US09357682B2

An automated multi-fluid cooling method is provided for cooling an electronic component(s). The method includes obtaining a coolant loop, and providing a coolant tank, multiple valves, and a controller. The coolant loop is at least partially exposed to outdoor ambient air temperature(s) during normal operation, and the coolant tank includes first and second reservoirs containing first and second fluids, respectively. The first fluid freezes at a lower temperature than the second, the second fluid has superior cooling properties compared with the first, and the two fluids are soluble. The multiple valves are controllable to selectively couple the first or second fluid into the coolant in the coolant loop, wherein the coolant includes at least the second fluid. The controller automatically controls the valves to vary first fluid concentration level in the coolant loop based on historical, current, or anticipated outdoor air ambient temperature(s) for a time of year.
US09357680B2

An electronic device including a fan unit capable of setting an air blowing direction toward any of an interface plate side of a casing and a back plate side opposite to the interface plate; a power supply unit; a first housing portion capable of housing the power supply unit and provided within the casing to be close to the back plate; a second housing portion capable of housing the power supply unit and provided within the casing to be close to the interface plate; a detection portion that detects the air blowing direction of the fan unit and a position where the power supply unit is housed; and a warning portion that operates based on the detection portion to give a warning in a case where the air blowing direction of the fan unit is different from the side where the casing houses the power supply unit.
US09357679B2

Embodiments of the present invention disclose an electronic equipment cooling system including: a cabinet; at least one electronic equipment chassis that is installed inside the cabinet; and an auxiliary cooling device including an air pressurizing device, an air supply plenum box, and an air-guiding device. The air supply plenum box is disposed on an inner side of the cabinet. The air pressurizing device is disposed at the top or bottom of the cabinet, and an air exhaust on a sidewall of the air pressurizing device is connected to a corresponding air intake on a sidewall of the air supply plenum box. The air-guiding device is installed inside the electronic equipment chassis, an air intake of the air-guiding device is connected to an air exhaust of the air supply plenum device, and an air exhaust of the air-guiding device faces a component inside the electronic equipment chassis.
US09357678B2

A semiconductor module can be attached to a heat sink. The semiconductor module includes a case housing a component of the semiconductor module, and an elastic member having one end engaging with the case and an opposite end in abutting contact with the heat sink. The elastic member forms a gap between the case and the heat sink, and heat conductive grease is appliable to the gap to be interposed between the case and the heat sink.
US09357674B2

Cooling apparatuses, cooled electronic modules, and methods of fabrication are provided which facilitate heat transfer from an electronic component(s). The cooling apparatus includes a liquid-cooled heat sink with a thermally conductive structure having a coolant-carrying compartment including a region of reduced cross-sectional coolant flow area. The heat sink includes a coolant inlet and outlet in fluid communication with the compartment, and the region of reduced cross-sectional coolant flow area provides an increased effective heat transfer coefficient between a main heat transfer surface of the conductive structure and the coolant. The cooling apparatus further includes a coolant loop coupled to the coolant inlet and outlet to facilitate flow of coolant through the coolant-carrying compartment, and a coolant filter positioned to filter contaminants from the coolant passing through the heat sink. The coolant filter has a larger cross-sectional coolant flow area than the region of reduced cross-sectional coolant flow area.
US09357667B2

A battery mounting apparatus requiring a minimum of screw fixings includes an enclosure, two positioning members, and a supporting mechanism. The enclosure includes a rear wall defining two ventilation openings. A separated board is formed between the two ventilation openings. Each of the two positioning members includes a first latching portion and a first clipping thumb extending from the first latching portion. The first latching portion of each positioning member is engaged with a first edge of the two ventilation openings, in two opposite directions. The supporting mechanism securing a battery module is secured to the two positioning members, preventing the two positioning members from moving parallel to the rear wall, and the battery module is secured to the enclosure via the two latching members and by the supporting mechanism other than with screws.
US09357653B2

A nozzle holder 34 includes a nozzle base 51 whose both ends are supported, the nozzle base 51 inside which a vacuum path is formed, extending in a horizontal direction, a nozzle locking member 53 for communicating a nozzle 20a to the vacuum path (vacuum path 72 of the inside of the nozzle base) of the inside of the nozzle base 51, and a pair of fixing members 54 for fixing the nozzle locking member 53 to the nozzle base 51.
US09357650B2

An inductor is integrated into a multilevel wiring network of a semiconductor integrated circuit. The inductor includes a planar magnetic core and a conductive winding. The conductive winding turns around in generally spiral manner on the outside of the planar magnetic core. The conductive winding is piecewise constructed of wire segments and of VIAs. The wire segments pertain to at least two wiring planes and the VIAs are interconnecting the at least two wiring planes. Methods for such integration, and for fabricating laminated planar magnetic cores are also presented.
US09357643B2

A ceramic/copper circuit board of an embodiment includes a ceramic substrate and first and second copper plates bonded to surfaces of the ceramic substrate via bonding layers containing active metal elements. In cross sections of end portions of the first and second copper plates, a ratio (C/D) of an area C in relation to an area D is from 0.2 to 0.6. The area C is a cross section area of a portion protruded toward an outer side direction of the copper plate from a line AB, and the area D is a cross section area of a portion corresponding to a right-angled triangle whose hypotenuse is the line AB. R-shape sections are provided at edges of upper surfaces of the first and second copper plates, and lengths F of the R-shape sections are 100 μm or less.
US09357641B2

A molded package includes a molded resin and a lead. The molded resin has a recess portion provided on an upper surface of the molded resin to accommodate a light emitting component. The lead is partially exposed from a bottom surface of the recess portion of the molded resin to be electrically connected to the light emitting component and extends below a side wall of the recess portion. The lead has a groove formed on a surface of the lead at least partially along the side wall. The groove has an inside upper edge and an outside upper edge and is filled with the molded resin so that the inside upper edge is exposed from the bottom surface of the recess portion and the outside upper edge is embedded within the molded resin.
US09357634B2

An improved discrete electronic device and method of making the improved discrete electronic device is described. The discrete electronic device has an electronic passive component with a termination and a lead frame. A compensating compliant component is between the termination and the lead frame. The compensating compliant component has a composite core and a first conductor on the composite core. The first conductor is in electrical contact with the termination. A second conductor is also on the composite core wherein the second conductor is in electrical contact with the lead frame.
US09357629B2

A neutron generator includes a sealed envelope providing a low pressure environment for a gas. One end of the envelope defines an ion source chamber. A target electrode is disposed at the other end of the envelope. An extracting electrode is spaced apart from the target electrode by an accelerating gap. The extracting electrode bounds the ion source chamber. A dispenser cathode electrode and grid electrode are disposed in the ion source chamber for inducing ionization in the ion source chamber. The dispenser cathode electrode, the grid electrode and the extracting electrode operate at a positive high voltage potential and the target electrode operates at or near ground potential. This configuration provides an electric field gradient that accelerates ions towards the target electrode to induce collisions of ions with target material, thereby causing fusion reactions that generate neutrons. High voltage power supply circuit means supplies a positive high voltage signal to the electrodes of the ion source. The positive high voltage signal has a low voltage signal component floating on a positive high voltage signal component. For the dispensing cathode electrode, the low voltage signal component can be a DC or AC signal suitable for emitting electrons from the dispensing cathode electrode. For the grid electrode, the low voltage signal component can be a positive pulsed-mode signal (preferably with magnitude in the range between 100 to 300 volts). High voltage insulation surrounds and electrically insulates the high voltage power supply circuit means. Other ion source electrode configurations, such as cold cathode (Penning) ion source and RF-driven ion source, can also be used.
US09357627B2

Invention provides extending the functional possibilities of a light source with laser pumping due to increasing its spatial and energy stability brightness and the reliability under long-term operation whilst ensuring compactness of the device. The result is achieved due to the fact that a focused laser beam is directed into a region of radiating plasma from the bottom upwards: from the lower wall of a chamber to an upper wall of the chamber which is opposite said lower wall, and the region of radiating plasma is arranged close to the upper wall of the chamber. In embodiments of the invention, the focused laser beam is directed along a vertical axis of symmetry of the walls of the chamber, the region of radiating plasma is produced at an optimally small distance away from the upper wall of the chamber and determined radiation power is maintained via an automated control system.
US09357624B1

Methods and apparatus for static charge neutralization in variable pressure environments are disclosed. In particular, barrier discharge ionization apparatus may include a hollow dielectric channel disposed within a variable pressure environment and may have at least one open end, a reference emitter disposed on the outer surface of the channel, and a high voltage electrode disposed within the channel. The high voltage electrode may present a high intensity electric field to the reference emitter through the dielectric channel in response to the provision of a variable-waveform signal dictated by conditions in the variable pressure environment. This results in the generation of a plasma region with electrically balanced charge carriers within the variable pressure environment due to barrier discharge occurring at the interface of the reference emitter and the outer surface of the dielectric channel. The disclosed apparatus are compatible with either radio frequency or micro-pulse voltage power supplies.
US09357620B2

System and method are provided where an occupancy sensor with a time delay function designed to dim the lights, for example as a warning, after a first period of time has expired without detecting room occupancy. The lights remain dimmed for a second period of time, and then are turned off after a third period of time has expired without detecting room occupancy. If occupancy is detected during the first period of time, the lights will remain on. If occupancy is detected during the second or third period of time, the lights will be turned on to, for example, previous brightness. A night light can be added to, and/or incorporated in, an occupancy sensor which includes the dimmer feature.
US09357608B2

The present invention relates to a luminaire based on the same optical principle as the cinema, in which only one image is presented at any given instant of time but the image appears to be in constant movement. According to the invention, each LED lights up simultaneously for an instant of time in a sequential manner, as with television screens. The LED luminaire of the invention includes a configuration of electronic elements in a circuit which controls the lighting of the LED array and which also includes a PIC microcontroller, a CMOS multiplexer and an operational amplifier that can be used to improve the power consumption of the luminaire, lighting control and the lighting quality of the LED luminaire.
US09357605B2

Disclosed herein are a light emitting diode (LED) driving apparatus and driving method for continuously driving an LED. According to the present invention, an LED driving apparatus and driving method for continuously driving an LED capable of compensating for a light output of an LED lighting using an energy chargeable and dischargeable element and/or circuit are proposed.
US09357593B2

A light-emitting device includes a substrate including electrodes, a first group including a plurality of blue light-emitting diode elements that are disposed on the substrate and electrically connected to the electrodes, a second group including a plurality of blue light-emitting diode elements that are disposed on the substrate and electrically connected to the electrodes, a fluorescent layer disposed to receive light from the first group of blue light-emitting diode elements, and a phosphorescent layer disposed to receive light from the second group of blue light-emitting diode elements.
US09357586B2

In a communication network (400), wireless access points (300) utilize one or more agents (302, 306) to support the operating needs of corresponding mobile stations. Pursuant to one approach, the agent supports translation of the mobile station's end-to-end protocol-based messages to Internet Protocol-based messages that are readily ported through an Internet Protocol-friendly communication system infrastructure that preferably eschews the use of network elements that rely upon unique and/or proprietary non-Internet Protocol interfaces. Pursuant to another approach the wireless access point is able to interact on a peer-to-peer basis with other wireless access points in order to facilitate, for example, handovers and other mobility management tasks.
US09357580B2

A method for switching communication connection modes, a communication system, a base station, a transmitter and a receiver are provided. The method includes the following steps. Firstly, when a base station or a core network entity determines that a communication mode between a transmitter and a receiver should be switched from a cellular communication mode to a device-to-device communication mode, the base station sends a control message to the transmitter. Next, the transmitter stops transmitting at least one first packet to the base station in response to the control message. Afterwards, the receiver receives at least one transmission-unfinished packet and a transmission-unfinished packet status related to the at least one transmission-unfinished packet forwarded by the base station.
US09357578B2

Methods, systems, and devices are described for recovery from a connection disruption of a user equipment (UE) operating in a multi-carrier mode. The UE may establish a first connection with a primary cell and a second connection with a secondary cell while operating in the multi-carrier mode. A determination may be made that a disruption in the connection with the primary cell has occurred, and the UE may perform a connection reestablishment procedure to attempt to reestablish communications. The connection reestablishment routine may prioritize the secondary cell ahead of one or more other cells for attempting to reestablish communications. The prioritization may be based at least in part on the establishment of the second connection in the multi-carrier mode.
US09357567B2

The method for sharing data over wireless adhoc network using mobile devices comprises a step of determining a user required data on a handheld device. The method further comprises broadcasting the user required data within the wireless adhoc network. Further, the method includes detecting a plurality of devices comprising the user required data. The method also comprises establishing a communication channel, in a proximity environment between the plurality of devices and the handheld device. The method further comprises sharing of the user required data automatically between the plurality of devices and the handheld device.
US09357562B2

A contention based resource configuration method is disclosed. The method includes: configuring, by a network device, a contention based resource parameter, wherein the contention based resource parameter comprises one or any combination of the following: a period and/or a frequency of a contention based resource block, the number of contention based resource blocks allocated once, a size of the contention based resource block, a modulation and coding scheme, and expected reception power; and notifying, by the network device, a user equipment of the contention based resource parameter. Through the technical solutions provided by the embodiments of the present invention, a network side may allocate a contention based resource more properly, and the user equipment may know the contention based resource parameter and use the contention based resource more properly and flexibly.
US09357560B2

A method and apparatus for updating a tracking area for a device-to-device (D2D) connection in a wireless communication system is provided. A second mobile device receives a tracking area update (TAU) request message from a first mobile device which has a D2D connection with the second mobile device, and transmits a TAU message to a network.
US09357551B2

Systems and methods for simultaneous sampling of serial digital data streams from multiple analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), including in distributed antenna systems, are disclosed. In one embodiment, a controller unit samples a plurality of serial digital data streams simultaneously. To allow the controller unit to sample the multiple serial digital data streams simultaneously from a plurality of ADCs, the controller unit is configured to provide a plurality of data input ports. Each of the ADCs is coupled to a common chip select port and clock signal port on the controller unit. The controller unit communicates a chip select signal on the chip select port to activate all of the ADCs simultaneously to cause each of the ADCs to provide its respective digital data stream to the respective data input port of the controller unit simultaneously for sampling. As a result, fewer or lower-cost components may be used to sample multiple ADCs.
US09357549B2

A method of transmitting a sounding reference signal (SRS) by a user equipment in a wireless communication system, a non-transitory computer readable medium on which a program for executing the method is recorded, and a user equipment for performing the method are discussed. The method according to one embodiment includes receiving a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) including a carrier indicator field (CIF) and an SRS field via a first component carrier (CC) among a plurality of CCs including the first CC and one or more second CCs, the CIF indicating a specific CC and the SRS field indicating whether the user equipment has to transmit the SRS; transmitting the SRS on an uplink subframe; and receiving a first medium access control (MAC) information. If a bit for the specific CC in a bitmap has been disabled, the specific CC and SRS transmission on the specific CC are deactivated.
US09357543B2

Provided is a method for receiving downlink data in a wireless communication system. User equipment (UE) receives downlink control information in a first subframe from a primary cell. The user equipment receives downlink data from a secondary cell in a second subframe over a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH). The user equipment determines a transmission block size in accordance with the type of the carrier of the second subframe. The user equipment decodes the PDSCH on the basis of the downlink control information and the transmission block size.
US09357537B2

Provided are a method and apparatus for transmitting uplink data. The method for transmitting data in a uplink subframe comprises the steps of: determining whether or not a hybrid automatic retransmission request-acknowledgement (HARQ-ACK) and uplink control information (UCI) are being simultaneously transmitted in the uplink subframe; selecting either the HARQ-ACK or UCI on the basis of the HARQ-ACK state for HARQ-ACK upon the occurrence of simultaneous transmission; and transmitting the selected HARQ-ACK or UCI in the uplink subframe.
US09357531B2

A mobile station UE according to the present invention includes a controller unit 22. When “1” is set in “R” in the “Activation/Deactivation MAC Control Element”, the controller unit 22 activates only an uplink in a Scell corresponding to “Ci” set to “1”, and deactivates only the uplink in a Scell corresponding to “Ci” set to “0”.
US09357522B2

Upon detecting at a two-way communication device that a communication link has been terminated, the two-way communication device can provide a unique corresponding signal (such as a unique audible signal) to indicate such termination. Pursuant to one approach, a plurality of such unique signals are available and a specific one of the available signals is selected for use in a given circumstance using a selection criteria of choice.
US09357516B2

Networks, network devices and methods of synchronization using transfer of synchronization packets are provided. Some network devices are configured to use either a timing reference extracted based on GPS signals or an imported timing reference, as an operative time reference. A network device from which to import the time reference is selected and may be updated to meet a selection rule related to the quality of receiving the transfer of synchronization packets.
US09357512B2

A mobile communication method according to the present invention includes a step of transmitting, by the mobile station UE#1, a data signal to the mobile station UE#2 via a third radio link; a step of transmitting, by the mobile station UE#2, “Timing information” indicating the time, for which the reception timing of the data signal has been deviated from a desired timing, to the radio base station eNB via a second radio link when it is detected that the reception timing of the data signal has been deviated from the desired timing by a predetermined time or more; and a step of transmitting, by the radio base station eNB, a “Ud TA command” for adjusting the transmission timing of a data signal in the third radio link to the mobile station UE via the first radio link on the basis of the received “Timing information”.
US09357496B2

Systems and methods are described relating to accepting a mobile device location query using digital signal processing and presenting an indication of location of the mobile device at least partially based on receiving the location query. Additionally, systems and methods are described relating to means for accepting a mobile device location query using digital signal processing and means for presenting an indication of location of the mobile device at least partially based on receiving the location query.
US09357493B1

A system including an active stylus and a mobile computing device where an electronic signal emitted by the tip of the stylus that the mobile computing device uses to locate the tip is turned on and off when the stylus is not being used to save power. Whether the stylus is being used is determined based on an orientation of the stylus in comparison to an orientation of an electronic writing surface of the computing device. Difference in barometric air pressure or altitude between the stylus and mobile computing device may also be used to turn the tip signal on and off.
US09357489B2

