more hardware-based microprocessors and an allocation module executable by the microprocessors may implement the techniques. The allocation module may maintain a first map that indicates global identifiers that are allocable to a plurality of forwarding units of the network device, and a second map that indicates local identifiers that are allocated to one of the plurality of forwarding units. The local identifiers may be based at least in part on the global identifiers. The allocation module may allocate to the forwarding unit, a global identifier indicated by the first map that is not allocated to any one of the plurality of forwarding units by comparing the second map to one or more portions of the first map to identify the unallocated global identifier of the first map.
US09021092B2

A shadow network, which can be a virtual reproduction of a real, physical, base computer network, is described. Shadow networks duplicate the topology, services, host, and network traffic of the base network using shadow hosts, which are low interaction, minimal-resource-using host emulators. The shadow networks are connected to the base network through virtual switches, etc. in order to form a large obfuscated network. When a hacker probes into a host emulator, a more resource-intensive virtual machine can be swapped in to take its place. When a connection is attempted from a host emulator to a physical computer, the a host emulator can step in to take the place of the physical computer, and software defined networking (SDN) can prevent collisions between the duplicated IP addresses. Replicating the shadow networks within the network introduces problems for hackers and allows a system administrator easier ways to identify intrusions.
US09021086B2

System and methods for inferring network topology are described, including a method comprising determining a normalized transmit power of a first device, identifying a second device based upon a parameter of the second device and the normalized transmit power of the first device, and generating a topology including the first device and the second device based upon at least one of the normalized transmit power of the first device and the parameter of the second device.
US09021076B2

Techniques are disclosed for managing inventory data for components of a server system. In one embodiment, a global management controller is provided, that is operatively connected to a plurality of local management controllers. Each local management controller is configured to manage a subset of the components of the server system. Each local management controller is also configured to generate, for each component, a checksum based on vital product data (VPD) of the component. Each local management controller is also configured to compute a composite checksum based on the checksums generated for the components in the subset. The global management controller is configured to maintain a global view of the VPD in the computer system, based on the checksums and/or composite checksums.
US09021073B2

A method including receiving a session request associated with a user equipment (UE); selecting one or more network address pool name lists based on a type of service to be provided to the UE; selecting one or more network address pool names from the one or more network address pool name lists based on a priority associated with the one or more network address pool names; selecting one or more network addresses from the one or more network address pool names; assigning the one or more network addresses to the UE; and establishing a session with the UE.
US09021069B2

This disclosure describes, in part, techniques for managing access to a fleet account of mobile electronic devices. For instance, an administrator of a business and educational institution may place an order with an offering service to purchase a large number of eBook reader devices. The offering service identifies that the business and educational institution is ordering a fleet of devices. Furthermore, each of the devices ordered are associated or registered to a managed or fleet account controlled by the administrator of the business and educational institution. The techniques described herein prevent an individual user of a fleet device from de-registering the device from the managed account, and also allow an account administrator to alter preferred settings of the managed account. Further, techniques are described for allowing a user of a device to opt-in or associate their device with the account.
US09021066B1

Techniques are described for providing a-priori information about the implication of a network device operator interaction with a network device, e.g., a software configuration or hardware change, to be performed on the network device before the interaction actually takes place. The network device operator is provided with information that may be used to make a decision whether to proceed with the interaction. For each logically distinct feature of a network device, the techniques generate a trigger outcome domain (TOD). Each TOD is defined to include a list of operator interactions that defines relevant events in the network device that may be triggerable by the operator interactions, a list of potential outcomes in the network based on the potential events in the network device, and a user interface to display the list of potential outcomes for the operator interactions prior to performing any of the interactions.
US09021064B2

Various techniques for providing product configuration as a Web Service are disclosed. One method involves receiving a Web Service signature requesting access to a product configuration session to configure a product and accessing information representing an instance of the product, in response to receipt of the Web Service signature. A responsive Web Service signature, containing information such as the price of the instance of the product, whether the instance of the product represents a valid configuration, and/or indicative of options available to further configure the product, can be returned to the application that requested access to the session. The requester can request multiple changes to the instance of the product, and validation of those changes can be delayed until after all of the changes have been applied (as opposed to each change being validated independently). A single configurator can handle requests received via multiple different sales channels.
US09021063B2

A method including the steps of sending from, users computer devices, a request to a remote server for transfer and movement of an object from a starting point to a destination point, stating the locations of the points; limiting the range and transfer time for the position of the object. The remote server selects from a database, data relating to the locations of the computer users performing the transfer. The remote server transmits, over the Internet, a record of the locations of the computer user's performing the transfer and located within said limitation of the range for the position of object, the status, the type of vehicle and data relating to means for communicating with the computer user's performing the transfer.
US09021061B2

A method comprises forming a pathname indicative of a location of content on a wireless network, the pathname including an identifier of the wireless network; and sending a request for the content, the request including the pathname. In one embodiment, the pathname further includes a delimiter configured to specify a location of the identifier of the wireless network in the pathname.
US09021053B2

There is disclosed a method for writing data in a data storage system comprising a plurality of data storage nodes, the method being employed in a server running an application which accesses data in the data storage system, and comprising: sending a multicast storage query to a plurality of said storage nodes; receiving a plurality of responses from a subset of said storage nodes, said responses including a storage node property; selecting at least two storage nodes in the subset for storing said data, based on said responses, wherein the selecting is based on a data property of the data to be stored and a storage node property.
US09021043B2

Described is a technology by which an email filtering service or other gateway includes hybrid proxy and store-and-forward logic. A message is initially processed with proxy logic. If the proxy logic is unable to complete filtering/scanning of a message within a timeout period, the store-and-forward logic is invoked to complete filtering/scanning of the message. The store-and-forward logic also may be invoked if a delivery attempt made by the proxy logic fails or does not complete prior to a delivery timeout period. When such a condition is met, the store-and-forward logic accepts the message, including storing the message, sending a response that indicates the message was accepted, and closing the connection over which the message was received. The store-and-forward logic may complete any scanning if not completed by the proxy logic, and takes over delivery responsibilities.
US09021039B2

A system and method are disclosed for registering a email sender for the purpose of sending an email message to an email receiver including receiving a challenge message wherein the challenge message includes a machine answerable question; processing the challenge message to determine that it is a challenge message sent for the purpose of authorizing delivery of the email message; analyzing the question to determine a valid response to the challenge message; and sending the valid response that includes the answer wherein a nontrivial amount of resources are required to send the valid response.
US09021033B2

An embodiment of the invention provides a method for communication within a system, wherein an instant messaging conversation is initiated between a first user and a second user. An indicator and a text entry are received from the first user during the instant messaging conversation. The status of the first user is changed, including automatically setting the text entry as the status of the first user, and automatically including the name of the second user in the status of the first user if preferences of the first user indicate that the name of the second user is to be included in the status of the first user. Further, the text entry is automatically sent to the second user if the preferences of the first user indicate that a text entry following the indicator is to be automatically sent to the second user.
US09021026B2

A system and method for implementing a peer to peer (P2P) network that includes a plurality of nodes, wherein each of a majority of the nodes has less than a threshold number of P2P connections to other nodes in the network. A P2P network connection is established between a first node from the majority and an enhanced connection node in the network, wherein the enhanced connection node has more than the threshold number of P2P connections to other nodes in the network. A search request is issued from the first node by transmitting the search request from the first node to the enhanced connection node, and then forwarding the search request from the enhanced connection node to other nodes in the network. Responses to the search request are collected at the enhanced connection node, which filters, ranks or adds additional content to the responses prior to forwarding the responses back to the first node.
US09021021B2

Mobile network reporting and usage analytics system and method are disclosed. One embodiment includes a method generating a report for a network operator, which may be implemented on a system, including tracking optimization efficiency for traffic in a wireless network, generating the report to be provided to the network operator based on the optimization efficiency and performing functions related to traffic optimization and management in the wireless network effectuating in traffic alleviation in the wireless network measured by the optimization frequency. The optimization efficiency can include efficiency information associated with different mobile applications and user-related information in a wireless network.
US09021013B2

There is provided a method for providing ubiquitous web services including receiving, at a ubiquitous web service gateway, a request for web service from a web service requester, and sending, at the ubiquitous web service gateway, the request for web service to a web service provider dynamically selected from among web service providers that provide the requested web service, depending on a change in interface information of the web service providers. The method further includes receiving, at the ubiquitous web service gateway, the result of requested web service from the web service provider that received the request for web service, and providing, at the ubiquitous web service gateway, the web service result to the web service requester.
US09021005B2

A virtualization aware device management (VADM) server manages mobile devices, including mobile devices that have been virtualized. Each virtualized mobile device supports multiple virtual devices. Each virtual device can be managed independently by the VADM server, in similar manner to non-virtualized devices. The VADM server interacts with one or more device management clients (DMCs) running on a virtualized mobile device to manage the virtual devices installed thereon. In a mobile virtualized device, a DMC can run exclusively within the virtual machine monitor (VMM) for remote management of some or all of the virtual devices on the mobile virtualized device; within each virtual device for remote management of the respective virtual device; or a combination thereof, with a DMC in the VMM acting as a bridge for DMCs within the virtual devices.
US09021003B2

Disclosed is a processor that is able to efficiently execute DFT operations without having part of a basic operational circuit idle even during non-DFT-operation processing. The processor (1) has an operational means (operation unit) (2) and a control means (control unit) (3). The operation means (2) has a plurality of shift addition-and-subtraction means connected such that CORDIC (COordinate Rotation DIgital Computer) operations can be executed. The shift adding-and-subtracting means also execute shift addition-and-subtraction processing of butterfly operations that process shift addition-and-subtraction for one stage or more. The control means (3) instructs the operation means (2) to execute either CORDIC operations or butterfly operations, based on a plurality of data received from the outside.
US09020996B2

One example method presents a synthetic view of data stored by a shared device file system. The synthetic view provides a “fictional” single namespace for data stored by the shared device file system. The method includes accepting a command to access data stored by the shared device file system. The command may be native to a user requesting the access. The command addresses the data stored by the shared device file system using the single namespace provided by the synthetic view. The method includes creating a replacement command(s) for accessing data stored by the shared device file system using one or more actual namespaces different from the single fictional namespace provided by the synthetic view. With the replacement command(s) prepared, the method proceeds to access data stored by the shared device file system using the replacement command(s).
US09020992B1

A computer-implemented method may include establishing a proxy file system that facilitates file archiving for a primary file system that does not support file archiving. The computer-implemented method may also include identifying a request to archive a file stored in a primary file system and copying the file to an archive file system such that a reference to the file is created in the proxy file system. The computer-implemented method may further include replacing the file in the primary file system with a symbolic link that identifies the reference in the proxy file system. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.
US09020991B2

A system and method is provided for determining an available space in one or more data blocks. A physical data storage area associated with one or more portions of a database may be determined. An available space in each data block of one or more data blocks in the physical data storage area may be determined. A number of new data rows that can be added to each data block may also be determined.
US09020984B1

Methods and apparatus for optimizing resource utilization in distributed storage systems. A data migration technique is described that may operate in the background in a distributed storage data center to migrate data among a fleet of storage units to achieve a substantially even and randomized data storage distribution among all storage units in the fleet. When new storage units are added to the fleet and coupled to the data center network, the new storage units are detected. Instead of processing and storing new data to the newly added storage units, as in conventional distributed storage systems, the new units are blocked from general client I/O to allow the data migration technique to migrate data from other, previously installed storage hardware in the data center onto the new storage hardware. Once the storage load on the new storage units is balanced with the rest of the fleet, the new storage units are released for general client I/O.
US09020972B1

A system and method of the subject technology automatically constructs a database instruction from a template instruction, including one or more variable tokens, and one or more document object representations, each including an object type and a user-generated parameter. The one or more variable tokens in the template instruction are substituted by the user-generated parameter of a corresponding document object representation when the type of a respective variable token is matched to the type of the corresponding document object representation.
US09020970B2

In one example embodiment, a code segment may be embedded in a web page by a web page publisher, and the code segment may be executed at least in part by a user computing platform. Information related to one or more web applications may be provided to the user computing platform at least in part in response to the user computing platform executing the code segment.
US09020969B2

Various embodiments of systems and methods for tracking queries and retrieved results are described herein. In one aspect, a first query is associated with a first result set in a first tuple and a second query is associated with a second result set in a second tuple. The first result set is retrieved based on the execution of the first query and the second result set is retrieved based on the execution of the second query. The first and the second tuples are retained in a data structure in the order of execution of the respective queries. The retrieved result sets may be accessed forwards or backwards along the data structure without re-execution of the queries.
US09020968B2

Data indicative of topography of an object of interest is received at a recognition system having an associated database in which is stored topography data for a plurality of reference objects each of which is cross-referenced to configuration information for a universal controlling device. The reference system uses the received data and the topography data for the plurality of reference objects to discern one or more reference objects as being a match for the object of interest. At least a subset of the configuration information that has been cross-referenced to the one or more reference objects discerned by the recognition system as being a match for the object of interest is then used to configure the universal controlling device to enable the universal controlling device to communicate commands to one or more target appliances.
US09020967B2

A data construct called a semcard is a semantic (meaning-based) software object including semantic meta-tags and meta-data that describes a target object or thing. A target object can be any type of digital or physical entity or identifier, or it can be tacit knowledge, such as ideas, concepts, processes or other data existing in a user's mind, provided that the user represents this knowledge in the semcard. A semcard embodies information about its own structure—rules, history, state, policies and goals regarding automation, display, access permissions, sharing and other operations of the semcard and any optional target object. It can also represent a semantic link between two semcards, or a semantically typed link or a standard Web hyperlink between a semcard and its referent target. A collection of semcards represents a knowledge network; single semcards, and knowledge networks, can be browsed, shared, searched, disseminated, manipulated, displayed, organized, and stored.
US09020966B2

The mobile device includes a client that has a number of modules, and the MMR Gateway and MMR matching unit are implemented as a server that has a number of modules. The implementation of the MMR system as a client and a server is advantageous because the modules may be distributed among the client and the server in a variety of configurations. The present invention includes a capture module, a preprocessing module, a feature extraction module, a retrieval module, a send message module, an action module, a prediction module, a feedback module, a sending module, an MMR database, a streaming module, an e-mail module, a voice recognition system and an audio database. These modules and systems are operational upon the client or the server.
US09020965B1

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for retrieving connection score data for a user, the user being a user of a computer-implemented social networking service, the connection score data comprising one or more connections scores, each connection score reflecting a degree of interaction between the user and a respective contact, determining that a first connection score is less than or equal to a minimum connection score, the first connection score being associated with a first contact of the user within the social networking service, and, in response to determining that the first connection score is less than or equal to the minimum connection score, removing the first contact as a contact of the user within the social networking service.
US09020960B2

The disclosure describes systems and methods for modeling relationships between entities on a network using data collected from a plurality of communication channels including social data, spatial data, temporal data and logical data within a W4 Network. The W4 Network personalizes and automates sorting, filtering and processing of W4COMN communications delivered or requested to be delivered using personalized value-based ranking and encoding of data, which is modeled from the point-of-view (POV) of any specific user, topic or node in the W4 Distributed graph. POV modeling supplies comparative value services to users which entails individuated data models to be aggregated and used in customization and personalization forecasting for each user and their associated data management needs.
US09020957B1

A computer-implemented method for enhancing social networking content may include 1) identifying social networking content accessed from a social networking site, 2) parsing the social networking content to identify at least one content item that is potentially referenced in at least one of a plurality of social networking sites, 3) searching the plurality of social networking sites for an additional content item that relates to the content item, and 4) enhancing the social networking content with the additional content item. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.
US09020955B2

Respective models of visual weight in images are determined. An image query is generated from a determined visual weight distribution. At least one of the images is retrieved from a database based on comparisons of the image query with respective ones of the visual weight models.
US09020949B2

In one example, a method for facilitating centralized issue tracking. The method includes receiving information on a case from an issue tracking system (case information). The method facilitates executing a tagging method stored in a memory device that reads the case information, determines whether a part of the case information is desired information, and then tags the desired information. Finally, the method facilitates communicating the tagged information to a centralized database, where the centralized database stores the tagged information, and where the tagged information is accessible to the issue tracking system and at least one other issue tracking system.
US09020948B2

A network fingerprint manager within an automatic content recognition (ACR) system may be operable to receive one or more versions of media content associated with a network. One or more proxy content may be generated by the network fingerprint manager for each version of the received media content. The network fingerprint manager may generate a set of fingerprints from a particular one of the generated one or more proxy content for each version of the received media content. The particular one being fingerprinted may comprise proxy content with highest quality among the generated proxy content. The set of fingerprints and corresponding content ID and media time for each version of the received media content may be stored. The network fingerprint manager may generate real-time fingerprints from content in a received network feed. The network fingerprint manager may compare the generated real-time fingerprints to the stored sets of fingerprints for matching.
US09020941B1

A system and method of parsing natural language descriptions of features to determine an approximate location. An embodiment includes splitting the natural language descriptions into components, geocoding each component, and returning the geocode with the highest confidence level. The geocode references a specific location, and this information may be determined by content from a variety of sources. The system may use an assortment of techniques for determining highest confidence level.
US09020934B2

An aspect of the present invention is a computer executable method for characterizing, e.g. for diagnostic purposes, utilizing a reference database, a query sample tissue based on the gene expression data of the tissue. The method is characterized in that it comprises the steps of calculating an expression match score (EM-score) indicating the likelihood of having the gene expression level observed in the query sample in each of the tissue categories of the reference database, calculating for the genes of the sample tissue, using e.g. the EM-score, tissue specificity score (TS-score), that expresses how uniquely a gene identifies the query sample as belonging to a certain tissue category, calculating, utilizing e.g. the TS-score, overall similarity of the sample tissue in relation to a tissue category of the reference database, and storing at least some resulting characterization data to a memory device or outputting the data to an output device of a computer. An arrangement and a computer program product are also disclosed.
US09020926B1

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer program products, for refining search queries. In one implementation, a method includes obtaining a submitted search query, and in response to obtaining the search query: obtaining search results responsive to the search query; selecting a document from a group of documents identified by the search results; generating from a subset of one or more entities associated with the document one or more candidates for refined search queries, including: identifying one or more terms in the search query, where the one or more terms occur in the search query in a particular order relative to each other, and combining the one or more terms with the entity to generate a candidate, where the one or more terms occur in the particular order relative to each other; and identifying one or more of the candidates as being refined search queries for providing with the search results.
US09020923B2

Graphical user interfaces for searching music. A computer provides a window of a first webpage providing a user interface to search music, comprising search tools including filter tools and a keyword search tool. In response to a user search request for music via the filter tools and/or the keyword search tool, the computer provides, within the window, music search results. When a search result is selected by the user, the selected search result expands within the window. The expanded search result includes one or more of: a grab button, a download button, a share button, a license button, an audio player showing an audio waveform of the selected music search result, a description of the selected music search result, artwork associated with the search result, and an explore-more button, that when selected provides additional music related to the selected music based on acoustic similarity.
US09020922B2

A method for optimizing search results for an entity includes determining a grouping for actions related to an entity. The grouping may include a plurality of terms. The method may also include searching a network for the terms associated with the grouping. Thereafter, results of the searches may be analyzed to determine a rank for the entity within the results.
US09020920B1

Various embodiments of the invention provide methods, systems, and computer program products for determining a pattern for communications conducted between agents at a contact center and contact parties. In particular embodiments, the pattern is based on a utilization of one or more information resources by the agents during the communications. Depending on the embodiment, the communications may comprise one or more of telephone calls, text messages, emails, and Web chats. In addition, in various embodiments, a particular information resource from among the one or more information resources is identified based on the pattern and is associated with a keyphrase found in at least two of the communications. Accordingly, as a result of the association, the particular information resource is made available to at least one agent at the contact center during a time the agent is fielding a subsequent communication in which the keyphrase is detected.
US09020919B2

A method and apparatus for performing extended search are provided. The method includes receiving user-inputted keywords; extending the user-inputted keywords according to geographical information to acquire extended keywords; performing a search by using the extended keywords; and returning search results to the user. With the present technical solutions, privilege control can be effectively performed in a cloud storage system. With the present embodiments, more information may be provided to a user for reference.
US09020918B2

An information registration device includes an object information acquiring unit and a content information registering unit. The object information acquiring unit acquires object information obtained by performing processing for detecting and identifying an object for image data. The content information registering unit registers target content information in a database in association with the object information.
US09020907B2

A methodology for assisting a user in a combination of functional blocks by defining a value representative of an affinity degree among the functional blocks. Such affinity degree is influenced by available historic data derived by previous uses of the functional blocks which had been recorded into a repository.
US09020903B1

A method is used in recovering duplicate blocks in file systems. A duplicate file system block is detected in a file system. The duplicate file system block is referred by a first inode associated with a first file of the file system and a second inode associated with a second file of the file system. Metadata of the duplicate file system block is evaluated. Based on the evaluation, a set of inodes in the file system is determined. Each inode of the set of inodes refer to the duplicate file system block. Based on the determination, the set of inodes is updated.
US09020902B1

Techniques are described for managing data storage and retrieval, such as by generating a hash value for a beginning and/or ending portion of a new data group to be stored, attempting to match each generated hash value to a plurality of hash values associated with other existing data groups that are already stored, and comparing the new data group and an identified existing data group to determine any identical extended initial or final portion of the two data groups. The new data group may then be stored as the portion unique to the new data group, along with a reference to the existing identical extended portion of the existing data group. The new stored data group may be later retrieved using the unique portion of the data group, along with the existing extended portions corresponding to other stored data groups for any stored references.
US09020901B2

A method for balancing database workloads among a plurality of database servers includes when a new server is available, selecting a set of master and slave databases to be migrated to the new server; and migrating the selected databases to result in a balanced new workload among all servers while minimizing migration cost; and during operation, if workload unbalance is detected in real time from a workload change in a certain database, iteratively selecting one database at a time to migrate to a different server to balance the workload.
US09020892B2

One or more techniques and/or systems are disclosed for efficiently storing metadata of partitioned data (e.g., directed to a specific individual/user). A first subset of data is identified from the set of partitioned data. The first subset of data comprises data that has a high frequency of access, and may be identified, at least in part, by frequency of access metadata that is associated with the data in the set. Metadata, such as discovery information, permissions, version info, etc., that is associated with the data in the first subset can be stored in low latency (e.g., fast) storage, proving more efficient access. Metadata associated with data from the set of partitioned data that is not in the first subset (e.g., that is not accessed frequently) can be stored in higher latency (e.g., slower, less expensive) storage.
US09020888B1

Methods and systems for synchronizing data may enable a computer to synchronize data by connecting to a peer computer via a network connection. The computer may receive a remote table from the peer computer, wherein the remote table comprises an object comprising a vector. The computer may determine whether the object is present in a local table. When the object is present in the local table, the computer may determine whether the vector in the remote table and the vector in the local table match. When the vectors do not match, the computer may determine whether a record of a change to the object is present in a local transaction log. The computer may receive data from the peer computer indicating whether a record of a change to the object is present in a remote transaction log when the vectors do not match. The computer may replace the vector in the local table with the vector in the remote table and record a change to the object in the local transaction log when the record of the change to the object in the local transaction log is less recent than the record of the change to the object in the remote transaction log.
US09020883B2

A system and method are disclosed for providing BPEL support for correlation aggregation. The system can comprise a business process engine, executing on one or more application servers organized in a cluster. The system can comprise a database including a table which stores records relating to message groups and business process instances. When a message is received by the business process engine, the business process engine can determine an identity associated with the message, and check the database to determine if there is an entry associated with the identity. If there is no entry associated with the identity, then the business process engine can instantiate a first business process instance associated with the identity, and if there is an entry associated with the identity, then the business process engine can route the message to a business process instance associated with the identity.
US09020880B2

A configuration model dividing and configuration sub-model inference processing system and procedure addresses the issue of configuration model and query complexity by breaking a configuration problem down into a set of smaller problems, solving them individually and recombining the results into a single result that is equivalent to a conventional inference procedure. In one embodiment, a configuration model is divided into configuration sub-models that can respectively be processed using existing data processing resources. A sub-model inference procedure provides a way to scale queries to larger and more complicated configuration models. Thus, the configuration model dividing and configuration sub-model processing system and inference procedure allows processing by a data processing system of configuration models and queries whose collective complexity exceeds the complexity of otherwise unprocessable conventional, consolidated configuration models and queries.
US09020868B2

A method and system for the integration of disparate data stored within an Information Technology infrastructure of a company is provided. The system and method enables holistic, real time control of data discovery, retrieval and analysis. The system combines data mining, retrieval and analytics at the source of the data, thereby solving traditional problems with disparate and distributed data, systems, business processes and analytics across an organization. The system enables a user to configure and target data, then apply rules, workflows and analytics from one central source. This process is accomplished by distributing functions in the form of software pneurons against the existing infrastructure for maximum processing while preserving a robust and extendable suite of definitions. The system uses the existing application, network and hardware assets and enables connection to the native data, maps only the data fields that need to be mapped to carry out the desired analysis, runs the analysis and then returns the data to a central location to be assembled, analyzed, organized and/or reported.
US09020864B2

A user's context history is analyzed to build a personality model describing the user's personality and interests. The personality model includes a plurality of metrics indicating the user's position on a plurality of personality dimensions, such as desire for novelty, tendency for extravagance, willingness to travel, love of the outdoors, preference for physical activity, and desire for solitude. A customized recommendation agent is then built based on the personality model, which selects a recommendation from a corpus to present to the user based on an affinity between the user's personality and the selected recommendation.
US09020856B2

Methods, computer program products and systems for determining the level of use of a program associated with a license, by one or more agents, for comparison with a predetermined licensed level of use. In one embodiment of the invention, the method comprises the steps of collecting initial data from the one or more agents associated with a metric indicative of use of the program during a first predetermined time period, calculating the metric to determine a level use of the program for the first predetermined time period, receiving new data from one or more agents associated with the metric of usage of the program, where the new data arrives after the first predetermined time period, estimating a new value of the metric to determine a approximate level of use for a second predetermined time period from the original data, the metric and the new data and in response to a trigger event, recalculating the metric to produce a final value of the metric based on the original data and the new data to provide an indication of the level of use of the program.
US09020848B1