A method for a power save mode operation in a wireless local area network (WLAN) system is provided. The method includes transmitting, by an access point (AP), a traffic indication map (TIM) element that announces existence of buffered traffic, wherein the TIM element includes an association ID (AID) assigned to a buffered STA having the buffered traffic when the buffered station (STA) is associated with the AP; receiving, by the AP, a poll frame for requesting data frame transmission from a candidate STA, wherein the poll frame contains an AID of the candidate STA and a medium access control (MAC) address which is a unique identifying information of the candidate STA; and determining, by the AP, whether the candidate STA is the buffered STA on the basis of the AID and the MAC address of the candidate STA.
US09357488B2

Access terminals are adapted to facilitate reacquisition procedures for a slotted idle mode. According to one example, an access terminal can operate in a slotted idle mode. The access terminal can then determine one or more optimized parameters for reacquisition procedures. In one example, the access terminal can determine an optimized length of time for reacquisition periods by incrementally reducing the length of time for reacquisition periods until an optimized length of time is obtained. In another example, the access terminal can determine an optimized number of pseudorandom noise (PN) signals and PN positions to be stored during each awake state of the slotted idle mode by incrementally reducing the number of PN signals and PN positions that are stored until an optimized number of stored PN signals and PN positions is obtained. Other aspects, embodiments, and features are also included.
US09357486B2

A method of verifying availability of a mobile subscriber station that is in an idle-mode includes requesting to a base station by the mobile subscriber station to enter an idle-mode, wherein the base station is associated with a paging group comprising a plurality of base stations, and receiving from the base station an idle-mode response command to enter the idle-mode. The method also includes receiving from the base station a paging command comprising an action code associated with performing ranging while the mobile subscriber station is in the idle-mode to verify availability of the mobile subscriber station with respect to the base station, wherein if the ranging is not successfully performed with the base station during a predetermined period, the base station continues to transmit the paging command until a paging retrial count reaches a predetermined threshold.
US09357481B2

In a wireless transmission device provided with an adaptive modulation circuit and a control method for the adaptive modulation circuit, an Ethernet signal received from a wired transmission path is transmitted to an opposite station one-to-one via a wireless transmission path and the Ethernet signal in the opposite station is again output to the wired transmission path. A traffic-statistics circuit which accumulates a traffic volume of a time zone-specific Ethernet signal as statistical data is provided. A wireless transmission capacity can be reduced by decreasing a multi-level number of a modulation scheme in a time zone in which the traffic volume is small based on the accumulated statistical data.
US09357472B2

A method of routing data in a wireless sensor network, a program product and a wireless sensor network. The method, includes: (a) detecting a temporal event by a source sensor node of a wireless sensor network comprising a multiplicity of sensor nodes; (b) identifying multiple paths from the source sensor node to a sink of the wireless sensor network, the multiple paths consisting of sensor node to sensor node hops; and after (b), (c) using a processor of the source sensor node, optimizing a distribution of data packets to each path of the multiple paths by simultaneously reducing (i) power consumed by sensor nodes in each path of the multiple paths and (ii) a time to transmit the data packets from the source sensor node to the sink.
US09357461B2

In an aspect, a method of communication performed by a user equipment (UE) camping on a long term evolution (LTE) cell in a wireless communication system is provided. The method include: receiving a Circuit Switched fallback (CSFB) control message from a network, the CSFB control message comprising prioritization information for CS service; determining whether the CS service is triggered; if it is determined that the CS service is triggered, applying a priority to frequencies of at least one cell in accordance with the priority information; performing a mobility procedure based on the applied priority; performing a Radio Resource Control (RRC) connection establishment procedure with a selected inter-RAT cell; and initiating the CS service.
US09357458B2

The present disclosure discloses a distributed method and network device for providing client optimization in WLANs. Specifically, a first access point detects a plurality of client devices. The first access point also receives information identifying a first set of client devices associated with the second access point. Then first access point then identifies a subset of the detected plurality of client devices that are also identified in the first set of client devices associated with the second access point. Finally, the first access point transmits to the second access point characteristics corresponding to the subset of the plurality of client devices. The characteristics are determined based on wireless signals received by the first access point from the subset of the plurality of client devices.
US09357457B1

A wireless device for wireless communication in a wireless area network. The wireless device includes a main radio channel for exchanging data with an access point in the wireless area network, as well as an auxiliary radio channel for scanning for availability of other access points in the wireless area network.
US09357452B2

A telecommunications node (e.g., base station subsystem) and method are described herein that broadcasts a set of system information messages (e.g., SI2quater messages or pairs of SI2ter messages and SI2quater messages) for use by a legacy mobile station which enhances the overall probability (over time) that the legacy mobile station (non-supporting mobile station) in a network sharing scenario will find frequency, cell information or a combination of both within the broadcasted system information messages to be used for the legacy mobile station's cell reselection process to provide continuity with the legacy mobile station's registered PLMN (i.e. the Common PLMN of a shared radio access network). In addition, the telecommunications node (e.g., base station subsystem) and method can also broadcast a different type of system information message for used by a supporting mobile station.
US09357451B2

Methods, device and apparatus for use in a cellular network are disclosed. An example method disclosed herein comprises: receiving, via the cellular network, a bias parameter of a neighbor cell; and determining based on the bias parameter whether or not to perform at least one mobility measurement.
US09357443B2

A method, an apparatus, and a system for solving and managing security problems, which may occur during a handover of a User Equipment (UE) between PLMNs in a mobile communication network, by using a Non-Access Stratum (NAS) protocol are provided. By the method, a UE can perform a security mode command and an authentication with a network. Further, the method can prevent interruption of communication due to authentication or security during a handover of a UE between Public Land Mobile Networks (PLMNs).
US09357442B2

A communication apparatus is provided. The communication apparatus includes a first antenna configured to transmit and receive at least one of a signal of a first communication network and a signal of a second communication network, a second antenna configured to receive one of the signal of the first communication network and the signal of the second communication network, a first diplexer connected to the first antenna to separate the signal that is received through the first antenna into a high-band signal and a low-band signal based on a specific frequency and to output the separated signals, and a signal control unit configured to change communication paths of the high-band signal, the low-band signal, and the signal that is received through the second antenna according to a combination of frequency bands supported in a network.
US09357440B2

Methods and apparatuses are provided that include mitigating interference for devices communicating with femto nodes or other low power base stations by assigning protected resources for communicating therewith. The protected resources can be negotiated with a macrocell base station using interference cancellation. The protected resources can be assigned based on an early or late handover event, which can indicate that the device may be susceptible to interference from the macrocell base station.
US09357438B2

A method of handling simultaneous communications in a communication system comprises a user equipment (UE), a first base station and the second base station, where the UE has been connected to the first base station. The method comprises the first base station determining to allocate a cell of the second base station to the UE; the first base station transmitting a cell addition request message to the second base station in response to the determination, for requesting the second base station to allocate radio resources of the cell of the second base station to communicate with UE; and the first base station transmitting a first radio resource control (RRC) message to the UE, wherein the first RRC message comprises information related to the security key and information related to the security algorithm.
US09357431B2

In a first embodiment, an access network detects whether QoS links for both IMS and non-IMS sessions are allocated to a client device, whereby the non-IMS session is recognized as being associated with a particular application type. An SRVCC feature for the IMS session is disabled if the QoS link for the non-IMS session exists and carries at least a threshold level of traffic. In a second embodiment, a non-IMS session is supported by a first network with QoS and is then handed off to a second network. After the handoff, the second network supports the non-IMS session with an application-specific QoS configuration based on application-identifying information provided from the first network. In a third embodiment, a single or dual-transceiver client device is engaged in a non-IMS session with QoS. A page originating from a CS network is ignored if a do-not-disturb feature is activated for the non-IMS session.
US09357429B1

A method, system, and medium are provided for estimating user throughput as a function of network load. The function that governs a relationship between user throughput and network load is derived after simulating network traffic during busy hours on a wireless network. The simulated traffic is shaped to be similar to packet traffic received on the network. In turn, the simulated traffic is assigned to one or more carriers that are configured to resemble the network carriers. Upon processing the simulated traffic, user throughput is calculated and a function is derived from the network load during the busy hour and the calculated user throughput. The derived function is employed to predict the load at which user throughput falls below acceptable levels.
US09357422B2

A method for transmitting and receiving a signal to and from a network at a User Equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system is disclosed. The method includes receiving measurement configuration information from the network, storing data unit retransmission information related to a data unit based on the measurement configuration information, if a predetermined condition is satisfied, receiving a request message requesting a measurement result from the network, and transmitting the data unit retransmission information to the network in response to the request message.
US09357421B2

A method of power headroom reporting (PHR) is proposed. A UE is configured with a plurality of component carriers (CCs) and is served by one or more power amplifiers (PAs) in a wireless system with carrier aggregation. The UE determines transmit power limitation (TPL) information that comprises a set of TPL values, each TPL value corresponds to a UE-configured maximum transmit power for UE-level, PA-level, and CC-level. The TPL information is then reduced to non-redundant TPL values. Based on the non-redundant TPL values, the UE determines power headroom (PH) information that comprises a set of PH values. Each PH value equals to a TPL value subtracted by a UE-calculated transmit power. The UE reports the PH information to a base station via a fixed-length or variable-length MAC CE at each PHR reporting instance.
US09357416B2

A method, an apparatus, and a computer program product for wireless communication are provided in which channel quality indicator (CQI) requirements for reporting a CQI are received, whether the CQI is to be reported periodically is determined based on the CQI requirements, and a wake-up time based on the determination is scheduled. CQI reporting requirements, such as CQI scheduling information may be used to plan a UE discontinuous reception (DRX) wake-up time and adaptively shorten a duration the UE is awake when transmission of a CQI report is not required at a first subframe of a DRX on-duration. The shorter UE awake duration results in reduced power consumption.
US09357410B2

Techniques are presented herein for enabling performance monitoring of flows within a management and provisioning tunnel used for communicating packets between a wireless controller and wireless access point devices. A wireless controller that is configured to communicate with at least one wireless access point obtains a packet to be sent to the wireless access point for wireless transmission in a wireless network by the wireless access point. The wireless controller identifies, based on the packet, traffic session flow information associated with the packet. The wireless controller encapsulates the packet with a tunneling header that comprises the traffic session flow information and sends the encapsulated packet to the wireless access point. The tunneling header may also comprise an application identifier (ID) associated with the packet.
US09357409B2

A wireless network emulation system undersamples log files when the conditions represented in the log files would require a faster refresh rate than the channel emulator can provide. A representative sample may be selected based on number of channel taps, delay spread, maximum value, or being first, last or otherwise identifiable within a group. The RF information from the selected sample is utilized as being representative of a group of related samples for a given time period corresponding to the refresh rate of the channel emulator.
US09357408B2

A switch-extender is connected to a measurement system and to several DUTs. It splits a signal from the measurement system into several signals so that the several DUTs receive the same signal and can therefore be tested in parallel. The switch-extender further includes at least one amplifier and/or at least one attenuator for every output port so that every signal has the same signal level no matter what the individual attenuation factor of the signal connectors or of the internal printed circuit board is. Furthermore a method for calibrating the measurement system as well as for the switch-extender and the signal connectors describes how to obtain the needed calibration values both for the downlink path and for the uplink path without changing the signal connector.
US09357406B2

Provided are a mode conversion method for client cooperation in a wireless communication system and a device thereof. A first device converts a second system repetitively into an active mode which can receive a signal and a non-active mode which cannot receive the signal based on mode conversion information, and detects at least one second device based on the second system in the active mode. The first device is connected to the base station through the second system and another first system.
US09357402B2

Techniques for guard band usage for wireless data transmission are described. In at least some embodiments, white spaces in the radio spectrum (e.g., television (TV) white spaces) and guard bands between licensed bands of the radio spectrum are leveraged for data transmission. Based on available white spaces and service deployment in the licensed bands, various decisions can be made regarding how to leverage white spaces and guard bands for wireless data transmission.
US09357399B2

A mobile system and a base station system for effectively using a licensed spectrum and a shared spectrum are provided. The mobile system includes: an initialization unit to initialize transmitting and receiving of data using at least one of the licensed spectrum and the shared spectrum; a sensing unit to sense a spectrum for transmitting and receiving of the data via the at least one spectrum; and a transceiver to transmit and receive the data via the sensed spectrum.
US09357396B2

A terminal device including an operation unit configured to receive an operation instruction performed by an external object; an operation disabling controller which performs control such that when the terminal device is in a disabled state, the operation instruction performed on the operation unit is ignored or the disabled state is cancelled; an operation detector which outputs, when a touch operation by the external object is detected, content of the touch operation as the operation instruction; an operation speed determination unit which determines whether a movement speed of the touch operation is higher than a predetermined threshold; and an operation controller which instructs the operation disabling controller to cancel the disabled state and control execution of a predetermined function when it is determined that the touch operation is an operation instruction to cancel the disabled state and in accordance with the movement speed of the touch operation.
US09357384B2

A system and method to support identity theft protection and, in particular, to a system and method for supporting identity theft protection as part of a distributed service oriented ecosystem in Internet protocol (IP) multimedia subsystem (IMS) and non-IMS networks. The system includes an identity session initiation protocol (SIP) application server configured to act as a security assertion markup language (SAML) bridge, which allows an SIP enabled device or a non-SIP enabled device to attach to a telecommunications service provider network. A user may accept or reject an authorization request using the SIP enabled device or non-SIP enabled device.
US09357383B2

A mobile station having a plurality of removable user identification modules, each configured to store a corresponding information associated with a corresponding plurality of user identifications; and key generation logic, configured generate a hash key based on the corresponding information according to the plurality of removable user identification modules; and hash logic, configured to employ the single hash key to determine a plurality of parameters, where each of the parameters comprises a single control channel that is common for all of the corresponding plurality of cellular subscriptions, and where the single control channel is employed for concurrent communications with a base station for the all of the corresponding plurality of cellular subscriptions.
US09357374B2

A communication network includes at least one mobile terminal and a plurality of home agents to supply communication services to the mobile terminal. In the network, an authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) platform is configured for reallocating the supply of the communication services to the mobile terminal from a first home agent to a second home agent of the plurality.
US09357372B1

A method, non-transitory computer readable medium and device that determines a provider of wireless communication services includes receiving a request for wireless communication services from a computerized mobile device of a roaming user. A type of request for wireless communication services is identified. A mobile network operator is determined according to type of requested wireless communication service, location of the user, time, and availability of the requested wireless communication service. The mobile network operator is at least one of Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) or local network operator. Active elements in the determined mobile network operator are calculated. A check is made of which network elements in a home network of the user should be addressed. The home network of the user is a network of a provider of a wireless communication service where the user is registered.
US09357367B2

A portable battery-powered communications device is configured to operate in a bidirectional communications mode in which voice and/or data is communicated in a bidirectional manner using a bi-directional communications protocol; and to operate in an emergency beacon mode. When the device is in the emergency beacon mode the device is configured periodically to transmit an emergency positioning message at maximum power using the bi-directional communications protocol, transmission of the emergency positioning message defining a beacon transmit period; optionally, to listen for transmissions using the bi-directional communications protocol in a beacon response period immediately following the beacon transmit period; and to refrain from powering transmit and receive circuitry of the device other than during the beacon transmit period and the beacon response period.
US09357361B2

A vehicle safety function is installed and operative in the vehicle electronics. The vehicle function is implemented via a texting-safety logic inside the vehicle electronics. The texting-safety logic when the vehicle exceeds a threshold speed outputs an RF signal with a texting-safety code. The texting-safety code is picked up by a smart phone in the vehicle to alert the driver about the danger of texting and/or disable the texting feature in the phone while the vehicle is being driven.
US09357351B2

A method is disclosed for controlling a mobile terminal having a first wireless interface for cellular communication in a mobile telecommunications network and a second wireless interface for non-cellular wireless communication, such as wireless local area network (WLAN) communication, in at least one frequency band. In the mobile terminal, the following steps are performed. Information is received from the mobile telecommunications network, and the information is processed. Then, based on an outcome of the processing of the information, the second wireless interface is disabled from wireless communication in at least one frequency band.
US09357341B2

A backscatter receiving module and a method of backscatter communication is described. A front-end module receives the backscatter signal from an antenna and generates high-speed and low-speed data. A high-speed decoding module outputs first data in response to the high-speed data having high-speed symbols that were encoded at a first frequency. The high-speed symbols include a first subset of symbols and a second subset of symbols. A low-speed decoding module outputs second data in response to receiving the low-speed data that was encoded into the backscatter signal at a second frequency. The low-speed decoding module generates a first state of the second data when the high-speed symbols of the high-speed data are in the first subset for a length of time. The low-speed module generates a second state of the second data when the high-speed symbols of the high-speed data are in the second subset for the length of time.
US09357338B2

There is provided a device including a communication device including a measurement portion configured to measure a reflection coefficient of an antenna that performs proximity wireless communication, during transmission of a transmission signal by the antenna, and a judgment portion configured to judge whether a value of the reflection coefficient measured by the measurement portion changes exceeding a value of a reflection coefficient of the antenna in a normal state and a predetermined threshold value.
US09357337B2

A terminal device and a data transceiving method are provided. The terminal device includes a sensing unit which senses a momentum of the terminal device, an interface unit which receives a momentum from at least one external device, and a control unit which performs one of a data receiving operation, a data transmitting operation, and a data transceiving operation with the at least one external device depending on a comparison value obtained from a comparison of the sensed momentum with the received momentum to allow two devices to exchange data more easily.
US09357326B2

In some embodiments, a method for embedding data (e.g., metadata for use during post-processing) in a stereo audio signal comprising frames. Each of the frames has a saturation value, and data are embedded in the stereo audio signal by modifying the signal to generate a modulated stereo audio signal comprising a sequence of modulated frames having modulated saturation values indicative of the embedded data. Typically, one data bit is embedded in each frame of an input stereo audio signal by modifying the frame to produce a modulated frame whose modulated saturation value matches a target value indicative of the data bit. In other embodiments, a method for extracting data from a stereo audio signal in which the data have been embedded in accordance with an embodiment of the inventive embedding method. Other aspects are systems (e.g., programmed processors) configured to perform any embodiment of the inventive method.
US09357321B1