A method for tracking time and location of an employee based on a predefined schedule. This method may uses time tracking software installed on a mobile device to detect the presence (or lack of presence) of an electronic signal emitted by a NFC (near field communication), BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy), or other wireless device. The detection may trigger the mobile application to communicate to a server to determine if the employee is scheduled to work at a work zone, which may result in the mobile application clocking in/out the employee. Also, geofencing may be used in combination with scheduling to clock in/out employees when entering a geofenced area determined by the employer. These location detection embodiments of the present invention may be used individually or in combination to improve location accuracy. A supervisor may also use this system to review the timesheets, make changes and integrate the data into a Payroll system.
US09020844B2

Embodiments of systems and methods for the aggregation, analysis, display and monetization of pricing data for commodities in general, and which may be particularly useful applied to vehicles are disclosed. Specifically, in certain embodiments, historical transaction data associated with a particular vehicle configuration may be obtained and processed to determine pricing data associated with the vehicle configuration. The historical transaction data or determined pricing data may then be presented in an intuitive manner.
US09020837B1

A mobile automobile information system and methods are described. Data such as images may be captured from a vehicle dealer sticker with a mobile device and analyzed. The sticker may contain machine-readable information such as a barcode. The collected data may be analyzed to determine vehicle and vehicle related information. Dealer information and vehicle purchase related information may also be generated. The results of the analysis may be provided to the user's mobile device. Purchase assistance may be provided to the user through the mobile device, answering user inquiries and providing vehicle purchase information to the user during the purchase process.
US09020836B2

A method for transmitting data between a mobile communication device and a server. The method includes running a mobile application on the mobile communication device. The mobile application is hosted on the mobile communication device through the server as a Software as a Service (SaaS). The method further includes transmitting data associated with the mobile application between the mobile communication device and the server, in which transmission of the data between the mobile communication device and the server is monitored through the server.
US09020831B2

A system includes a plurality of sources that subscribe to, and another source that is unaffiliated with, a workflow management system. The system further includes a registry database that has pre-existing fields that are configured to store data received from one or more of the sources or from the other source, and de novo fields that are configured to be generated as a result of a data collection event and are configured to store data received from one or more of the sources or from the other source. An engine is configured to actively collect data from the sources and from the other source. The system further includes a dynamically updatable user interface that is operatively connected to the registry database. The dynamically updatable user interface is configurable or re-configurable for a particular one of the plurality of sources in response to the data collection event.
US09020830B2

Embodiments are directed towards employing a plurality of object relationships to dynamically generate a hierarchical structure of dependent object relationships (“HSDOR”). Each object relationship may include a plurality of information, including, but not limited to, a consumer object, a provider object, a one or more direct values, a quantity of units consumed by the consumer object, or the like. Dependencies between the plurality of object relationships may be utilized to dynamically generate an HSDOR. In some embodiments, the HSDOR may be modified by resolving detected circularity relationships within the HSDOR and/or dynamically modifying object relationship dependencies affected by a new and/or modified object relationship. In some embodiments, the HSDOR may be utilized to iteratively determine a total value of an object as a function of total loaded values of object relationships from which the object depends.
US09020825B1

A voice gesture is determined from characteristics of an audio signal based on sound uttered by a user. The voice gesture may represent a command or parameters or a command, and may be context sensitive. Upon determining a command and parameters of the command based on the received voice gesture, the command is executed in accordance with the determined parameters. The command may modify any number of attributes within an environment including, but limited to, an image projected within the environment.
US09020813B2

A speech enhancement system improves speech conversion within an encoder and decoder. The system includes a first device that converts sound waves into operational signals. A second device selects a template that represents an expected signal model. The selected template models speech characteristics of the operational signals through a speech codebook that is further accessed in a communication channel.
US09020812B2

Disclosed is an audio signal processing method comprising the steps of: receiving an audio signal containing current frame data; generating a first temporary output signal for the current frame when an error occurs in the current frame data, by carrying out frame error concealment with respect to the current frame data a random codebook; generating a parameter by carrying out one or more of short-term prediction, long-term prediction and a fixed codebook search based on the first temporary output signal; and memory updating the parameter for the next frame; wherein the parameter comprises one or more of pitch gain, pitch delay, fixed codebook gain and a fixed codebook.
US09020802B1

A computer program product, method, and apparatus for discovering information about the nodes of the disperse data network, sending a command from a client to a distributed file system, wherein the distributed file system contains the discovered information, distributing the command from the distributed files system to one or more of the nodes of the distributed file system, and executing the command on the one or more network nodes.
US09020798B2

A system for real-time simulation of a battery comprising simulating a cell array by an overall computer model is disclosed. The model includes a plurality of single cells. A computer is connected via a cell voltage emulator to a control unit calculating terminal voltages of single cells by using the overall model and supplying the calculated terminal cell voltages to the control unit by the cell voltage emulator. The overall model comprises a first model which models a first single reference cell having cell parameters typical of the cell array and sending the total input current of the cell array to the first model as an input variable. The terminal voltage of the reference cell is calculated by the first model. The overall model further comprises a second model which calculates a deviation in the terminal voltage of an additional single cell from the terminal voltage of the reference cell.
US09020797B2

A method is provided that comprises a circuit design that includes multiple design blocks; a power intent specification file that defines a power domain within the circuit design and that identifies design instances within the power domain and that defines a control function to selectively transition the defined power domain between multiple respective power supply values; using a digital simulator to simulate operation of the digital representation while using an analog simulator to simulate operation of the analog representation; wherein simulating the digital representation includes transitioning the defined power domain between supply values from among the multiple respective supply values; wherein simulating the analog representation includes periodically storing in a storage location a power supply value currently in use during digital simulation of the digital representation; and wherein simulating the analog representation includes using the stored currently in use power supply value to supply voltage to the analog representation.
US09020792B2

Coupling architectural and implementation/behavioral models of a computer-based system by creating a bridge element, defining a port of the bridge element, associating the port of the bridge element with a port of an implementable element of an architectural model of a computer-based system and a port of an implementation element of an implementation/behavioral model of the computer-based system, mapping an interface member of the implementation element port to an interface member of the implementable element port, generating, from a template, skeleton source code applicable for the mapped interface member, generating a usage description element for the architectural model corresponding to the mapped interface member, generating an architectural description document from the architectural model, generating implementation code from the implementation/behavioral model and the generated skeleton source code, and generating a declaration file for an operating system service for use by the implementation code.
US09020789B2

This document discusses, among other things, systems and methods for determining volume of activation for deep brain stimulation (“DBS”) using a finite element model (FEM) circuit to determine a FEM of an implanted electrode and a tissue medium in which the electrode is implanted, a Fourier FEM solver circuit to calculate a potential distribution in the tissue medium using information from the FEM circuit and a capacitive component of at least one of the implanted electrode and the tissue medium, and a volume of activation (VOA) circuit to predict a VOA using the potential distribution and a neuron model.
US09020788B2

Methods and devices are disclosed relating improved articular models, implant components, and related guide tools and procedures. In addition, methods and devices are disclosed relating articular models, implant components, and/or related guide tools and procedures that include one or more features derived from patient-data, for example, images of the patient's joint. The data can be used to create a model for analyzing a patient's joint and to devise and evaluate a course of corrective action. The data also can be used to create patient-adapted implant components and related tools and procedures.
US09020786B2

A method of analyzing the durability of a structure. Load-controlled testing is performed on samples of a composite material of the structure to relate critical strain invariants of the material to cyclic rates of strain invariant accumulation and frequencies associated with the cyclic rates. The material is characterized based on effective properties of the material, including the cyclic rates of strain invariant accumulation. Laminate properties and a geometrical definition of the structure are used to obtain a parametric model. Material characterizations are used to determine model element frequency responses to applied load conditions. Each element's frequency responses and critical strain invariants are used to determine whether damage is indicated at the element. Progression of damage is tracked and accounted for in the model.
US09020784B2

Systems and methods of providing bonded-particle model amongst a plurality of discrete particles representing a physical domain made of brittle material in a time-marching simulation to obtain numerically simulated continuum physical phenomena are disclosed. A physical domain is represented by a plurality of discrete particles. A domain of influence is assigned to each discrete particle and a bonded-particle model is created for the discrete particles. Respective bonds are established to connect each discrete particle to all other discrete particles within its domain of influence. The bonded-particle model further defines a rule for breakage of a bond. Continuum physical phenomena of the physical domain are numerically represented through a set of formula such that a time-marching simulation of the physical domain can be conducted. Physical properties include material properties and fracture energy release rate. Finally, the bonded-particle model allows size and orientation changes of each discrete particle.
US09020776B2

An inclination angle compensation system for determining an inclination angle of a machine is disclosed. The inclination angle compensation system may have a non-gravitational acceleration estimator configured to estimate a non-gravitational acceleration of a machine based on an estimated inclination angle and an acceleration output from a forward acceleration sensor. The inclination angle compensation system may also have an inclination angle sensor corrector configured to receive an inclination angle output from an inclination angle sensor, determine an inclination angle sensor acceleration based on the inclination angle output, and calculate a corrected inclination angle of the machine based on the non-gravitational acceleration and the inclination angle sensor acceleration.
US09020772B2

A detection wire cutter including a conducting wire mechanically secured to a structure that is to be monitored. This wire is electrically powered at one end and at another end feeds back an electrical voltage corresponding to the power supplied, provided that the structure that is to be monitored has not undergone unacceptable mechanical damage. As an improvement, two arrays of wires extending over flat supports in two directions in space are proposed. Each array is powered by a distinct network electrical supply. The two networks extend in layers, with parallel wire portions. The position of a crack does not impede the passage of current between certain terminals, but certain other terminals will no longer receive any current because the crack has broken a network supply general connection between the connection of one wire and that of another.
US09020770B2

A system, and computer program product for estimating component power usage using aggregate power usage data are provided in the illustrative embodiments. A power estimation model is received, the model correlating a factor of the component with an aggregate power consumption of a set of components during a period, the component being a member of the set of components, the component being a hardware device operating in the data processing environment and consuming electrical power, the factor being a characteristic of the component related to the consumption of the electrical power in the component. A value of the factor at a determined time is received. The value of the factor is applied to the power estimation model to generate an estimate of electrical power consumed by the component. The estimate is output as the estimated power usage of the component when the factor attains the value.
US09020765B2

A system and a method for safe operations of a mass flow sensor in a combustion device, with a gas supply, an air supply, a fan with an electric motor, a burner, and a communication micro processor, wherein the mass flow sensor includes a microprocessor used for communications, the communication micro processor communicates with the micro processor of the one mass flow sensor, and the communications include safety-relevant interrogations of the mass flow sensor in order to secure the mass flow sensor.
US09020763B2

A computing device is described that determines an exit location at which a user of a computing device exited a stop associated with a transportation service. The computing device determines a predicted duration of travel by the user from a current location of the computing device to the exit location at which the user exited the stop associated with the transportation service. The computing device outputs, for display, a notification based at least in part on the predicted duration.
US09020758B2

A device for generating intersection guidance information, which includes: a route setting unit configured to receive a route up to a destination; a candidate area detecting unit configured to search for a turning point on the searched route, and detect a surrounding area of the searched turning point as a candidate area; a candidate POI area detecting unit configured to detect a POI area as a candidate POI area, at least a portion of the POI area being included in the candidate area; a guidance POI area selecting unit configured to calculate distance between the candidate POI area and the turning point, search a candidate POI area whose distance calculated is shortest, and select the searched candidate POI area as a guidance POI area.
US09020757B2

A path planning autopilot guides vehicles efficiently even when they are far from a desired path.
US09020753B2

A method of determining an object in sight with an electronic apparatus, where the object being associated with a Point-Of-Interest, POI, item in a database is disclosed. The method comprises estimating (100) a position of the electronic apparatus by a positioning mechanism; estimating (102) magnitude of error of estimated position; estimating (104) a direction when orienting the electronic apparatus towards the object by a magnetic sensor of the electronic apparatus; estimating (106) magnitude of error of position error of estimated direction; calculating two intersecting imaginary lines in a model of the environment of the electronic apparatus, wherein the two imaginary lines intersect a line of the estimated direction at a side of the electronic apparatus distal to said object, and where a mutual angle between the two imaginary lines and the line of the estimated direction is based on the estimated magnitude of error of estimated direction, and the position where the imaginary lines intersect is determined from the estimated position and the magnitude of error of estimated position, such that an area between the two imaginary lines is formed (108) based on a determined maximum distance of sight; and determining (110) a POI associated with a position within said area such that information about the object associated with the determined POI is obtainable. A computer program and an electronic apparatus are also disclosed.
US09020751B1

A method is disclosed for mitigating the risks associated with driving by assigning risk values to road segments and using those risk values to select less risky travel routes. Various approaches to helping users mitigate risk are presented. A computing device is configured to generate a database of risk values. That device may receive accident information, geographic information, vehicle information, and other information from one or more data sources and calculate a risk value for the associated road segment. Subsequently, the computing device may provide the associated risk value to other devices. Furthermore, a personal navigation device may receive travel route information and use that information to retrieve risk values for the road segments in the travel route. An insurance company may use this information to determine whether to adjust a quote or premium of an insurance policy. This and other aspects relating to using geographically encoded information to promote and reward risk mitigation are disclosed.
US09020747B2

A driver assistance system of an observing vehicle uses a method that includes, but is not limited to recognizing a turn-off maneuver of a vehicle preceding the observing vehicle and further includes, but is not limited to identifying at least one first and one second reference point on the preceding vehicle in pictures of the preceding vehicle taken successively by a camera, where the reference points, in transverse direction of the preceding vehicle, are spaced apart, determining the distance from the images of the reference points in the pictures. and recognizing a turn-off maneuver if it is determined that there is a reduction in distance.
US09020742B2

Embodiments of the invention include a wireless vehicle detection systems and associated methods with extended range and battery life. The wireless vehicle detection system can include a plurality of sensor pods in communication with an access point without repeaters. Embodiments of the sensor pod can include a vehicle detector controller adapted to determine the presence of vehicles and a communication controller connected to the vehicle detector and adapted to transmit data 300 feet or more to an access point, which in turns communicates with the base station. To extend the battery life of the sensor pod, the sensor pod can be adapted to detect received communication signal strength and adjust transmitting power based upon said strength to thereby conserve power. Embodiments of the sensor pod can also include a battery connected in parallel to an HLC capacitor to further extend the life of the battery.
US09020739B2

Disclosed is a control device for an internal combustion engine that is used with an internal combustion engine having an EGR catalyst and an EGR valve in an EGR path for connecting an exhaust path to an intake path, and capable of preventing the purification performance of the EGR catalyst from being degraded during EGR stoppage and purifying exhaust gas in a preferred manner upon EGR resumption. When EGR is stopped with the EGR valve closed, the control device judges whether an EGR path air-fuel ratio is richer than a threshold value. If the EGR path air-fuel ratio is judged to be richer than the threshold value, the control device sets a target air-fuel ratio for the internal combustion engine to be leaner than a stoichiometric air-fuel ratio.
US09020734B2

An apparatus for selecting operating conditions of a genset, the apparatus including a processor circuit configured to select a set of operating points from a plurality of operating points of the genset each comprising an engine speed in a generator electrical output value and a plurality of cost values associated with operating the genset at respective operating points such that the sum of the cost values associated with the operating points in said set is minimized and such that the engine speed increases or decreases monotonically with monotonically increasing or decreasing electrical power output values.
US09020733B2

A data acquisition device includes a wired module configured to provide a wired connection to a vehicle for gathering vehicle data from the vehicle during operation of the vehicle. The data acquisition device is configured to be mounted inside the vehicle. The data acquisition device further includes short-range wireless communication module configured to wirelessly send the vehicle data in real-time to a portable wireless data transfer and display device in close proximity to the data acquisition device during operation of the vehicle.
US09020729B2

A trailer brake control method for a vehicle towing a trailer. The method may include determining a number (N) of vehicle operating points during a first braking event when the vehicle is not towing the trailer by determining N brake operating points; determining an acceleration operating point for each of the N brake operating points; and determining a first relationship between brake pressure and vehicle acceleration based on the N vehicle operating points. The method also includes determining a number (M) of vehicle operating points during a second braking event when the vehicle is towing the trailer; determining a current brake operating point; and determining a trailer brake command signal based on at least the first relationship, the M vehicle operating points, and the current brake operating point.
US09020728B2

A vehicle turn monitoring method comprises determining an intent for a host vehicle to execute a left turn before the host vehicle begins to execute the left turn, monitoring a location relationship between the host vehicle and a remote vehicle before the host vehicle begins to execute the left turn, and evaluating a travelling condition of the host vehicle before the host vehicle begins to execute the left turn. The method further includes determining, by operation of a processor, whether to perform a threat mitigation operation before the host vehicle begins to execute the left turn based on the location relationship and the travelling condition.
US09020722B1

A vehicle includes a transmission having a plurality of clutches, including an oncoming binary clutch and an off-going clutch. The oncoming binary clutch is a binary device and the off-going clutch is a non-binary device. An internal combustion engine is operatively connected to the transmission and configured to generate an engine torque based on an input torque request. A controller is operatively connected to the transmission and has a processor and tangible, non-transitory memory on which is recorded instructions for executing a method for controlling a power-on downshift with the off-going clutch and the oncoming binary clutch. The controller is configured to generate a first pressure command at below a threshold pressure to at least partially pressurize the oncoming binary clutch and initiate a clutch slip for the off-going clutch. Among other steps, the controller is configured to determine if synchronization is met.
US09020721B2

A system and method for providing engine torque load in real time. The system includes a sensor to determine, in real time, a clutch state of an alternator clutch and a controller for determining an alternator torque value and applying the alternator torque value to the engine torque load in real time.
US09020720B2

A vehicle includes a friction clutch located between an engine and a driving wheel; a clutch actuator arranged to disengage and engage the friction clutch; a clutch actuator control section arranged and programmed to control the clutch actuator; a slip detection section arranged to detect a slip of the driving wheel; and an engine control section arranged and programmed to decrease an output of the engine when the slip of the driving wheel is detected by the slip detection section. When the friction clutch is in a half clutch state and the slip of the driving wheel is detected at the time of starting of the vehicle, the clutch actuator control section controls the clutch actuator so as to change a pushing force of the friction clutch and thus to keep the rotation speed of the engine at a fixed level.
US09020717B2

A method of controlling an automated motor vehicle transmission. A current driving resistance is taken into account when selecting a target gear to be engaged as part of a shifting process. In order to be able to regulate shifting processes in a driving-resistance-dependent manner so as to ensure that the motor vehicle can always able to continue driving on, during selection of the target gear, disregarding gears for shifting from a currently engaged gear, in a driving-resistance-dependent manner, when the required associated shifting times are longer than a respective permitted maximum shifting time. In connection with the above, the method is incorporated in an automated motor vehicle transmission, a computer program product and a data carrier, containing the computer program product.
US09020711B2

A road slope estimating device which is mounted on a vehicle and estimates a slope of a road on which the vehicle is traveling, the vehicle including a motor and a transmission capable of changing a shift speed by an engagement switching operation of disengaging one of a plurality of engagement elements and engaging another one of the plurality of engagement elements, and outputting power from the motor via the transmission to travel. An estimating section carries out first road slope estimation from the computed output torque and acceleration of the vehicle until transfer of torque is handed over from the engagement element to be disengaged of the plurality of engagement elements to the engagement element to be engaged. Second road slope estimation is estimated from the computed output torque and the acceleration of the vehicle when the handover of the transfer of torque is carried out.
US09020710B2

A method of controlling a vehicle, where the vehicle includes an internal combustion engine and a transmission having a neutral state and an engaged state, includes setting the state of the transmission. The state of the transmission is set as the neutral state or the engaged state based on a restart condition, where the restart condition is one of: (i) a no wheel torque restart condition, and (ii) a wheel torque restart condition. The method additionally includes starting the engine.
US09020706B2

A vehicle motion control apparatus configured to control a plurality of control objects in a same direction of vehicle motion control to achieve a requested control amount is provided. The vehicle motion control apparatus includes a control object selection unit which is configured to determine priority of the control objects used for the vehicle motion control based on a priority determination condition, to select a control object from among the plurality of control objects. The control object selection unit includes a control object selection timing determination section configured to detect a change in the priority determination condition, and cause the control object selection unit to reselect a control object at a timing of the change detection as a selection timing.
US09020704B2

An electronic control apparatus includes a control unit, a plurality of power supply units for supplying the control unit with power, and a power supply fault detector unit for detecting a fault in the plurality of power supply units. The control unit operates in a normal mode on electric power supplied from the plurality of power supply units when none of the plurality of power supply units is faulty.
US09020703B2

A power steering apparatus includes: a torque sensor for detecting a steering torque applied to a steering wheel and outputting a torque signal corresponding to the steering torque; a speed sensor for detecting a speed of a vehicle and outputting a speed signal corresponding to the speed of the vehicle; a humidity sensor for outputting a humidity signal corresponding to a humidity of an interior of the power steering apparatus; and an electronic control unit for receiving the humidity signal from the humidity sensor, and for, when a measured humidity is an reference value or higher, generating a motor current signal for supplying an assistant steering force smaller than an assistant force set in response to the torque signal and the speed signal.
US09020702B2

A steering control apparatus of a vehicle includes a steering motor configured to output a steering torque for steering turning wheel, a steering motor angle sensor configured to detect a rotation angle of the steering motor, a steering motor drive current supply unit configured to supply the steering motor with a steering motor drive current for setting a turning angle of the turning wheel to an angle corresponding to an operation of a steering wheel, a set rotation angle storage unit configured to store beforehand a set rotation angle which is the rotation angle of the steering motor and which corresponds to the set turning angle that is set to an angle smaller than a limit turning angle to which the turning wheel is steerable, and a current supply quantity limiting unit configured to limit a supply quantity of the steering motor drive current.
US09020700B2

A lane tracking apparatus and method using camera direction control is provided. The lane tracking apparatus using camera direction control includes a lane recognition unit for obtaining lane information from an image captured and acquired by a camera. A road curvature calculation unit calculates a curvature of a road using the lane information. A camera direction angle control unit controls a direction angle of the camera in consideration of the road curvature.
US09020698B2

A suspension system for a traveling vehicle body is disclosed. The system includes a suspension reference position varying mechanism (18) for varying a reference position of a suspension stroke of the suspension mechanism (100), and a controller (35) configured to calculate an intermediate value from a maximal value corresponding to the maximal position of the suspension stroke and a minimal value corresponding to the minimal position of the suspension stroke, and to control the suspension reference position varying mechanism such that, when the calculated intermediate values deviates from a set target range, the intermediate value is displaced toward the target range. The controller (35) increases a control execution frequency for the suspension reference position varying mechanism (18) when the traveling speed of the vehicle body is low, and reduces the control execution frequency for the suspension reference position varying mechanism (18) when the traveling speed of the vehicle body is high.
US09020691B2

The present disclosure provides a hydraulic brake system for a motor vehicle and a method for the detection of a fault condition of the hydraulic brake system. An electronic control device determines at least one pressure value of the brake fluid of the brake system and at least one volume value of the brake master cylinder associated with the pressure value during an operation of a brake master cylinder. The electronic control device compares the determined pressure value and volume value with at least one pair of pressure-volume reference values for the detection of a fault condition of the brake system, wherein at least two different fault conditions of the brake system can be differentiated based on the comparison.
US09020690B2

The present application provides methods for in-vehicle emergency telematics devices and systems to automatically qualify vehicle crash events before directly placing a 3-digit emergency call from an in-vehicle TCU to a local PSAP operator. The qualification is performed in two stages. The first stage produces a qualified crash detection decision wherein a preliminary crash detection based on impact sensors is qualified by crash related non-impact sensors and vehicle telemetry data. The second stage uses an injury severity prediction algorithm to score the detected crash and produces a decision as to whether the crash warrants an emergency call to the PSAP operator.
US09020689B2

A system and methods for real-time model based vehicle structural anomaly detection are disclosed. A real-time measurement corresponding to a location on a vehicle structure during an operation of the vehicle is received, and the real-time measurement is compared to expected operation data for the location to provide a modeling error signal. A statistical significance of the modeling error signal to provide an error significance is calculated, and a persistence of the error significance is determined. A structural anomaly is indicated, if the persistence exceeds a persistence threshold value.
US09020671B2

A vehicle includes a vehicle system, an outside air temperature (OAT) sensor, a clock, and a controller. The controller includes recorded garage temperatures and actual OAT profiles. At the key-on event, a controller-executed method includes recording an initial temperature reading from the OAT sensor and corresponding time of day from the clock. The controller determines whether the vehicle is in a garage using the profile of recorded temperatures and the time of day, and estimates an OAT for the corresponding time of day when the vehicle is in the garage. An operation of the vehicle system is controlled using the estimated OAT before the vehicle leaves the garage. The system may be a navigation system, and the operation may be modification of a calculated electric vehicle range. The system may be an HVAC or other system in another embodiment.
US09020663B2

A method and apparatus comprising an instruction analyzer. The instruction analyzer is configured to receive a movement instruction for an aircraft during movement of the aircraft. The instruction analyzer is further configured to generate a number of volumes of airspace defining a desired movement of the aircraft using the movement instruction during the movement of the aircraft.
US09020655B2

A method and system for thermal management in integrated circuits and integrated circuit boards is described. In an embodiment, the circuit device board includes circuit devices, temperature sensors, and a thermal management unit. The thermal management unit receives thermal data from the temperature sensors and determines thermal reference points that define thermal regions. The thermal reference points are correlated with the operating characteristics of the circuit devices. When warranted, the thermal management unit makes independent corrective responses to each of the thermal regions. These corrective responses include modifying operating parameters, adjusting workload, and suspending operation of circuit devices within the thermal region. Thus, the disclosed method and system can preserve function in one thermal region while alleviating stress on another thermal region.
US09020652B2