Described herein are systems, methods, and apparatus for determining audio context between an audio source and an audio sink and selecting signal profiles based at least in part on that audio context. The signal profiles may include noise cancellation which is configured to facilitate operation within the audio context. Audio context may include user-to-user and user-to-device communications.
US09357315B2

A hearing aid includes: a microphone; a hearing aid processing unit configured to provide a gain to a first signal based on an output signal from the microphone to generate a second signal; a receiver configured to convert the second signal into sound; an adaptive filter configured to adaptively estimate a transfer function corresponding to a pathway from an input side of the receiver to an output side of the microphone; and a feedback removal unit configured to subtract a third signal generated based on the transfer function from the output signal of the microphone to obtain a signal and output the signal as the first signal; and a control unit configured to control the gain setting unit and an adaptive speed of the adaptive filter.
US09357301B2

Acoustic feedback in an audio device is reduced or eliminated via a feedback compensator. The feedback compensator disposes of at least one adaptive filter whose adaptation is governed by a step-size parameter μ. A step-size parameter μ of the adaptive filter is set at a high level to eliminate acoustic feedback and the parameter μ is decreased when a critical excitation signal is detected. This way to proceed allows for efficient elimination of feedback whistling while required environment signals are retained.
US09357299B2

A device comprises a housing, an acoustic component coupled to an exterior of the device through an acoustic passage in the housing, and an actuated mechanism operable to close the acoustic passage between the acoustic component and the housing. The actuated mechanism is operable to close the acoustic passage in response to a control signal, where the control signal is indicative of a pressure differential transmittable from the exterior of the device through the acoustic passage to the acoustic component.
US09357298B2

A sound signal processing apparatus includes an observed signal analysis unit that receives as an observed signal a sound signal for channels obtained by a sound signal input unit formed of microphones and estimates a sound direction and a sound segment of a target sound which is sound to be extracted and a sound source extraction unit that receives the sound direction and sound segment of the target sound estimated by the observed signal analysis unit and extracts the sound signal for the target sound. The observed signal analysis unit includes a short time Fourier transform unit that generates an observed signal in time-frequency domain by applying short time Fourier transform to the sound signal for the channels received and a direction/segment estimation unit that receives the observed signal generated by the short time Fourier transform unit and detects the sound direction and sound segment of the target sound.
US09357295B2

According to an embodiment, an interface circuit includes a current replicator and a receiver. The current replicator includes a power terminal coupled to a first reference node, an output terminal configured to output a signal proportional to a signal received from a transducer, and an interface terminal coupled to the transducer. Using a single interface terminal, the current replicator may be configured to provide power to the transducer and receive output signals from the transducer. The receiver may include a first input terminal coupled to the output terminal, a second input terminal coupled to a second reference node, and a current converter circuit coupled to the first input terminal.
US09357293B2

Systems and methods are provided for source localization and separation by sampling a large scale microphone array asynchronously to simulate a smaller size but moving microphone array. Signals that arrive from different angles at the array are shifted differently in their frequency content. The sources are separated by evaluating correlated and even equal frequency content. Compressive sampling enables the utilization of extremely large scale microphone arrays by reducing the computational effort orders of magnitude in comparison to standard synchronous sampling approaches. Processor based systems to perform the source separation methods are also provided.
US09357292B2

An electronic device is provided. The electronic device includes a case, an acoustic boot, a first microphone and a second microphone. The case includes a first acoustic opening, a second acoustic opening. The acoustic boot comprises a first duct and a second duct, the first duct is connected to the first acoustic opening, and the second duct is connected to the second acoustic opening. The first microphone is connected to the first duct. The second microphone is connected to the second duct.
US09357285B2

An exemplary earphone detecting circuit includes a signal input terminal, a voltage dividing circuit, a detecting circuit, and a signal output terminal connected electronically in that order. The signal input terminal is connected to an earphone jack of a portable electronic device. The signal output terminal is connected to a microcontroller of the portable electronic device. When the portable electronic device receives a call, the signal input terminal receives a signal and transmits the received signal to the detecting circuit through the voltage dividing circuit, the detecting circuit processes the signal transmitted to the signal output terminal to be constant.
US09357282B2

A listening device (120; 220; 320), such as a pair of headphones, is provided for wearing by a user. It contains two or more sound emitters for directing sound to each ear (2) of the user. At least one of the sound emitters (116; 216, 316) is positioned such that sound is emitted in a direction substantially perpendicular to the axis of the ear canal (10) of the ear, and towards the wall of the concha (6) of the ear (2).
US09357281B2

A receiver is provided with a connector including: an outer earbud contact composed of a tube-shaped conductor and provided on the earbud side, an inner earbud contact arranged inside the outer earbud contact via an earbud-side insulator, an outer cable contact composed of a tube-shaped conductor and provided on the cable side, and an inner cable contact arranged inside the outer cable contact via a cable-side insulator; a coaxial connector being formed when the outer contacts are screwed into each other.
US09357268B2

According to various embodiments, a content marking command is received from a mobile device at a particular time. For example, a user selection of the content marking command may be received via a user interface displayed on the mobile device. The content marking command may indicate a user interest in a particular moment of an event viewed by the user. Moreover, the event viewed by the user and video content data corresponding to the event may be identified. Further, content marking data may be generated, whether content marking data indicates a particular portion of the identified video content data corresponding to the particular moment of the event.
US09357251B2

Disclosure is directed to commanding a content receiver by interpreting brainwave patterns that are captured from a user of the content receiver. The user's brainwave patterns may be captured by the use of a headset having a plurality of sensors that are disposed at various locations in proximity to the user's head. The content receiver may be operable to learn to recognize specific brainwave patterns for individual users. The content receiver may recognize a number of specific brainwave patterns for each user, each specific brainwave pattern corresponding to a specific command that is executable by the content receiver. When executing user commands, the content receiver may process an input stream from the headset and compare portions of the input stream to the recognized brainwave patterns in order to extract commands from the input stream. Following this, the extracted commands may be executed by the content receiver.
US09357249B1

Content sorting and definition technology, in which input defining multiple content links to include in a channel is received from a content curator and supplemental channel information that facilitates user experience of content linked to by at least one of the multiple content links is determined. Channel information for the channel associated with the content curator is defined based on the multiple content links and the supplemental channel information and the defined channel information is published at a channel link to make the channel information available to user devices of a content delivery network. The channel link is a network address at which the defined channel information is made available to the user devices of the content delivery network.
US09357248B2

A method performed by an apparatus provides for adaptive bit rate content delivery to one or more client devices. The method includes: receiving data presentation content encoded into a first data stream using a first set of encoding parameters, wherein the first data stream comprises a first plurality of frames corresponding to a first encoded bit rate, wherein each frame in the first plurality of frames includes as payload a portion of the data presentation content; receiving a request, for a client device, for a second data stream having a second bit rate that is lower than the first encoded bit rate; determining a first subset of the first plurality of frames, which corresponds to the second bit rate, and generating the second data stream using the first subset of the first plurality of frames, for delivering the data presentation content to the client device.
US09357244B2

A method for urging the start of viewing an interleaved audio video stream is disclosed. The method includes repositioning audio and video access units in the interleaved audio video stream. A computer program product and a data processing system are also disclosed.
US09357230B2

Overlapped block disparity estimation and compensation is described. Compensating for images with overlapped block disparity compensation (OBDC) involves determining if OBDC is enabled in a video bit stream, and determining if OBDC is enabled for one or more macroblocks that neighbor a first macroblock within the video bit stream. The neighboring macroblocks may be transform coded. If OBDC is enabled in the video bit stream and for the one or more neighboring macroblocks, predictions may be made for a region of the first macroblock that has an edge adjacent with the neighboring macroblocks. OBDC can be causally applied. Disparity compensation parameters or modes may be shared amongst views or layers. A variety of predictions may be used with causally-applied OBDC.
US09357226B2

A JPEG encoding process may generate entropy encoded data indexing auxiliary information. With the assistance of such auxiliary information, a quick JPEG decoder is implemented to significantly improve the performance of processing large sized JPEG images on the mobile systems with limited computation power.
US09357210B2

Systems and methods for encoding multiple video streams in accordance with embodiments of the invention are disclosed. In one embodiment, a source encoder configured to encode source video as a number of alternative video streams includes a parallel processing system configured to collect statistics on source video data and write the statistics to shared memory in a first pass through received multimedia content, determine initial encoding information for source video data and write the initial encoding information to shared memory during the first pass, encode the source video data in parallel using collected statistics and initial encoding information to produce a plurality of alternative video streams during a second pass, and parallel encoding processes are configured to reuse additional encoding information that has already been determined for a portion of video and to generate additional encoding information that has not already been determined for a portion of video.
US09357203B2

An input information acquisition unit of an information processing device acknowledges a user input. An imaging condition control unit initiates imaging using the imaging condition determined according to the user input or a result of analyzing a captured image. An imaging condition storage unit stores an imaging condition table that maps target functions to imaging conditions. First and second image analysis units and acquire images captured by first and second cameras and installed in the imaging device and perform necessary image analysis. An information integration unit integrates images captured by the pair of cameras and results of analysis. An image data generation unit generates data for an image output as a result of the process.
US09357201B2

According to one embodiment of the present invention, a stereoscopic display apparatus comprises: a display panel in which a plurality of unit pixels is defined and which enables n views; and a parallax barrier disposed on one side of the display panel. n is an integer larger than 2, and p and 1 are divisors of said n. In said display panel, q unit pixels arranged adjacently to one other in rows constitute one unit row, and said n views are achieved by means of p unit rows arranged adjacently to one another in columns.
US09357199B2

Techniques for encapsulating video streams containing multiple coded views in a media file are described herein. In one example, a method includes parsing a track of multiview video data, wherein the track includes one or more views, including only one of a texture view of a particular view and a depth view of the particular view. The method further includes parsing a track reference to determine a dependency of the track to a referenced track indicated in the track reference. Track reference types include ‘deps’ that indicates that the track includes the depth view and the reference track includes the texture view, ‘tref’ that indicates that the track depends on the texture view which is stored in the referenced track, and ‘dref’ that indicates that the track depends on the depth view which is stored in the referenced track.
US09357197B2

A sequence of enhanced dynamic range (EDR) images and a sequence of standard dynamic range images are encoded using a backwards-compatible SDR high-definition (HD) base layer and one or more enhancement layers. The EDR and SDR video signals may be of the same resolution (e.g., HD) or at different resolutions (e.g., 4K and HD) and are encoded using a dual-view-dual-layer (DVDL) encoder to generate a coded base layer (BL) and a coded enhancement layer (EL). The DVDL encoder includes a reference processing unit (RPU) which is adapted to compute a reference stream based on the coded BL stream. The RPU operations include post-processing, normalization, inverse normalization, and image registration. Decoders for decoding the coded BL and EL streams to generate a backwards compatible 2D SDR stream and additional 2D or 3D SDR or EDR streams, are also described.
US09357190B2

A projection device and an automatic projection calibration method thereof are disclosed. When the projection device boots up, an image pattern corresponding to a display data is projected through a projecting unit. The image pattern is sensed through an image sensor to obtain information of the image pattern. The information of the image pattern is compared with information of a previous image pattern through a processing unit to determine whether to execute an automatic calibration procedure. When the processing unit executes the automatic calibration procedure, a calibration pattern is projected through the projecting unit. The calibration pattern is sensed through the image sensor to obtain information of the calibration pattern. A calibration driving procedure is executed through the processing unit to convert imaging coordinates of the calibration pattern sensed through the image sensor into projecting coordinates of the projection device, so as to establish a coordinate conversion table.
US09357189B2

A projector includes: a light source having a plurality of light emitting sections; a light modulation device including a reflecting section adapted to reflect the light from the light source in accordance with image information; and a projection lens adapted to project an image formed by the light modulation device, wherein the light from the light source obliquely enters the reflecting section, the light source includes a first region where the light emitting sections are disposed at a first density, and a second region where the light emitting sections are disposed at a second density higher than the first density, and a distance between the first region and the reflecting section is shorter than a distance between the second region and the reflecting section.
US09357187B2

An image display method implemented in a projector that includes first to third display elements each of which spatially modulates incident light to display an image, synthesizes the images displayed by the first to third display elements, and projects the synthesized image.
US09357184B2

A camera detects devices, such as other cameras, smart devices, and access points, with which the camera may communicate. The camera may alternate between operating as a wireless station and a wireless access point. The camera may connect to and receive credentials from a device for another device to which it is not connected. In one embodiment, the camera is configured to operate as a wireless access point, and is configured to receive credentials from a smart device operating as a wireless station. The camera may then transfer the credentials to additional cameras, each configured to operate as wireless stations. The camera and additional cameras may connect to a smart device directly or indirectly (for instance, through an access point), and the smart device may change the camera mode of the cameras. The initial modes of the cameras may be preserved and restored by the smart device upon disconnection.
US09357183B2

A method and system are provided in which a device having one or more illumination sources and may receive information for a target location through a network connection. The information may be based on video captured by a surveillance camera. The device may adjust a projection position of one of the illumination sources based on the target location information and may project a light beam generated by the illumination source onto the target location when the projection position is adjusted. The light beam may project a pattern onto the target location, which may comprise an image, a letter, a word, a symbol, or a combination thereof. The device may receive an indication of a type of situation taking place at the target location and may utilize the indication to select an illumination source and/or a type of pattern to project onto the target location.
US09357181B2

A tracking assistance device includes: a target-to-be-tracked setting unit that, in response to an input operation performed by a monitoring person on one of display views to designate a moving object to be tracked, sets the designated moving object as a target to be tracked, the display views displaying captured images taken by respective cameras and stored in a recorder; a camera selection unit that, based on tracing information obtained by processing the captured images, selects any of the cameras inferred to have taken an image of the moving object designated as the target to be tracked from among the cameras other than the camera corresponding to the display view on which the target to be tracked was designated; and a playback unit that causes the captured images taken by each camera selected by the camera selection unit to be displayed in a corresponding one of the display views.
US09357167B2

A third party automatically participates in a peer-to-peer communication session established between a first endpoint and a second endpoint. Once the peer-to-peer communication session is established, a third party receives a first user data provided by the first endpoint, and verifies the first user data. If the verification succeeds, the third party automatically participates in the peer-to-peer communication session.
US09357163B2

Methods and devices for characterization of repetitious noise in cable networks are disclosed. A frequency band of interest is identified, a time trace of a signal parameter within the frequency band is obtained, and an autocorrelation of the time trace is computed to detect repetitious noise. The repetition frequency can serve as an indicator of the noise source type, and thus it can assist in noise segmentation.
US09357156B2

A projector 100 comprising a light source (130), a reflective light bulb (DMD 180), a projection optical system, an illumination optical system (120) that guides light emitted from the light source to the reflective light bulb, a stationary aperture (166), and a movable aperture (167).
US09357145B2

The present description describes a method and apparatus for using a single exposure area scan interline transfer CCD imaging devices in TDI scanning mode. The user is enabled to obtain a high resolution area-scan image with very high sensitivity from a conventional interline transfer CCD imager. The user may select the number of TDI stages, and in some cases of multi-tap CCD structures, obtain a two dimensional area-scan image. Utilizing a conventional interline CCD imager for TDI scanning allows a normal image to be produced by switching the mode back and forth between TDI and conventional area scan imaging.
US09357144B2

An image processing apparatus includes a decimating unit configured to decimate pixels in a target image to obtain a decimated image containing a smaller number of pixels than the target image; an extracting unit configured to extract similar pixels at each of which a similarity to a pixel of interest is a threshold or more, from a region containing the pixel of interest among pixels of the decimated image; a first calculating unit configured to calculate a correction candidate value based on pixel values of the similar pixels; a second calculating unit configured to calculate a correction candidate value for each decimated pixel, based on the correction candidate value calculated for each pixel of the decimated image; and a correcting unit configured to correct a target pixel value of a target pixel in the target image, based on the correction candidate value calculated by the first or second calculating unit.
US09357143B2

An image pickup unit includes: a plurality of pixels each including a photoelectric conversion device and a field-effect transistor. Each of the pixels includes a light-blocking layer in a peripheral region of the photoelectric conversion device, and the light-blocking layer is maintained to a predetermined electric potential.
US09357142B2

An image sensor includes a pixel array and a row driver block. The pixel array includes a plurality of subpixel groups, each including a plurality of subpixels. Each of the plurality of subpixels is configured to generate a subpixel signal corresponding to photocharge accumulated in response to a photon. The row driver block is configured to generate a first control signal to control the subpixels included in each of the plurality of subpixel groups to accumulate the photocharge in parallel from a first time point to a second time point.
US09357138B2

An image capture apparatus is provided that is capable of accurately determining exposure conditions of multiple images to be used in high dynamic range compositing in a short duration, based on a captured image. A scene dynamic range is computed based on luminance information obtained from an image captured with a standard exposure according to a luminance zone to be prioritized in high dynamic range shooting and luminance information obtained from an image captured with an over-exposure or an under-exposure relative to the standard exposure. An exposure range of multiple images for creating a high dynamic range image is determined according to the computed dynamic range.
US09357137B2

Apparatus and method for generating a wide dynamic range image by executing a pixel value combination process of a plurality of different exposure time setting pixels. Control of a different exposure time is performed for each of a plurality of pixels of the same colors configuring a pixel block and an addition pixel value obtained by adding outputs of the plurality of pixels of the same colors of the pixel block is generated. The generation of the addition pixel value is executed by an adding unit that adds the outputs of the plurality of pixels of the same colors of the pixel block. Or, the generation of the addition pixel value is executed by a floating diffusion set in a pixel block unit and a charge output from each of the plurality of pixels of the same colors configuring the pixel block is accumulated and output in the floating diffusion.
US09357116B1