A method and apparatus comprising an agent. The agent is configured to receive information from an electrical power grid. The agent is further configured to identify an event from the information. The agent is further configured to classify the event. The agent is further configured to determine whether to initiate an action based on a classification of the event. The agent is further configured to initiate the action in response to a determination to initiate the action.
US09020650B2

A utility grid is provided, the utility grid including a centralized controller; an intermittent renewable energy source for generating electrical power; at least one further power generation system; and a local controller for controlling the total power output of the intermittent renewable energy source and the at least one further power generation system, wherein the centralized controller is connected with the local controller and adapted to request a desired total power output from the local controller.
US09020642B2

A robot controller includes a force control unit that outputs a correction value of a target track of a robot based on a detected sensor value acquired from a force sensor, a target value output unit that obtains a target value by performing correction processing on the target track based on the correction value and outputs the obtained target value, and a robot control unit that performs feedback control of the robot based on the target value. The force control unit includes an impedance processor that obtains a solution of a differential equation in force control as the correction value before the conversion processing, and a nonlinear convertor that obtains the correction value after the conversion processing by performing nonlinear conversion processing on the correction value before the conversion processing acquired from the impedance processor and outputs the obtained correction value after the conversion processing.
US09020635B2

A refrigerator includes a cabinet, a first compartment, a second compartment, a first door providing access to the first compartment, a second door providing access to the second compartment, and a beverage dispensing system operatively connected the cabinet. The refrigerator further includes a user interface operatively connected to the cabinet, the user interface having a display and being configured to identify a user of the beverage dispensing system and customize beverage settings and preferences associated with the user.
US09020633B1

In some embodiments, an automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS) for storing workpieces includes a main body, a robotic arm mechanism and at least one first station. The workpiece comprises a first container configured to hold at least one article. The main body includes at least one side wall configured to confine a storage space for the workpieces in at least one first direction parallel to a floor. The robotic arm mechanism is configured to reach the storage space, the storage space being further confined by the robotic arm mechanism in at least one second direction opposite to the at least one first direction. The at least one first station is configured with at least one first accessing port located within the storage space, and configured for the ASRS to perform a routine for a process flow.
US09020626B2

Systems and methods of measuring feet and designing and creating orthopedic inserts are described. The method can include measuring a pressure the foot exerts during a stride at a plurality of points over a period of time, and analyzing a pressure at the plurality of points over the period of time and designing the orthopedic inserter based on the analysis. The system can include a device that measures a pressure exerted by foot at a plurality of times at each of a plurality of points and a computer connected to the device, the computer having a memory that stores the measured pressures and a program operable to analyze the measured pressures to create a design of an orthopedic insert.
US09020625B2

A method of process cost analysis that includes determining a per-unit cost function for executing a process step, determining a percentage-of-acceptable-parts function for executing a process step, and receiving production data into memory. The production data corresponds to a measured quality metric of the executed process step. The method further includes determining a probability density function for the received production data, executing on a processor a correlation routine for cross-correlating the cost function with the probability density function of the production data to provide a first cross-correlation, and executing on the processor the correlation routine for cross-correlating the percentage-of-acceptable-parts function with the probability density function of the production data to provide a second cross-correlation. The method includes determining an average effective per-unit cost to produce a resultant of the process step by dividing the first cross-correlation by the second cross-correlation.
US09020615B2

In embodiments of a stability control system, a computing device includes a device housing that is integrated with a display device, and the device housing tilts for multiple display positions. Pivotable components are mechanically-linked and pivot in coordination to position the device housing in a display position, and sensors detect positioning inputs that are received to re-position the device housing. Clutch mechanisms are implemented to limit and/or resist movement of the pivotable components based on the positioning inputs. A stability controller can be implemented to control the clutch mechanisms based on sensor data from the sensors to position the device housing in a display position.
US09020611B2

A leadless cardiac pacemaker comprises a housing, a plurality of electrodes coupled to an outer surface of the housing, and a pulse delivery system hermetically contained within the housing and electrically coupled to the electrode plurality, the pulse delivery system configured for sourcing energy internal to the housing, generating and delivering electrical pulses to the electrode plurality. The pacemaker further comprises an anti-unscrewing feature disposed on either a fixation device of the pacemaker or on the housing itself. The anti-unscrewing feature can be configured to prevent the fixation device from disengaging the wall of the heart.
US09020609B2

An electrode lead of a pacemaker includes at least one lead wire including at least one composite conductive core. The at least one composite conductive core includes at least one conductive core and at least one carbon nanotube yarn spirally wound on an outer surface of the at least one conductive core. The at least one carbon nanotube yarn includes a number of carbon nanotubes joined end to end by van der Waals attractive forces. The pacemaker includes a pulse generator and the electrode lead electrically connected to the pulse generator.
US09020595B2

An embodiment of a baroreflex stimulator comprises a pulse generator to provide a baroreflex stimulation signal through an electrode, and a modulator to modulate the baroreflex stimulation signal based on a circadian rhythm template.
US09020594B2

Methods and devices for analyzing posture-induced changes to physiological parameters of a patient (e.g., ejection time, heart rate, etc.) to provide an assessment of one or more conditions of the patient.
US09020593B2

Systems and methods for selection of electrodes and related pacing configuration parameters used to pace a heart chamber are described. A change in the hemodynamic state of a patient is detected. Responsive to the detected change, a distribution of an electrical, mechanical, or electromechanical parameter related to contractile function of a heart chamber with respect to locations of multiple electrodes disposed within the heart chamber is determined. A pacing output configuration, including one or more electrodes of the multiple electrodes, is selected and the heart chamber is paced using the selected pacing output configuration.
US09020590B1

An apparatus to stimulate resonant frequencies of mammals, including humans, through transcutaneously applied bipolar micro-current therapeutic frequencies eXclusive OR (XOR) modulated over a variable duty cycle carrier square wave. A Fibonacci number clocked stored-program microcontroller generates a variable duty cycle higher frequency pulse width modulation (PWM) carrier square wave output which is XOR modulated with a lower therapeutic frequency square wave output to control an H-Bridge driver capacitive coupled to an isolation transformer. The preferred embodiment supports one or more user inputs and displaying program and operational information on a suitable display. Further, using an H-Bridge to drive an inductive load with bi-polar pulses creates scalar waves when the H-Bridge's output is switched from one polarity to the opposite each time the therapeutic low frequency square wave output XOR modulates the higher frequency PWM square wave.
US09020589B2

Techniques are described for generating electrical stimulation current pulses for delivery of electrical stimulation therapy via a current-controlled system that emulates voltage pulses generated via a voltage-controlled system. In one example, a method includes receiving user input specifying a voltage level of electrical stimulation to be delivered by one or more of a plurality of electrodes implanted within the patient, selectively coupling the one or more electrodes to respective regulated current paths to deliver the electrical stimulation to the patient, selectively coupling at least another of the plurality of electrodes implanted within the patient to an unregulated current path to deliver the electrical stimulation to the patient, determining a regulated current for each respective regulated current path in order to produce the specified voltage level at the one or more electrodes selectively coupled to the respective regulated current paths, and delivering the determined regulated currents via the respective regulated current paths.
US09020585B2

A method comprises the steps of obtaining a baseline measurement corresponding to a representation of brain activity from a living body and storing the baseline measurements on a storage device configured to be wearable on the living body in combination with obtaining, at a time subsequent to the baseline measurement, a second measurement representing brain activity from the living body, reading the baseline measurement from the storage device and evaluating the living body based on a comparison of the second measurement to the baseline measurement. A system for analyzing electrical brain activity, the system comprises a component for reading, from a storage medium, data corresponding to a baseline measurement of brain activity of a living body and a component for determining data representing a current brain activity of the living body in combination with a component for evaluating the living body by comparing the baseline measurement data and the current brain activity data.
US09020574B2

A lead for active implantable medical devices comprising a chip, notably for electrode multiplexing. The lead (10) includes an insulating supporting tube (20) interposed in a flexible elongated tube, with a central bore (22) coaxial with the lumen of the lead. The supporting tube comprises on its surface at least one crossing conductive strip (28) extending in the axial direction. A chip (18) on a flexible substrate is disposed with a bent or curved conformation in a receptacle of the supporting tube isolated from the conductive strip. An electrode, e.g., for cardiac sensing/pacing, (16) on the supporting tube (20) is electrically connected to an outer conductive pad (24) of the chip. The conductive strip is connected (i) at each end (28b), face to face to a conductive connection (12), housed in the sheath, and (ii) in a central region (28a), to an inner conductive pad (26) of the chip.
US09020564B2

A self-configuring mobile telecommunication base station is disclosed. A communication interface is configured to connect to an access network other than a mobile telecommunication network with which the base station is associated. A processor coupled to the communication interface is configured to establish a connection, at least in part via the access network, to an element associated with the mobile telecommunication network; receive via the access network an initialization data; and use the initialization data to configure the base station to provide access to mobile telecommunication services at least in part using a resource determined based at least in part on the initialization data.
US09020563B2

A mini base station connectable with the Internet including a frequency recognition unit to recognize a frequency band of an external signal transmitted from a cellular base station; and an operation frequency determination unit to determine an operation frequency band according to interference generated with the cellular base station based on the recognized frequency band of the external signal.
US09020562B2

Methods and apparatus for device applet management on smart cards. A method includes detecting access to a smart card; reading a directory structure from the smart card that identifies one or more platform types, and for each platform type identifies corresponding device applets; determining from the directory structure one or more device applets associated with a selected platform type; and providing access to the one or more device applets. The apparatus comprises a processor for detecting access to a smart card, for reading a directory structure from the smart card that identifies one or more platform types, and for each platform type identifies corresponding device applets, for determining from the directory structure one or more device applets associated with a selected platform type, and for providing access to the one or more device applets.
US09020560B2

A method and a device are disclosed for managing a contact card of a mobile terminal, belonging to the mobile terminal field. The method includes: for every other preset period of time, extracting a communication event of a specific contact from a communication record of a mobile terminal; counting the number of the communication event of the specific contact according to a type of the communication event; and associating the specific contact with the communication event, so as to simultaneously display the number of the communication event of the contact when displaying the contact. A statistical result is displayed in a mobile phone contact card book, intuitively displaying a latest contact state, so that it is convenient for the user to process and maintain interpersonal communications, thereby enhancing and promoting communication and life for people.
US09020558B2

It is provided a wireless communication system comprising a terminal device and a base station. The terminal device includes a plurality of wireless transmitters, an antenna coupled to each of the wireless transmitters, and a controller generating a signal to be transmitted from the antenna. The base station includes a plurality of wireless receivers, an antenna coupled to each of the wireless receivers, and a controller. The terminal device holds a predetermined upper limit of power consumption. The base station changes at least one of a MIMO multiplexing number, a modulation system, and a coding rate so that communication is performed according to a communication system that can communicate at allowable transmission power of the terminal device in case where power consumption of the terminal device exceeds the upper limit upon performing the MIMO transmission at maximum transmission power according to the wireless standard.
US09020554B2

The present invention is a method and system for supporting a beamforming antenna system in a multiple user mobile broadband communication network including a process for setting and adjusting the magnitude and phase of the signal to user equipment from each antenna. Namely, the present invention supports the communication of power signal values or levels to user equipment in a manner that keeps pace with the rapid variations of the power levels that occur in the dynamic scheduling of transmissions on the cell site. The present invention satisfies this need for an improved signal strength signaling to user equipment for the situation where multiple users are located on the cell site.
US09020553B2

Systems and methods associated with an intercom system for a drive-through, quick service restaurant facility is disclosed. Generally, a plurality of headsets is configured for communication with a base station. A speaker is associated with the drive-through facility is configured to be located near a menu board, and is configured for communication with the base station. A microphone is also configured to be located near the menu board and configured for communication with the base station. A plurality of parameters control the configuration of the intercom system, and the base station is connectable to a wide area communication network to enable remote adjustment of the plurality of parameters.
US09020548B2

Mobile broadband traffic has been exploding in wireless networks resulting in an increase of interferences and reduced operator control. Networks are also becoming more heterogeneous putting additional demand in interference management. Scheduler schedules uplink transmissions from UEs based on a load prediction algorithm that typically assumes worst case. However, UEs do not always use full power granted, and thus, much of granted radio resources are wasted. To address these and other issues, technique(s) to accurately predict/estimate other cell interferences and thermal noise separately and to accurately predict/estimate load utilization probability and variance is(are) described. Inventive estimation technique(s) can be used to schedule UEs to more fully utilize available radio resources. Extended Kalman filtering can be adapted for use in estimation providing low order computational complexity.
US09020543B2

The invention relates to a method for reducing a Cognitive Pilot Channel (CPC) bandwidth used for transmitting lists of information to a plurality of meshes of a geographical area comprising at least one base station (4) covering n meshes to allow a User Equipment camping on a given mesh among said plurality of meshes to select an operator and/or an access technology and/or a communication frequency available in said given mesh.According to the invention, for a given mesh #i (i=2 to n), the base station transmits to said mesh #i an identifier of a predetermined reference mesh and the difference between the list of information intended for said given mesh and the list of information intended for said reference mesh.
US09020536B1

A method and apparatus is provided for minimizing potential security problems and battery power usage in a tracking device used in tracking an associated product while being transported along a route wherein wireless communication may be nonexistent or intermittent. This is accomplished in part by having an accessible database of signal quality and strength at a large plurality of locations along given transportation routes whereby adjustments can be made as to the times for the tracking device to obtain GPS location information as well as for times to report any location and or product status data to a remotely located central station. The ability to predict when, along a transportation route communication problems may occur provides the opportunity to notify appropriate authorities in advance of arriving at the communication gap zones whereby arrangements can be made to alleviate potential problems during transportation through wireless communication “gap or dead” zones.
US09020535B2

An approach is provided to present station location information to one or more mobile devices. A request is received to provide station location information to a mobile device. Station location information is generated, in response to the request, the station location information including station location information of one or more radio stations that correspond to the location of the mobile device. The station location information is transmitted to the mobile device.
US09020525B2

A method and an apparatus for generating reference signatures in a cellular wireless communications system are provided. A first signature is obtained for a mobile communication unit at a first location. The first signature comprises first location information, a first timestamp, and radio frequency measurement information, but lacks identification information. The first signature is compared to signatures in a database, to identify a second signature having location information and a timestamp corresponding to the first location information and first timestamp. A reference signature is created by combining at least part of the first signature, such as the radio frequency information, with the second signature. The first signature is from an anonymized call. The second signature may be from an application operational on the communication unit, or from a social media website, and may comprise identification information for the communication unit or user.
US09020524B2

An information processing apparatus includes a position detection unit that detects a presence position of the information processing apparatus, a communication network information obtaining unit that obtains information regarding data communication in an accessible mobile communication network, and a data communication related information generation unit that generates data communication related information regarding the data communication using the mobile communication network at the presence position based on information regarding the presence position and information regarding the data communication in the mobile communication network.
US09020513B2

A mobile communication system comprises: a first radio base station apparatus transmitting, after recovering from a service halt state and before starting to execute a stepwise cell area expansion, a notification including an instruction for a cell area reduction corresponding to the cell area expansion to a neighboring second radio base station apparatus; and a second radio base station apparatus reducing a cell area that has been expanded during the service halt state of the first radio base station apparatus, in accordance with the instruction for a cell area reduction included in the notification transmitted from the first radio base station apparatus.
US09020509B1

A method and system are provided for dynamically changing Qrxlevmin and Sintrasearch values in a LTE network. An eNodeB sets the Qrxlevmin and Sintrasearch values for each mobile device. The Qrxlevmin value and Sintrasearch value are changed based on RF conditions and a velocity of the mobile device. A lower Qrxlevmin value coupled with a higher Sintrasearch value increases a search period to locate better performing neighboring cells and reduces the chance of handing down from the LTE network to a non-LTE network.
US09020507B2

A method of operating a network element of a wireless communication network is provided, wherein the network element is capable of communicating with a user equipment via at least two different communication technologies. The method includes communicating data between the user equipment and the network element by using a first communication technology and communicating the data between the network element and a further network element by using a second communication technology different from the first communication technology.
US09020505B2

Methods and apparatus for using network topology and coverage information from one radio access technology (RAT) network to assist acquisition of another different RAT network for a multi-mode mobile station (MS), such as acquiring a WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) network based on topology and coverage information about a 3G (Third Generation) network and vice versa, are provided. Base station (BS) acquisition assisted in this manner may provide for quick restoration of a previously interrupted or deactivated network service, while decreasing the power consumption of the multi-mode MS during a power savings state because periodic scanning and registration need not occur.
US09020490B2

A method and caching server for enabling caching of a portion of a media file in a User Equipment (UE) in a mobile telecommunications network. The caching server selects the media file and determines a size of the portion to be cached in the UE. The size may be determined depending on radio network conditions for the UE and/or characteristics of the media file. The caching server sends an instruction to the UE to cache the determined size of the portion of the media file in the UE.
US09020489B2

Provided are methods for executing an action in response to a request for a service using location information in conjunction with service-specific parameters. A user may request a provider of a specified service (e.g., taxi, plumber, pharmacist, etc.). In evaluating the request, providers may be evaluated based on the location information in addition to service-specific parameters. An action in response may include merely displaying selected service provider(s) in response to the request, or acting on behalf of the user by communicating with a selected service provider.
US09020488B2

A base station generates and sends measurement configuration to a wireless terminal. The measurement configuration indicates the measurements to be made by the wireless terminals and to report on the performed measurements to the base station. The measurement configuration indicates that the measurements are to be performed and to be reported based on a prioritization level. The prioritization can be indicated at various levels including the measurement identities level, the measurement objects level, and the reporting configurations level.
US09020487B2

System(s), apparatus(es), and method(s) are provided for managing content of wireless equipment (WE) over-the-air (OTA). Content is germane to feature(s) of the WE and is related to operation thereof. Management of the content is automatically implemented in response to attachment of the WE to a confined-coverage access point (AP). The WE and a network server enable, in part, such management. The confined-coverage AP enables exchange of signaling and data associated with management of the content amongst the WE and the network server. Content includes software (SW); management OTA of SW can include update of an in-use version of a SW application or related SW component(s). SW update signaling can comprise message(s) conveying a WE identifier and in-use version(s) of SW; request(s) for an update instruction; request(s) for at least one file associated with the SW; message(s) indicative of availability of version(s) of SW newer than the in-use version(s).
US09020481B1

A method in a mobile communication terminal, which operates alternately in an idle mode and a connected mode, includes maintaining a count of mobility events in which the terminal switches to camp on a cell. The count is retained irrespective of transitions of the terminal into and out of the idle mode and the connected mode. A mobility state is selected for the terminal depending on the count, and operation of the terminal is configured based on the selected mobility state.
US09020478B2

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.
US09020476B2

A system and method for remote care and monitoring of the user of a mobile device, such as a smartphone, and for simplifying use of the mobile device by the user. The system and method comprises software, operable on the mobile device and/or a remote device (such as another smartphone, a computer (including, for example, a web-based application system) or other device), for facilitating the use of a mobile smartphone device while also enabling authorized users (e.g. care providers) to remotely interact with the mobile user, provide them medical care information, daily care instruction, immediate connectivity, mobile phone control and tracking functions, general assistance as well as remotely updating and maintaining the mobile user's mobile device.
US09020471B2

A voicemail receptionist system includes a memory and a processor. The memory can store data relating to one or more users. An incoming communication can be handled by the voicemail receptionist system and provided with functionality based upon a user's preferences, for example. The data stored by the voicemail receptionist system can be updated at any time, or automatically updated upon updating of the data, or upon occurrence of a trigger event. Voicemail receptionist functionality can include standard voicemail system functionality as well as functionality relating to email, text messaging, MMS messaging, calendar features, schedule announcements, location data, as well as other features.
US09020466B2

A system is provided for recovering a mobile device by enabling an authorized user to remotely change the profile of the device to assist others in returning the device to the user. Initially, a user registers the mobile device with a recovery assist server. When the user is unable to locate the device because it is, for example, lost or stolen, the user indicates with the server that the device is missing. The device and the server are configured to communicate with each other, for example, periodically or, in another example, on device start up. If the device is identified as missing on the server, the operation of the mobile device is configured based on a missing profile associated with the mobile device. Once the device is located, the user indicates with the server that the device is no longer missing. When the device is unidentified as missing on the server, the operation of the mobile device is configured based on a user profile associated with the mobile device. When the mobile device is configured based on the missing profile, the mobile device may, for example, display a background image or play a ring tone to inform persons near the device that the device is considered mislaid and to provide such persons with information for returning the device.
US09020458B2

A passive mixer with channel impedance equalization is disclosed. In an exemplary embodiment, an apparatus includes replica devices configured to generate replica output signals and an error amplifier configured to generate bias signals based on the replica output signals. The bias signals are configured to equalize on-state channel impedances associated with a mixer.
US09020457B2

The present disclosure relates to a circuit for providing a signal gain, comprising: a first stage comprising a first set of variable gain transconductors arranged for receiving an input signal and for performing phase-shifting of the input signal, thereby producing an intermediate signal, and a second stage, comprising a second set of transconductors and a plurality of capacitors arranged for receiving the intermediate signal and for providing an output signal to a combiner, wherein the first stage and second stage together form a filter, and wherein the first set of variable gain transconductors and at least one of the transconductors of the second set define the signal gain of the circuit.
US09020454B2

An apparatus and method of linearization of a digitally-controlled pre-power amplifier (DPA) and RF power amplifier (PA) for performing predistortion calibration to compensate for nonlinearlities in the DPA and PA circuits. A predistortion look up table (LUT) stores measured distortion compensation data that is applied to the TX data before being input to the digital-to-frequency converter (DFC), DPA and PA. The on-chip receiver, which is normally inactive during the TX burst in a half-duplex operation, demodulates the RF PA output and uses the digital I/Q RX outputs to perform calibration of the TX pre-distortion tables. A sample of the RF output signal is provided to the receiver chain. While the PA (DPA) code is increasing (or decreasing), the amplitude and phase of the recovered I/Q samples are used to determine the instantaneous value of the AM/AM and AM/PM pre-distortion from which an update to the predistortion tables may be computed.
US09020452B2

The present disclosure relates to envelope power supply calibration of a multi-mode RF power amplifier (PA) to ensure adequate headroom when operating using one of multiple communications modes. The communications modes may include multiple modulation modes, a half-duplex mode, a full-duplex mode, or any combination thereof. As such, each communications mode may have specific peak-to-average power and linearity requirements for the multi-mode RF PA. As a result, each communications mode may have corresponding envelope power supply headroom requirements. The calibration may include determining a saturation operating constraint based on calibration data obtained during saturated operation of the multi-mode RF PA. During operation of the multi-mode RF PA, the envelope power supply may be restricted to provide a minimum allowable magnitude based on an RF signal level of the multi-mode RF PA, the communications mode, and the saturation operating constraint to provide adequate headroom.
US09020446B2

A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, a computer-readable storage medium having computer instructions to perform actual measurements of one or more performance parameters of a communication device according to a subset of tuning states of a tunable matching network operable in a communication device, determine estimated measurements of the one or more performance parameters of the communication device for a portion of the tuning states not included in the subset of tuning states according to the actual measurements, identify a data set for each of the one or more performance parameters from at least portions of the tuning states and the actual and estimated measurements, and determine from at least a portion of the date sets one or more tuning states that achieve at least one desirable performance characteristic of the communication device. Additional embodiments are disclosed.
US09020445B2

An interface for connects a mobile phone and a plain old telephone service (POTS) phone. The interface detects a ring tone from a speaker output of the mobile phone and in response places a POTS ring signal on a ring line of the POTS phone. Upon a change in state of a hook signal, a hook state detector places a predetermined signal on a microphone input of the mobile phone.
US09020444B2

The present invention provides methods implemented in a base station having a plurality of antennas and one or more user terminals. One embodiment of the method includes receiving feedback from at least one user in response to transmitting a first frame to said at least one user. The first frame is formed by pre-coding at least one symbol using at least one first code word selected from at least one first code book associated with the at least one user. The method also includes transmitting at least one second frame to the user(s). The second frame(s) are pre-coded using at least one second codeword selected from at least one second codebook. The second codebook(s) determined based on the feedback and the first codeword(s).
US09020423B2

A method and system for handling a plurality of applications in a Near Field Communication (NFC) device is provided. The method is performed at a NFC Controller (NFCC). The method includes storing a source host identity (ID), a destination host ID and a link ID associated with each application from one or more applications. The method also includes managing the one or more applications simultaneously based on the source host ID, the destination host ID and the link ID stored in the NFCC.
US09020417B2

A communication system and a communication method using relay terminals are provided. A communication system includes a base station, a target terminal transmitting uplink data to the base station or receiving downlink data from the base station, and a plurality of relay terminals cooperatively relaying the uplink data/downlink data to the base station/target terminal, the plurality of relay terminals being grouped into at least one group.
US09020390B2

A developing device includes: a frame having an opening; a developer carrying member rotatably supported to the frame; and a side seal. The developer carrying member is rotatable about its axis in a rotating direction and has an axial end portion in an axial direction. The side seal is disposed between the frame and a peripheral surface of the axial end portion, and has a contact member contacting the peripheral surface. The contact member includes: a first seal member disposed adjacent to an edge of the opening in the axial direction; and a second seal member disposed adjacent to and upstream of the first seal member in the rotating direction. The first seal member permits developer to move inward in the axial direction and provides a mobility of developer therein higher than that of the second seal member that is made of a material that restricts movement of developer.
US09020386B2

An image forming apparatus includes an image forming section, a housing, an image scanning section, an airflow generation section, a guiding air path, and a blow-off port. The image forming section forms an image on a sheet. The housing accommodates the image forming section therein. The image scanning section has a bottom portion and is disposed above the housing. The airflow generation section generates an airflow inside the housing. The guiding air path guides the airflow upward inside the housing. The blow-off port is communicated with the guiding air path and arranged so as to face the bottom portion of the image scanning section.
US09020384B2