A rectangular image sensor can be present within an optical capture device. Two lenses can capture and direct light from a real world environment upon the image sensor. Two reflectors can each be positioned between one of the two lenses and the sensor to direct light captured by each lens to produce a corresponding image circle on the sensor. The circles can be produced by the two lenses onto the sensor can be non-overlapping in area. A non-reflective separator can be positioned between the optical pathways of light from the two lenses from the time such light is reflected from the two reflectors respectively. The separator can absorb light from a region surrounding the image circle to prevent optical distortions from the image circles which are in close proximity to each other.
US09357107B2

According to an aspect of the present invention, for which of the original image data before the gradation correction and the original image data after the gradation correction the restoration process is performed is determined depending on whether or not the image information meets the condition under which the ringing appears in the recovery image data due to the restoration process. When the gradation correction is performed after the restoration process, there is a probability that the side effect (the ringing or the like) of the restoration process is emphasized by the gradation correction. Therefore, in the case where the image information meets the condition under which the ringing appears, it is possible to prevent such a side effect (the ringing or the like) of the restoration process from being emphasized by the gradation correction, by performing the restoration process for the original image data after the gradation correction.
US09357104B2

A received image displaying apparatus comprises: a wireless communication unit that wirelessly receives the frame images transmitted by the image transmitting apparatus with which the received image displaying apparatus has established a connection of wireless communication; and a displaying unit that displays the frame images, which were wirelessly received by the wireless communication unit, in an order in which the frame images were captured. At least one of the image transmitting apparatus and the received image displaying apparatus comprises: a reference sync signal generating unit that generates the reference sync signals; and a control unit that, if the wireless communication unit has received no reference sync signals for a certain time interval, controls the reference sync signal generating unit to generate reference sync signals and that further controls the wireless communication unit to wirelessly transmit the reference sync signals to the other apparatus included in the image transmitting/receiving system.
US09357103B2

A method for controlling media devices by an electronic device is described. The method includes receiving a first control signal from a first media device in a first media device control network. The method also includes generating a second control signal based on the first control signal and a second media device in a second media device control network. The method further includes sending the second control signal to the second media device.
US09357095B2

Provided are: an illumination device having a configuration in which a temperature rise of a radiation member is suppressed in a limited volume to thereby maintain a temperature of an LED at a predetermined value or less and an image reading device provided with the illumination device. In order to release heat generated by the LED from a substrate on which the LED is mounted, a first heat radiation plate (43) and a second heat radiation plate (47) are provided on both sides of the LED-mounted substrate; the second heat radiation plate (47), the LED-mounted substrate, and the first heat radiation plate (43) are installed in this order on a second frame (40) that supports the LED-mounted substrate, first and second heat radiation plates (43) and (47); a fan is disposed on the first heat radiation plate (43) side; when viewing the second frame (40) in a direction perpendicular to a longitudinal direction thereof, a cross-sectional profile of the second heat radiation plate (47) has an area protruding with respect to a cross-sectional profile of the first heat radiation plate (43); and the configuration is such that wind from the fan is aggressively blown against the first and second heat radiation plates (43) and (47).
US09357092B2

An image forming apparatus includes a communication interface unit which communicates with an external apparatus, a controller which, if a job performance command is received from the external apparatus when an operation mode of the image forming apparatus is a power saving mode, performs authentication of the external apparatus while maintaining the power saving mode, and a function unit which converts an operation mode of the image forming apparatus according to the authentication result and performs a function corresponding to the job performance command.
US09357089B2

An image forming apparatus includes a main body; an operation panel coupled to the main body to rotate between a storage position and a use position; a stopper positioned on the operation panel; a stopper support unit, located on a rotation trajectory of the stopper with interference, which has a blocking position to block a rotation of the operation panel to the use position and the storage position, and a non-blocking position to allow a rotation of the operation panel; an elastic member to generate an elastic force in a direction where the stopper support unit is located in the blocking position; and an operation member to rotate the stopper support unit to the non-blocking location.
US09357086B2

Disclosed are a communication apparatus having a server function for making a storage device, which stores files, accessible over a network, and a method of controlling this apparatus. The apparatus and method set the server function, register an address, which is for transmitting a file to the storage device, in an address book, transfer a file to the storage device in accordance with the address that has been registered in the address book, and changes the address, which has been registered in the address book, in accordance with a change in the setting of the server function.
US09357071B2

A method for analyzing a telephonic communication between a customer and a contact center is provided. According to the method, a telephonic communication is separated into at least first constituent voice data and second constituent voice data. One of the first and second constituent voice data is analyzed by mining the voice data and applying a predetermined linguistic-based psychological behavioral model to one of the separated first and second constituent voice data. Behavioral assessment data is generated which corresponds to the analyzed voice data.
US09357063B1

A do not disturb (DND) mode for telephonic devices, in which the DND mode is automatically deactivated after a time increment has elapsed, the DND mode having been activated based on detecting, upon receiving a telephone call, a selection of the control.
US09357058B2

A method of fraud detection is disclosed. The method includes determining that a first agent at a first workstation of a contact center is not on a call at a first time. The contact center includes a plurality of workstations attended to by a plurality of agents. The method includes determining that the first agent is accessing a client based resource at the first time, wherein the resource is associated with a client. The method includes collecting electronic evidence of the first workstation.
US09357053B2

Systems and methods of controlling features of a wireless mobile device are provided. The method includes a portable device, the portable device further includes a plurality of separate programs saved in memory, each of the plurality of programs is independently identified by a respective one or more bits of an identifier sequence, a wireless transceiver of the portable device that monitors a predetermined wireless spectrum and detects a beacon, a processor that decodes the detected beacon for an identifier including a sequence of bits, a processor that correlates a content of the identifier with at least one of the plurality of programs by matching the one or more bits of the identifier sequence of the one program with a content and location of one or bits of the identifier and a processor executing the one program.
US09357052B2

Systems and methods are described herein for developing a notification framework for presenting notification information to a user of an electronic device. One embodiment of a method, among others, includes receiving input from physical sensors located in proximity to an electronic device and receiving input from one or more other electronic devices in proximity to the electronic device. The method further comprises assessing a context of the electronic device from the received input. A notification framework is then determined from the assessed context. The method also includes notifying a user of the electronic device of a detected event associated with the electronic device. Notifying the user includes notifying the user within the notification framework.
US09357043B2

Methods and devices for sensor-based user interface control are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method for determining a characteristic of handedness includes sensing a rotation of a mobile device, determining a direction of rotation based at least in part on accessing information indicative of a first position state prior to sensing the rotation and accessing information indicative of a second position state subsequent to sensing the rotation, and determining the characteristic of handedness based at least in part on the direction of rotation, the first position state, and the second position state. The characteristic of handedness includes one of a left handedness or right handedness. The method further includes determining a user interface mode based on the characteristic of handedness determined, and controlling the mobile device in accordance with the user interface mode determined.
US09357031B2

A system and method are provided for managing applications over a network between a server system and client computers. In one example, the method involves receiving user login information from a client computer, then accessing on the server system a user profile associated with the login information. The user profile includes a user environment configuration for a client environment. Transport protocols are selected based on the user profile. The transport protocols are protocols for transporting information between the server system and the client computer. The user environment configuration stored on the server system is then synchronized with a client environment configuration on the client computer.
US09357025B2

A persistent virtual area that supports establishment of respective presences of communicants operating respective network nodes connected to the virtual area even after all network nodes have disconnected from the virtual area is maintained. A presence in the virtual area is established for a user of a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) terminal device. Transmission of data associated with the virtual area to the PSTN terminal device.
US09357023B2

Embodiments of the systems described herein can implement one or more visitor stitching processes. Visitor stitching can include, among other things, one or more processes by which multiple visitors that may appear distinctly independent may be merged into a new single united visitor profile due to the leveraging of one or more unique persistent identifiers.
US09357021B2

Future data connection quality may be predicted based on past data connection quality, and future requests for data may be predicted based on past requests. These predictions may be used to help decide whether, when, and/or how to deliver the data in a proactive manner. For example, according to some aspects described herein, a future data connection quality may be predicted based at least on historical data connection quality. It may be determined whether to pre-deliver at least a first portion of an item of content based at least on the predicted future data connection quality. If so, then the at least the portion of the item of content may be pre-delivered to the device and/or to another destination.
US09357018B2

In some examples, a service bus may include one or more computing devices configured to translate requests from one or more client applications to one or more proxy services. According to at least one example, a system may create a resource object based at least in part on a template. The template may be associated with configuration information that may identify at least one parameter associated with a third-party application. In some examples, the third-party application may be a web service or a client application. Additionally, the system may generate a message flow based at least in part on the resource object. The system may also process a request, from the third-party application, based at least in part on the message flow. Further, the system may provide a graphical user interface (GUI) associated with the template, the GUI configured to enable input of the configuration information.
US09357016B2

An improved system and method are disclosed for providing virtual parallel access to a shared resource. In one example, the method includes receiving a request from a device to take control of the shared resource. After determining that another device is currently in control of the shared resource, a timer is started. Control of the shared resource will automatically pass from the device currently in control to the requesting device when the timer expires. Input received from the device currently in control is executed. Input received from the device that has requested control is buffered and executed once control is transferred.
US09357010B1

A storage system is provided. The storage system includes a plurality of storage units, each of the plurality of storage units having storage memory for user data and a plurality of storage nodes, each of the plurality of storage nodes configured to have ownership of a portion of the user data. The storage system includes a first pathway, coupling the plurality of storage units such that each of the plurality of storage units can communicate with at least one other of the plurality of storage units via the first pathway without assistance from the plurality of storage nodes.
US09357000B2

The present invention concerns a method of transferring content from a first communication device to a second communication device in a communication network, comprising the following steps: defining a first probability, according to which a content can be encoded; defining a second probability, according to which a content can be chosen; upon request of content from said second communication device to said first communication device: encoding content with another content according to said first probability, said content being chosen with said second probability, and transferring content z=x XOR y from said first communication device to said second communication device, or according to probability 1−pe transferring unencoded content x from said first communication device to said second communication device.
US09356989B2

A system includes a storage device and a processor. The storage device is configured to store a first set of values of TCP options for a first group of servers. The processor is configured to: transmit first requests to the first group of servers; receive first replies, in response to the first requests, from the first group of servers; determine the first set of values of the TCP options for the first group based on values in the first replies; store the first set of values in the storage device; receive a first message from a client to establish a connection between the client and a server in the first group of servers, and transmit, in response to the first message, a second message to the client.
US09356986B2

In a computing device supporting distributed stream processing, a request is received from a controller device to redistribute blocks storing streamed data. The request indicates that a number of blocks stored on the computing device be sent to a second computing device. The controller device controls distribution of analytic results to a data access system. The analytic results are computed from the streamed data. The indicated number of blocks are selected from the blocks storing the streamed data. The selected blocks are sent to the second computing device. Pointers to remaining blocks of the blocks storing the streamed data are updated.
US09356978B2

Systems and methods for routing activity information related to objects in an external application to activity feeds associated with users in a collaboration group are disclosed. When activity information is received, it is routed to collaboration group feeds and user feeds based on a set of routing tables. The routing tables associated objects with events, containers, collaboration groups, and finally users. Based on the routing tables, users who belong to a collaboration groups that are associated with a particular object may see the activity information about that object rendered in an activity feed if the external application grants them permission to access the object. Accordingly, security associated with the object in the external application can be maintained when event information about that object is shared in an activity feed in a collaboration system.
US09356970B2

A source of the particular security event is identified that is associated with at least one second computing device, at least one of a geographic location, and a grouping of assets included in the plurality of asset groupings. A graphical representation of the particular security event is presented on a display device that includes: a first graphical element representing the particular grouping of network assets in which the particular computing device is included, and a second graphical element representing the source associated with one of a geographic location and a particular grouping of assets. Graphic elements representing an association with a respective graphical location are to be presented in conjunction with a view of a geographic map and graphic elements representing an association with a respective grouping of assets are presented outside the view of the geographic map.
US09356968B1

A technique manages user authentication via common authentication framework circuitry. The technique involves receiving, by the common authentication framework circuitry, authentication requests from client devices of users belonging to multiple enterprises, the authentication requests including user identifiers identifying the users belonging to the multiple enterprises. The technique further involves accessing, by the common authentication framework circuitry, entries of an authentication policy database to select authentication policies for the authentication requests. Selection of the authentication policies is based at least in part on the user identifiers of the authentication requests. The technique further involves invoking, by the common authentication framework circuitry, authentication services in accordance with the selected authentication policies to perform user authentication operations in response to the authentication requests from the client devices.
US09356967B2

A secure on-demand supply method is disclosed. The method includes: a configuration parameter of a security function module is determined according to a security level set for requested traffic by a user, and/or an application scenario of a user terminal, and/or a traffic type; the security function module is configured by using the configuration parameter; and security protection is carried out on traffic data of the user. A traffic type acquisition method for protecting security of a specific user and/or traffic is disclosed. The method includes: a traffic identifier of data is acquired by using a traffic type classification function of a Quality of Service (QoS) function module, to protect the security of the specific user and/or traffic. The disclosure can provide various traffic security assurances according to security requirements of different users for different traffics.
US09356966B2

Disclosed is a method and system to provide management of test data, the management performed during at least one stage associated with lifecycle of the test data. The system comprises a processing engine, a categorization module, a privacy regulation module, a meta-data analyzer, and an output generation module. The processing engine configured to generate the test data in response to a test data request. The processing engine further comprises of the categorization module configured to categorize the test data request. The processing engine further comprises of the privacy regulation module configured to model at least one privacy regulation in accordance with a geographical location and an enterprise domain. The processing engine further comprises the meta-data analyzer configured to analyze an imported meta-data. The system further comprises of the output generation module configured to provide the test data so requested.
US09356953B2

The disclosed subject matter addresses the problem of spoofing by directly and transparently communicating with the apparent sender of the potentially spoofed incoming message or with the communications network handing the communication of the potentially spoofed incoming message. The address of the recipient device of the potentially spoofed incoming message is compared with addresses of communication sent from the apparent sender. As a result of this comparison, it may be determined whether the phone call or message was sent from the apparent source or was spoofed. The times associated with messages sent from the indicated sender and times associated with the incoming message may also be used to determine the authenticity of the apparent sender. The recipient is of the incoming message is notified of a spoofed message.
US09356952B2

A method of controlling the re-direction of IP packets to an IP host having two or more different IP addresses comprises generating a first of said IP addresses as a one-way function of the second IP address. The method further comprises accepting a request to re-direct a packet destined to said first IP address to another IP address only if the other IP address is the second IP address.
US09356949B2

In one implementation, a service interface analysis system defines a plurality of service templates based on a plurality of Uniform Resource Identifiers associated with a network service, and generates at least one utility measure of each service template from the plurality of service templates.
US09356943B1

The disclosed computer-implemented method for performing security analyzes on network traffic in cloud-based environments may include (1) collecting network traffic exchanged between a source device and a destination device for a security analysis by (A) receiving, from the destination device, a response to a request sent by the source device, (B) identifying, in a header of the response, information that facilitates access to at least a portion of the request, and (C) obtaining, based at least in part on the information identified in the header of the response, the portion of the request sent by the source device, and then (2) performing the security analysis on the network traffic by analyzing the portion of the request sent by the source device and at least a portion of the response. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.
US09356942B1

A method and system are described for detecting unauthorized access to one or more of a plurality of networked victim computers in a victim cloud. The networked victim computers connect to one or more DNS servers. The system includes one or more decoy bot computers, which are operated as victim computers in the victim cloud. The system also includes one or more decoy control computers, which are operated as control computers that communicate with victim computers in the victim cloud. Threats are identified by analyzing data traffic communicated with the decoy bot computers and decoy control computers for information suspected of having being sent from a victim's computer without proper authorization, and by monitoring whether behavior of a DNS server deviates from expected behaviors.
US09356937B2

A content filtering mechanism is enhanced to resolve conflicts in filtering rules (e.g., those created by a whitelist, on the one hand, and a blacklist, on the other hand). Preferably, a conflict between or among content filtering rules is resolved by selecting among conflicting rules based on a notion of “risk” associated with the rules. According to this risk-based approach, when two or more rules conflict with one another, the particular rule whose risk value has a predetermined relationship (e.g., aligns most closely) with a risk level associated with the application (applying the rules) then takes precedence. By selecting among conflicting rules based on risk, the potential or actual conflicts are disambiguated, with the result being that the content is filtered appropriately.
US09356935B2

A method includes receiving a request to access a digital content item, the digital content item including multiple portions. Responsive to the request, multiple policies relating respectively to the multiple portions of the digital content item are identified. Access to the multiple portions of the digital content item is selectively enabled, based on the multiple policies.
US09356934B2

Embodiments are directed towards a system and method for a cloud-based front end that may abstract and enable access to the underlying cloud-hosted elements and objects that may be part of a multi-tenant application, such as a search application. Search objects may be employed to access indexed objects. An amount of indexed data accessible to a user may be based on an index storage limit selected by the user, such that data that exceeds the index storage limit may continue to be indexed. Also, one or more projects can be elastically scaled for a user to provide resources that may meet the specific needs of each project.
US09356929B2

A method of establishing a secure channel between a human user and a computer application is described. A secret unique identifier (“PIN”) is shared between a user and an application. When the user makes a request that involves utilizing the PIN for authentication purposes, the application renders a randomly selected identifier. The randomly selected identifier is in a format that is recognizable to a human but is not readily recognizable by an automated agent. The randomly selected identifier is then presented to the human user. The user identifies the relationship between the randomly selected identifier and the PIN. If the user's input reflects the fact that the user knows the PIN, then the user is authenticated.
US09356922B2

A method of operating a mobile device comprises executing a trusted service application in a trusted operating system through secure access, executing a trusted web server module in the trusted operating system, wherein the trusted web server module is configured to transfer information using an internet protocol and the information is generated by execution of the trusted service application, and executing a user application in a rich operating system through normal access, wherein the user application is configured to relay communication between a remote web server and the trusted web server module through a security session.
US09356900B2

Message content is scaled to support rich messaging. Devices and associated messaging systems can support various levels of content richness or fidelity. Message content scaling is employed to ensure sharing of content in as rich a manner as possible given limitations associated with various messaging systems, among other things. Messages can be scaled down or degraded, for instance where communicating devices do not support high fidelity content being transmitted. Alternatively, messages can be scaled up or enriched in cases, where low fidelity content is transmitted to a device supporting richer content, for example.
US09356890B2