An image heating apparatus includes: an endless belt including a heat generating layer configured to generate heat by electric energy and a conductive layer configured to be electrically connected to the heat generating layer; a rotatable driving member configured to drive the belt and form a nip with the belt; an electric contact portion provided to be in contact with the conductive layer and configured to supply the electric energy to be conductive layer; an electric insulation portion contactable to the electric contact portion with rotation of the belt; a detecting portion configured to detect whether an electric conduction state between the electric contact portion and the conductive layer is in a predetermined state or not when the belt is rotated; and a control portion configured to control a peripheral speed of the rotatable driving member using an output of the detecting portion.
US09020382B2

An image forming apparatus includes a nip forming member and a transfer bias output device that outputs a transfer bias to form a transfer electric field in a transfer nip between the nip forming member and an intermediate transfer member. Upon transfer of a composite toner image including a particular toner image onto a recording medium in the transfer nip, the transfer bias output device outputs the transfer bias including a first superimposed bias in which a direct current (DC) component is superimposed on an alternating current (AC) component. Upon transfer of the composite toner image without the particular toner image onto the recording medium in the transfer nip, the transfer bias output device outputs one of the transfer bias including a second superimposed bias having a peak-to-peak value of the AC component smaller than that of the first superimposed bias and the transfer bias including only the DC component.
US09020381B2

Image forming apparatus is disclosed. The developing portion is replenished with toner from a toner containing body by operating a toner feeding mechanism. The receiving portion receives a designation of switching to a low speed i.e. switching the rotation speed of the motor from the first speed to the second speed lower than the first speed. The measuring portion measures a value of a counter electromotive voltage generated in the motor by causing the motor to operate the toner feeding mechanism. The motor control portion causes the motor to rotate at the first speed until an absolute value of the value measured by the measuring portion is not larger than a predetermined first value, and causes the motor to rotate at the second speed after an absolute value of the measured value is smaller than the first value, in the case where the switching to a low speed is designated.
US09020376B2

An image forming apparatus capable of making image quality more stable than in the prior art. An electrostatic latent image is formed on the surface of a photosensitive member based on an image signal. A developing device develops the electrostatic latent image on the photosensitive member by toner to thereby form a patch image. An optical sensor detects the density of the patch image. A toner charge amount is calculated from the density detected by the optical sensor, and a change in the toner charge amount is predicted based on a plurality of results of the calculation of the toner charge amount. The image forming apparatus generates a γLUT for use in correcting the relationship between the image signal and the density based on the predicted change in the toner charge amount.
US09020375B2

A toner resupply device includes a detector plate for detecting a surface of toner stored in a hopper; a douser that moves together with the detector plate; a fixing plate for fixing the detector plate and the douser integrally; and a toner sensor for detecting a phase of the douser. The douser has a light-blocking surface that blocks light to be detected by the toner sensor, and a shaft extending in an axial direction crossing the light-blocking surface, the shaft being inserted in a hole made in the detector plate. The shaft has a groove in which the fixing plate is locked, the groove extending in a direction crossing the axial direction. The fixing plate in a state of being locked in the groove pushes the shaft in the axial direction, thereby fixing the detector plate and the douser to each other.
US09020374B2

A developer transport unit which includes an intra-vessel transporting device to transport developer in a developer storage vessel to an ejection unit. The developer storage vessel is detachably attached at one end to an ejection unit. There is a transport/supply device to transport the developer from the ejection unit to a sub-storage vessel, and an intermediate-developer amount detector to obtain an amount of developer present in the sub-storage vessel. Further, there is a control unit to control driving of the intra-vessel transporting device and the transport/supply device.
US09020368B2

A switch mechanism of the present disclosure includes a first member, a second member, a switch, a pressing-down member and an operation member. The second member can be moved with respect to the first member. The switch is provided in the first member. The pressing-down member is provided in the first member so as to press down the switch, and in the pressing-down member, a regulation portion that restricts the amount of pressing of the switch is formed. The operation member is provided in the second member such that the operation member can be operated by a user and is pressed down by the user so as to press the pressing-down member.
US09020358B2

An optical transmission network comprises a multi-wavelength source (7) shared between multiple sets of client side equipment for manipulating electrical signals. A first wavelength selective routing element (5) is connected to the multi-wavelength source (7). Each set of client-side equipment (1) comprises an optical modulator (3) connected to the first wavelength selective routing element (5) and an optical receiver (2). A second wavelength selective routing element (6) is connected to the optical receiver (2) and is operative to direct incoming signals from one or more remote locations to the optical receiver (2). The network provides a WDM architecture solution for networks whereby the cost of implementing and running client side equipment (1) is reduced by not having the WDM source (7) within the client side equipment (1).
US09020354B2

Remote control signal detection systems and methods are operable to compensate detected infrared energy to identify an infrared energy communication signal emitted by a remote control. An exemplary embodiment detects first infrared energy, wherein the infrared energy communication signal is absent in the first infrared energy; determines compensation based on the first infrared energy; detects second infrared energy, wherein the infrared energy communication signal is present in the second infrared energy; and compensates the second infrared energy based on the determined compensation.
US09020351B1

An optical waveguide can transmit multiple optical signals imprinted or encoded with different information, thereby increasing the waveguide's information carrying capability or bandwidth. Each optical signal can comprise multiple longitudinal modes that are energized and that are modulated substantially in unison. Thus, the photonic energy of each optical signal can be spread across a wavelength region in a substantially discrete or substantially discontinuous pattern. The respective wavelength regions of the optical signals can overlap or substantially overlay one another. Modes of one of the optical signals can be substantially interleaved, interspersed, or intermingled with modes of other optical signals. Systems at ends of the optical waveguide can feed the optical signals onto and off of the optical waveguide and discriminate the optical signals from one another. The systems can comprise ring resonators. The waveguide can support an on-chip network, such as for a multicore processor of a computer.
US09020348B2

A light source package is disclosed for a Raman amplifier node having a primary optical fiber for carrying an optical signal and a secondary optical fiber for carrying the optical signal when the signal is rerouted from the primary optical fiber. The light source package includes a primary light source for emitting light into the primary optical fiber when the optical signal is carried by the primary optical fiber to induce Raman gain of the optical signal, and a secondary light source for emitting light into the secondary optical fiber when the optical signal is carried by the secondary optical fiber to induce Raman gain of the optical signal.
US09020344B2

A unified network and elements thereof, including a switch fabric, is provided. The switch fabric may include a plurality of transport elements and a first signal-communication media. The transport elements may be adapted to communicatively couple and to communicate, via the first signal-communication media, transport signals adapted for communication among any of the plurality of transport elements. At least one transport element may be further adapted to communicate, via a second signal-communication media, signals and/or sets of signal originating from and/or terminating to one or more network nodes. Each of the electrical signals may be formatted in accordance with a protocol for electrical signals. And one or more of the transport signals may include the electrical signals in adapted form. Additionally and/or alternatively, one or more of the transport signals may be formed from, or as a function of, the electrical signals.
US09020342B2

In a transmission control apparatus, connected communication devices are detected to find round trip time of transmission to each of the detected communication devices, and the order of each communication device is determined on the basis of the round trip time of transmission to that communication device depending upon the distance thereto. On the basis of the round trip times of transmission to, and the orders of, the communication devices, transmission wait times are determined for delaying transmission of control signals from the communication devices to notify the communication devices of the transmission wait times. When starting communication with the communication devices, timer start signals prompting the communication devices to start counting the transmission wait time are transmitted to the communication devices.
US09020337B2

A local oscillation light source outputs locally-oscillated light. An light receiving unit phase-separates an input optical signal by making the optical signal interfere with the locally-oscillated light and outputs an analog electric signal corresponding to the phase-separated optical signal. An analog-to-digital converting unit converts the analog electric signal into a digital signal. A processing unit performs digital signal processing by using the digital signal. A failure detection unit determines whether or not the optical signal is being input to the light receiving unit, or detects a failure in the light receiving unit, the analog-to-digital converting unit or the processing unit based on light intensity of the optical signal, whether or not the analog electric signal can be generated in the light receiving unit, and an amplitude of the analog electric signal output from the light receiving unit.
US09020334B1

An imaging apparatus includes an anti-shake system provided with a guide portion which guides a movable frame, supporting a front lens element, to linearly move and rotate about a rotational axis, in a plane orthogonal to an optical axis of the front lens element, relative to a base member, which supports a reflector element; and first and second actuators which generate driving forces to move the movable frame in two mutually-intersecting directions. The distance from the rotational axis of the guide portion to the point of intersection of first and second planes, which respectively pass through centers of the first and second actuators and extend in the two mutually-intersecting directions, is greater than a distance from the rotational axis of the guide portion to the optical axis of the front lens element.
US09020332B2

Provided is a vaporizer that can efficiently cool a carrier gas, improve the effect of preventing a material from being clogged near the outlet port of a gas passage, contribute to prolonging the timing of maintenance and improving operating efficiency, and exert more uniform dispersing effect. A vaporizer includes: a center rod inserted into a carrier gas introduction hole formed in a disperser to form the gas passage in cooperation with the inner wall of the carrier gas introduction hole; a cooling part disposed on the outer circumferential side of the carrier gas introduction hole in the disperser to cool the inside of the gas passage; a cooling member insertion hole formed across almost the entire length of the center rod along the axial direction of the center rod; and a cooling member disposed in the inside of the cooling member insertion hole to cool the center rod.
US09020327B2

Embodiments of the present invention are directed to a method and system for altering a presentation of recorded content. More specifically, embodiments provide an accurate and efficient mechanism for suppressing advertisements by using downloaded templates to identify advertisements before suppression for a duration indicated by information downloaded about the advertisement, where the suppression is effectuated by controlling a display, set-top box or personal video recorder using remote-control functionality. In one embodiment, a digital signal representing the recorded content is accessed. Thereafter, a plurality of templates are received and stored, wherein each template represents a known portion of the recorded content. The digital signal is then compared against a portion of the plurality of stored templates. Upon a match, a control signal operable to alter a component of a presentation of the recorded content is generated.
US09020316B2

An optical fiber is provided that includes a fiber configured to transmit optical data in a plurality of modes or in a single mode; a core region in the fiber that comprises fluorine-doped silica; and a cladding in the fiber that surrounds the core region and that comprises fluorine-doped silica. The core region has a graded refractive index profile with an alpha of about 0.5 to 5. The core of the fiber may be set with a radius of approximately 6 to 50 microns. The cladding may also comprise one or a plurality of layers, including trench or moat regions of a relatively lower refractive index. Still further, an inner cladding may be doped with fluorine at a concentration greater than that in the core region. An outer cladding can comprise silica with fluorine at a concentration below or equal to that in the inner cladding.
US09020311B2

An optical waveguide includes a first cladding layer, at least two core portions formed on the first cladding layer and extended in a first direction, at least two groove portions formed in each of the core portions at positions spaced apart from each other in the first direction, each groove portion having an inclined surface, an optical path conversion mirror formed on one of the inclined surfaces formed in each of the core portions, and a second cladding layer formed on the first cladding layer and the core portions. The optical path conversion mirrors formed in the core portions adjacent to each other are arranged at positions different from each other in the first direction. The groove portions formed in the core portions adjacent to each other are arranged at the same positions in the first direction.
US09020304B2

In order to enable improved or even optimized loading of medical image data, a data type representing the image data is determined in at least one embodiment from the image data in a first step and a data-type-specific default loading strategy is selected according to the data type. The default loading strategy may be refined, in at least one example embodiment, to produce a loading strategy based on additional context data. The context data is obtained for example during an initial assessment of the image data. For this purpose, provision is made in particular for a shared index to be generated in which the context data is stored together with further information associated with the image data of a plurality of objects that are to be examined.
US09020301B2

A three-dimensional modeling system includes a multi-axis range sensor configured to capture a first set of three-dimensional data representing characteristics of objects in an environment; a data sensor configured to capture a first set of sensor data representing distances between at least a subset of the objects and the data sensor; a computer-readable memory configured to store each of the first set of three-dimensional data and the first set of sensor data; a mobile base; a processor; and a computer-readable medium containing programming instructions configured to, when executed, instruct the processor to process the first set of three-dimensional data and the first set of sensor data to generate a three-dimensional model of the environment.
US09020297B2

The present invention relates to the parallel calculation of convoluted data. In particular, the invention relates to Gaussian pyramid construction and parallel processing of image data, such as parallel calculation of repeatedly convoluted data for use in a SIFT algorithm. This is achieved by providing a method for obtaining a plurality of difference images from an original image defined by a plurality of pixels, said method comprising: Providing a plurality of blurring convolution functions, each of said blurring functions providing increasing degree of blurring of an original image upon convolution of said original image; establishing a plurality of difference convolution functions, Dif, by calculating the difference between two of said blurring convolution functions, each of said two blurring convolution functions providing different degrees of blurring of an original image upon convolution of said original image; and calculating a plurality of difference images from said original image, by convolving each of said difference convolution functions, Dif, with said original image to obtain difference images.
US09020278B2

A method of using reference photo setting information for taking a photo image of a current framed image comprises displaying a framed image from an image capture device of an electronic device, performing object recognition for the framed image on a display of the electronic device, identifying location information for the electronic device, presenting one or more reference images related to the framed image based on one or more of the identified location information and object recognition, selecting one of the reference images, and using photo setting information used for capturing the selected reference image for capturing the framed image.
US09020274B2

A computer implemented method for point matching comprising providing a pair of images captured, selecting first and second sets of interest points from the images; constructing a control network of super points for each set of interest points; assigning a position, with respect to the closest network control point of each control network, to other interest points on the images; locating conjugate points for each other interest point of each set based on its assigned position; and adding the conjugate points to the control network.
US09020263B2

The present disclosure relates to systems and methods for classifying videos based on video content. For a given video file including a plurality of frames, a subset of frames is extracted for processing. Frames that are too dark, blurry, or otherwise poor classification candidates are discarded from the subset. Generally, material classification scores that describe type of material content likely included in each frame are calculated for the remaining frames in the subset. The material classification scores are used to generate material arrangement vectors that represent the spatial arrangement of material content in each frame. The material arrangement vectors are subsequently classified to generate a scene classification score vector for each frame. The scene classification results are averaged (or otherwise processed) across all frames in the subset to associate the video file with one or more predefined scene categories related to overall types of scene content of the video file.
US09020255B2

An image processing apparatus includes an emphasis map creation module configured to create an emphasis map indicating an emphasis region of image data and an emphasis level of the emphasis region, and an image processor configured to perform a first conversion of a tone of image data of the emphasis region into a first tone and a second conversion of a tone of image data of another region into a second tone, in accordance with the emphasis map created by the emphasis map creation module.
US09020251B2

Provided is a method and apparatus for modeling a human body using a depth image and a color image. An image processing apparatus may extract a body area from a color image based on a depth value of a depth image, may match a boundary of the extracted body area and a boundary of a generic body mesh model, and may deform a mesh of the generic body mesh model based on a depth value of a pixel positioned within the boundary of the extracted body area.
US09020244B2

Techniques are described herein for selecting representative images for video items using a trained machine learning engine. A training set is fed to a machine learning engine. The training set includes, for each image in the training set, input parameter values and an externally-generated score. Once a machine learning model has been generated based on the training set, input parameters for unscored images are fed to the trained machine learning engine. Based on the machine learning model, the trained machine learning engine generates scores for the images. To select a representative image for a particular video item, candidate images for that particular video item may be ranked based on their scores, and the candidate image with the top score may be selected as the representative image for the video item.
US09020242B2

A method and system for stereo correspondence. The method for stereo correspondence includes a matching cost computation step, a cost aggregation step, a disparity computation step, and a disparity optimization step. The matching cost computation step acquires a left disparity space image and a right disparity space image by using horizontal gradients and vertical gradients of intensities of all component channels of every pixel in a left image and a right image. Utilizing the invention, accurate disparity maps may be acquired quickly.
US09020237B2

A first object is to use both ADC (automatic defect classification) and MDC (manual defect classification) and reduce the amount of MDC operation. A second object is to prevent a DOI (defect of interest) from being missed.The first object is achieved by displaying judgment information on a screen. The judgment information is necessary when part of the classification is performed by ADC and part of the classification is performed by MDC and used to judge which classification is used, ADC or MDC. In the display operation, ADC classification results and MDC classification results are also displayed in the form of matrix. Further, a missed DOI rate is calculated for each classification threshold used in the defect classification and displayed on the screen.
US09020229B2

A medical analysis method for estimating a motion vector field of the magnitude and direction of local motion of lung tissue of a subject is described. In one embodiment a first 3D image data set of the lung and a second 3D image data set is obtained. The first and second 3D image data sets correspond to images obtained during inspiration and expiration respectively. A rigid registration is performed to align the 3D image data sets with one another. A deformable registration is performed to match the 3D image data sets with one another. A motion vector field of the magnitude and direction of local motion of lung tissue is estimated based on the deforming step. The motion vector field may be computed prior to treatment to assist with planning a treatment as well as subsequent to a treatment to gauge efficacy of a treatment. Results may be displayed to highlight.
US09020228B2

A method for identifying tooth regions. The method includes generating a first threshold image from a first tooth image by selecting intensity data values higher than a first predetermined threshold value c1; generating a second threshold image from a second tooth image by selecting intensity data values higher than a second predetermined threshold value c2; generating a preliminary tooth regions image that defines at least a first tooth region from the intersection of the first and second threshold images; generating a reference binary image from the first image by selecting intensity data values higher than a third predetermined threshold value c3, wherein threshold value c3 exceeds c1; and generating a refined tooth regions image from at least the first tooth region in the preliminary tooth regions image. The first tooth region is connected to objects in the reference binary image.
US09020219B2

According to one embodiment, a medical image processing apparatus includes at least a parallax image generation unit and a display unit. The parallax image generation unit generates combined data of a three-dimensional medical image data and a text information, and generates a plurality of parallax image data by performing projection processing on the combined data along a corresponding plurality of parallax directions. The display unit displays a plurality of parallax images, based on the plurality of the parallax image data, in the corresponding plurality of parallax directions such that a three-dimensional medical image based on the three-dimensional medical image data and a text plane based on the text information are perceived stereoscopically viewable by an observer. The parallax image generation unit changes orientation of a display region for the text information in generating the combined data according to each of the parallax directions.
US09020216B2

A method for medical image segmentation includes accessing and updating a knowledge-base. First, a medical image is received and a sparse landmark signature is computed based on the medical image. Next, either a representative or a cohort average reference image set is selected. A portion of either representative reference image set or the cohort average reference image set is deformed to generate mappings to the medical image set. A segmentation for each structure of interest of the medical image set is determined. The knowledge-base is searched for representative matches to form a plurality of sub-volume base sets comprising a plurality of reference image set sub-volumes. A portion of the plurality of reference image set sub-volumes of the plurality of sub-volume base sets is deformed to generate mappings from the plurality of sub-volume base sets to corresponding structures of interest of the medical image set. A weighted-average segmentation for the plurality of structures of interest in the medical image set is calculated.
US09020203B2

Provided herein are methods and systems for managing spatiotemporal uncertainty in image processing. A method can comprise determining motion from a first image to a second image, determining a latency value, determining a precision value, generating an uncertainty element based upon the motion, the latency value, and the precision value, and rendering the uncertainty element.
US09020202B2

A method for determining a position using digital pixel data includes receiving pixel data from a position sensor device at a controller, sorting the received pixel data into pixel banks using the controller, identifying a maximum bank, a close bank, and a far bank using the controller, calculating a close to max ratio using a first equation and a max to far ratio using a second equation using the controller, and determining a position based on said close to max ratio and said far to max ratio.
US09020196B2

A feature extraction method for extracting a feature from an image includes receiving an image and measured acceleration data from a mobile device; obtaining a gravity vector in the image in a camera coordinate system based on the measured acceleration data; obtaining a vanishing point in the image in a vertical direction in a screen coordinate system using the gravity vector; obtaining differential vectors along two axes for each pixel in the screen coordinate system; obtaining a connection line vector connecting each of the pixels with the vanishing point; identifying a vertical edge based on determining that an angle formed by the differential vector and the connection line vector is within a certain threshold range; obtaining the sum of strengths of vertical edges and writing the sum in a predetermined variable array; extracting a keypoint based on the variable array; and calculating a feature quantity from the keypoint.
US09020191B2

In one implementation, a method may comprise: determining a topological representation of an indoor portion of a building based, at least in part, on positions or number of lines in an image of the indoor portion of the building; and comparing the topological representation to one or more stored topological representations, for example in a digital map of the building, to determine a potential position of the indoor portion of the building.
US09020187B2

Real time tracking and mapping is performed using images of unknown planar object. Multiple images of the planar object are captured. A new image is selected as a new keyframe. Homographies are estimated for the new keyframe and each of a plurality of previous keyframes for the planar object that are spatially distributed. A graph structure is generated using the new keyframe and each of the plurality of previous keyframes and the homographies between the new keyframe and each of the plurality of previous keyframes. The graph structure is used to create a map of the planar object. The planar object is tracked based on the map and subsequently captured images.
US09020186B2

In a method of detecting a specific object using a multi-dimensional image including the specific object, with respect to each window slide of the image subjected to window sliding by applying a previously generated 3D cube filter, data of an area corresponding to the window sliding is normalized in a previously defined specific form. After the corresponding part of the normalized data is assigned to each cell in the 3D cube filter, a volume of the cell is then calculated, thereby expressing the volumes of the cells as one volumetric feature vector having a volumetric feature. The volumetric feature vector is applied to a classifier so as to decide whether or not the data of the area corresponding to the window slide corresponds to the specific object.
US09020168B2

An apparatus including an air-conduction transducer and a bone conduction transducer. The air-conduction transducer is configured to convert a first frequency band component of an electrical audio signal into acoustic energy to be delivered to an ear canal of a user. The bone conduction transducer is configured to convert a second, at least partially different, frequency band component of the electrical audio signal into mechanical energy to be delivered to a skull of the user. The apparatus is configured to deliver both forms of the energies to the user at a substantially same time to provide a combined audio delivery result to the user.
US09020163B2

Devices and methods are disclosed that allow for selective acoustic near-field nulls for microphone arrays. One embodiment may take the form of an electronic device including a speaker and a microphone array. The microphone array may include a first microphone positioned a first distance from the speaker and a second microphone positioned a second distance from the speaker. The first and second microphones are configured to receive an acoustic signal. The microphone array further includes a complex vector filter coupled to the second microphone. The complex vector filter is applied to an output signal of the second microphone to generate an acoustic sensitivity pattern for the array that provides an acoustic null at the location of the speaker.
US09020162B2

Electronic devices and accessories are provided that may communicate over wired communications paths. The electronic devices may be portable electronic devices such as cellular telephones or media players and may have audio connectors such as 3.5 mm audio jacks. The accessories may be headsets or other equipment having mating 3.5 mm audio plugs and speakers for playing audio. Microphones may be included in an accessory to gather voice signals and noise cancellation signals. Analog-to-digital converter circuitry in the accessory may digitize the microphone signals. Digital voice signals and voice noise cancellation signals can be transmitted over the communications path and processed by audio digital signal processor circuitry in an electronic device. Digital-to-analog converter circuitry in the accessory may convert digital audio signals to analog speaker signals. Digital noise cancellation signals may use digital noise signals to cancel noise from digital audio signals that have been received from an electronic device.
US09020157B2

A noise cancellation system generates a noise cancellation signal from a signal representing ambient noise by signal processing. The signal processing applies a controllable gain value, and includes a high pass filter with a controllable cut-off frequency. A control block detects a wind amplitude. The cut-off frequency of the high pass filter is controlled based on the detected wind amplitude. A low pass function is applied to the detected wind amplitude, and the controllable gain is adjusted based on the output of the low pass function.
US09020153B2

Disclosed is subject matter that proposes a system and method for a media device to automatically detect the characteristics of an attached speaker. Speakers have many different characteristics, for example, power, impedance, frequency response, etc. With knowledge of the speaker characteristics, audio output can be equalized appropriately, and an amplifier of the media device, for example, can prevent exceeding the maximum power handling capability of the speaker. Described is a device and method for retrieving information about the speaker from a memory that is coupled to the speaker. A media device can read the data from the memory over existing speaker wires. Software and/or hardware in the media device can optimize the output to the attached speaker. Accordingly, the media device can interrogate the speaker directly over speaker wire to obtain the characteristics of the speaker.
US09020152B2

The perception of 3D sound positioning can be achieved using a 2D arrangement of speakers positioned around the listener. The disclosed techniques can enable listeners to perceive sounds as coming from above and/or below them, without the need for positioning speakers above and/or below the listener. In some embodiments, elevation information can be included in the X and Y horizontal components of the 2D ambisonics encoding. The X and Y components can be decoded using 2D ambisonics decoding. Suitable filtering may be performed on the decoded sound information to enhance the listener's perception of the elevation information encoded in the X and Y components.
US09020147B2

A method for registering first and second electronic keys to a controller of a communication subject through communication with a data center includes acquiring first and second key identification information from the first and second electronic keys with the controller, transmitting communication subject identification information together with both of the first and second key identification information from the controller to the data center, acquiring a first encryption key generation code corresponding to the first electronic key together with a second encryption key generation code corresponding to the second electronic key from the data center with the controller, generating a first key encryption key based on the first encryption key generation code with the controller, generating a second key encryption key based on the second encryption key generation code with the controller, and storing the first and second key encryption keys in the controller.
US09020145B2

A digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM) configured to couple to a first subscriber line and a second subscriber line, wherein the DSLAM comprises at least one transmitter configured to transmit a first signal onto the first subscriber line in a first time slot, transmit a second signal onto the second subscriber line in the first time slot, wherein the first and second signals are linearly related and are intended for a first customer premise equipment (CPE), transmit a third signal onto the second subscriber line in a second time slot, and transmit a fourth signal onto the first subscriber line in the second time slot, wherein the third and fourth signals are linearly related and are intended for a second CPE.
US09020138B1