A graphical user interface on a display device of a computer enables communications using a computer service. The graphical user interface includes a list of potential message recipients selected by a user as significant to the user. The graphical user interface also includes a mobile device identifier associated with one or more of the listed potential message recipients and a user account identifier associated with one or more of the listed potential message recipients. At least one of the listed potential recipients includes a mobile device identifier as the only available conduit for data delivery to the potential message recipient using the computer service.
US09356888B2

A messaging system (100) for routing clinical messages includes an event handler and a standardized protocol (105). The event handler (106) receives one or more inbound messages from one or more event sources (102). The event sources (102) include one or more worklist items. The event handler (106) further stores the worklist items in an event database (198) and generates and communicates outbound messages for one or more worklist items in the event database (198) that need to be acted upon, as determined by one or more rules. The standardized protocol (105) is used to represent the inbound messages and the outbound messages.
US09356880B1

The invention is directed to techniques for supporting multi-link protocols within a computer network. In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a set of data blocks from a plurality of links in one or more interface cards according to a multi-link protocol and sending the data blocks to a multi-link service card for sequencing. The data blocks may then be sent to the one or more interface cards for communication to a destination device over a computer network. Implementing a multi-link service card may allow a network device, such as a router, to support multi-link protocols.
US09356874B2

A method is disclosed for managing a plurality of resources in a media gateway, the method comprising: determining that a utilization of a resource exceeds a first threshold, wherein the resource is one of the plurality of resources; determining a reduction in load to communicate to a media gateway controller (MGC) coupled to the media gateway, wherein the reduction is based on the resource and the first threshold; and sending a message indicating the reduction and the resource to the MGC.
US09356870B2

Nodes and methods are disclosed for protection and restoration in the event of multiple failures for multiple paths involved for the same service in shared mesh networks, including, a method comprising the steps of storing, in non-transitory memory of a first node in a shared mesh network having a plurality of connections through the shared mesh network, records of global contention handling priority values of the plurality of connections; detecting a first signal from a second node requesting activation of a first connection of the plurality of connections, and a second signal from a third node requesting activation of a second connection of the plurality of connections, the first and second connections having overlapping requirements; determining that the second connection has a higher global contention handling priority value than the first connection based at least in part on the records; and activating the second connection.
US09356868B2

A device for performing congestion detection and management at a node of a network may include a congestion management module to monitor an arrival and a departure rate of data packets associated with a queue, a queue size, or a rate of change of the queue size. The congestion management module may identify the queue as a congested queue by one of determining that the arrival rate of the data packets associated with the queue is larger than the departure rate of the data packets associated with the queue, the queue size is larger than a first threshold, or the rate of change of the queue size is larger than a second threshold. The congestion management module may identify the congested queue as a congestion root by determining that the congested queue is not affected by a flow-control signal. A queue buffer temporarily stores data packets associated with the queue.
US09356863B2

According to one aspect of the present disclosure, a system for communications over multiple protocol interfaces in a computing environment includes a processor and a memory storing interface logic executable by the processor to: identify a first communications protocol of a network interface for egress data packet communications; responsive to the identified first communications protocol of the network interface differing from a second communications protocol to be used for the data packet communications, derive fragmentation data according to a data packet fragmentation protocol corresponding to the second communications protocol; generate an application layer header for the data packet communications; store values of the fragmentation data in select fields of the application layer header; fragment the data packet communications according to the data packet fragmentation protocol; and transmit the data packet communications including the application layer header over the identified network interface.
US09356862B2

The invention relates to enabling differential forwarding in address-based carrier networks such as Ethernet networks. There is described a method of and connection controller for establishing connections (76, 77) in a frame-based communications network comprising nodes (71-75 and 78) such as Ethernet switches. The connections are established by configuring, in various of the nodes, mappings for forwarding data frames, such as Ethernet frames. The mappings are from a combination of a) a destination (or source) address corresponding to a destination (or source) node (73) of the connection and b) an identifier, such as a VLAN tag. The mappings are to selected output ports of the various nodes. By using the combination of destination (or source) address AND identifier, the mappings enable data frames belonging to different connections (76, 77) to be forwarded differentially (ie forwarded on different output ports) at a node (75) despite the different connections having the same destination node. This enables flexibility in routing connections and the ability to perform traffic engineering.
US09356853B2

A device is disclosed including a memory configured to store a user data frame. The user data frame includes a first portion that includes traffic data. The user data frame also includes a second portion that includes a set of stuff bits arranged in a detectible pattern wherein a count of the set of stuff bits is associated with a measure of transport utilization of a data communication channel over which the user data frame is transported.
US09356851B2

A method and apparatus for using an application layer demarcation point are described. In one embodiment, the method comprises monitoring end-to-end performance of a network application at an application demarcation point in a network, and mediating between provider infrastructure and customer infrastructure based on results of monitoring.
US09356846B2

Embodiments provide a method for performing an automatic execution of a Box and Jenkins method for forecasting the behavior of said dataset. The method may include pre-processing the dataset including providing one or more missing values to the dataset, removing level discontinuities and outliers, and removing one or more last samples from the dataset, obtaining a trend of the pre-processed dataset including identifying and filtering the trend out of the dataset based on a coefficient of determination methodology, detecting seasonality to obtain a resulting stationary series including computing an auto correlation function of the dataset, repeating the detecting step on an aggregate series of a previous dataset, and removing detected seasonality based on a seasonal differencing process, and modeling the resulting stationary series under an autoregressive-moving-average (ARMA) model.
US09356840B2

An apparatus and method for rolling back operation parameters of a base station in a self-configurable broadband wireless communication system are provided, in which in a manager server, an optimizer for determining optimized operation parameters of the base station based on information which is needed to optimize and is received from the base station, an evaluator for calculating service level of the base station using the optimized operation parameters, and a controller for requesting to roll back the optimized operation parameters when the service level is greater than or equal to a first threshold value.
US09356835B2

A method for configuring a router is disclosed. The method comprises providing router configuration information. The router configuration information is sent to the router over a cellular data network.
US09356828B2

A connection-oriented network has a first working path (W1) and a second working path (W2). A node (E) receives signalling to allocate resources for a part of a recovery path (R1) for the first working path (W1). The resources are shared by the recovery path (R1) for the first working path and a recovery path (R2a) for the second working path (W2). The node (E) stores an association between the shared resources and a node (A) on the first working path, identified in the signalling, which should be notified when the shared resources are used by the recovery path (R2a) for the second working path (W2). An RSVP-TE object in the signalling carries an address of the node to be notified. The node (E) sends an RSVP-TE Notify message to a node (A) on the first working path (W1) which indicates that the shared resources are in use.
US09356827B2

A distributed computing system may allow multiple devices to distribute master node responsibilities. The various nodes in the system may be given unique, sequenced, node identifiers, and may periodically report their status to a central monitor or current master node. A comparison of the report time stamps and node identifiers, made against the node identifier of the current master node, may yield a determination as to whether the current master node should be replaced.
US09356826B2

Various embodiments herein include at least one of systems, methods, and software to connect network and system management systems. Some such embodiments include a metric message connector that obtains network entity metric messages from a first network and system management system and communicates the obtained metric message to a second network and system management system. The metric message connector may transform network entity metric messages from an original form into a different form or format, such as a form or format having meaning with the second network and system management system. The network entity metric message may be Simple Network Management Protocol messages.
US09356824B1

A method, system, and apparatus are directed towards managing content over a network. A request from a requestor for a resource is received over the network. The request may include a request for resource identified by a Network Resource Identifier (NRI). The request may also include Systems Interconnection (OSI) level 2-7 data. Characteristics of the requestor are determined based on the request. The characteristics are mapped onto a label. A unique key is generated based on the request, the characteristics, and/or the label. A version of the resource to cache is determined based on the request, the characteristics, the label, and/or the unique key. The version of the resource is cached based on the unique key.
US09356823B2

Providing and receiving content for nodes of a computer network. In one aspect, a method for receiving content for nodes on a network includes establishing a computer device as a gateway device that can communicate in a first network and communicate with a server in a second network. The gateway device makes a request for content to be provided to at least one destination node in the first network. The requested content is received at the gateway device and is then provided to the destination node, where the received content is based on stored settings for the at least one destination node.
US09356819B2

Systems and methods are disclosed which may allow a user having a mobile device to check in to a location using a packet sequence that includes information for identifying the location transmitted by one or more Bluetooth® Low Energy (BLE) beacons at or near the location. The user may be able to store packet sequences for various locations that may allow the user to automatically check into these locations using the store packet sequences.
US09356816B2

The application relates to the transport of SS7 signaling over an Internet Protocol based network and in particular to the routing of SS7 Signaling Network Management SSNM Messages such as Destination Unavailable DUNA and Signalling Congestion SCON by a SIGTRAN relay node. The SSNM messages are checked against a so-called “validation rule”, which either specifies a list of allowed affected point codes or a threshold rate of SSNM messages with the same affected point code. If the SSNM message is “valid” it is sent to a so-called “broadcast domain” which comprise nodes such as signaling endpoints or component of one or more application servers.
US09356810B2

A semiconductor integrated circuit includes a first wireless access system reception unit including a first analog reception unit and a first digital reception unit, a voltage-controlled oscillator, a phase locked loop, and a digital interface. The first analog reception unit comprises a first reception mixer for down-converting an RF reception signal into a first analog reception signal and a first analog-digital converter for converting the first analog reception signal into a first digital reception signal. The first wireless access system reception unit, the voltage-controlled oscillator, and the phase locked loop enable switching from a reception operation for a first RF reception signal of a first system to a reception operation for a second RF reception signal of a second system.
US09356799B2

A network device located in an Ethernet ring may be operable to determine binding between a MAC address and a peer device in the Ethernet ring. The binding may indicate that the MAC address is behind the peer device. When an Ethernet ring failure occurs, the network device may be operable to update forwarding information based on a ring topology of the Ethernet ring, a position of the failure on the Ethernet ring and the binding. The forwarding information may indicate which ring port that is used on the network device to forward MAC frames to a destination corresponding to the MAC address. The network device may then forward the MAC frames based on the updated forwarding information. The Ethernet ring may utilize a VLAN frame format, a Q-in-Q frame format or a MAC-in-MAC frame format. The forwarding information may comprise a MAC table and/or a protection table.
US09356796B2

A CATV/MoCA signal distribution system includes a first 2-way hybrid splitter for receiving a CATV input signal and splitting it into first and second CATV output signals, a second 2-way hybrid splitter for receiving the second CATV output signal and splitting it into third and fourth CATV output signals, with the latter being connected to a CATV output port. A first diplex filter is receptive of the first CATV output signal, and MoCA signals for providing electrical isolation therebetween and connecting them to a modem port. A second diplex filter is receptive of the third CATV output signal and MoCA signals for providing electrical isolation therebetween and connecting them to a Gateway port. A resistive splitter is connected between the first and second diplex filters and a plurality of individual MoCA signal ports for providing bidirectional MoCA signal flow therebetween.
US09356794B2

The present invention relates to an electronic device for communication within a network, comprising a first interface (6) enabling communication with at least one further electronic device (1a. 1b, 1c, 1d, 1e) within a network (8) according to a first communication standard, a storage (5) for storing a first address of the at least one further electronic device (1a, 1b, 1c, 1d, 1e), said first address relating to the first communication standard, and a controller (4) for requesting a second address from said at least one further electronic device (1a, 1b, 1c, 1d, 1e), said second address relating to a second communication standard within said network (8), wherein the second address is stored together with the first address in the storage (5). The present invention further relates to a method for operating an electronic device.
US09356791B2

A method for ascertaining active sessions may include receiving a request to ascertain active sessions by a session information server; transmitting respective challenges for document contents, which indicate whether sessions are currently active, from the session information server to at least one document management server which has a respective associated communication session server, wherein in the case of precisely one document management server the latter has at least two associated session servers; receiving respective challenge responses from the document management server, which indicate active sessions controlled by the session server associated with the respective document management server or which indicate that such sessions currently do not exist, by the session information server; and transmitting a first response, which indicates one or more active sessions controlled by the session servers associated with the document management server or which indicates that such sessions currently do not exist, by the session information server.
US09356781B2

Techniques are described for using unique features of a storage medium for authentication of data as originating from the storage medium, and also for installing software and data to a storage medium in a way which inhibits unauthorized copying of the software and data to another storage medium. Cryptoprocessing keys are created using unique features of the storage medium such as location information related to storage of selected elements of a software installation on the storage medium, or alternatively defective block information relating to the storage medium. The cryptoprocessing keys are used to encrypt data for transmission to a remote server. The remote server uses the cryptoprocessing keys to decrypt the data and authenticates the data as having been encrypted with the correct keys.
US09356774B2

An apparatus and an associated method selects rates at which received signals are sampled in a multi-user communication system. The signals are sampled at initial sampling rates during a first period. An estimate is made of the number of received signals, and selection is made of an updated sampling rate, based in part upon the estimate.
US09356772B2

A clock data recovery circuit includes a sampler to sample incoming data bits, a phase detector to generate an edge position signal and a polarity signal based on the sampled incoming data, a finite state machine to save a current edge position state, a polarity decision unit to generate a polarity inversion signal to invert the polarity signal, a gain controller to generate a tracking bandwidth signal, a recovery loop configured to adjust an edge offset of the reference clock, and a bit selector configured to recover the incoming data. The clock data recovery circuit has a first latency at a first operation mode and a second latency at a second operation mode. The phase detector in the clock data recovery circuit may include a first phase detector and a second detector combined together for a low latency and low lock time of the clock data recovery circuit.
US09356753B2

The present invention relates to a wireless communication system. A method for receiving data by a user equipment (UE) in a cooperative multi-point (CoMP) wireless communication system includes receiving downlink control information (DCI) that does not contain information indicating a transmission base station (BS) that actually transmits data among a plurality of BSs that participate in CoMP, receiving information about zero-power channel state information-reference signal (CSI-RS) of each of the plural BSs, and assuming that data is not mapped to a resource element of zero-power CSI-RS with a lowest index and receiving the data through a physical downlink control channel (PDSCH).
US09356751B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide a data transmission method, a base station, and a user equipment. The data transmission method includes: determining, by a base station, a modulation and coding level and a time-frequency resource, and determining, in a first or second modulation and transport block size index table, a TBS index and a modulation mode, where a second TBS index is not smaller than a first TBS index; and sending service data and a system scheduling control signal to a user equipment by adopting the selected TBS. In this way, the base station can select a larger TBS to achieve a higher coding rate and increase a system throughput.
US09356732B2

In an example, there is disclosed a system and method for detecting and correcting error in a quadrature receiver (QR). The QR may include a receiver channel operable to divide a received RF signal into I and Q channels. The receiver channel may include error sources, such as (in sequence) pre-demodulation (PD) error, LO mixer error, and baseband (BB) error. Test tones may be driven on the receiver channel at a plurality of test frequencies, and a quadrature error corrector may be provided to detect error from each source. Upon receiving an RF signal, the quadrature error corrector may apply correction coefficients to correct each source of error in reverse sequence (BB, LO, PD).
US09356726B2

Configuring an optical point to multipoint communication network includes assigning a channel number Ci by modular arithmetic to each of a plurality of N access points, each of the plurality of N access points i) including a laser and ii) coupled to a hub having a shared optical receiver; and tuning the laser located in each of the plurality of N access points to a wavelength λui that is one of a set of M wavelengths as a function of the channel number assigned to the access point in which the laser is located, a channel spacing Δλ and an intrinsic wavelength λuin of the laser to prevent optical beat interference at the shared optical receiver.
US09356719B2

A radio frequency signal is frequency-translated to form a complex first intermediate signal where a frequency corresponding to a GPS center frequency is at an intermediate frequency. In a multiplexing conversion unit a complex multiplexed conversion signal which assumes different conversion frequencies is derived from a clock signal where the frequency of the latter is divided alternately by one of two divisors in a divider circuit and further by two in a phase shifter. The conversion signal is mixed with the first intermediate signal in a conversion mixer to provide a multiplexed second intermediate signal where, depending in each case on the conversion frequency, a frequency corresponding to a GLONASS center frequency and a frequency corresponding to a BeiDou center frequency are alternately shifted close to the intermediate frequency. The first intermediate signal and the second intermediate signal are then processed in a baseband unit.
US09356710B2

Near-field communication (NFC) test apparatus and methods for use by a consumer to confirm the functionality of the NFC circuitry of his or her NFC-enabled mobile device, and/or to troubleshoot wireless (NFC) communications problems of the mobile device. In an embodiment, a method includes initializing, by a mobile device processor, a NFC test application, displaying on a mobile device display screen a prompt for the consumer to position the mobile device onto a test platform that includes at least one NFC tag, initializing the NFC circuitry of the mobile device to power and communicate with the at least one NFC tag, and displaying an indication on the mobile device display screen concerning functionality of the NFC circuitry.
US09356706B2

An underground mine communications upgrade comprises an independent VHF-UHF band to MF band repeater-transceiver translator (RTT) and loop antenna added to a conventional miner's cap-lamp and helmet. VHF/UHF band communications with nearby conventional handsets are translated to medium frequency (MF band) communications that couple mine-wide to copper-core life-lines in all the entries. Such life-lines also do well supporting ultra low frequency (ULF), through-the-earth (TTE) communications with the surface above. Roof mounted borehole MF band ULF RTT's are coupled to the dual-frequency life-lines and bridge the MF band communications on the life-lines with the ULF communications on the life-lines. The MF band radio traffic primarily consists of digital packetswitch communications. Both the cap-lamp and borehole RTT's translate between the types of modulation used on the VHF/UHF band handsets, and also the types of modulation used on the ULF TTE surface communications, with the MF band digital packetswitch communications.
US09356705B2

A receiver arrangement for receiving an optical signal comprising a number of optical channels equally distributed around an optical carrier frequency. The arrangement is configured to: i) received and detect the multichannel optical signal so as to provide at least one electrical quadrature signal comprising at least one folded channel, wherein each folded channel correspond to a set of two optical channels collapsed onto each other; ii) up-convert said at least one electrical quadrature signal so as to provide at least one up-converted quadrature signal comprising at least one pair of two separated unfolded channels, wherein each pair correspond to the two optical channels of a unique folded channel; and iii) demodulating said at least one up-converted quadrature signal so as to provide one baseband quadrature signal for each un folded channel such that each baseband quadrature signal corresponds to one unique optical channel.
US09356700B2

Embodiments enable a half-duplex Time Division Duplex (TDD) mode for Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) or EPON over Coax (EPoC) networks. Specifically, embodiments provide systems and methods for enabling an Optical Line Terminal (OLT)/Coaxial Line Terminal (CLT) to share a physical medium spectrum in time with the Optical Network Units (ONUs)/Coaxial Network Units (CNUs) that it services. In an embodiment, the OLT/CLT includes an EPON scheduler that can schedule downstream and upstream transmissions over the same physical medium spectrum. In another embodiment, the OLT/CLT is equipped with a burst mode transmit physical layer (PHY) module, which can be controlled by an EPON Medium Access Control (MAC) module, to transmit in burst mode over the physical medium. In a further embodiment, there is provided an ONU/CNU with a burst mode receive PHY module. The burst mode receive PHY module can maintain clock timing even with non-continuous reception from the OLT/CLT.
US09356699B2

A dynamic readjustment of an energy efficient network control policy parameters in an optical network unit based on a Service Interoperability in Ethernet Passive Optical Network (SIEPON) protocol. The access link between the OLT and ONU has distinct properties that can be used to enhance the energy efficiency control policy on the network facing side of the ONU. In one embodiment, an adjustment mechanism can be based on the receipt, by an optical interface in an ONU, of a control command from an upstream OLT, wherein the control command is configured to provide a limitation on an available time period during which the ONU can communicate with the OLT over an optical fiber cable.
US09356690B2

An optical communication module includes a control unit, a nonvolatile memory and a volatile memory. The control unit monitors the optical communication module and repeatedly receives log information about a state of a host substrate from the host substrate. The control unit stores the log information in the volatile memory, together with a result of monitoring of the optical communication module. When a hazard signal indicating an abnormality relating to power supply from the host substrate is detected, the control unit writes, in the nonvolatile memory, the result of monitoring of the optical communication module and the log information from the host substrate.
US09356689B2

An optical transmitter includes: an optical modulator configured to generate an optical signal from a plurality of transmission signals; a crosstalk monitor configured to monitor crosstalk between the plurality of transmission signals by using the optical signal; and a crosstalk canceller configured to correct the plurality of transmission signals based on a result of monitoring by the crosstalk monitor.
US09356688B2

Embodiments of the present invention are systems and methods for wireless communication. According to one embodiment, a system for wireless communication comprises a first relay station, second relay station, and a base station. The first relay station and the second relay station are operable to receive and transmit wireless signals. The base station is operable to transmit the wireless signals to the first relay station and the second relay station in an interchanging pattern during successive time frames so that the first relay station and the second relay station forward the wireless signals to a mobile station.
US09356674B2

A mobile device estimates channel state information (CSI) comprising, for example, CQI and/or SNR, for a downlink channel. The estimated CSI is non-uniformly quantized and transmitted to the base station over a finite-rate feedback channel. Different portions of the estimated CSI are quantized using different quantization step sizes, which are determined according to a performance metric function such as a channel capacity function of the estimated CSI. A quantization step size for a portion of the estimated CSI is increased if a low distribution probability is indicated by the portion of the estimated CSI. A quantization step size for a portion of the estimated CSI is decreased if a high distribution probability is indicated. The mobile device quantizes the estimated CSI using the determined quantization step sizes to transmit to the base station over the finite-rate feedback channel. Downlink data transmission is received according to the transmitted CSI.
US09356668B2

A method for predicting precoding matrix (PM) in a MIMO System includes the steps of: obtaining a present PM based on a present transmission; fitting the present PM and previous PMs with a predefined model; and determining a forthcoming PM which is expected to be used in the next transmission based on the fitting.
US09356666B1

Methods and systems are described for generating a signal, which may be based on, for example, a pseudorandom sequence associated with a group of nodes, a pseudorandom sequence associated with a recipient, and/or a complex sinusoid. The first node may transmit the signal as an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission.
US09356661B2

An electronic device may have a display. A display cover layer and a transparent inner display member may overlap a display pixel layer. The display pixel layer may have an array of display pixels for displaying images for a user. A touch sensor layer may be interposed between the display pixel layer and the transparent display member. A ferromagnetic shielding layer may be mounted below the display pixel layer. A flexible printed circuit containing coils of metal signal lines that form a near-field communications loop antenna may be interposed between the ferromagnetic shielding layer and the display pixel layer. A non-near-field antenna such as an inverted-F antenna may have a resonating element mounted on an inner surface of the display cover layer. The resonating element may be interposed between the transparent display member and the display cover layer.
US09356659B2

Systems and methods for enabling efficient wireless power transfer, and charging of devices and batteries, in a manner that allows freedom of placement of the devices or batteries in one or multiple (e.g., one, two or three) dimensions. In accordance with various embodiments, applications include inductive or magnetic charging and power, and wireless powering or charging of, e.g., mobile, electronic, electric, lighting, batteries, power tools, kitchen, military, medical or dental, industrial applications, vehicles, trains, or other devices or products. In accordance with various embodiments, the systems and methods can also be generally applied, e.g., to power supplies or other power sources or charging systems, such as systems for transfer of wireless power to a mobile, electronic or electric device, vehicle, or other product.
US09356658B2

Various energy harvesting and control techniques are used to power and control electronic accessories from the audio output channels and microphone input channel of mobile digital devices while preserving audio input and output functionality. One technique uses one of the stereophonic audio channels to generate power, and the other in conjunction with the microphone jack to enable bi-directional communications while preserving audio input and output. Another technique allows a low powered electronic accessory with bi-directional communications to be supported while simultaneously supporting audio input & stereo output. These techniques facilitate the ability to play music, narration and instruction and to receive oral responses and instruction with no perceived loss or gaps, even while using the audio jack of a mobile digital device to harvest energy and bi-directional communication.
US09356649B2

In one embodiment, a method for blindly detecting low density spreading (LDS) active signatures including receiving, by a first node from a second node, a signal and decorrelating the signal in accordance with a signature list to obtain an active signature list. The method also includes decoding the signal in accordance with the active signature list to obtain a decoded signal.
US09356633B2

Provided are an apparatus and method for receiving a multipath signal in a wireless communication system. The apparatus includes a weighting block for receiving an estimated channel gain value output from a channel estimator and outputting an estimated weighted channel gain value and a compensator unit for receiving the estimated weighted channel gain value, reflecting the weight, and compensating, for an estimated channel gain.
US09356622B2

A method for reconstructing a physically uncloneable function (PUF) A for use in an electronic device is provided. The method includes generating a potentially erroneous PUF At and performing a preliminary correction of the potentially erroneous PUF At by means of a stored correction vector Deltat-1, to obtain a preliminarily corrected PUF Bt. The PUF A is reconstructed from the preliminarily corrected PUF Bt by means of an error correction algorithm. A corresponding apparatus is also provided.
US09356621B2

According to embodiments of the present invention, machines, systems, methods and computer program products for hierarchical compression of data are presented comprising creating a compression hierarchy of compression nodes, wherein each compression node is associated with a compression operation to produce compressed data. An output of any of the compression nodes may be compressed by another compression node or the same compression node. A path of one or more compression nodes is determined through said compression hierarchy based upon compression statistics to compress data, and the data is compressed by the compression nodes of the path. Various computational techniques are presented herein for manipulating the compression hierarchy to defer or reduce computation during query evaluation.
US09356617B2

Apparatus and methods for analog-to-digital converters are provided. In an example, a sigma-delta analog-to-digital converter (ADC) can include a modulator configured to receive an analog signal and a decimation filter configured to provide a digital representation of the analog signal using an output of the modulator. In certain examples, the modulator can includes an integrator and a comparator od quantizer coupled to an output of the integrator. The comparator, in certain examples, can be configured to receive a second signal from the output of the integrator and to receive a plurality of dither signals, the dither signals can be configured to prevent limit cycles of the sigma-delta ADC.
US09356600B2

An IO driver for an integrated circuit and a method for calibrating such an IO driver are provided. The IO driver comprises a plurality of IO driver cells, a plurality of IO partial driver cells and an external resistor. The IO driver cells control IO operations for a corresponding plurality of data channels of the integrated circuit. The IO partial driver cells are coupled to respective cells of the plurality of IO driver cells. The external resistor provides a reference impedance. The reference partial driver cell is coupled to the external resistor and is arranged to determine the reference impedance and to provide information depending on the reference impedance to the IO partial driver cells. The IO partial driver cells are arranged to calibrate the respective IO driver cells based on the provided information.
US09356595B2

Methods, systems, circuits, and devices for power-packet-switching power converters using bidirectional bipolar transistors (BTRANs) for switching. Four-terminal three-layer BTRANs provide substantially identical operation in either direction with forward voltages of less than a diode drop. BTRANs are fully symmetric merged double-base bidirectional bipolar opposite-faced devices which operate under conditions of high non-equilibrium carrier concentration, and which can have surprising synergies when used as bidirectional switches for power-packet-switching power converters. BTRANs are driven into a state of high carrier concentration, making the on-state voltage drop very low.
US09356592B2

According to example embodiments, a method of operating a power device includes applying a control voltage to a control electrode of the power device, where the control electrode is electrically separated from a source electrode, a drain electrode, and a gate electrode of the power device. The control voltage is separately applied to the control electrode. The method may include applying a negative control voltage to the control electrode prior to applying a gate voltage to the gate electrode.
US09356573B2

A piezoelectric thin film resonator includes: a piezoelectric film provided on a substrate; a lower electrode and an upper electrode sandwiching at least a part of the piezoelectric film and facing with each other; and an inserted film that is inserted in the piezoelectric film, is provided in an outer circumference region of a resonance region and is not provided in a center region of the resonance region, wherein: an angle between an edge face of the lower electrode and a lower face of the lower electrode in the resonance region is an acute angle; and a width of the inserted film in the resonance region on a side for extracting the upper electrode from the resonance region is larger than another width of the inserted film in the resonance region on a side for extracting the lower electrode from the resonance region.
US09356570B2

An apparatus is provided, comprising a single-ended input stage with signals IN_P & IN_N as input and OUT_P & OUT_N as output, wherein the differential input controlled by transistors P1-3 and N1-N3; and a means for weighting (sizing) of transistor (P1 & P3) relative to P2 and (N1 & N3) relative to N2 defines the optimal operation mode.
US09356566B2

An audio amplifier comprising an input block, a plurality of switches, an output filter, a current monitor and a proxy signal generator is provided. The input block is configured to receive an input signal and to provide a modulated signal. The plurality of switches is configured to generate an audio unfiltered signal including an undesired switching frequency component in response to the modulated signal. The output filter includes a coil and is configured to filter the undesired switching frequency from the audio unfiltered signal. The current monitor is configured to transmit a measurement output including a first operating frequency. The proxy signal generator is configured to provide a proxy signal including a second operating frequency. The input block is further configured to receive the first operating frequency and the second operating frequency to operate in accordance to the first operating frequency and the second operating frequency.
US09356554B2

A relaxation oscillator reduces temperature sensitivity and phase noise at low offset frequency by periodically swapping a first current and a second current so that after the first current has been input to a first pair of circuits and the second current has been input to a second pair of circuits, the second current is input to the first pair of circuits and the first current is input to the second pair of circuits.
US09356545B2

An amount of a motor drive current is controlled to an appropriate value. Two coils are provided, and a rotor is rotated by the coils by setting different phases for the supplied currents to the two coils. During a phase where one of the coils is in a high-impedance state, an induced voltage generated in the coil is detected. According to the state of the induced voltage, an output control circuit controls the amounts of the motor drive currents supplied to the two coils.
US09356543B2

A power source control apparatus for a rotating electrical machine includes a TRC optimum voltage output portion (21) and a GEN optimum voltage output portion (22) that acquire a TRC optimum voltage and a GEN optimum voltage; a normal target voltage output portion (23) that sets a normal target voltage commonly applied to a traveling motor system and a power generating motor system using a DC/DC converter, based on a highest optimum voltage out of the TRC optimum voltage and the GEN optimum voltage; and a temperature protecting target voltage output portion (24) and a target voltage output portion (25) that limit the voltage commonly applied to the traveling motor system and the power generating motor system to a value lower than the normal target voltage.
US09356534B1

Aspects of the disclosure provide a method. The method includes regulating a time for turning on a switch to transfer energy via a transformer in a first control mode, determining a turn-on time for a second control mode based on the regulated time in the first control mode, and controlling the switch based on the determined turn-on time in the second control mode to transfer energy via the transformer.
US09356532B2

Various embodiments relate to a load driver and a luminaire including the load driver. The load driver may include a voltage limiting circuit including a first polar capacitor and a second polar capacitor connected in inverse series, which are connected in parallel respectively with first and second current limiting elements, where the first and second current limiting elements limit the direction in which current flows so that current flows through different polar capacitors in positive and negative halves of a cycle of an alternating-current power supply.
US09356527B2

A multi-mode active clamping power converter comprises an input inductor, a down-bridge switch, an up-bridge switch, a first energy-storing capacitor, a clamping capacitor, a resonant inductor, a magnetizing inductor, a transformer, an output diode and an output capacitor. The input inductor has a boundary inductance value, wherein an input voltage source is operated between a first voltage and a second voltage and the boundary inductance value is set according to the first voltage and a heavy load so as to be served as an initial condition of the multi-mode active clamping power converter, and then the input inductor is operated in a boundary conduction mode.
US09356518B2

An over-voltage protection circuit is applied to a switching voltage converting circuit. The switching voltage converting circuit manipulates an upper bridge power switch in the circuit, so as to convert an input voltage into an output voltage by an inductor. A channel of the upper bridge power switch and the inductor are coupled to a phase end. The over-voltage protection circuit includes: a comparator, coupled to the switching voltage converting circuit, wherein when a voltage of the phase end is higher than a voltage limiting threshold, an output end of the comparator outputs a first voltage level; and a pulse width detection unit, coupled to the output end of the comparator, wherein when the output end of the comparator remains the first voltage level for a time period longer than a protection period, the pulse width detection unit outputs an over-voltage protection activation signal.
US09356517B1

A regulated DC-DC switching converter includes a bypass mode in which ends of an output inductor are coupled together. Circuitry determines output capacitor current and load current components of output inductor current during operation of the switching converter, for use in controlling switching operations.
US09356513B2

A sequence circuit includes a power output terminal, first to third power input terminals, first to sixth resistors, first to tenth filed effect transistors (FETs), first to third inductors, a first capacitor, a second capacitor, and first to third drivers. The sequence circuit ensures that different voltages work in a correct sequence.
US09356510B2

A switching converter providing an output voltage has at least one switch and a control circuit. The control circuit has a slope compensation module, an output correction module and a control module, wherein the slope compensation module provides a slope compensation signal, the output correction module provides a voltage trim signal based on the slope compensation signal, and the control module provides a control signal to control the at least one switch based on the slope compensation signal, the voltage trim signal, a reference signal, the output voltage and an error compensation signal provided based on a difference between the output voltage and a set target of the output voltage.
US09356506B1

A charge pump regulator at least includes a first charge pump circuit and a second charge pump circuit. In an enabled period, a first clock signal is provided to the first charge pump circuit. Consequently, the first charge pump circuit generates an output voltage to an output terminal of the charge pump regulator. In the enabled period, a second clock signal is provided to the second charge pump circuit. Consequently, the second charge pump circuit generates the output voltage to the output terminal of the charge pump regulator. In a first time interval of the enabled period, the first clock signal has a first frequency and the second clock signal is maintained at a fixed level. In a second time interval of the enabled period, both of the first clock signal and the second clock signal have a second frequency.
US09356503B2

In one embodiment, the instant invention can provide a harmonic mitigating device that can include at least the following components: an active filter; a passive filter; c) at least one control switch, where the at least one control switch operationally controls whether the at least one active filter or the at least one passive filter can be utilized by the harmonic mitigation device to mitigate at least one harmonic current flow, and where the at least one control switch operationally switches the harmonic mitigation device from utilizing the at least one active filter to utilizing the at least one passive filter when a current load exceeds a predetermined percent of a full current load.
US09356485B2

An electric motorcycle includes an electric driving unit including an electric motor and a power transmission mechanism, and is configured to halt supplying of electric power to the electric motor for at least a period in the stopped state. A starting assist method is executed in the electric motorcycle. The starting assist method comprises the steps of activating the electric motor and rotating a rotor by itself to store rotation energy in the rotor, keeping the rotation energy stored in the rotor in the step of storing the rotation energy, in a stopped state of the electric motorcycle, and transmitting the rotation energy of the rotor kept in the step of keeping the rotation energy to the rear wheel as starting assist power.
US09356481B2

A rotor structure for a motor includes a shaft, a single magnet and two fixing seats. The single magnet has two opposite end faces. An axial hole has a maximum extent equal to a maximum extent between the two opposite end faces. At least one of the two opposite end faces has a first engaging member. The magnet and each opposite end face have a maximum radial extent. Each fixing seat includes an abutting face having a maximum radial extent the same as the maximum radial extent of the single magnet and of the opposite end faces. One of the abutting faces has a second engaging member. The first engaging member is located at the maximum radial extent at the outer edge of the at least one of the two opposite end faces, or located at the inner edge of the at least one of the two opposite end faces.
US09356472B2

A system permits wirelessly controlling the duty cycle of alternating current at a wall electrical outlet (152) remote from a wall electrical outlet (144) which is controlled by a wall switch (142).
US09356468B2

A standby power shutoff device is provided that includes a switch generating power when turning on and generating an “on” signal using the power, a switching unit generating an “on/off” signal for a product, a power supply unit providing power for function units of the product by receiving an external input power, a power switching unit driven in response to a driving signal to cut off or connect a power supply path for the input power provided to the power supply unit, a control unit generating a control signal for powering off the product in response to an “off” signal from the switching unit, and a driving unit receiving power from the “on” signal from the switching unit, driving the power switching unit to connect the power supply path, and driving the power switching unit to cut off the power supply path in response to a “power off” control signal.
US09356460B2