A contact received by a service center from a customer may be assigned to one of a plurality of agents or representatives based on any prior experience with the customer or with the contact, any preferences of the customer or any skills required in order to address the contact. Preferably, an agent who previously handled an issue on behalf of the customer may be identified, and the contact may be assigned to that agent. Alternatively, the contact may be assigned to an agent preferred by the customer, or to a particularly skilled agent. If no preferred agents or particularly skilled agents are available to respond to the contact, the contact may be assigned at random to one or more particular agents. The contact may be initiated by way of a reply to a message containing a response to a previous contact, and the message may include metadata that associates the reply with the previous contact.
US09020135B2

A contact center system can receive messages from consumers. The system can then interact with the consumer or customer using a dialog. Before conducting the session with the consumer, past interactions using the dialog are reviewed to determine words, phrases, and other information that caused the dialog to be successful. The information is stored as norms. Upon beginning a new interaction with the dialog, the norms and the past successful dialogs are retrieved and compared to the active dialog while the interaction is on-going. The comparison is then used to ensure that the present active dialog will lead to a successful outcome or to resolve any issued if the outcome is not likely to be successful.
US09020122B2

Systems and methods for determining and providing call disposition information for outgoing calls are provided. More particularly, the disposition of a call placed from a communication device is determined, and associated with a call log for that communication device. The call disposition information is displayed or otherwise output to a user when the call log is accessed by the user. The call disposition information can be determined by a call disposition application running on a communication server that provides the call disposition information to a communication device for display by that communication device.
US09020114B2

Embodiments of the present invention are directed generally to use of biometric identification during a call for detecting an anomaly occurring in the call, such as a change in the parties participating on the call. Communication between parties of a call is monitored and biometric identification is performed using the communication. According to one exemplary embodiment, biometric prints, such as voice prints, face prints, etc., are obtained for parties that are authorized to participate on a call. The call is then monitored and biometric data (e.g., audio, video, etc.) captured from communication during the call is compared with the biometric prints of the authorized parties to detect changes in the parties participating on the call, such as a new, unauthorized party joining the call. Thus, a call processing system can detect anomalies occurring during monitored calls, such as three-way calling, a handoff of a call, etc.
US09020112B2

A communication apparatus including: a relaying section which relays phone conversation between a sub-communication apparatus and an external communication apparatus which is in a communicable connection state by the communication controlling portion; a request section which requests, when a transmission command for transmitting transmission data has been transmitted from the sub-communication apparatus performing the phone conversation with the external communication apparatus, a data processing apparatus to transmit the transmission data while maintaining a connection state between the communication apparatus and the external communication apparatus to the communicable connection state; a receiving section which receives the transmission data transmitted from the data processing apparatus in response to the request of the request section; and a transmitting section which transmits the transmission data received by the receiving section to the external communication apparatus being in the communicable connection state.
US09020111B2

In an embodiment, an originating communication device within a wireless communications system sends a call request to a server to initiate a communication session with a target communication device, and also sends, along with the call request, a session description request, the session description request requesting alerting data to be sent to the target communication device from the server in addition to a call announce message for announcing the communication session to the at least one target communication device, the alerting data describing a nature of the communication session. The server sends the call announce message and the alerting data to the target communication device. The target communication device receives the call announce message and the alerting data, notifies a user of the target communication device of the announced communication session and outputs the alerting data to the user of the target communication device in conjunction with the notification.
US09020110B1

Methods, systems, and computer-readable media are provided for interactions between a consumer and a service provider. In some embodiments, an interaction application may provide a collection of service providers to a consumer, receive a selection of a service provider from the consumer, and establish a two-way video communication between the consumer and the service provider. In some embodiments, the interaction application may charge a fee to the consumer, the service provider, or both, for the providing the interaction.
US09020106B2

A device is configured to identify an emergency call from a user device, determine that the user device is to be connected on a video call, and obtain first video call information associated with the user device, where the first video call information includes information that permits the video call to be established. The device is configured to receive emergency information associated with the emergency call, and to identify an emergency guidance device to which the user device is to be connected via the video call. The device is configured to obtain second video call information associated with the emergency guidance device, where the second video call information includes information that permits the video call to be established, and to provide information to connect the user device and the emergency guidance device via the video call, based on the first video call information and the second video call information.
US09020103B2

A versatile beam scanner for generating a far-field scanned pencil beam, and, alternatively, a far-field pencil beam. An angle selector limits the angular extent of an inner fan beam emitted by a source of penetrating radiation. The source and angle selector may be translated, along a direction parallel to a central axis of a multi-aperture unit, in such a manner as to generate a scanned far-field pencil beam, when rings of apertures are interposed between the source and an inspected target, or, alternatively, a far-field fan beam, when no ring of apertures is interposed.
US09020094B2

A method for assisted positioning of an organ is provided. An acquisition system comprises a platform underneath which a detector is placed for the acquisition of radiographic medical images, during which a radiation source is moved over different successive positions with respect to the detector, wherein at least one medical image is acquired at each position of the radiation source. The method comprises illuminating the platform with a light source of the acquisition system to assist the positioning of the organ on the platform; and determining, with a drive unit of the acquisition system, a positioning limit on the platform based on the distance separating the platform and a compression paddle used to compress the organ and based on the position of the light source relative to the detector, wherein the positioning limit on the platform is a limit beyond which the organ must not lie.
US09020080B2

A method of canceling sinusoidal interference from a received signal includes identifying a block of signal-free data containing sinusoidal interference. A model of the significant interference in the selected data block is constructed, scaled to subsequent data blocks and used to remove sinusoidal interference signals from the overall received signal.
US09020070B2

Systems and methods for efficiently transmitting information over a wireless network segment are provided herein. An exemplary method may include separating, via a transmitter, digital fronthaul data into general information and radio signal information, transmitting the general information over the wireless network segment from the transmitter to a receiver on a first communications channel, and transmitting the radio signal information over the wireless network segment from the transmitter to the receiver on a second communications channel.
US09020058B2

A method includes receiving in a mobile communication terminal from a base station a precoded Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) signal, which includes a first signal component transmitted by one or more first antennas of the base station at a first polarization, and further comprises a second signal component transmitted by one or more second antennas of the base station at a second polarization, different from the first polarization. A difference between respective signal magnitudes of the first signal component having the first polarization and the second signal component having the second polarization that have been received in the terminal is estimated in the terminal. Feedback information, which requests the base station to precode subsequent MIMO signals with a precoding matrix that is specified as a function of the difference between the signal magnitudes, is calculated and transmitted from the terminal.
US09020053B2

Clocking systems and methods are provided below that accurately clock per-pin data transfers of input/output (IO) circuits of integrated circuit devices. These multiplexer-based clock selection systems use a dedicated multiplexer to receive clock signals from multiple mixer circuits and in turn to provide a selected reference clock signal for use by an interface circuit in transferring data to other integrated circuit devices. The timing of the selected reference clock signal is synchronized with the data signals to provide optimal sampling of the data signals. The multiplexer-based clock selection system is for use in memory interfaces of high-speed signaling systems for example.
US09020052B2

A stream of information is communicated by means of transmission distributed over a plurality of transmission antennas and reception distributed over a plurality of reception antennas. In the method the stream is encoded according to an error correcting code, into a series of multi-bit symbols. A sequence of the multi-bit symbols is interleaved, by which symbols are assigned to time slots, so that the multiple bits of the symbols remain together in the same time slot. The interleaved multi-bit symbols are transmitted, with each symbol distributed over the transmission antennas in a respective time slot. Signals received at the reception antennas in each respective time slot are received and demodulated, to produce demodulation results each for a respective time slot. A time-slot sequence of the demodulation results is deinterleaved. Decoded symbol values are selected under a constraint that a series of the selected symbols belongs to the error correcting code. The selection is performed based on information about the probability of the symbol values, obtained as a function of the demodulation results. A function is used that accounts for correlation effects between the signals from combinations of the reception antennas in a time slot.
US09020047B2

An image decoding apparatus includes a plurality of decoders and (i) divides image data to decode into a plurality of pieces of partial data, (ii) acquires attribute information pieces each affecting decoding processing time of a corresponding one of the plurality of pieces of partial data, (iii) determines which of the plurality of decoders is caused to decode which of the plurality of pieces of partial data based on the attribute information pieces on the plurality of pieces of partial data and (iv) causes two or more of the plurality of decoders to decode two or more corresponding pieces of the partial data in parallel.
US09020045B1

Methods of encoding an image stream. In one embodiment, the method comprises generating, by a computer, a lossless encoding of a first portion of a frame of an image based on identifying the first portion as (i) changed since a previous frame of the image and (ii) comprising a first image type; generating an initial quality lossy encoding of a second portion of the frame based on identifying the second portion as (iii) changed since the previous frame and (iv) comprising a second image type; and generating a quality improvement encoding of a third portion of the frame based on identifying the third portion as (v) unchanged since the previous frame and (vi) encoded to less than a defined quality.
US09020035B2

A motion vector coding apparatus includes a motion vector coding unit that codes a motion vector inputted from a motion vector detecting unit. A motion vector for each current block is coded based on a difference between the motion vector and a predicted vector obtained from motion vectors for previously coded neighboring blocks. The predicted vector is generated by one of: the motion vectors referring to the same picture are selected from among the motion vectors for the neighboring blocks; the motion vectors for neighboring blocks are ordered in the predetermined order and the motion vectors of the same order rank are selected; and the predicted vector for a second motion vector of the current block is the first motion vector, and when the second motion vector and the first motion vector refer to different pictures, the first motion vector is scaled based on temporal distance between the pictures.
US09020030B2

In one example, an apparatus includes a video encoder configured to partition a block of video data into a first partition and a second partition using a geometric motion partition line, calculate a prediction value of a pixel in a transition region of the block using a filter that applies a value for at least one neighboring pixel from the first partition and a value for at least one neighboring pixel from the second partition, calculate a residual value of the pixel in the transition region of the block based on the prediction value of the pixel in the transition region, and output the residual value of the pixel. In one example, a video decoder may use a similar filter to decode an the encoded block after receiving the residual value for the encoded block, and using a definition of the geometric motion partition line.
US09020028B2

A transmitting/receiving system may include a transmission line, a transmitter circuit configured to transmit a clock to the transmission line and to adjust an amplitude of the clock in accordance with a logic level of data, and a receiver circuit configured to receive the clock transferred to the transmission line and to recover the data through detection of the amplitude of the clock.
US09020023B2

The present technique relates to a reception device and a reception method which can improve equalization performance. An equalization processing unit has a time domain equalization unit which equalizes a received signal in a time domain and a frequency domain equalization unit which is provided in parallel to the time domain equalization unit and which equalizes the received signal in a frequency domain, and performs control of switching between the time domain equalization unit and the frequency domain equalization unit. The present technique can be applied to, for example, equalize a signal of data transmitted by way of single carrier transmission or data transmitted by way of multicarrier transmission.
US09020015B2

A differential signal transmission circuit including a pattern generator, a low voltage differential signal (LVDS) transmitter, a transition minimized differential signal (TMDS) receiver, and a comparator is provided. The pattern generator generates a plurality of test data. The LVDS transmitter is coupled to the pattern generator to receive the test data, and generates a test output signal according to the test data. The TMDS receiver receives a test input signal to output a plurality of decoded data. The comparator is coupled to the TMDS receiver to receive the decoded data and the pattern generator to receive the test data. The comparator compares the decoded data with the test data to output a test result of the TMDS receiver.
US09020014B2

A cable modem termination system (CMTS) is disclosed that allocates one or more minislots of a super-frame arrangement to cable modems for upstream transmission. The super-frame arrangement includes multiple minislots that correspond to multiple communication channels of one or more super-frames. The CMTS receives requests for upstream bandwidth from the cable modems. The CMTS continuously allocates the minislots of the super-frame to provide upstream bandwidth grants to accommodate these requests. The CMTS communicates the upstream bandwidth grants as a single upstream bandwidth allocation map (MAP) to the cable modems.
US09020013B2

An apparatus for processing signals, in particular physiological measuring signals, is provided with a number of channels with main signal inputs for receiving input signals. Each of the input signals has a specific signal component and a signal component common to all input signals. Each channel is provided with an impedance transforming input amplifier. The apparatus supplies a respective input signal to the first input of each input amplifier and an analog reference signal, which is equal for all channels, to the second input. The apparatus includes a digital signal processor and one or more analog-digital converters for supplying the signals provided by the input amplifiers to the digital signal processor. The signal processor converts signals received from the one or more analog-digital converters at least into one or more output signals.
US09020012B1

A receiver includes a multiphase clock having multiple clock edges, the clock edges being time staggered for the multiphase clock. The receiver further includes circuitry configured to receive a multi-wire transitional coded signal, sample, at each clock edge of the multiphase clock, the multi-wire transitional coded signal to obtain a sample sequence, and output a symbol for each transition in the sample sequence to obtain an output receiver sequence. The number of clock edges is greater than the number of symbols.
US09020003B1

Blue laser diode (LD) structures are grown on a particular subset of semi-polar GaN substrate orientations that offer a distinct set of advantages relative to both (0001), non-polar oriented devices, and alternative semipolar-polar oriented devices operating in the blue regime are disclosed. In particular, the (30-3-1) and (30-31) gallium and nitrogen containing surface orientation and equivalent planes show narrower luminescence spectra than equivalent devices grown on the nonpolar {10-10} m-plane or semipolar planes tilted away from m-plane toward the c-plane between angles of about 0 degrees to about 7 or 8 degrees such as {60-6-1).
US09019997B1

This disclosure describes a method and apparatus for signaling the phase and frequency of OTN and Constant Bit Rate (CBR) clients in an OTN network. The principles discussed are applicable when multiple stages of OTN multiplexing and demultiplexing are utilized. They are also applicable for use with the Generic Mapping Procedure (GMP) and Asynchronous Mapping Procedure (AMP). A method to use the phase and frequency of an ODUk/ODUflex to adjust a local reference clock to enable the recovery of the phase and frequency of a CBR client demapped from the ODUk/ODUflex is described.
US09019996B2

A network component comprising at least one processor configured to implement a method comprising initiating a synchronization window, and promoting the transmission of a frame comprising a control symbol, wherein the control symbol delineates a beginning of the frame, and wherein the control symbol is offset from the beginning of the synchronization window. Also disclosed is a system comprising an upstream node in communication with a downstream node, wherein the upstream node transmits a data stream comprising a plurality of frames to the downstream node, wherein the data stream is organized into a plurality of synchronization windows, and wherein the frames float within the synchronization windows. Included is a method comprising transmitting an Ethernet data stream comprising an Ethernet control symbol, wherein the Ethernet control symbol is transmitted within a synchronization window and delineates a start of a packet within the synchronization window.
US09019994B2

A single wire signal regeneration transmitting apparatus receives a serial packet including a plurality of signal segments, and each of the signal segments includes a data field and a stuff time symbol. Each of the data fields, which is followed by each of the stuff time symbols, includes multiple logic 0/1 signal symbols, with accumulated numbers of the logic 0/1 signal symbols in each of the data fields being the same. The single wire signal regeneration transmitting apparatus is adapted to process the serial packet to sequentially output the signal segments, and after the single wire signal regeneration transmitting apparatus outputs the data field from a previously received signal segment, the single wire signal regeneration transmitting apparatus continues outputting the stuff time symbol until starting to process a next received signal segment received subsequent to a currently received signal segment in the received serial package.
US09019992B2

A method for controlling error resilience in network communication is described. The method includes: determining, by a receiver-side controller, a packet gap representing a packet loss of a packet being communicated over a network; projecting, by the receiver-side controller, a retransmission time-out for at least one missing packet of the packet loss; issuing, by the receiver-side controller, a retransmission request for the at least one missing packet; if the packet gap is not filled within a first time period of the retransmission time-out, then issuing, by the receiver-side controller, at least one synchronization frame request; and selecting, by a sender-side controller, to respond to at least one of either of the retransmission request or the at least one synchronization frame request and neither of the retransmission request nor the at least one synchronization frame request.
US09019987B1

Disclosed herein are methods and systems to provide, to a wireless communication device (WCD), a mapping between a first unsupported message type and a first supported message type. One embodiment takes the form of a method that involves a base station transmitting in a coverage area, for receipt by a given WCD configured to send a first unsupported message type to the base station, a mapping that correlates the first unsupported message type with the first supported message type. As a result of transmitting the mapping, the base station receives, from the given WCD, a message of the first supported message type in the place of a message of the first unsupported message type.
US09019984B2

Methods, program products, and systems for monitoring geofence exits using wireless access points are disclosed. In general, in one aspect, the mobile device can select, from multiple wireless access points, one or more wireless access points for monitoring a geofence. Selecting the one or more wireless access points can include determining multiple geographic regions corresponding to the geofence. The mobile device can select the one or more wireless access points based on a maximum total number of wireless access points to be selected and an access point allowance for each of the geographic regions. The access point allowance can indicate a maximum number of wireless access points to be selected for the geographic region. The mobile device can detect a potential entry or exit of the geofence by monitoring the selected one or more wireless access points using a wireless processor.
US09019981B1

A modified protocol independent multicast (M-PIM) routing protocol is an improvement to protocol independent multicast (PIM) routing protocol. M-PIM is optimized for use with at least one low bandwidth multi-hop network. The improvement comprises at least one modification to PIM that facilitates the transport of multicast traffic in a multi-layer routing system.
US09019978B2

A notification from a source host is received at a network interface device that indicates that a data packet is ready for transmission to a destination host. The data packet may be transmitted to the destination host via the network interface device, and a first completion queue event is generated. The first completion queue event may be used as a trigger to re-transmit the data packet to a port mirroring destination via the network interface device. In another example, a network interface device receives a data packet transmitted from a source host to a destination host. A first completion queue event is generated based on the receipt of the packet, and is used as a trigger to re-transmit the data packet to a port mirroring destination via the network interface device.
US09019970B1

A plurality of forwarding devices are configured to couple to respective pluralities of ports to ingress and egress network traffic. Ones of the plurality of forwarding devices are coupled to respective forwarding databases and each one forwarding device is configured to maintain the respective forwarding database, and send messages to and receive message from other ones of the plurality of forwarding devices to synchronize the plurality of forwarding databases.
US09019952B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method and an apparatus for forwarding multicast traffic. The method includes: receiving a third multicast join message; in response to the third multicast join message, sending a first multicast join message to a first upstream router, and establishing an active path; in response to the third multicast join message, sending a second multicast join message to a second upstream router, and establishing a standby path; and sending multicast traffic to the multicast receiver through the active path, where the standby path does not forward the multicast traffic. In the foregoing embodiments, the standby path that does not forward the multicast traffic is established beforehand, so that when a fault occurs in the active path, the standby path established beforehand can be used to forward the multicast traffic.
US09019948B2

Allocation slot arrangement is provided for wireless body area networks (BANs). In particular, in some embodiments the allocation slots are arranged based on a set of rules and received input parameters. Allocation slot arrangement may comprise maximizing a weighted sum function computed by applying the rules and input parameters to all nodes over all possible arrangements.
US09019942B2

A method of operating a femtocell network cluster is disclosed. One example method of operating the femtocell network cluster may include certain operations, such as, selecting a master femtocell access point among various femtocell access points operating on the femtocell network cluster and updating a master table to include the master femtocell access point in the master table neighbor list. Other operations may include transmitting the master table to each of the femtocell access points informing them of the identity of the master femtocell access point. The tables may be maintained by all of the femtocell access points operating on the network.
US09019939B2

Methods and apparatus for wireless communication, in a mobile device, that includes receiving a signal from a network and obtaining pruned autocorrelation for specific channel delays of the received signal. Aspects of the methods and apparatus include determining pruned autocorrelation properties of the received signal. Aspects of the methods and apparatus also include comparing the pruned autocorrelation properties of the received signal against a reference threshold. Aspects of the methods and apparatus also include verifying that the received signal is a valid signal for WCMDA processing.
US09019930B2

A field unit includes circuitry configured to receive a signal and determine whether the received signal has a predetermined quality; circuitry configured to select a signal from a plurality of signals including a first signal indicating that the field unit is requesting an assignment of resources and the received signal was received with the predetermined quality, a second signal indicating that the field unit is requesting an assignment of resources and the received signal was not received with the predetermined quality, a third signal indicating that the field unit is not requesting an assignment of resources and the received signal was received with the predetermined quality, and a fourth signal indicating that the field unit is not requesting an assignment of resources and the received signal was not received with the predetermined quality; and circuitry configured to transmit the selected signal over a control channel.
US09019925B2

Provided is a radio communication base station device which can prevent lowering of use efficiency of a channel communication resource for performing a frequency diversity transmission when simultaneously performing a frequency scheduling transmission and the frequency diversity transmission in a multicarrier communication. In the device, a modulation unit (12) executes a modulation process on Dch data after encoded so as to generate a Dch data symbol. A modulation unit (22) executes a modulation process on the encoded Lch data so as to generate an Lch data symbol. An allocation unit (103) allocates the Dch data symbol and the Lch data symbol to respective subcarriers constituting an OFDM symbol and outputs them to a multiplexing unit (104). Here, when a plurality of Dch are used for a Dch data symbol of one mobile station, the allocation unit (103) uses Dch of continuous channel numbers.
US09019923B2

A method for supporting downlink paging for LIPA or SIPTO while a first UE has been moved to an idle mode may include monitoring UE traffic while the first UE is in the active state and storing a UE IP address for a default EPS bearer of the first UE in a node and in a gateway for LIPA or SIPTO service. A downlink datagram for paging activation is sent towards the first UE over an existing tunnel, wherein the tunnel was established for a second UE being in an active state, wherein the tunnel may be established for the second UE or any other UE served by the same node and the same gateway, and activating a paging procedure by receiving the downlink datagram via the tunnel in a gateway, which gateway is serving the first UE for the default EPS bearer service of the first UE.
US09019918B2

A method for transmitting data between access points in a locomotive consist is disclosed. The method may include determining, at a sending access point, the number of locomotives across which a communication signal will be sent. The method may also include selecting, based on the number of determined locomotives, a first transmission spectrum from among one or more transmission spectrums. The method may further include equalizing the communication signal using the selected first transmission spectrum and sending the equalized communication signal to a receiving access point.
US09019915B2

This document discloses one or more systems, apparatuses, methods, etc. for implementing an algorithm to enhance channel allocation and/or channel location selection in a wireless connection environment.
US09019913B2

A method, an apparatus, and a computer program product for wireless communication are provided in which a network entity may be operable to communicate D2D resource allocations to a UE supported by a HeNB. In one example, the network entity may be operable to determine whether a HeNB is operable to communicate system information to a UE. As used herein, system information may include, but is not limited to, D2D resource allocations, paging information, etc. When the network entity determines that a HeNB is operable to communicate system information to a UE, then it may transmit the system information to the HeNB to allow the HeNB to convey the system information to the UE. When the network entity determines that a HeNB is not operable to communicate system information to a UE, then it may transmit the system information to the UE via one or more other network entities.
US09019912B2

A mobile terminal simulator for a wireless telecommunications network includes: a simulation engine, providing a bit stream, according to a communications standard; a conversion stage, which converts the bit stream into a baseband signal in the frequency domain; a mapping and transformation stage, which generates transmission samples in the time domain as a function of the baseband signal; and a transmission module, connectable to a Base Radio Station of a wireless telecommunications network by a communication port. A transmission channel simulator module is connected between the conversion stage and the mapping and transformation stage and processes the baseband signal in the frequency domain so as to simulate a transmission channel between the communication port and the Base Radio Station.
US09019909B2

Method, apparatus, and computer program product embodiments are disclosed to provide a wireless device with suitable operating parameters for wireless resource sharing with heterogeneous wireless networks to enable coexistence of secondary networks in a shared band environment. An example embodiment includes a method, comprising: receiving a request from a wireless network, requesting device management information for coexistence within an unassigned frequency band with zero or more neighboring wireless networks of the wireless network; and providing the requested device management information for the wireless network, based on at least location of the wireless network, the device management information including at least allowed frequency and transmission power.
US09019908B2

Methods and devices for dynamically controlling a transmission power of an HS-DPCCH are disclosed. A wireless user equipment receives downlink transmissions on a data channel from a serving cell, and determines a rate of duplicate packets on the data channel. The UE interprets a high rate of duplicate transmissions as an indication that the HS-DPCCH is not being successfully decoded, and therefore increases the transmission power of the HS-DPCCH. Correspondingly, the UE interprets a low rate of duplicate transmissions as an indication that the HS-DPCCH may have too high a transmission power, and therefore decreases the transmission power of the HS-DPCCH.
US09019907B2

A radio base station BTS includes an estimation unit 13 configured to estimate a time when a buffer of a scheduled mobile station UE becomes empty based on a remaining amount of data in the buffer of the mobile station UE, the remaining amount reported by the mobile station, and a sending unit 15 configured to send the mobile station UE a Zero Grant instructing to stop transmission of a data signal via an E-DPDCH based on the estimated time.
US09019898B2

A wireless local area network (WLAN) method and device including at least one antenna to enable simultaneous dual band (SDB) operation of the WLAN device, the SDB operation including communication in a first frequency band with a first device and communication in a second frequency band with a second device, first network interface circuitry to support communication in the first frequency band with the first device, second network interface circuitry to support communication in the second frequency band with the second device, and a processor to generate an information element including information regarding the SDB operation of the WLAN device, and to enable transmission of the information element to the first device or to the second device.
US09019884B2

Systems, methods and wireless devices are provided that utilize a timer to ensure a receiver of a wireless device is on to receive downlink transmissions. In the event the timer runs out without further resource allocation, the mobile device turns its radio off. If a further resource allocation occurs while the timer is running, the timer is restarted.
US09019882B2

Methods and systems present solutions to, for example, the problem of unnecessary preparedness for suspended retransmissions in the user equipment (UE) which contributes to power drain in the device battery. One method for monitoring a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) for adaptive retransmission grants in a radio communication system includes: monitoring, by a user equipment (UE), the PDCCH for adaptive retransmission grants; receiving, by the UE, a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) acknowledge (ACK) message, and ceasing, by the UE, to monitor the PDCCH for adaptive retransmission grants after receipt of the HARQ ACK message.
US09019871B2

The present invention relates to a wireless communication system. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method comprising: setting a first cell having a first TDD UL-DL configuration and a second cell having a second TDD UL-DL configuration; receiving a PHICH signal in a subframe #(n−L) of the first cell, or receiving a PDCCH signal in a subframe #(n−K) of the first cell; and transmitting a PUSCH signal in a subframe #n of the second cell, corresponding to the PHICH signal or the PDCCH signal, wherein the relationship between the subframes #(n−L), #(n−K), and #n is determined in consideration of a parameter value set in a specific TDD UL-DL configuration, which is the TDD UL-DL configuration having the least number of UL subframes from TDD UL-DL configuration(s), in which subframes set as UL in the first or second cell are all set as ULs.
US09019862B2

Methods and apparatuses for communicating in a wireless local area network are provided. The method includes receiving, by a responding station, from a requesting station, a Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) feedback request frame to request the responding station to provide a MCS feedback, the MCS feedback request frame including a first MCS feedback sequence identifier identifying a MCS feedback request. The method also includes transmitting, by the responding station, to the requesting station, a MCS feedback frame as a response to the MCS feedback request frame, the MCS feedback frame including a MCS estimate and a second MCS feedback sequence identifier. An apparatus for performing the method is also provided.
US09019858B2

Monitoring within a network a history of bits throughput to a base station over each of a plurality of time intervals, monitoring within the network a physical resource block utilization level over each of the plurality of time intervals, determining a ratio of the history of bits to the utilization level for each of the plurality of time intervals, determining an updated history of bits for each of a plurality of upcoming time intervals, estimating an updated utilization level in response to the updated history of bits and the ratio, generating messaging to at least one additional network element conveying the estimated updated physical resource block utilization level, and adjusting at least one of a prefilling process or a prefetching process in response to the updated utilization level.
US09019857B2

A transmission frame is communicated to cause a media idle measurement period on a contention based communication media. The media idle measurement period (i.e., “quiet period”) provides a period of inactivity on the communications medium that may be used to detect for the presence of foreign signals such as radio broadcast interference, noise, or other signals, or may be used for calibration of circuitry coupled to the communications medium. Idle measurement periods may be caused regularly (e.g., periodically). The transmission frame may include an explicit instruction for the media idle measurement period or may cause the media idle measurement period by simulating a collision on the communications media.
US09019849B2

A system and method to perform Full Duplex (FD) Space Division Duplex (SDD) communication using a Self-Interference Cancelling (SIC) precoder that applies different antenna phase shifts and amplitude scales to the transmitted signals to force them to be in the null space of the selected receive antennas. Thus, a wireless communication unit can place nulls at each of its receive antennas digitally at baseband for one or more frequency bands. The SIC precoder may be computed based on the self-interference channel from the transmit chain(s) to the receive chain(s). Different SIC precoders may be adaptively selected and stored digitally for different frequency bands. Subsequent single or multi-user precoder can be applied in concatenation with the SIC precoder to transmit signals to one or more users while receiving signals from one or more users simultaneously over the same frequency band.
US09019841B2

A method, an apparatus, and a computer program product for wireless communication are provided. The apparatus receives downlink data from a base station via a downlink resource, sends the downlink data to a user equipment (UE) via an uplink resource, receives uplink data from the UE via the uplink resource, and sends the uplink data to the base station via the uplink resource. The apparatus also determines at least one of an observed downlink signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) or an observed uplink interference. The apparatus then broadcasts a relay availability based on the determination that the at least one of the downlink SINR observed is greater than a first threshold or the uplink interference at the relay is less than a second threshold.
US09019838B2

A central piece of network equipment having at least one Ethernet connector having first and second pairs of contacts used to carry BaseT Ethernet communication signals and at least one electrical supply used by the central piece of network equipment to change impedance between at least one of the contacts of the first pair of contacts and at least one of the contacts of the second pair of contacts.
US09019835B2

A parameter estimation device 600 includes: a communication throughput acquiring part 601 for acquiring communication throughput that is an amount of data transmitted per unit time; and a function specification parameter estimating part 602 for estimating a function specification parameter for specifying a probability density function where communication throughput at a second time point later than a first time point is a random variable, based on the communication throughput acquired by the first time point.
US09019834B2

Systems and methods are described for link load balancing, by a multi-core intermediary device, a plurality of Internet links. The method may include load balancing, by a multi-core device intermediary to a plurality of devices and a plurality of Internet links, network traffic across the plurality of Internet links. The multi-core device providing persistence of network traffic to a selected Internet link based on a persistence type. A first core of the multi-core device receives, a packet to be transmitted via an Internet link to be selected from the plurality of Internet links. The first core sends to a second core of the multi-core device a request for persistence information responsive to identifying that the second core is an owner core of a session for persistence based on the persistence type. The first core receives the persistence information from the second core and determines to transmit the packet to the Internet link previously selected based on the persistence information received from the second core.
US09019833B2

Methods and systems for providing IP services in an integrated fashion are provided. According to one embodiment, packets are load balanced among virtual routing processing resources of an IP service generator of a virtual router (VR) based switch. A packet flow cache is maintained with packet flow entries containing information indicative of packet processing actions for established packet flows. Deep packet classification is performed to determine whether a packet is associated with an established packet flow. If so, the packet is directed to one of multiple virtual services processing resources representing application-tailored engines configured to provide managed firewall services. If the packet is allowed, it is returned to the source virtual routing processing resource for forwarding.
US09019831B2

[Problem]The problem is to carry out the QoS control which tracks a change in a state of an outward line.[Means for solving the problem]A network repeater according to the present invention includes: a flow control means to carry out flow control for restricting inflow of a data flow which is received through an inward line; a bandwidth control means to carry out bandwidth control of controlling a bandwidth of a data flow which is received through the inward line and is sent through an outward line; and an outward line monitoring means to monitor a change in a state of the outward line. In the case that the monitored state of the outward line satisfies a specified condition which is determined in advance, either the flow control or the bandwidth control is carried out on a condition corresponding to the specified condition.
US09019828B2

A device may receive information that identifies a radio frequency condition of a user device, where the radio frequency condition indicates a quality of a radio access network connection of the user device. The device may determine a radio frequency parameter value based on the radio frequency condition, and may set a data rate for a transmission control protocol (“TCP”) communication with the user device based on the radio frequency parameter value.
US09019827B1

The present disclosure provides for devices, systems, and methods which optimize throughput of bonded connections over multiple variable bandwidth logical paths by adjusting a tunnel bandwidth weighting schema during a data transfer session in response to a change in bandwidth capabilities of one or more tunnels. By making such adjustments, embodiments of the present invention are able to optimize the bandwidth potential of multiple connections being used in a session, while minimizing the adverse consequences of reduced bandwidth issues which may occur during the data transfer session.
US09019823B1

In systems and methods of random access preamble selection, a first plurality of random access preambles and a second plurality of random access preambles are stored at an access node. A random access channel request is received from a wireless device at the access node, the random access channel request comprising an application type of an application running on the wireless device, and a network load, a priority class of the wireless device, and a mobility of the wireless device are determined. When the first plurality of random access preambles is not exhausted, the network load meets a load criteria, the priority class of the wireless device meets a priority criteria, the mobility of the wireless device meets a mobility criteria, and the application type of the application meets an application criteria a random access preamble is assigned to the wireless device from the first plurality of random access preambles.
US09019821B2

An accounting method, system, device, and a computer-readable medium. The accounting method, system, device, and a computer-readable medium provide for measuring a time interval between arrival of two adjacent packets, comparing the measured time interval to a predetermined threshold, and determining whether the measured time interval is an active packet transfer time based on the comparison. Accordingly, an active packet transfer time in a connection is obtained.
US09019815B2

Multiple redundant sources for a datastream can be established in a network, where the redundant sources are configured with the same source address. One of the redundant sources provides the datastream to a receiver of a multicast group. If the redundant source fails, another redundant source can be used in its place, ensuring the receiver continues to receive the datastream. A routing element coupled to a redundant source monitors the redundant source for failure and informs the rest of the network of the status of the coupled redundant source. The routing element can inform other routing elements of the status by advertising or withdrawing a route that reaches the coupled redundant source, which the other routing elements can use to update their routing tables.
US09019810B2

A method of allocating Walsh codes and Quasi-orthogonal Functional, QoF, codes in a CDMA system in which a finite number of Walsh codes are defined, and some mobile terminals operating in the CDMA system are capable of supporting Advanced Quasi-Linear Interference Cancellation, AQLIC, and some mobile terminals operating in the CDMA system are non-AQLIC-capable. Walsh codes are allocated to control channels. A code allocation unit then determines a threshold number of Walsh codes to reserve for non-AQLIC-capable mobile terminals. When a current Walsh code usage level is less than the threshold, the unit allocates Walsh codes to both the AQLIC-capable mobile terminals and the non-AQLIC-capable mobile terminals. When the current Walsh code usage level is greater than the threshold, the unit allocates QoF codes only to AQLIC-capable mobile terminals, and allocates Walsh codes to non-AQLIC-capable mobile terminals.
US09019801B2

Electromechanical timepiece fitted with a gear train including an hour hand and a minute hand for the current time display on the dial side of the timepiece. The timepiece is arranged to provide at least one additional piece of information relating to a magnitude of time, or to a non-time related piece of information. The timepiece further includes an additional indicator hand arranged to display the additional information, the additional indicator hand being mounted on the back cover side of the timepiece on an arbour of the gear train of the timepiece, so that the additional indicator hand and the hour hand and/or minute hand rotate at the same time and at the same angle, the hour hand and/or the minute hand being driven either to display the current time, or to enable the additional indicator hand to indicate the additional information.
US09019795B2

An object is measured to record the relative surface coordinates. Then, a portion of the object “the front side” immersed in a fluid is imaged by directing a sonar pulse at the object and recording sonar signals reflected from the object with a sonar imaging array. Then, the recorded relative surface coordinates are iteratively fit to coordinates calculated from the sonar image. Thereafter, the coordinates of the surface of the “backside” of the object that is not observable in the sonar image are known, and a computer generated image of the backside is stitched to sonar image so that the object can be viewed from a plurality of viewpoints separated from the sonar imaging array.
US09019784B2

A data training device includes a training control block configured to activate driving signals for driving a bit line sense amplifier, with a word line deactivated, when a write training operation is performed according to a mode register write command; and the bit line sense amplifier configured to store training data according to the driving signals from the training control block.
US09019782B2

A memory macro comprises a plurality of memory cells, a plurality of first amplifying circuits, a first driver circuit, and a first level shifter. The plurality of memory cells is arranged in groups of a first direction and groups of a second direction. Each amplifying circuit is coupled to a plurality of first memory cells arranged in a first group of the first direction via a first data line. The first driver circuit is configured to drive the plurality of first amplifying circuits. The first level shifter is configured to level shift an input signal operating in a first power domain to an output signal operating in a second power domain. The output signal of the first level shifter is for use by the first driver circuit. The first driver circuit and a sense amplifier of an amplifying circuit operate in the second power domain.
US09019781B2

An internal voltage generation circuit includes: a selection unit configured to select one of first and second reference voltages as a selection reference voltage in response to a self refresh signal and a power-down mode signal and output the selection reference voltage; a driving signal generation unit configured to compare the selection reference voltage with a negative word line voltage applied to an unselected word line and generate a driving signal; and a driving unit configured to change the negative word line voltage in response to the driving signal.
US09019778B2

A semiconductor apparatus includes a memory chip which includes: a memory area; a data input/output block configured to communicate with the memory area; and a data transmission/reception block configured to connect one of a plurality of channels and a pad to the data input/output block, wherein the plurality of channels are configured to input and output normal data to and from another chip, and the pad is configured to input and output test data.
US09019775B2

An erase operation for a 3D stacked memory device applies an erase pulse which includes an intermediate level (Vgidl) and a peak level (Verase) to a set of memory cells, and steps up Vgidl in erase iterations of the erase operation. Vgidl can be stepped up when a specified portion of the cells have reached the erase verify level. In this case, a majority of the cells may have reached the erase verify level, such that the remaining cells can benefit from a higher gate-induced drain leakage (GIDL) current to reached the erase verify level. Verase can step up before and, optionally, after Vigdl is stepped up, but remain fixed while Vgidl is stepped. Vgidl can be stepped up until a maximum allowed level, Vgidl_max, is reached. Vgidl may be applied to a drain-side and/or source-side of a NAND string via a bit line or source line, respectively.
US09019769B2

A semiconductor device and a manufacturing method and an operating method for the same are provided. The semiconductor device comprises a substrate, a doped region and a stack structure. The doped region is in the substrate. The stack structure is on the substrate. The stack structure comprises a dielectric layer, an electrode layer, a solid electrolyte layer and an ion supplying layer.
US09019766B2

Embodiments are provided that include a memory system that includes a memory system, having an access device coupled between a global line and a local line and a voltage source coupled to the global line and configured to output a bias voltage on the global line when the memory system is in a non-operation state. The access device is selected when the memory system is in the non-operation state, and the access device is deselected when the memory system is in an other state. Further embodiments provide, for example, a method that includes coupling a global access line to a local access line, biasing the local access line to a voltage other than a negative supply voltage while a memory device is in a first state and uncoupling the global access line from the local access line while the memory device is in an other state.
US09019761B1

A memory device includes a memory cell array and a column decoder. The memory cell array includes a plurality of even local bit lines and a plurality of odd local bit lines. The column decoder includes a plurality of even pass transistors and a plurality of odd pass transistors. Each of the even pass transistors has a, control terminal coupled to a respective one of a plurality of even selection lines, a first terminal coupled to a respective one of the even local bit lines, and a second terminal coupled to an even global bit line. Each of the odd pass transistors has a control terminal coupled to a respective one of a plurality of odd selection lines, a first terminal coupled to a respective one of the odd local bit lines, and a second terminal coupled to an odd global bit line.
US09019747B2

A nonvolatile semiconductor memory device includes word lines, bit lines, a cross-point cell array including cells, each of which includes memory cells and at least one offset detection cell, a word line selection circuit, a bit line selection circuit, a write control circuit, a current sensing circuit which detects a current and converts it into an electrical signal, wherein a write control circuit adjusts a write electrical signal for causing a second write current higher than a first write current to flow through the memory cell.
US09019738B2

A memory device is provided. The memory device is used for data transmission at around 1600 megahertz (MHz). A wire layout is used to sequentially cascade memory dices with greatly shortened distances between the wire layout and the memory dices. At the same time, distances between the wire layout and UA controllers are shortened as well for effectively simplifying the design of wires.
US09019726B2

A power converter system, method and device powers a load when coupled to the load and draws a quasi-zero amount of power from the power supply when not coupled to the load. The power converter system maintains an output voltage such that the power converter system is able to properly “wake-up” when a load is coupled by intermittently operating the power converter for a preselected number of cycles when it is detected that the output voltage has fallen below a threshold level.
US09019714B2

The present invention provides a circuit component that enables satisfactory connection between a substrate and an IC chip and a method of making the same. The circuit component includes an IC chip and a substrate connected to each other using an electrically conductive adhesive containing electrically conductive particles. Bump electrodes and a non-electrode surface are provided on a mounting surface of the IC chip. The non-electrode surface is a portion of the mounting surface other than a portion where the bump electrodes are formed. Electrically conductive particles are placed in a first state between the surfaces of the substrate and the non-electrode surface so as to be in contact with both surfaces. Electrically conductive particles are placed in a second state between the surfaces of both the substrate and the bump electrodes, so as to be more flattened than the first state and dig into the bump electrodes.
US09019708B2

Apparatus and systems for improved access to storage devices from the sides of sleds mounted in storage enclosures. Embodiments provide apparatus and systems for a sled in a storage enclosure that provides access to storage devices on either side of the sled when the sled is slid forward out of its enclosure. Multiple sleds may be enclosed within a single enclosure to permit access to a portion of the storage devices in the enclosure hence reducing the problems of instability of the rack if the enclosure is mounted near the top of the rack.
US09019701B2

A rack server system includes a container, an electrically conductive component, a power supply, a signal connecting base, a server, and an RMC. The electrically conductive component and the signal connecting base are fixed in the container. The power supply is electrically connected to the electrically conductive component for supplying a direct current power. The signal connecting base includes multiple connectors. The server, disposed in the container removably, includes a power input port and a connecting element. The power input port is electrically connected to the electrically conductive component removably. The connecting element is connected to the connector removably. When the connecting element is electrically connected to the connector, the RMC communicates with the server via the connecting element and the one of the connectors and determines the position of the server in the container according to another position of the connector which is electrically connected to the server.
US09019693B2

An electronic device capable of ejecting a peripheral element is disclosed, including a housing, a first wheel and a driving unit. The housing has a chamber, wherein the peripheral element is stored in the chamber. The first wheel is disposed in the housing, wherein the first wheel contacts the peripheral element. The driving unit is disposed in the housing, the driving unit rotates the first wheel, and the first wheel moves the peripheral element from a first position to a second position.
US09019685B2

A spiral capacitor-inductor device in which an array of unit capacitors 101 is arranged in a loop along the length is provided as the fourth circuit element. An input signal is applied to one end of the array of the unit capacitors, an output signal is taken out from the other end, an electric charge stored in each unit capacitor increases or decreases in accordance with increase or decrease in the bias applied to the device, the increase or decrease in the electric charge causes the current of the loop to increase or decrease, and, as a result, the magnetic flux 103 generated in the device varies. Accordingly, the fourth circuit element is provided that follows after an inductor, a capacitor, and a resistor is provided in which the electric charge stored determines the magnitude of its magnetic flux.
US09019681B2

A reduced pressure treatment system includes a control unit having a control system and a reduced pressure source. The reduced pressure treatment system further includes a manifold unit in fluid communication with the reduced pressure source and a component module to augment treatment. The component module is configured to communicate with the control system of the control unit, and the component module includes a first mounting region configured to be coupled to a complimentary mounting region of the control unit. The component module further includes a second mounting region identical to the complimentary mounting region of the control unit to allow a second component module to be coupled to the first component module.
US09019675B2

A method comprising: a) during at least part of a conduction phase of the triac, measuring the gate potential of the triac; and b) comparing a value based on said measurement with a reference threshold and deducing the presence or the absence of an overcurrent based on said comparison.
US09019663B2

A tolerance ring is formed of a plate member, in a ring shape that is substantially circular along a predetermined direction, and provided with a plurality of protrusions projected radially in a circumferential direction, wherein an even number of the protrusions are arranged along the circumferential direction, and a plurality of straight lines that pass through a central portion of the plurality of protrusions and a center of a circle that circumscribes the tolerance ring cross one another.
US09019646B2

An apparatus includes a write element configured to apply a magnetic field to write data on a portion of a heat-assisted magnetic recording media in response to an energizing current. An energy source is configured to heat the portion of the media being magnetized by the write element. A preheat energizing current is applied to the write element during an interval before writing the data to the portion of the media. The preheat energizing current does not cause data to be written to the media and brings at least one of the write element and driver circuitry into thermal equilibrium prior to writing the data on the portion.
US09019645B1

A system for providing an accumulated phase to an interpolator of a read channel, the interpolator configured to provide a digital clock signal. A frequency accumulator is configured to generate a frequency offset based on a difference between the digital clock signal and a desired clock signal. A zero phase start module is configured to, during a zero phase start, output an incremental phase jump. A phase accumulator is configured to generate the accumulated phase based on the difference between the digital clock signal and the desired clock signal, and, during the zero phase start, the incremental phase jump output by the zero phase start module, or the frequency offset generated by the frequency accumulator or a predetermined frequency offset.
US09019644B2

Various embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for format efficient data storage. As an example, a data storage device is described that includes: a storage medium, a read/write head assembly, and a read channel circuit. The read/write head assembly is disposed in relation to the storage medium and operable to sense information corresponding to an encoded codeword. The read channel circuit is operable to receive the encoded codeword. The read channel circuit includes a missing symbols insertion circuit, a codeword de-scramble circuit, an address insertion circuit, and a data decoder circuit. The missing symbols insertion circuit, the codeword de-scramble circuit, and the address insertion circuit together are operable to pad a derivative of the encoded codeword with a plurality of symbols, to de-scramble the derivative of the encoded codeword, and to insert address information corresponding to the derivative of the encoded codeword to yield a modified encoded codeword. The data decoder circuit is operable to apply a data decoding algorithm to the modified encoded codeword to yield a decoded output.
US09019642B1

A method for detecting an information pattern includes obtaining a first sample stream and a second sample stream. The first sample stream and the second sample stream are obtained by sensing recorded information at a target location of a storage medium using a first sensor and a second sensor, respectively. A first metric is computed by comparing the first sample stream to a reference pattern representative of a target information pattern to be detected. A second metric is computed by comparing the second sample stream to the reference pattern. A combined metric is computed by combining the first metric and second metric using a weighting function. The target information pattern is detected using the combined metric.
US09019638B1

A read/write channel module including a sampling module configured to sample a read signal corresponding to data stored on a disk. A first preamble is encoded with a first timing recovery pattern on a first track of the disk. The first timing recovery pattern includes a first pattern that changes every x bits. A second preamble is encoded with a second timing recovery pattern on a second track of the disk adjacent to the first track. The second timing recovery pattern includes a second pattern that changes every y bits. A data processing module is configured to process the read signal to remove inter track interference from the read signal based on a difference between the first timing recovery pattern and the second timing recovery pattern.
US09019629B2

An optical module having an object side and an image side; the module comprising, from the object side to the image side: a first positive meniscus lens having a convergence C1, made of a material having a refractive index Nd1 and an Abbe number Vd1, a second negative meniscus lens having a convergence C2 made of a material having a refractive index Nd2 and an Abbe number Vd2, a third positive meniscus lens having a convergence C3, made of a material having a refractive index Nd3 and an Abbe number Vd3, a fourth negative lens having a convergence C4, made of a material having a refractive index Nd4 and an Abbe number Vd4, wherein: 1.12 0.5
US09019627B2

A lens assembly includes a first lens, a second lens, a third lens, a fourth lens and a fifth lens, all of which are arranged in sequence from an object side to an image side along an optical axis. The first lens is with positive refractive power and includes a convex surface facing the object side. The second lens is a meniscus lens with negative refractive power and includes a convex surface facing the object side. The third lens is with positive refractive power and includes a convex surface facing the image side. The fourth lens is with positive refractive power and includes a convex surface facing the image side. The fifth lens is a biconcave lens with negative refractive power.
US09019615B2

A wide field-of-view virtual image projector includes a rod light guide that is embossed with at least a first diffraction grating and a second diffraction grating that is substantially parallel to the first diffraction grating. The first diffraction grating is configured to receive a first light ray, and to project first diffracted light rays from the rod light guide at a first range of angles. The second diffraction grating is configured to receive a second light ray, and to project second diffracted light rays from the rod light guide at a second range of angles. The virtual image projector further includes a slab light guide configured to receive the first diffracted light rays and the second diffracted light rays, and to diffract the first diffracted light rays and the second diffracted light rays out of the slab light guide to generate a virtual image with a wide field-of view.
US09019606B2

An optical element has layers formed on a substrate, including alternating first and second layers having first and second refractive indices, nL and nH that exhibit a spectral characteristic, providing, for incident light at a predetermined wavelength and directed toward the optical element within a range of angles bounded by first and second incident angles θ1 and θ2, between 0 and 80 degrees and differing by at least 1 degree, substantially linear polarization-averaged attenuation of the incident light energy wherein, for any incident angle θn between θ1 and θ2, Aθn is the corresponding polarization-averaged attenuation, and wherein the polarization-averaged attenuation at Aθn at angle θ1 is less than or equal to an optical density value of 0.2 and the polarization-averaged attenuation Aθn at angle θ2 exceeds an optical density value of 4.
US09019595B2

Optical resonators that are enhanced with photoluminescent phosphors and are designed and configured to output light at one or more wavelengths based on input/pump light, and systems and devices made with such resonators. In some embodiments, the resonators contain multiple optical resonator cavities in combination with one or more photoluminescent phosphor layers or other structures. In other embodiments, the resonators are designed to simultaneously resonate at the input/pump and output wavelengths. The photoluminescent phosphors can be any suitable photoluminescent material, including semiconductor and other materials in quantum-confining structures, such as quantum wells and quantum dots, among others.
US09019591B2

It is an object of the present invention to provide a rare earth doped fiber whose transient response is suppressed and an optical amplifier for optical packet communication having a good characteristic even if there is little traffic.The above-mentioned problem is solved by an optical amplifier for optical packet communication comprising a first rare earth doped fiber (EDFA) having an active region whose diameter is between 3.4 μm and 10 μm, inclusive, an intermediate gain equalizing filter, and a second EDF, wherein the first EDFA is shorter than the second EDFA, and wherein the intermediate gain equalizing filter adjusts the intensity of each wavelength channel so as to equalize the light intensity of each wavelength channel having transmitted through the second EDF.
US09019589B2

An electrowetting display device comprising a picture element comprising a first fluid and a second fluid immiscible with the first fluid. At least one wall comprises a first surface and a second surface at different locations on a perimeter of a display area, the first surface being less wettable to the second fluid than the second surface.
US09019583B2

A method of generating an electronic document for mobile terminals is described. The method includes: obtaining a target image to be scanned and recognized; performing image and text scanning and recognition on the target image and obtaining a scanning and recognition result; generating an electronic document based on the scanning and recognition result. A mobile terminal is also described. According to the method, a user can generate electronic documents from information of interest to the user whenever and wherever, using a mobile terminal, thereby greatly enhancing the capability of the user to obtain information while traveling.
US09019571B2