Methods, electronic devices and USB charger apparatus are presented for fast USB charging, in which a high voltage master of the device detects a connected high voltage charger and selectively connects a current circuit to source or sink a current to or from one USB cable data signal conductor while providing a non-zero voltage to the other USB cable data signal conductor to configure the charger apparatus to provide charging power at a particular high voltage level above a nominal voltage level.
US09356457B2

A charging pad capable of charging a receiver according to a predetermined procedure is disclosed. The charging pad may have a plurality of charging coils and a controller for selecting an appropriate coil for charging the receiver. The receiver communicates with the charging pad via NFC, thereby indicating to the charging pad the appropriate procedure for charging the receiver. The controller then selects the appropriate coil and directs charging according to the appropriate procedure.
US09356443B2

An Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) clamp includes first power rail, a second power rail separate from the first power rail, and an ESD discharging circuit including a plurality of cascaded MOS transistors coupled between the second power rail and an electrical ground. A bias circuit is configured to turn on the ESD discharging circuit in response to an ESD event on the second power rail, and to turn off the ESD discharging circuit during a normal operation of the ESD clamp.
US09356442B2

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection is provided by a charge-latching power-to-ground clamp circuit. A filter capacitor and resistor generate a filter voltage that is buffered by three stages to drive the gate of a BigFET such as a large n-channel transistor. A transmission gate between the stages turns off when BigFET turns on, causing charge to be latched. The filter capacitor can then discharge while the BigFET remains on. A leaker resistor slowly discharges the gate of the large BigFET and turns the transmission gate back on when the BigFET turns off after shunting the ESD current. The length of time that the clamp shunts the ESD current is determined by the leaker resistor and gate capacitance of the BigFET, not by the filter capacitor, so a small filter capacitor may be used.
US09356441B2

A surge arrester comprising stacked arrester units is provided that is that is easy to assemble. For that, a surge arrester comprises stacked arrester units, a capacitor, and a resilient element, where the resilient element electrically and mechanically connects the capacitor with a node of the arrester stack.
US09356439B2

Reduced-pair Ethernet patch cords include a twisted pair cable that has a pair of insulated conductors that are contained within a cable jacket. A connector is mounted on a first end of the cable. The connector includes a connector housing and a strain relief unit that is mounted on the cable at the interface between the cable and the connector housing. The strain relief unit includes a plurality of internal protrusions that contact the cable jacket.
US09356435B2

An enclosure housing assembly for an electrical switching apparatus is provided. The enclosure housing assembly includes a sidewall assembly, a movable carriage assembly, a ground bus bar assembly and a movable terminal assembly with an extendable conductor assembly. The sidewall assembly includes a number of sidewalls defining an enclosed space. The movable carriage assembly is movable between a withdrawn, first position. Wherein the movable carriage assembly is disposed partially outside the enclosure sidewall assembly enclosed space, and an inserted, second position, wherein the movable carriage assembly is disposed substantially inside the enclosure sidewall assembly enclosed space. The ground bus bar assembly is coupled to the first sidewall. The movable terminal assembly is coupled to the movable carriage assembly whereby the movable terminal assembly moves with the movable carriage assembly. The extendable conductor assembly is coupled to, and in electrical communication with, the ground bus bar assembly.
US09356431B2

A high power blue-violet Ill-nitride semipolar laser diode (LD) with an output power in excess of 1 W, a slope efficiency of more than 1 W/A, and an external quantum efficiency (EQE) in excess of 25% and more preferably, in excess of 35%. These operating characteristics make these laser diodes suitable for use in solid state lighting systems.
US09356430B2

Optical devices having a structured active region configured for selected wavelengths of light emissions are disclosed.
US09356426B2

An atomic oscillator includes a first unit and a second unit arranged to be separated from each other and a package including an internal space in which the first unit and the second unit are housed in a state in which the internal space is decompressed to pressure lower than the atmospheric pressure. The reflectance of the outer surfaces of the first unit and the second unit to an electromagnetic wave having a wavelength of 4 μm is equal to or higher than 50%.
US09356422B2

An improved scribe etch process for semiconductor laser chip manufacturing is provided. A method to etch a scribe line on a semiconductor wafer generally includes: applying a mask layer to a surface of the wafer; photolithographically opening a window in the mask layer along the scribe line; etching a trench in the wafer using a chemical etchant that operates on the wafer through the window opening, wherein the chemical etchant selectively etches through crystal planes of the wafer to generate a V-groove profile associated with the trench; and cleaving the wafer along the etched trench associated with the scribe line through application of a force to one or more regions of the wafer.
US09356419B1

A technique related to a semiconductor chip is provided. An optical gain chip is attached to a semiconductor substrate. An integrated photonic circuit is on the semiconductor substrate, and the optical gain chip is optically coupled to the integrated photonic circuit thereby forming a laser cavity. The integrated photonic circuit includes an active intra-cavity thermo-optic optical phase tuner element, an intra-cavity optical band-pass filter, and an output coupler band-reflect optical grating filter with passive phase compensation. The active intra-cavity thermo-optic optical phase tuner element, the intra-cavity optical band-pass filter, and the output coupler band-reflect optical grating filter with passive phase compensation are optically coupled together.
US09356415B2

A laser safety control system is configured with a power source module directly coupled to an AC source and including a galvanically isolated DC/DC converter with at least one output capacitor, and a safety mechanism. The safety mechanism has first and second safety channels which operate independently from one another so as to switch the normal operating regime of the power source module to the safe regime. In the normal operating regime, its DC output has a high voltage, whereas in the safe regime the DC output has a low voltage lower than the high voltage.The safety channels each include a shutdown circuit operative to switch the DC/DC converter off and a discharging circuit operative to discharge the output capacitor. The switching off DC/DC converter and discharging of the output capacitor define the safe regime of the power source module.
US09356412B2

A female terminal includes a box portion which is formed into a quadrangular prism-like shape so as for a tab of a male terminal to fit therein by bending a copper alloy plate which is obtained by being continuously and repeatedly bent before an age heat treatment is applied thereto, which has a proof stress of 700 MPa or larger and a width of 10 mm or larger and in which no crack is produced therein when bent 180 degrees about a bending axis which is at right angle to a rolling direction of the copper alloy plate. The box portion comprises notches which are formed in inner sides of bent portions produced by bending the copper alloy plate. A depth of the notch is set to be in the range from ¼ to ½ of a thickness of the copper alloy plate.
US09356408B1

An electronic device can be configured to support a port that connects to a plug or jack such that the face of the port is substantially equal to or greater in size than at least one dimension of the electronic device. The electronic device can then continue to support connections to peripheral devices and other devices having plugs and jacks of various sizes, and the electronic device is not necessarily limited to a certain depth or thickness. This can be achieved by electronic devices that incorporate adaptive or extensible ports that are retracted in one state and extended in a second state to support the plugs or jacks such that the face of the port substantially meets or exceeds at least one dimension of the electronic device. Alternatively, or in addition, other embodiments can incorporate resilient materials for certain portions of the port.
US09356402B2

In one embodiment, a source device and sink device communicate with one another via a multimedia link. The multimedia link includes a cable and a plug. The cable includes one or more data lines, power lines, ground lines or control bus lines. The plug includes a plurality of pins each connected to the one or more lines included in the cable. The plug also includes a ground plane and a power plane, wherein a ground pin of the plug connects the ground plane to the ground line of the cable of the multimedia link and a power pin of the plug connects the ground plane to the power line of the cable. In one example, the ground plane and power plane are placed within a threshold distance of one another, such that the power line connected to the power plane via the power pin behaves as a signal return path.
US09356393B2

A low-profile electrical connector includes a housing having exterior perimeter sides and top and bottom surfaces, where the bottom surface is configured to extend along a user's body site and the top surface is spaced above the bottom surface. The connector also includes a side-entry guide channel disposed along the bottom surface. The channel includes an opening along the exterior perimeter side that is configured to receive an electrically conductive element. The channel is also configured to guide the electrically conductive element within the housing. The connector includes a receptacle positioned within the housing and forms an electrically conductive interface with the electrically conductive element.
US09356382B2

An RF interconnection module includes a housing having a perimeter, a capacitive coupling, and a float gasket disposed about the perimeter of the housing. When the housing is mounted in an opening, the float gasket is positioned between the housing and the opening. The float gasket may be made of an elastomer material and may include a plurality of outwardly extending ribs for movable securing the gasket in the opening. In addition, a mount assembly includes a bracket assembly attachable to a tower-mounted equipment and at least one jumper cable having at least one ohmic connector for connecting to the tower-mounted equipment and at least one capacitive connector. The capacitive connector may comprise an RF interconnection module mounted on the bracket assembly. The bracket assembly may be adjustable to accommodate tower mounted equipment of various sizes.
US09356373B2

A connector which dispenses with an actuator and lowers profile while prevent damage to conducive path portions. A metal plate of the connector includes a first supporting portion mounted on a printed wiring board, and a second supporting portion connected to the first supporting portion via a linking portion in a manner movable in an FPC sandwiching direction. The second supporting portion includes a spring portion for urging a movable portion against FPC, a pair of locking pieces for increasing distance between contact point portions of the supporting portions by moving the movable portion away from the first supporting portion using an FPC inserting force, and suppressing removal of completely inserted FPC. Connection portions of conductive path portions are arranged on first and second protuberance portions at opposite ends of the first supporting portion in a connector left-right direction, along the connector front-back direction.
US09356364B2

A coaxial cable connector includes a continuity bus that extends a ground circuit from a coaxial cable outer conductor to a connector part such as a connector fastener and/or a connector post.
US09356363B1

A push-on coaxial cable connector includes a port grip, a joint, and a cable clamp.
US09356353B1

An antenna structure and methods are presented. A conductive resonator comprises a conductive ring configured to support an electromagnetic current, and a plurality of conductive teeth. The conductive teeth are distributed around an edge of the conductive ring, and are configured to control a flow of the electromagnetic current and tune a response of the antenna structure.
US09356346B2

A system for transmitting radio frequency includes antenna elements configured to transmit radio frequency beams including a horizontal beam widths and vertical beam widths. The antenna elements are positioned to transmit radio frequency in directions to cover areas independent of each other. The system includes a port operatively coupled to the antenna elements to transmit power to the antenna elements to cause the antenna elements to transmit radio frequency in the respective directions. The antenna elements and the port form a distributed antenna system.
US09356345B2

Disclosed is a common antenna for near field communication (NFC) and frequency modulation (FM). The common antenna comprises an antenna coil. The antenna feed line ends of the antenna coil are connected to an NFC matching circuit and an FM matching circuit, respectively. According to the disclosure, the antenna coil is connected to the NFC matching circuit and the FM matching circuit, respectively, so as to realize that the antenna is shared by the NFC and the FM, thereby reducing the costs, saving the space, and improving the product competitiveness.
US09356343B2

Techniques for utilization of antenna loading for impedance matching are described. In at least some embodiments, a device (e.g., a smart phone) includes multiple antennas that are employed to send and receive wireless signals for the device. The device further includes impedance matching functionality communicatively connected to the antennas, and configured to perform impedance matching for one of the antennas based on loading (e.g., dielectric loading) of another of the antennas.
US09356342B1

A method for determining a direct antenna coupling in a reverberant environment is disclosed. Radiowave energy is emitted in the reverberant environment from a transmitting antenna to a receiving antenna at a plurality of frequencies, and discrete frequency stirring data is collected at a plurality of frequencies. The discrete frequency stirring data is amplitude corrected and phase corrected using an expected amplitude shift and an expected phase shift at each of the frequencies to provide corrected discrete frequency stirring data. The direct antenna coupling is determined based on the corrected discrete frequency stirring data.
US09356332B2

An integrated-circuit module includes a package molding compound layer, a radio-frequency (RF) integrated circuit embedded within the package molding compound layer and having an RF port, a waveguide transition structure embedded within the package molding compound layer, and a redistribution layer. The waveguide transition structure includes a transmission line interface section, a waveguide interface section configured for coupling to a rectangular waveguide housing, and a transformer section configured to provide a mode transition between the transmission line interface section and the waveguide interface section. The redistribution layer includes at least one insulating layer and at least one metallization layer, extending between the RF integrated circuit and the waveguide transition structure across a surface of the package molding compound layer. The first redistribution layer includes an RF transmission line conductively connected between the RF port of the RF integrated circuit and the transmission line interface section of the waveguide transition structure.
US09356327B2

A battery apparatus having an electrochemical cell that includes an electrically insulating hollow mandrel, a pair of active materials wound on the mandrel, and a sensing unit located within the mandrel and coupled to the pair of active materials through a pair of contacts. The active materials are connected and separated by an electrolyte. The sensing unit is configured to monitor conditions of the cell and to generate a signal indicative of a sensed condition for communication to a battery management unit.
US09356326B2

A top cover includes a cover plate covering a plurality of battery cells and having an opening in at least one portion thereof, and at least one temperature measuring member mounted in the opening so as to measure a temperature of one the battery cells, the temperature measuring member having a temperature measuring portion coming in contact with the battery cell.
US09356325B1

An exemplary monitoring assembly includes, among other things, a controller configured to identify a change in an internal pressure of a battery cell using a resistance measurement and a reference temperature measurement, the resistance measurement provided by a strain gauge associated with the battery cell.
US09356321B2

In a lead-acid battery including an electrode plate group housed in a cell chamber 6 with an electrolyte, each positive electrode plate includes a positive electrode grid made of lead or a lead alloy containing no antimony, and a positive electrode active material with which the positive electrode grid is filled. Each negative electrode plate includes a negative electrode grid made of lead or a lead alloy containing no antimony, a surface layer formed on a surface of the negative electrode grid and made of a lead alloy containing antimony, and a negative electrode active material with which the negative electrode grid is filled. A mass ratio MN/MP falls within a range of 0.70 to 1.10, where MP represents the mass of the positive electrode active material per cell chamber, and MN represents the mass of the negative electrode active material per cell chamber.
US09356316B2

The present invention relates to vacuum-deposited solid state electrolyte layers with high ionic conductivity in electrochemical devices, and methods and tools for fabricating said electrolyte layers. An electrochemical device may comprise solid state electrolytes with incorporated thin layers and/or particles of transition metal oxides, silicon, silicon oxide, or other suitable materials that will induce an increase in ionic conductivity of the electrolyte stack (for example, materials with which lithium is able to intercalate), or mixtures thereof. An improvement in ionic conductivity of the solid state electrolyte is expected which is proportional to the number of incorporated layers or a function of the distribution uniformity and density of the particles within the electrolyte. Embodiments of the present invention are applicable to solid state electrolytes in a broad range of electrochemical devices including thin film batteries, electrochromic devices and ultracapacitors. The solid state electrolyte layers may be nominally pinhole-free.
US09356315B2

The main object of the present invention is to provide a sulfide solid electrolyte material with high Li ion conductivity. The present invention solves the problem by providing a sulfide solid electrolyte material comprising an ion conductor with an ortho-composition, and LiI, characterized in that the sulfide solid electrolyte material is glass with a glass transition point.
US09356311B1

Manufacturing an electronic device including embedding a first electrochemical cell and a second electrochemical cell in an insulative substrate. The first electrochemical cell and the second electrochemical cell are separated from one another by a distance that is greater than half a cell diameter of at least one of the first electrochemical cell or the second electrochemical cell.
US09356303B2

A method is provided for mitigating hydrogen evolution within a flow battery system that includes a plurality of flow battery cells, a power converter and an electrochemical cell. The method includes providing hydrogen generated by the hydrogen evolution within the flow battery system to the electrochemical cell. A first electrical current generated by an electrochemical reaction between the hydrogen and a reactant is sensed, and the sensed current is used to control an exchange of electrical power between the flow battery cells and the power converter.
US09356302B2

A fuel cell system includes a fuel cell, a fuel-gas supply path, a fuel-gas circulation path, a first flow adjuster, an ejector, a bypass flow path, and a second flow adjuster. The fuel cell has a fuel-gas flow path and an oxidant-gas flow path. The bypass flow path connects an upstream section of the fuel-gas supply path located upstream of the first flow adjuster to a downstream section of the fuel-gas supply path located downstream of the ejector so as to cause fuel gas to bypass the first flow adjuster and the ejector. The second flow adjuster is provided in the bypass flow path to adjust a flow rate of the fuel gas by intermittently ejecting the fuel gas at a larger flow rate than the first flow adjuster.
US09356300B2

A fuel cell stack includes a plurality of fuel cell cassettes each including a fuel cell with an anode and a cathode. Each fuel cell cassette also includes an electrode interconnect adjacent to the anode or the cathode for providing electrical communication between an adjacent fuel cell cassette and the anode or the cathode. The interconnect includes a plurality of electrode interconnect protrusions defining a flow passage along the anode or the cathode for communicating oxidant or fuel to the anode or the cathode. An electrically conductive material is disposed between at least one of the electrode interconnect protrusions and the anode or the cathode in order to provide a stable electrical contact between the electrode interconnect and the anode or cathode. An encapsulating arrangement segregates the electrically conductive material from the flow passage thereby, preventing volatilization of the electrically conductive material in use of the fuel cell stack.
US09356299B2

The present invention provides a fuel cell electrode, and a method for manufacturing a membrane-electrode assembly (MEA) using the same. The fuel cell electrode is formed by adding carbon nanotubes to reinforce the mechanical strength of the electrode, cerium-zirconium oxide particles to prevent corrosion of a polymer electrolyte membrane, and an alloy catalyst prepared by alloying a second metal (such as Ir, Pd, Cu, Co, Cr, Ni, Mn, Mo, Au, Ag, V, etc.) with platinum to prevent the dissolution, migration, and agglomeration of platinum.
US09356298B2

A method for forming a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) includes co-firing the anode and cathode electrode layers, which involves placing an unfired anode onto a surface during the cathode print cycle. To avoid damage to the electrolyte and cathode production cycle by the green anode ink, an abrasion resistant ink is used to print the anode electrode layer.
US09356288B2