A reading device comprising a connection unit configured to be connected with a storage medium, a determination unit configured to determine whether or not the storage medium is connected to the connection unit, a judging unit configured to judge if there is a document to be read by a reading unit and an execution unit configured to execute the advising process when the judgment unit judges that there is the document to be read and the determination unit determines that the storage medium is connected to the connection unit.
US09019562B2

An image forming apparatus includes a specific graphic form storage section, an image determination section, and determination color conversion processing section. The specific graphic form storage section is configured to store a visual image of a specific graphic form and attribute information specific to the specific graphic form as a reference image and reference attribute information, respectively. The image determination section is configured to determine at least one of (i) whether or not an image matching with the reference image is included in target data and (ii) whether or not an image having the reference attribute information is included in the target data, and detect the image identified through the determination as an image corresponding to the specific graphic form. The color conversion processing section is configured to perform specific color conversion processing for the image corresponding to the specific graphic form.
US09019552B2

Provided is an information processing apparatus that processes document data including a plurality of objects. The information processing apparatus acquires a size of an output medium to which an image based on the document data is output, acquires an output condition of an image based on the document data, extracts an object to be output alone to the output medium from among the plurality of objects included in the document data on a basis of the acquired size and the acquired output condition, and generates, on a basis of the extracted object, output data for outputting an image of the extracted object alone to the output medium based on the extracted object.
US09019548B2

A system can include a page type classifier to determine a page type of a file. The system can also include a print intent identifier to map the page type of the file to a print intent subtype of the file. The print intent identifier can also map the print intent subtype of the file to a print intent type of the file. The print intent type of the file can characterize a reason to at least one of print and store the file.
US09019547B2

The present invention is directed to a system and user interface wherein a multifunction copier, equipped with a Universal Serial Bus port, accepts data directly from a USB-Data Storage Device (USB-DSD) for the purpose of printing, e-mailing, and faxing. The system contains a copier containing a computer-controller having at least one USB port interface. The controller has a service that can either be enabled or disabled by a system administrator. The service is capable of performing email, printing and facsimile functions. When a user inserts a USB-DSD into the USB port on the controller, the service presents the user with the three options stated above. Once the user selects the desired function, the service then invokes a document conversion utility, which scans the USB-DSD and displays the supported files found on the DSD. Each desired function will have multiple options for a user to choose. For example, when the printing option is selected, the service will present to the user on the display choices such as duplex, portrait/landscape, multipage, number of prints and the like.
US09019546B2

Method, systems, and media for processing a digital slide image. In an embodiment, an identification of a macro, representing a plurality of algorithms, and an identification of digital slide image(s) are received over a network. Parameter data is obtained for the identified macro, and the digital slide image(s) are retrieved. The plurality of algorithms represented by the identified macro are executed on the digital slide image(s) according to the parameter data.
US09019543B2

An operation device receives information indicating an image processing job to be executed according to specific image processing settings and sends an execution check request to each one of a plurality of image processing apparatuses. The operation device displays, at a display, one or more image processing apparatuses capable of executing and currently available to perform the image processing job according to the specific image processing settings, based on responses respectively received from the plurality of image processing apparatuses.
US09019533B2

An approach is provided for ranking cloud printing devices. A printing device ranking service is configured to retrieve printing device information data that specifies one or more attributes of a plurality of printing devices and print job data that specifies one or more attributes of a plurality of print jobs that have been processed by the plurality of printing devices. The printing device ranking service determines, based at least upon the printing device information data and the print job data, rankings data for the plurality of printing devices, wherein the rankings data indicate a ranking of the printing devices from the plurality of printing devices.
US09019531B2

A host computer acquires a usage amount of a memory of a printing apparatus upon accepting a print instruction, and if the acquired free capacity of the memory is greater than a predetermined value, transmits generated print data based on the accepted print instruction. If the acquired free capacity of the memory is less than the predetermined value, the host computer displays a message before transmitting the print data.
US09019526B2

An image examination apparatus includes a generation unit configured to generate an examination image for examining a read image; an extraction unit configured to extract, from the examination image, multiple reference points used for alignment between the examination and read images; a calculation unit configured to calculate information on misalignment between positions of the reference points and positions corresponding respectively to the reference points in the read image; an excluding unit configured to exclude a reference point from the multiple reference points, based on the information on misalignment; an alignment unit configured to perform alignment between the examination and read images based on the reference points other than the excluded reference point; and an examination unit configured to perform examination for determining whether there is a defect in the read image on the basis of a difference between the read and examination images.
US09019513B2

The multi-dimensional data registration integrated circuit for driving array-arrangement devices, comprising: a plurality of the i-th hierarchy sets, each of the i-th hierarchy sets is divided into a plurality of the (i+1)-th hierarchy sets; a i-th hierarchy address selection circuit, comprising a signal generation unit and a multiplexing unit, wherein the former generates an enable signal, the latter is connected to the signal generating unit and shifts the input data based on the enable signal and a second timing signal to further generate n bits of address signals, the i-th hierarchy address selection circuit is used to scan the plurality of the i-th hierarchy sets and select at least one of the i-th hierarchy sets to function; and a data supply circuit to follow a scan sequence of a j-th hierarchy address selection circuit and write a plurality of data into the selected j-th hierarchy sets.
US09019506B1

A system for controlling a phase measurement in an atom interferometer comprising one or more lasers, a processor, and a memory. The one or more lasers are for providing interrogating beams. A first group of atoms and a second group of atoms traverse an interrogating region of the atom interferometer in substantially opposite directions. The interrogating beams interact substantially simultaneously with both atoms in the first group and atoms in the second group. The first group of atoms and the second group of atoms interact with each of the interrogating beams in a different order. The processor is configured to determine a phase adjustment offset of at least one interrogating beam based at least in part on one or more past interactions of one or more interrogating beams with either the first group of atoms or the second group of atoms.
US09019504B2

A transportable goniospectrometer with a constant observation center for a radiometric measurement of the reflection of a natural surface includes a spectrometer having an optical unit and a sensor. A main pillar has a lower and an upper pillar end. An arc has a fixed and a free arc end. A slide is disposed displaceably and fixably along the arc. The slide carries the optical unit orientated towards the observation center. A cantilever has a fixed cantilever end connected to the upper pillar end via a screw connection, and a free cantilever end which has a suspension that is rotatable and fixable about a vertical axis. The suspension is connected to the sensor and to the fixed arc end of the arc. The suspension is configured to position the arc at a distance of the arc radius of the arc above the natural surface.
US09019502B1

The disclosure relates to a method of detecting a change in a chemical composition by contacting a electronically conducting perovskite-based metal oxide material with a monitored stream, illuminating the electronically conducting perovskite-based metal oxide with incident light, collecting exiting light, monitoring an optical signal based on a comparison of the incident light and the exiting light, and detecting a shift in the optical signal. The electronically conducting perovskite-based metal oxide has a perovskite-based crystal structure and an electronic conductivity of at least 10−1 S/cm, where parameters are specified at the gas stream temperature. The electronically conducting perovskite-based metal oxide has an empirical formula AxByO3-δ, where A is at least a first element at the A-site, B is at least a second element at the B-site, and where 0.8
US09019496B2

The invention relates to a method for estimating the amount of entities deposited on microparticles in suspension in a solution, and also to an associated device. The method comprises the following steps: (a) the solution is illuminated with a light source; (b) an optical signal formed by the scattering, in the solution, of the illuminating light is detected; (c) the optical signal obtained in step (b) is analyzed in order to obtain an indicator relating to this signal; (d) the indicator obtained in step (c) is compared with a reference indicator, obtained for a reference solution, the comparison making it possible to estimate the amount of entities deposited on the microparticles.
US09019491B2

The invention provides a new dual-sided Moiré wafer analysis system that integrates wafer flatness measurement capability with wafer surface defect detection capability. The invention may be, but is not necessarily, embodied in methods and systems for simultaneously applying phase shifting reflective Moiré wafer analysis to the front and back sides of a silicon wafer and comparing or combining the front and back side height maps. This allows wafer surface height for each side of the wafer, thickness variation map, surface nanotopography, shape, flatness, and edge map to be determined with a dual-sided fringe acquisition process. The invention also improves the dynamic range of wafer analysis to measure wafers with large bows and extends the measurement area closer to the wafer edge.
US09019486B2

A fiber end-surface inspection device and method illuminates the fiber end-surface from at least 2 different illumination angles, taking observations at the different angles, for detection of fiber end-surface imperfections, scratches or the like.
US09019481B2

An object of the present invention is to provide an optical remote airflow measurement apparatus with which even colored noise corresponding to an external environment of the apparatus can be reduced, thereby reducing measurement reliability deterioration and enabling long-distance measurement in a wide flying speed range. A colored noise reduction method according to the present invention includes: considering a signal strength of scattered light to be substantially non-existent in a remotest region and beyond; calculating a noise distribution by performing processing to average the signal strength in respective Doppler frequency components divided at intervals of a certain frequency in the remotest measurement region and beyond, and performing subtraction processing in each of the Doppler frequency components on all signal strength distributions of the measurement region, which are obtained by dividing the noise distribution at intervals of a certain distance.
US09019479B2

Disclosed is an imaging apparatus for generating data of a phase image based on an interference pattern acquired by a shearing interferometer, including: a differential phase data calculating unit that calculates first differential phase data expressing a change of a phase in a first direction and second differential phase data expressing a change of a phase in a second direction, based on interference pattern data generated by an electromagnetic wave transmitted through a subject; a second-order differential phase data calculating unit that calculates first second-order differential phase data by differentiating the first differential phase data in the first direction, and calculates second second-order differential phase data by differentiating the second differential phase data in the second direction; and a phase data calculating unit that calculates the phase image by solving a second-order differential equation including the first and second second-order differential phase data as functions.
US09019476B2

A lithographic apparatus arranged to transfer a pattern from a patterning device onto a substrate is disclosed, the apparatus including a substrate table constructed to hold a substrate, a first clamping system configured to clamp the substrate table to a substrate table support structure, and a second clamping system configured to clamp a substrate to the substrate table after the substrate table has been clamped to the substrate table support structure.
US09019472B2

An exposure apparatus is equipped with an encoder system which measures positional information of a wafer stage by irradiating a measurement beam using four heads installed on the wafer stage on a scale plate which covers the movement range of the wafer stage except for the area right under a projection optical system. Placement distances of the heads here are each set to be larger than width of the opening of the scale plates, respectively. This allows the positional information of the wafer stage to be measured, by switching and using the three heads facing the scale plate out of the four heads according to the position of the wafer stage.
US09019470B2

The invention relates to a lithographic apparatus including an illumination system configured to condition a radiation beam, a patterning device support constructed to support a patterning device, the patterning device being capable of imparting the radiation beam with a pattern in its cross-section to form a patterned radiation beam, a substrate support constructed to hold a substrate; a projection system configured to project the patterned radiation beam onto a target portion of the substrate, and an encoder-type measurement system configured to at least during projection of the patterned radiation beam onto a target portion of the substrate continuously determine a position quantity of a patterning device supported on the patterning device support using a grid or grating provided on the patterning device.
US09019468B2

An exemplary embodiment of the present invention provides an interference projection exposure system comprising a beam-providing subsystem and an objective lens subsystem that can provide a plurality of light beams which intersect and interfere at an image plane to produce a high spatial frequency periodic optical-intensity distribution. The interference projection system can further comprise a pattern mask that can alter the periodic optical-intensity distribution so as to incorporate functional elements within the periodic optical-intensity distribution. The beam providing subsystem can comprise a beam generating subsystem, a beam conditioning subsystem and a beam directing subsystem. Another exemplary embodiment of the present invention provides for a method of producing a high spatial frequency periodic optical-intensity distribution using a interference projection exposure system.
US09019466B2

A lithographic apparatus that includes a reflector configured to reflect a cleaning beam of radiation projected through a projection system onto an underside of a liquid retrieval system. The construction of the reflector is also described as is a method for irradiating the underside of a liquid supply system for use in cleaning.
US09019458B2

A display device includes: a substrate, on which pixel areas arranged substantially in a matrix form having pixel rows and pixel columns are defined; a thin film transistor disposed on the substrate; a pixel electrode disposed in the pixel areas and connected to the thin film transistor; common electrodes disposed on the pixel electrode and spaced apart from the pixel electrode, where a microcavity is defined between the pixel electrode and the common electrodes; a roof layer disposed on the common electrodes, where a liquid crystal injection hole is defined through the common electrodes and the roof layer and exposes the microcavity; a liquid crystal layer disposed in the microcavity; and an encapsulation layer disposed on the roof layer, where the encapsulation layer covers the liquid crystal injection hole and seals the microcavity, where the common electrodes in the pixel rows are connected to each other.
US09019446B2

A method for manufacturing a liquid crystal display device including first, second, and third pixels for displaying different colors comprises the steps of: forming a first electrode on a substrate; forming a liquid crystal layer including a cholesteric liquid crystal as a mixed material of a non-polymeric liquid crystal compound and a photosensitive chiral additive; irradiating a different intensity of light on the liquid crystal layer positioned on the first pixel, the liquid crystal layer positioned on the second pixel, and the liquid crystal layer positioned on the third pixel; and forming a second electrode facing the first electrode.
US09019443B2

A backlight unit adapted to prevent light leakage and damage of its internal components due to a thermal deformation is disclosed.The backlight unit includes: a bottom cover with an opened upper surface; a printed-circuit-board disposed on at least one inner side surface of the bottom cover; a plurality of LEDs loaded on the printed-circuit-board; and a plurality of slits formed on at least one edge of the bottom cover opposite to the printed-circuit-board and configured to reduce thermal deformation of the bottom cover.
US09019440B2

An object is to reduce the number of photomasks used for manufacturing a transistor and manufacturing a display device to less than the conventional one. The display device is manufactured through, in total, three photolithography steps including one photolithography step which serves as both a step of forming a gate electrode and a step of forming an island-like semiconductor layer, one photolithography step of forming a contact hole after a planarization insulating layer is formed, and one photolithography step which serves as both a step of forming a source electrode and a drain electrode and a step of forming a pixel electrode.
US09019432B2

After a television transmits an audio signal, which is generated by decoding an audio stream, to a mobile electronic device located within a detectable range of the television in a wireless manner, the mobile electronic device plays the audio signal received from the television for fulfilling surround sound performance.
US09019431B2

A portable video and imaging system includes a camera for capturing video of an event, and a video recording device for recording the captured video of the event. The camera is housed in a first housing, the recording device is housed in a second housing, and the first and second housings are physically separate. Various embodiments provide for the system to be mounted to a user's body, an article of clothing, such as a shirt or a hat, to a vehicle, or to an ancillary component carried by the user, such as a firearm.
US09019420B2

An image redirection system having a case that includes a body configured to removably attach to a mobile device, and an optical housing on the body, the optical housing configured to position one or more optical elements over the mobile device lens and flash unit when the case is attached to the mobile device. The optical housing is configured to enable one-handed operation such that a user can deploy and retract the optical housing with only one digit of a hand that holds the case and enable operation of the camera with another finger or thumb of the holding hand.
US09019417B2

An object is to provide an imaging system for taking an image of a subject with high reproducibility. It includes an imaging device for taking a picture in accordance with imaging conditions which are set values concerning imaging, a display device for displaying the image taken with the imaging device in accordance with display conditions which are set values concerning display, and an imaging condition decision unit for determining imaging conditions corresponding to the display conditions. When the display device alters the display conditions, the imaging condition decision unit determines the imaging conditions corresponding to the display conditions after the alteration, and the imaging device alters the imaging conditions stored in an imaging condition altering unit to the imaging conditions the imaging condition decision unit determines.
US09019416B2

The present invention provides a display device which has a display unit on a main body, comprising a cover member that can be deformed into a first shape for covering the display unit and a second shape for forming a grip in order to solve the problems in the conventional cameras. The problem is such that the size of the camera becomes large by the size of the grip, which impairs portability of the camera because the conventional camera provides a fixed grip on the camera body on which a display unit with a large screen is mounted. In addition, another conventional camera has a space for accommodating the cover members within the grip, so that the size of the grip becomes accordingly large and thus the camera itself becomes large.
US09019408B2

To provide a semiconductor device and a driving method of the same that is capable of enlarging a signal amplitude value as well as increasing a range in which a linear input/output relationship operates while preventing a signal writing-in time from becoming long. The semiconductor device having an amplifying transistor and a biasing transistor and the driving method thereof, wherein an electric discharging transistor is provided and pre-discharge is performed.
US09019407B2

An image processing apparatus comprises a first calculation unit which calculates information regarding a pixel whose pixel level is equal to or greater than a first threshold in an input image, and calculates a ratio of pixels whose signal levels are equal to or greater than a second threshold in pixel data of a detected person; a second calculation unit which calculates a control amount for a tone control based on information regarding the pixel whose pixel level is equal to or greater than the first threshold; a third calculation unit which calculates a correction amount for correcting the control amount in accordance with the ratio of pixels whose signal levels are equal to or greater than the second threshold; and a control unit which determines an input-output characteristic of an image, based on the control amount and correction amount.
US09019392B1

An image capture system including a statistics module. An image processing module is configured to receive image data corresponding to a plurality of pixels of a captured image, wherein the image data includes respective locations of each of the plurality of pixels, and implement an image processing pipeline configured to modified image data. The statistics module is configured to gather a plurality of sets of statistics using the image data and the modified image data, each of the sets of statistics corresponding to a different one of a plurality of zones within the captured image. To gather the statistics, the statistics module is further configured to determine, based on the respective location of a first pixel, a first zone of the plurality of zones that the first pixel is located in, and store data in a corresponding set of statistics for the first pixel based on the determined first zone.
US09019390B2

In one example, an actuator device useful in, e.g., a camera for, e.g., optical image stabilization (OIS), includes a stage resiliently supported for movement within a plane, three or more actuators, each coupled to an outer periphery of the stage and operable to apply a force acting in the plane and tangentially to the stage when actuated, and an outer frame surrounding and supporting the stage and the actuators.
US09019383B2

A device comprising a first shared image device that captures at least one image representation. The first shared image device receives a request to share the at least one image representation to an at least one other shared image device. The first shared image device and the at least one other shared image device are each capable of capturing image representations. The first shared image device transmits the at least one image representation.
US09019381B2

Video tracking systems and methods include a peripheral master tracking process integrated with one or more tunnel tracking processes. The video tracking systems and methods utilize video data to detect and/or track separately several stationary or moving objects in a manner of tunnel vision. The video tracking system includes a master peripheral tracker for monitoring a scene and detecting an object, and a first tunnel tracker initiated by the master peripheral tracker, wherein the first tunnel tracker is dedicated to track one detected object.
US09019368B2

Provided is a spatial phase shifting interferometer using a multi wavelength. More particularly, provided is a spatial phase shifting interferometer using a multi wavelength capable of more rapidly measuring a precise shape of a measurement object by simultaneously oscillating laser having different wavelengths and passing the oscillated laser through a beam splitter and a lens to analyze an interference fringe of the measurement object.
US09019365B2

The problem is solved by generating a gob image A by capturing, with a line scanning camera, an image of a falling gob that has been cut off at an orifice; generating an image B by binarizing the gob image A with a boundary value that turns a general part of the gob black and turns a peripheral lustrous portion and a defect of the gob white; generating an image C by binarizing the gob image A with a boundary value that turns the entire gob white and turns a background black and inverting the black and white; generating an image D by combining the image B and the image C together; setting a region located a given number of pixels inside an outer edge of the black area of the image D as an inspection region; and inspecting the inspection region of the gob image A to determine whether the gob is good.
US09019342B2

A wide-angle lens having a field angle larger than 180 degrees includes, in order from an object side to an image side, a front group, a reflection surface, and a back group, wherein the front group includes three lenses having a negative refractive power, the reflection surface is configured to curve an optical axis of the front group at 90 degrees toward the back group, the back group includes four lenses having a positive refractive power, a front principle point is set between a second lens and a third lens from the object side in the front group, and a focal length of an entire system f and a distance between an intersection of the reflection surface and the optical axis of the front group and the front principle point d satisfy the following condition (1) 7.0
US09019341B2

The present invention provides a method for obtaining a composite image, which performs a mathematically correct image-processing on images obtained by wide-angle lenses which are rotationally symmetrical with regard to an optical axis, to achieve a desirable projection system. The present invention also provides a variety of imaging systems using the method. Further, the present invention provides a CMOS image sensor which has an accurate arrangement of pixels to perform image processing using hardware without the need for image processing by software.
US09019340B2

Systems, apparatus, articles, and methods are described including operations for content aware selective adjusting of motion estimation.
US09019338B2

A federated media server system. The federated media server system may include a plurality of media servers. A first media server may be coupled to a second media server over a network. The first media server may also be coupled to a third media server over the network. Additionally, the second and third media servers may be coupled to a plurality of respective clients. The first media server may be configured to record video, e.g., videoconferences, and stream recordings to clients and/or the second and third media servers. The second and third media servers may assist in performing video recording, transcoding, storage of recordings, multicasting, etc.
US09019335B2

Controlling a bridge in a videoconferencing system through a remote endpoint. The endpoint may receive a generic menu-navigation user input command, such as a navigation command from a simple remote control device. The endpoint may then convert the user input into a bridge control command comprising at least one of a dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signal or a far-end camera control (FECC) signal. The use of DTMF and FECC signals is transparent to the user.
US09019333B2

An optical scanning apparatus includes a light source; and a rotational polygon mirror having N reflecting surfaces, the rotational polygon mirror being configured to reflect a light flux emitted from the light source so that a scanning surface is scanned along a main-scanning direction with reflected from the rotational polygon mirror. A width of the light flux incident on the rotational polygon mirror in a direction corresponding to the main-scanning direction is smaller than a width of each reflecting surface of the rotational polygon mirror in the direction corresponding to the main-scanning direction.
US09019332B2

A cover member to be attached to a housing including a bottom portion and a side wall, the cover member including: a closing surface configured to close an opening surrounded by the side wall; at least three protruding portions protruding from the closing surface so as to be located on an inside of the housing; and a protection portion configured to protect a circuit board fixed to the side wall, the protection portion having: a first opposed portion opposed to the circuit board and provided to stand on the closing surface; a second opposed portion opposed to the circuit board and protruding with respect to the first opposed portion away from the circuit board; and a connecting portion configured to connect the first opposed portion and the second opposed portion, wherein a length of the at least three protruding portions is larger than a length of the first opposed portion.
US09019327B2

A display device which effectively reduces the occurrences of a false contour is provided. A driver digitally drives each pixel by obtaining a plurality of bit data from pixel data for one pixel to assign the plurality of bit data to a corresponding subframe; configuring one frame with a predetermined number of unit frames; and supplying corresponding bit data in each unit frame to each pixel. Specifically, an analyzing circuit 5-5 predicts a probability of occurrence of a false contour in one screen of the video signal based on the presence or absence of a true contour. A display method based on the video signal is set in accordance with an analysis result.
US09019325B2

A liquid crystal display device includes: a liquid crystal display unit including pixels and displaying an image based on an input image signal; a drive unit that applies a voltage based on the input image signal to the pixels while inverting a polarity of the voltage for each of frames; a luminance determination unit that determines whether a detected average luminance has changed, between the frames, by an amount equal to or more than a reference luminance; and a signal generation unit that generates a phase inversion enabling signal for inverting a phase of the polarity of the voltage applied to the pixels, in a case where the luminance determination unit determines that the average luminance has changed by the above amount, wherein the drive unit inverts the phase of the polarity of the voltage applied to the pixels when the phase inversion enabling signal is generated.
US09019322B2

A display driver circuitry with permutation and superposition gray-level control comprises a gray-level controller. The controller may comprise a permutation and superposition adder configured to divide N-bit gray-level data G into M most significant bits, serving as a superposition reference GH, and (N−M) least significant bits, serving as a superposition increment GL, and to superpose superposition values Xi onto GH to derive pieces of scan data Gi for S scan operations; an overflow bit setting unit configured to set an overflow bit F; and an output unit configured to output the scan data Gi. A display driven this way has an improved refreshing frequency with the same gray-level reproduction ability as PWM-based schemes. Further, the duration of each scan operation, or scan period, is constant, resulting in convenience in software implementations. Furthermore, the pulse width representative of the gray-level value is determined by superposition of the scan operations.
US09019319B2

A display device for a vehicle includes: a self-luminous indicator which has a display screen with a plurality of pixels; a display control unit that displays image information indicating at least a given display pattern on a display screen of the self-luminous indicator; a display time measuring unit that measures a display time of the self-luminous indicator; and a brightness adjusting unit that adjusts the brightness of the display screen on the basis of at least the display time measured by the display time measuring unit in order to suppress non-uniform brightness deterioration of the display screen when the non-uniform brightness deterioration occurs on the display screen. The display control unit displays the image information on the display screen of the self-luminous indicator with the brightness adjusted by the brightness adjusting unit.
US09019317B2

A liquid crystal display includes a liquid crystal display panel including data lines and gate lines, a data driving circuit configured to drive the data lines, a gate driving circuit configured to drive the gate lines, a timing controller configured to divide a unit frame period into a first sub-frame period and a second sub-frame period, a backlight unit configured to provide light to the liquid crystal display panel wherein the backlight unit includes a plurality of light sources, and a light source driving circuit configured to turn off all the plurality of light sources during the first sub-frame period and turns on all the plurality of light sources at a turn-on time within the second sub-frame period.
US09019313B2

A display device includes a flexible display including a flexible display panel and a flexible touch panel, and a housing configured to enclose the flexible display while allowing the flexible display to move relative to the housing such that a portion of the flexible display is drawn out of the housing and retracted into the housing. The display device further includes a marker configured to contact a location of the flexible touch panel when a portion of the flexible display is drawn out of the housing. The marker is provided such that the contact location changes as the flexible display moves relative to the housing. The display device also includes at least one processor configured to compute the contact location on the flexible display and to adjust the size of an image displayed on the flexible display panel based on the computed contact location.
US09019307B1

A computer-based system and method that provides an automatic warning when a planned dose of radiation exceeds a predetermined safety limit. A tissue mass and surrounding healthy tissue is imaged to obtain imaged data. A dose volume histogram is generated that plots at least some of the imaged tissue versus proposed doses of radiation. The dose volume histogram presents a data curve when plotted. At least one dose tolerance limit is recalled from a reference database. The system computer analyzes the dose tolerance limits and compares this data to the data curve. The system computer determines if the data curve surpasses any selected dose tolerance limit at any point along the data curve.
US09019300B2

A framework for performing graphics animation and compositing operations has a layer tree for interfacing with the application and a render tree for interfacing with a render engine. Layers in the layer tree can be content, windows, views, video, images, text, media, or any other type of object for a user interface of an application. The application commits change to the state of the layers of the layer tree. The application does not need to include explicit code for animating the changes to the layers. Instead, an animation is determined for animating the change in state. In determining the animation, the framework can define a set of predetermined animations based on motion, visibility, and transition. The determined animation is explicitly applied to the affected layers in the render tree. A render engine renders from the render tree into a frame buffer for display on the computer system. Those portions of the render tree that have changed relative to prior versions can be tracked to improve resource management.
US09019299B2

A filtering method and apparatus for anti-aliasing takes advantage of improved existing hardware by using as input the data stored in the multisampling anti-aliasing (MSAA) buffers after rendering. The standard hardware box-filter is then replaced with a more intelligent resolve implemented using shader programs. Embodiments find scene edges using existing samples generated by Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) hardware. Using samples from a footprint larger than a single pixel, a gradient is calculated matching the direction of an edge. A non-linear filter over contributing samples in the direction of the gradient gives the final result.
US09019293B2

Disclosed herein is an image display device, including: a display block displaying thereon an image by using pixels disposed in a two dimensional matrix; and a gradation converting block executing gradation converting processing by using an error diffusion method, wherein the gradation converting block partitions an area in which the pixels are disposed into virtual partitions, and carries out the error diffusion when the gradation converting processing is executed with respect to the pixels within the virtual partition exclusively within the virtual partition, thereby carrying out gradation conversion for the image which is displayed on the display block.
US09019290B2

A detecting section which detects a carrier wave near the receiving section, a switching control section which controls a switching section so as to, when the detecting section detects the carrier wave, switch connecting destination of the first storage section into the receiving section, and when the detecting section does not detect the carrier wave, switch the connecting destination of the first storage section into the reading section, a second storage section which stores the data conversion information read by the reading section, and a display control section which converts the read display data using the data conversion information stored in the second storage section so as to display the information on the display section are provided.
US09019256B2

A shift register including a plurality of stages, each of them including a first node, a second node, and a third node being in a high-impedance state when the first node is in a high-impedance state. The shift register includes an input circuit unit inputting a driving voltage to the first node in response to an output signal of a previous stage, a driving circuit unit generating an output signal according to a voltage of the first node, and a holding unit holding the output signal at a level of a gate-off voltage according to a voltage of the second node in an inactive period of a current stage, in which the holding unit comprises a first diode which applies a clock signal to the second node.
US09019255B2

An organic light emitting display apparatus includes a polarizer film arranged on a substrate or an encapsulation substrate that faces an image realized by a display unit, wherein the polarizer film includes a plurality of regions having different light transmittances. By using the polarizer film, a luminance difference due to a voltage drop may be compensated for so that a uniform luminance may be obtained when the image is realized.
US09019252B2

A display device includes a display unit, a display control unit, and a control unit. The display unit includes a first and second glass plates, each formed with an electrode connected to a power supply and configured to transmit a light, and a light dispersing element sealed between the first and the second glass plates. The light dispersing element transmits the light when a voltage from the power supply is turned on, and disperses the light when the voltage is turned off. The display control unit controls a timing of turning the voltage on or off, or switching the voltage between positive and negative when the voltage is turned on. The control unit instructs the display control unit to set a display frame rate to a predetermined value during a standby mode, and set it higher than the predetermined value during an information display mode.
US09019247B2

One embodiment provides a method for modifying information stored in storage by modifying information on a hand writable physical medium with a digital pen, wherein the hand writable physical medium includes a predetermined field including one or more item field name and one or more first region for information entry associated with the one or more item field name. The information stored in the storage includes attribute values corresponding to each of the one or more item field name of the physical medium, and attribute values corresponding to information entered into each of the one or more first region. The method for modifying includes an apparatus communicable with the digital pen detecting that a modification symbol is added, by using the digital pen, to information which has been entered into any of the one or more first region in the predetermined field.
US09019244B2

An input tool includes a body in the form of a stylus with plurality of vibro-acoustically distinct regions. The vibro-acoustically distinct regions produce vibro-acoustic responses when the regions touch the surface of the touch screen. The vibro-acoustic responses are used in a computing device to detect what region of the input tool was used.
US09019233B2

A projected capacitive touch panel has a glass cover, a touch sensing circuit layer, an insulating ink Layer, a conductive wire layer, an insulator layer, a conductive glue layer and a flexible printed circuit (FPC) board. The touch sensing circuit layer, the insulating ink layer the conductive wire layer, the insulator layer and the conductive glue layer are mounted on a circuit surface of the glass cover in sequence. The insulating ink layer cover the touch sensing circuit layer and has multiple through slots. Each through slot is filled with an electric conductor. The FPC is fastened on the conductive wire layer by a conductive glue layer.
US09019227B2

An input apparatus of an information device is selectively locked by physically installing a selective lock key in the information device, executing an application program installed therein, and blocking, if the selective lock key is handled after the application program is executed, input through a system key of the information device while accepting input through an application button. With this method, for example, an unintended touch on a system key while using an information device can be prevented.
US09019212B2

A passive architecture for scanning a touch panel includes a master IC and at least one passive touch IC connected to the master IC. The master IC generates a command to configure the scan parameters of the at least one passive touch IC, and the at least one passive touch IC scans the touch panel with the scan parameters in response to the command.
US09019211B2

Methods and apparatus provide for a touch sensitive display, which may include: a display layer; a cover glass layer formed from ion exchanged glass; and an optional touch glass layer, where, either on a first side of the touch glass or on a first side of the cover glass, a grid of electrode traces is disposed, which is sensitive to distortions of a local electrostatic field caused by a touching event, and the grid may be positioned between the display layer and the cover glass layer.
US09019209B2

Touch location determination approaches involving a plurality of touch location techniques are described. Each touch location technique is capable of independently determining a location of a touch within a touch area of the touch sensitive device. The touch location determination made by at least one touch location technique is enhanced using touch location information associated with the touch acquired from one or more other touch location techniques. One touch location technique may use a different type of sensor, signal, and/or algorithm from the one or more other touch location techniques.
US09019207B1

An apparatus includes a keyboard and a trackpad, where a spacebar for the keyboard is integrated as a part of the trackpad.
US09019206B2

A user-interface for controlling a data processing system using a joystick includes a joystick for controlling input to the data processing system. The joystick has a pivoting component for assuming tilted positions by tilting in directions that lie in a reference plane associated with the component, and a sensor for sensing at succeeding sampling moments the direction corresponding to succeeding tilted positions of the component, and a difference determination device for determining a difference in direction between a first direction sensed at a first sampling moment and a second direction sensed at a second sampling moment after the first moment, and a parameter modifier for modifying a value of a parameter of the data processing system by adding or subtracting a difference value that depends upon the difference in direction.
US09019204B2

An electronic apparatus and a control method are provided that are capable of reducing power consumption. The electronic apparatus having a normal mode in which first electric power is consumed and a power-saving mode in which second electric power lower than the first electric power is consumed includes a first sensor and a second sensor whose power consumption is lower than that of the first sensor. In the power-saving mode, supply of power to the first sensor is restricted, the second sensor is set to the power-saving mode, a trigger for restoring the power-saving mode to the normal mode is detected by using the second sensor set to the power-saving mode, and the power-saving mode is restored to the normal mode based on the detected trigger.
US09019184B2

A liquid crystal display device includes a plurality of subpixels arranged in one column and n rows (where n is an even number ≧ four) within each pixel. In two of the pixels, which are adjacent to each other in the row direction, subpixels that represent the same color belong to the same row. If two of the pixels, which are adjacent to each other in the column direction, are called first and second pixels, respectively, a first half of the subpixels having a combination of first colors are located in odd-numbered rows in the first pixel and in even-numbered rows in the second pixel, while a second half of the subpixels having a combination of second colors, the second colors being different from the first colors, are located in even-numbered rows in the first pixel and in odd-numbered rows in the second pixel.
US09019175B2

An optical device for virtual image display with unequal focal length and high magnification, comprising an image display, an optically transparent material and a mirror; the optically transparent material being disposed at an oblique angle between the image display and the mirror, and, on the optically transparent material, the side opposite the image display being coated with a reverse anti-reflective film, the other side being coated with a polarizing film or successively with a polarizing film and a forward anti-reflective film; and the included angle between the mirror and the optically transparent material together with the deposition angle M of the reverse anti-reflective film being 90°. The present invention is an optical device structural design with a virtual image optical design including a birefringence function, providing a new design with innovative and improved optics. When magnifying a spatial and virtual image to an even greater extent, the image is larger and clearer, and the planarity of the image is greater, there is no distortion, and user requirements for a head mounted display in the HMD product market can be met.
US09019172B2

The image display apparatus includes an observation optical system including first and second optical elements which respectively introducing first and second light fluxes from first and second image-forming elements to first and second exit pupils, and a relay optical system. The relay optical system causes third and fourth light fluxes from the second and first image-forming elements to form intermediate images and introducing them to the first and second optical elements. The observation optical system displays images corresponding to the first and second original images in mutually different viewing angle areas by introducing the first and third light fluxes to the first exit pupil through the first optical element, and displays images corresponding to the second and first original images in mutually different viewing angle areas by introducing the second and fourth light fluxes to the second exit pupil through the second optical element.
US09019169B2

An antenna module includes a center base and several antennas disposed around the center base. The center base has several extension legs extending from the center base, and each antenna extends from an end of the corresponding extension leg opposite to the center base, so as to form the antenna module symmetrically arranged around the center base. The type of the antenna may be a single-frequency antenna and a dual-frequency antenna. The antenna module is an integral structure formed by directly bending a single metal plate, thus greatly reducing the volume and the manufacturing cost of the antenna module. Moreover, with the design of the center base and a symmetrical antenna group, the antenna module is capable of receiving and transmitting signals with two or more frequency bands, thus greatly increasing the application range of the antenna module.
US09019161B1

A low drag TCAS antenna includes a plurality of broadband antenna elements in a housing having at least three fins. L band radios in the aircraft may utilize the broadband antenna elements, thereby reducing power consumption, cost and aerodynamic inefficiency due to a plurality of antennas protruding from the aircraft.
US09019152B2

A standard wafer is provided including a substrate; a first layer of semiconductor material formed on the substrate; a bar formed over the first layer of semiconductor material with an interlayer interposed therebetween; and a first sidewall spacer and a second sidewall spacer formed on the opposite sides of the bar respectively, in which the bar and the first layer of semiconductor material are formed of a same semiconductor material, and the interlayer interposed between the first layer of semiconductor material and the bar is formed of a first oxide, and the first sidewall spacer and the second sidewall spacer are formed of a second oxide. A corresponding fabrication method of the standard wafer is also provided.
US09019145B1

A weather radar system is coupled to a weather radar antenna. The weather radar system includes a processor for combining or summing portions of the radar return data to obtain a null. The processor associates the null with the ground (e.g., steers the null toward ground or processes data so that the null corresponds to ground) to obtain a null to alleviate ground clutter when sensing weather. The null can be a single null or multiple nulls associated with different ranges.
US09019144B2

The present invention relates to a method for acquiring SAR images for interferometric processing. The method comprises acquiring, by one or more airborne SAR sensors, SAR images of one and the same area with an acquisition geometry such that to enable interferometric processing of said SAR images. The method is characterized by an acquisition geometry in which each SAR image of the area is acquired in a respective direction of acquisition that defines a respective squint angle with respect to the direction of flight, and in which the squint angles are such that to determine a mean squint angle different from zero.
US09019143B2

This invention relates to improved ultra-wideband synthetic aperture radar and inverse synthetic aperture radar, capable of simultaneously and independently imaging a plurality of spectral and polarimetric channels covering multiple radio frequency octaves. Advances in technologies relating to signal processing, graphical user interfaces, color representations of multi-spectral radar images, low aerodynamic drag polarimetric SAR antenna systems, and synthetic aperture radar aircraft platforms are some of the advancements disclosed herein.
US09019137B1

A charge canceling multiplying digital-to-analog converter (MDAC) is provided with a reference block having inputs to accept reference voltages each sample clock cycle. The MDAC includes a sampling block having inputs to accept differential analog input voltage signals each sample clock cycle. A differential amplifier has a negative input and positive input connected to the reference block and sampling block to receive differential amplifier input signals, and a positive output and a negative output to supply differential output voltage signals each amplify clock cycle. The sampling section includes a first pair of feedback capacitors connected between the differential amplifier negative input and positive output, and a second pair of feedback capacitors connected between the differential amplifier positive input and negative output each amplify clock cycle. A capacitor from the first pair of parallel feedback capacitors is swapped with a capacitor from the second pair prior to each sample clock cycle.
US09019131B2

Methods and apparatus for human body communication are provided. A communication signal for transmission through the human body is generated. The communication signal is transmitted when the terminal is in contact with the human body. The touch is detected, and a communication signal is determined based on a number of the touch and a duration of the touch. A function corresponding to the communication signal is executed.
US09019125B2

Disclosed are herein an apparatus of guiding safe driving at intersections and a method of guiding safe driving using the same. The driving guiding apparatus at intersections includes an intersection condition sensing unit installed at one side of a vehicle and sensing the current conditions around an intersection, an intersection pre-entry condition calculation unit installed at the other side of the vehicle and calculating in advance current condition data before the vehicle enters the intersection based on current condition data corresponding to the current conditions around the intersection sensed by the intersection condition sensing unit, and an intersection pre-entry vehicle speed indication unit installed at the other side of the vehicle and indicating a reference vehicle speed, corresponding to the current condition data calculated by the intersection pre-entry condition calculation unit, before the vehicle enters the intersection.
US09019124B2

A system and method is disclosed herein for monitoring and alerting on equipment errors. A server may receive data on a periodic basis. The data is indicative of operational states of at least one machine. The server may then analyze a quality issue associated with the received data over an alert period greater than one day, determine a type of the quality issue, and generate a warning message including an indication of the quality issue and the type of the quality issue.
US09019116B2

A signaling device includes an audio signaling unit for emitting an acoustic signal and a light signaling unit for emitting a visual signal. A base housing body is provided, upon which the signaling device is arranged on an accommodating body. An upper housing part is provided, arranged on the base housing body, for forming a receiving space. The base body of the light signaling unit is formed of a light-transparent signal cap, that includes a base area which is spanned by a connection frame. The light signaling unit further includes an electrical switching unit, which is disposed in the connection frame. The base housing body includes a side wall, and the signal cap is attached to the outer side of the side wall with the base area and is disposed on the base housing body.
US09019113B2

A circuit, a system and/or a method detect a passive electrical connection and/or an active electrical connection between an electrical device and a power supply. An integrity of the electrical connection between the electrical device and the power supply is monitored to determine if the electrical device may have access to power and/or to determine if the electrical device may be secure while on display. A high frequency AC signal is modulated onto a positive power rail between the electrical device and the power supply. Capacitance circuitry of the electrical device may remove the high frequency signal from the positive power rail. An absence of the high frequency signal on the positive power rail indicates that the electrical connection exists between the electrical device and the power supply. A presence of the high frequency signal on the positive power rail indicates that the electrical connection does not exist between the electrical device and the power supply.
US09019105B2

An animal emotion display system 100 including: a transmitter 10 which is attached to an animal; and a receiver 20 which is capable of communicating with the transmitter, wherein the transmitter 10 includes: a tail wagging detection sensor 12 to detect a plurality of kinds of tail wagging of the animal as a plurality of kinds of emotion of the animal, respectively; and a transmitting section 15 to transmit emotion data corresponding to the respective kinds of tail wagging detected by the tail wagging detection sensor 12 to the receiver 20, and the receiver 20 includes: a receiving section 22 to receive the emotion data transmitted by the transmitting section 15; a display section 25; and a display control section 24 to display a display content corresponding to the emotion data received by the receiving section 22 on the display section 25.
US09019099B2

A method of receiving data indicative of at least one physiological parameter of a patient, receiving image data of the patient, determining that a value of the at least one physiological parameters signifies an alarm condition in the patient, generating an alarm data set including image or audio data of the patient and the value of at least one physiological parameter, and transmitting a notification of the alarm condition including the alarm data set to a clinician.
US09019093B2

A device and a method are provided for outputting items of information regarding a vehicle, in particular regarding a vehicle function. In order to impart the driver an improved knowledge of the vehicle functions, a first storage device, with which the items of information can be retrievably stored, a first device, with which a workload of the driver can be determined, a second device with which an associated priority can be provided to each item of information, and an output device are provided. If the determined workload undershoots a predeterminable limit workload, the item of information with the highest priority is output via the output device. The second device is embodied and equipped in such a manner, that following outputting of an item of information through the output device, the priority of this item of information is reduced.
US09019082B2

A detacher for unlocking a security tag having a locking mechanism is provided. The detacher includes a detaching element in which the detaching element is configured to unlock the locking mechanism if the detaching element is activated. The detacher includes a reader in which the reader is configured to receive a user identifier associated with at least one user. The detacher includes a memory. The memory is configured to store at least one user rule. The detacher includes a processor in which the processor is configured to determine whether the received user identifier meets the at least one user rule. The processor is further configured activate the detaching element if the received user identifier meets the at least one user rule. The detaching element remains deactivated if the received user identifier does not meet the at least one user rule.
US09019079B2

Biological reagent carrier devices and methods are disclosed, which employ RFID techniques to associate information with biological reagents.
US09019071B1

A method and apparatus to integrate a plurality of sets of authorized credentials from a plurality of building tenants is disclosed, using networking techniques to allow partitioned access to common resources shared by those tenants.
US09019057B2

Disclosed herein are various embodiments of coil transducers and galvanic isolators configured to provide high voltage isolation and high voltage breakdown performance characteristics in small packages. A coil transducer is provided across which data or power signals may be transmitted and received by primary and secondary coils disposed on opposing sides thereof without high voltage breakdowns occurring therebetween. At least portions of the coil transducer are formed of an electrically insulating, non-metallic, non-semiconductor, low dielectric loss material. Circuits are disclosed herein that permit high speed data signals to be transmitted through the coil transducer and faithfully and accurately reconstructed on the opposing side thereof. The coil transducer may be formed in a small package using, by way of example, printed circuit board, CMOS and other fabrication and packaging processes.
US09019056B2

Disclosed are a coil component capable of securing insulation between primary and secondary coils while being miniaturized, a mounting structure thereof, and an electronic device having the same. The coil component includes a bobbin including a winding part around which coils are wound and first terminal fastening parts fastened to a plurality of first connection terminals; and a second terminal fastening part including terminal blocks protruded from the bobbin and a plurality of second connection terminals fastened to the terminal blocks, wherein the second terminal fastening part is mounted on a substrate while being spaced apart from the bobbin after the coils are wound therearound.
US09019046B2

An elastic wave filter includes electrode fingers, a first busbar and a second busbar, and inclined electrode portions each having a narrower distance between the electrode fingers from the first busbar toward the second busbar. The elastic wave filter includes a dummy electrode disposed in at least one of the input-side IDT electrode portion and the output-side IDT electrode portion to suppress reflection of a diffracted elastic wave by the busbar and to suppress spurious response at an end portion in a frequency pass-band. The dummy electrode has a width dimension and a pitch that are determined such that none of a period shorter than a shortest period of the electrode fingers and a period longer than a longest period of the electrode fingers is satisfied.
US09019044B2

An inductive filter for a magnetron power supply lead comprises an electrically insulating tube; a power lead located partially within the electrically insulating tube, and coaxial therewith, for supplying power from a magnetron power supply to a magnetron, a first core of a first magnetic material and a second core of a second magnetic material coaxially located on the electrically insulating tube; an insulating disc of same external diameter as the first core and the second core and coaxially located on the electrically insulating tube between the first core and the second core. The inductive filter is arranged to filter noise of a first frequency band and noise of a second, different, frequency band different from being transmitted along the power lead and to absorb a predetermined transient voltage from being transmitted along the power lead.
US09019035B2

The high-frequency wiring board of the present invention includes: first coplanar lines provided with a first signal line and a first planar ground pattern formed on the same wiring layer as the first signal line; second coplanar lines provided with a second signal line formed on a different wiring layer than the first signal line and a second planar ground pattern formed on the same wiring layer as the second signal line; and a first ground pattern formed on the same wiring layer as the first coplanar lines. The first coplanar lines and the second coplanar lines are connected. At least the first ground pattern and the first planar ground pattern are separated in a region following the second signal line from the connection of the first signal line and the second signal line.
US09019033B2

A contactless connector includes a waveguide structure having a waveguide body extending between a first end and a second end and a septum received in the waveguide body and extend at least partially along an interior of the waveguide body. The septum divides at least a portion of the waveguide body into a first chamber and a second chamber. The waveguide structure conveys RF signals between the first and second ends. The contactless connector includes a communication module having a circuit board positioned at the first end of the waveguide body with transmit and receive communication chips coupled to the circuit board. The waveguide guides the RF signals from and to the transmit and receive communication chips, and the septum isolates the RF signals associated with the communication chips.
US09019021B2

Embodiments provide a multi-phase voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) that produces a plurality of output signals having a common frequency and different phases. In one embodiment, the VCO may include a passive conductive structure having a first ring and a plurality of taps spaced around the first ring. The VCO may further include a capacitive load coupled to the passive conductive structure, one or more feedback structures coupled between a pair of opposing taps of the plurality of taps, and one or more current injection devices coupled between a pair of adjacent taps of the plurality of taps.
US09019016B2

There are provided an accumulator-type fractional N-PLL synthesizer for suppressing the fractional spurious caused by periodically switching a frequency division number of a fractional frequency divider, and a control method thereof. In an accumulator-type fractional N-PLL synthesizer (100), a pulse signal proportional to a fractional phase error occurring between a reference signal and an output signal of a fractional divider (112) for feeding back an output of a VCO (115) of an output stage to a preceding stage is generated using an error signal from an accumulator (120). Through the use of the pulse signal, pulse widths of a UP signal and a DN signal output from a phase detector (140) are controlled so as to reduce a fractional phase error occurring between the UP signal and the DN signal. Thus, the fractional spurious caused by periodically switching the frequency division number of the fractional divider (112) is suppressed.
US09019012B2

Methods and apparatus for Class-D amplifier circuits with D.C. offset control/correction. A Class-D amplifier is described having an output stage, such as a full H-bridge or half bridge, with a plurality of switches operable to provide a plurality of output states comprising at least a positive output state and a negative output state. Control circuitry is configured to receive a first signal based on the input signal and produce a digital control signal, which is used to determine the switch state of the output stage. A digital integrator is configured to receive a feedback signal indicative of the output state of the output stage and to sample the feedback signal at a sample rate and produce an integrated output signal (INT, IVC) indicating the difference in number of instances of the positive output state and the negative output state. Correction circuitry subtracts the integrated output signal from the input signal to produce a D.C. offset corrected signal.
US09019011B2

A method for power amplifier (PA) calibration for an envelope tracking system of a wireless device is disclosed. The method involves measuring an output power of a PA that is a part under test (PUT) at a predetermined input power. Another step includes calculating a gain equal to the output power of the PA divided by the predetermined input power. A next step involves calculating a gain correction by subtracting the calculated gain from a desired gain. Other steps include determining an expected supply voltage for the PA at the desired gain using the gain correction applied to a nominal curve of gain versus PA supply voltage, and then storing the expected supply voltage for the PA versus input power in memory.
US09019005B2

In various embodiments, a circuit is provided including a supply terminal, a logic circuit, an inverter and a control transistor which may include a body region, first and second source/drain regions, a gate insulating region having a layer thickness and a gate region. The first source/drain region may be coupled to the supply terminal. The logic circuit may have an internal supply terminal connected to the second source/drain region of the control transistor and a plurality of transistors each having a gate insulating region having a second layer thickness. The inverter input may be coupled to the internal supply terminal of the logic circuit and the output to the gate region of the control transistor. The inverter may include a transistor with a gate insulating region having a third layer thickness substantially equal to the first and second layer thicknesses.
US09019003B2

A voltage generation circuit includes an oscillator configured to output a first period signal and a second period signal in response to a detection signal; a period signal select unit configured to receive the first and second period signals and output one of the first and second period signals as an additional period signal in response to a control signal; and a charge pump unit configured to charge-pump an input voltage in response to the first period signal and the additional period signal and generate a power supply voltage.
US09019002B2

Various technologies described herein pertain to automatically adjusting the strength of a voltage booster of an image sensor. A self-scaled voltage booster includes a regulator, a controller, and two or more charge pumps that can be selectively enabled and disabled by the controller. The controller generates controller signals for the charge pumps based on a duty cycle of a regulator signal generated by the regulator. Moreover, the controller can maintain the controller signals without modification for at least a predetermined minimum period of time after a prior modification of at least one of the controller signals. Further, the controller can include a duty cycle and delay module (or a plurality of duty cycle and delay modules) that detects the duty cycle of the regulator signal and maintains the controller signals without modification for at least the predetermined minimum period of time.
US09019001B2

A DC-coupled two-stage gate driver circuit for driving a junction field effect transistor (JFET) is provided. The JFET can be a wide bandgap junction field effect transistor (JFET) such as a SiC JFET. The driver includes a first turn-on circuit, a second turn-on circuit and a pull-down circuit. The driver is configured to accept an input pulse-width modulation (PWM) control signal and generate an output driver signal for driving the gate of the JFET.
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