Provided are a transition metal mixed hydroxide comprising an alkali metal other than Li, SO4 and a transition metal element, wherein the molar ratio of the molar content of the alkali metal to the molar content of the SO4 is not less than 0.05 and less than 2, and a lithium mixed metal oxide obtained by calcining a mixture of the transition metal mixed hydroxide and a lithium compound by maintaining the mixture at a temperature of 650 to 1000° C.
US09356286B1

An electrode material in which an electrode active material having a carbonaceous film formed on the surface is used, a migration path through which lithium ions diffuse is maintained in the carbonaceous film, and the lithium ion conductivity is also improved while the electron conductivity is supported by the carbonaceous film is provided.A electrode material, wherein the electrode material have a particulate shape, the electrode material is formed a carbonaceous film on surfaces of electrode active material particles, a coating proportion of the surfaces of the electrode active material particles by the carbonaceous film is 80% or more, and an apparent density (ρV) of the carbonaceous film calculated from an amount of carbon in the electrode material, a specific surface area of the electrode material, and an average film thickness of the carbonaceous film is in a range of 0.10 g/cm3 to 1.08 g/cm3.
US09356283B2

In an aspect, a positive active material for a rechargeable lithium battery that includes a first positive active material; and a second positive active material including LiaMn1-xMxO2 (M is selected from Co, Ni, Mn, Fe. Cu, V, Si, Al, Sn, Pb, Sn, Ti, Sr, Mg, Ca or a combination thereof; x is 0≦x≦1.0; and a is 0.9≦a≦1.1) is disclosed.
US09356276B2

An electrochemical energy storage system including at least a first type of electrochemical cell and a second type of electrochemical cell. The first type of electrochemical cell and the second type of electrochemical cell have different geometries. Also methods of making and using the electrochemical energy storage system.
US09356275B2

Disclosed is a laminated separator including a first polyolefin microporous layer and a second polyolefin microporous layer which is laminated on the first polyolefin microporous layer and which is different from the first polyolefin microporous layer, wherein at least one of the first microporous layer and the second microporous layer includes an inorganic particle having a primary particle size of 1 nm or more and 80 nm or less.
US09356272B2

A polyolefin-based split-type conjugate fiber according to the present invention is a polyolefin-based split-type conjugate fiber obtained by composite spinning including a first component containing a polypropylene-based resin and a second component containing a polyolefin-based resin, wherein the first component contains, as a primary component, a polypropylene resin having a Q value (the ratio between the weight average molecular weight Mw and the number average molecular weight Mn) of 6 or greater and a melt flow rate according to JIS K 7210 (MFR at a measurement temperature of 230° C. under a load of 2.16 kgf (21.18 N)) of 5 g/10 min or greater and less than 23 g/10 min, and the first component and the second component are adjacent to each other in a cross section of the polyolefin-based split-type conjugate fiber. Also, the polyolefin-based split-type conjugate fiber of the present invention can be obtained by melt spinning the first component and the second component by using a split type conjugate nozzle and drawing the resulting fiber.
US09356258B2

Electronic devices that use desiccants for protection from moisture. The electronic devices comprise a substrate and an organic element disposed over the top surface of the substrate. The substrate has one or more voids which may store desiccants. The voids may penetrate partially or completely through the thickness of the substrate. An environmental barrier is disposed over the organic element and the voids. Also provided are methods for making electronic devices that use desiccants.
US09356257B2

In an aspect, an organic light-emitting display apparatus and a method of manufacturing the same are provided. The organic light-emitting display apparatus may include a substrate; a display unit formed on the substrate; and a thin film encapsulating layer encapsulating the display unit. The thin film encapsulating layer may include a plurality of organic layers and inorganic layers that are laminated alternately. At least one of the plurality of the inorganic films may include a first layer formed of a first material, a second layer formed of a second material other than the first material, and an intermediate layer provided between the first and second layers.
US09356243B2

The present invention relates to compounds of the formula (1) which are suitable for use in electronic devices, in particular organic electroluminescent devices.
US09356240B1

A method for making electronic devices based on derivatized ladder polymer (Pz-BBL) including photovoltaic modules and simple thin film transistors in planar and mechanically flexible and stretchable constructs.
US09356238B2

The present invention provides templating methods for replicating patterned metal films from a template substrate such as for use in plasmonic devices and metamaterials. Advantageously, the template substrate is reusable and can provide plural copies of the structure of the template substrate. Because high-quality substrates that are inherently smooth and flat are available, patterned metal films in accordance with the present invention can advantageously provide surfaces that replicate the surface characteristics of the template substrate both in the patterned regions and in the unpatterned regions.
US09356237B2

A resistive random access memory array may be formed on the same substrate with a fuse array. The random access memory and the fuse array may use the same active material. For example, both the fuse array and the memory array may use a chalcogenide material as the active switching material. The main array may use a pattern of perpendicular sets of trench isolations and the fuse array may only use one set of parallel trench isolations. As a result, the fuse array may have a conductive line extending continuously between adjacent trench isolations. In some embodiments, this continuous line may reduce the resistance of the conductive path through the fuses.
US09356235B2

Structures and formation methods of memory devices are provided. The memory device includes a first electrode, a second electrode, and a resistive layer positioned between the first electrode and the second electrode. The resistive layer has a crystalline portion. A volume ratio of the crystalline portion to the resistive layer is in a range from about 0.2 to about 1.
US09356229B2

Memory cells are disclosed. Magnetic regions within the memory cells include an alternating structure of magnetic sub-regions and coupler sub-regions. The coupler material of the coupler sub-regions antiferromagnetically couples neighboring magnetic sub-regions and effects or encourages a vertical magnetic orientation exhibited by the neighboring magnetic sub-regions. Neighboring magnetic sub-regions, spaced from one another by a coupler sub-region, exhibit oppositely-directed magnetic orientations. The magnetic and coupler sub-regions may each be of a thickness tailored to form the magnetic region in a compact structure. Interference between magnetic dipole fields emitted from the magnetic region on switching of a free region in the memory cell may be reduced or eliminated. Also disclosed are semiconductor device structures, spin torque transfer magnetic random access memory (STT-MRAM) systems, and methods of fabrication.
US09356228B2

Provided is a magnetic tunneling junction device including a first structure including a magnetic layer; a second structure including at least two extrinsic perpendicular magnetization structures, each including a magnetic layer and; a perpendicular magnetization inducing layer on the magnetic layer; and a tunnel barrier between the first and second structures.
US09356223B2

A liquid ejecting head includes a plate which is composed of a material containing silicon, a titanium oxide layer which is disposed above the plate, a bismuth-containing layer which is disposed above the titanium oxide layer and contains bismuth, a first electrode which is disposed above the bismuth-containing layer and composed of platinum, a piezoelectric layer which is disposed above the first electrode and composed of a piezoelectric material containing at least bismuth, and a second electrode which is disposed above the piezoelectric layer.
US09356216B2

A semiconductor element includes at least a thermoelectric material and a first frame part which are force-lockingly connected to one another, with the frame part forming a diffusion barrier for the thermoelectric material and an electrical conductor. A method for producing the semiconductor element as well as a thermoelectric module having at least two semiconductor elements, are also provided.
US09356215B2

A thermoelectric generator has a module chamber defined between an exhaust pipe portion and a coolant pipe. A thermoelectric conversion module and an HC sensor are located in the module chamber. An ECU performs a fault diagnosis on the thermoelectric generator by detecting the leakage of exhaust gas into the module chamber from the exhaust pipe portion based on detection information output by the HC sensor.
US09356214B2

A lighting assembly includes a cooling system configured to enable the dissipation of a large amount of energy in the form of heat generated by a light source. Heat is dissipated without heating surrounding components, such as the one or more power supply units and device electronics. The cooling system is configured as a gravity feed system that does not require a powered fluid pump. In some embodiments, the cooling loop is configured as a thermal siphon that uses a boiling fluid to transport heat between the evaporator and the radiators. In some embodiments, the evaporator also functions as a device chassis, which reduces the overall part count. In some embodiments, the light source is a plurality of LEDs.
US09356201B2

Various methods and apparatuses are disclosed. A method may include disposing at least one die on a location on a carrier substrate, forming at least one stud bump on each of at least one die, forming a phosphor layer on the at least one stud bump and the at least one die, removing a top portion of the phosphor layer to expose the at least one stud bump, and removing a side portion of the phosphor layer located between two adjacent dies. An apparatus may include a die comprising top, bottom, and side surfaces. A phosphor layer may be disposed on the top, bottom, and side surfaces of the die. The phosphor layer may have substantially equal thicknesses on the top and side surfaces of the die as well as one or more stud bumps disposed on the top surface of the die.
US09356189B2

A method for manufacturing a light-emitting device comprising the steps of: providing a substrate; forming a semiconductor epitaxial stack on the substrate; and forming multiple isolation trenches in the semiconductor epitaxial stack by using a laser beam irradiating the semiconductor epitaxial stack to define multiple light-emitting diode units wherein partial of the substrate is exposed by the isolation trenches.
US09356177B2

The invention is a method of forming a cadmium sulfide based buffer on a copper chalcogenide based absorber in making a photovoltaic cell. The buffer is sputtered at relatively high pressures. The resulting cell has good efficiency and according to one embodiment is characterized by a narrow interface between the absorber and buffer layers. The buffer is further characterized according to a second embodiment by a relatively high oxygen content.
US09356176B2

A multijunction solar cell having at least four solar subcells includes a first solar subcell having a first band gap. A first graded interlayer adjacent to the first solar subcell and has a second band gap greater than the first band gap and that is constant at 1.5 eV throughout the thickness of the first graded interlayer. A second solar subcell is adjacent to the first graded interlayer and has a third band gap smaller than the first band gap of the first solar subcell. The second solar subcell is lattice mismatched with respect to the first solar subcell. A second graded interlayer is adjacent to the second solar subcell and has a fourth band gap greater than the third band gap of the second solar subcell and that is constant at 1.1 eV throughout the thickness of the second graded interlayer. A third solar subcell is adjacent to the second graded interlayer and has a fifth band gap smaller than the third band gap of the second solar subcell. The third solar subcell is lattice mismatched with respect to the second solar subcell. Each of the first and second graded interlayers is composed, respectively, of a compositionally step-graded series of (InxGa1-x)yAl1-yAs layers with monotonically changing lattice constant, with x and y having respective values such that the band gap of each interlayer remains constant throughout its thickness, and wherein 0
US09356171B2

A method for forming single crystal or large-crystal-grain thin-film layers deposits a thin-film amorphous, nanocrystalline, microcrystalline, or polycrystalline layer, and laser-heats a seed spot having size on the order of a critical nucleation size of the thin-film layer. The single-crystal seed spot is extended into a single-crystal seed line by laser-heating one or more crystallization zones adjacent to the seed spot and drawing the zone across the thin-film layer. The single-crystal seed line is extended across the thin-film material layer into a single-crystal layer by laser-heating an adjacent linear crystallization zone and drawing the crystallization zone across the thin-film layer. Photovoltaic cells may be formed in or on the single-crystal layer. Tandem photovoltaic devices may be formed using one or several iterations of the method. The method may also be used to form single-crystal semiconductor thin-film transistors, such as for display devices, or to form single-crystal superconductor layers.
US09356169B2

Some demonstrative embodiments include devices and/or methods of Back Side Illumination (BSI) Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) pixel array. For example, a BSI CMOS pixel array may include a plurality of pixels, a pixel of the plurality of pixels may include one or more Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (MOS) transistors comprising one or more well regions, a well region of the one or more well regions comprising an N-Well (NW) region or a P-well (PW) region; a photodiode; an epitaxial (epi) layer comprising an absorption area and a collection area, the absorption area to absorb incoming photons and to generate electrons responsive to absorbed photons, and the collection area connecting the absorption area to the photodiode to provide the electrons from the absorption area to the photodiode; and a barrier layer separating the absorption area from the one or more well regions.
US09356167B2

An ultraviolet (UV) photo-detecting device, including: a first nitride layer; a secondary light absorption layer disposed on the first nitride layer; a primary light absorption layer disposed on the secondary light absorption layer; and a Schottky junction layer disposed on the primary light absorption layer. The secondary light absorption layer includes a nitride layer having lower band-gap energy than the primary light absorption layer.
US09356164B2

An encapsulated integrated photodetector waveguide structures with alignment tolerance and methods of manufacture are disclosed. The method includes forming a waveguide structure bounded by one or more shallow trench isolation (STI) structure(s). The method further includes forming a photodetector fully landed on the waveguide structure.
US09356149B2

A semiconductor transistor has a structure including a semiconductor substrate, a source region, a drain region and a channel region in between the source region and the drain region. A metal gate, having a top conductive portion of tungsten is provided above the channel region. A first silicon nitride protective layer over the source region and the drain region and a second silicon nitride protective layer over the gate region are provided. The first silicon nitride protective layer and the second silicon nitride protective layer are configured to allow punch-through of the first silicon nitride protective layer while preventing etching through the second silicon nitride protective layer. Source and drain silicide is protected by avoiding fully etching a gate opening unless either the etching used would not harm the silicide, or the silicide and source and drain contacts are created prior to fully etching an opening to the gate for a gate contact.
US09356147B2

A method for etching FinFET spacers by inserting a Si recess step directly after the traditional spacer ME step and the resulting device are provided. Embodiments include forming a gate on a substrate having a silicon fin, the gate having a nitride cap on an upper surface thereof and an oxide cap on an upper surface of the nitride cap; forming a dielectric layer over the silicon fin and the gate; removing the dielectric layer from an upper surface of the oxide cap and an upper surface of the silicon fin; recessing the silicon fin; and removing the dielectric layer from side surfaces of the silicon fin and the remaining silicon fin.
US09356141B2

The disclosure relates to a semiconductor device including a semiconductor body, having a first surface, a gate electrode structure, which includes polycrystalline silicon, of an IGFET in a first trench extending from the first surface into the semiconductor body. The device also includes a semiconductor element, which is different from the gate electrode structure of the IGFET and includes polycrystalline silicon, in a second trench extending from the first surface into the semiconductor body, wherein the polycrystalline silicon of the IGFET and of the semiconductor element different therefrom ends below a top side of an insulation layer adjoining the first surface of the semiconductor body.
US09356137B2

Various embodiments of a power MOS device structure are disclosed. In one aspect, a power MOS device structure includes a plurality of LDMOS and a plurality of bonding pads. The basic units of LDMOS are coupled in parallel and electrically coupled to the bonding pads to couple to a gate terminal, a source terminal, a drain terminal and a substrate of each of the basic units of LDMOS. The basic units of LDMOS are disposed below the bonding pads. The bonding pads include a single layer of metal with a thickness of 3.5 um to 4.5 um and a width of 1.5 um to 2.5 um. The region below the bonding pads of the power MOS device of the present disclosure is utilized to increase the number of basic units of LDMOS, thereby effectively reducing the on-resistance.
US09356131B2

The gate-to-source and gate-to-drain overlap capacitance of a MOS transistor with a metal gate and a high-k gate dielectric are reduced by forming the high-k gate dielectric along the inside of a sidewall structure which has been formed to lie further away from the source and the drain.
US09356129B2

Methods of forming a transistor include providing a semiconductor epitaxial structure including a channel layer and barrier layer on the channel layer, forming a gate electrode on the barrier layer, etching the semiconductor epitaxial structure using the gate electrode as an etch mask to form a trench in the semiconductor epitaxial structure, and depositing a source metal in the trench. The trench extends at least to the channel layer, and the source metal forms a Schottky junction with the channel layer. Related semiconductor device structures are also disclosed.
US09356116B2

There is provided a power semiconductor device, including a first conductive type drift layer; a second conductive type body layer formed on the drift layer, a second conductive type collector layer formed below the drift layer; a first gate formed by penetrating through the body layer and a portion of the drift layer, a first conductive type emitter layer formed in the body layer and formed to be spaced apart from the first gate, a second gate covering upper portions of the body layer and the emitter layer and formed as a flat type gate on the first gate, and a segregation stop layer formed between contact surfaces of the first and second gates with the body layer, the emitter layer, and the drift layer.
US09356114B2

A method of forming the heterojunction bipolar transistor that includes providing a stack of a base layer, an extrinsic base layer, a first metal containing layer, and a dielectric cap layer. The dielectric cap layer and the first metal containing layer may be etched to provide a base contact and a dielectric cap. Exposed portions of the base layer may be etched selectively to the dielectric cap. A remaining portion of the base layer provides the base region. A hydrogenated silicon containing layer may be deposited with a low temperature deposition method. At least a portion of the hydrogenated silicon containing layer is formed on at least sidewalls of the base region. A second metal containing layer may be formed on the hydrogenated silicon containing layer. The second metal containing and the hydrogenated silicon containing layer may be etched to provide an emitter region and a collector region.
US09356101B2

There is provided a polycrystalline aluminum nitride substrate that is effective in growing a GaN crystal. The polycrystalline aluminum nitride base material for use as a substrate material for grain growth of GAN-base semiconductors, contains 1 to 10% by weight of a sintering aid component and has a thermal conductivity of not less than 150 W/m·K, the substrate having a surface free from recesses having a maximum diameter of more than 200 μm.
US09356091B2

Semiconductor micro- and nanotubes allow the incorporation of ordered structures such as quantum wells and quantum dots into them providing the potential for ultralow threshold micro- and nanoscale lasers for use in applications such as future ultrahigh-speed photonic systems as well as quantum information processing. According to the invention a means of manufacturing these with high reproducibility, low processing complexity, and at high densities is provided. Also provided is a means of releasing these micro- and nanotubes with low stress and a method of “pick-and-place” allowing micro- and nanotubes to be exploited in devices integrated on substrates that are either incompatible with the manufacturing technique or where the area of substrate required to manufacture them is detrimental to the cost or performance of the circuit.
US09356072B2

A resistive random access memory (RRAM) cell comprises a transistor having a gate and a source/drain region, a bottom electrode having an upper surface coplanar with a top surface of the gate, a resistive material layer on the bottom electrode, a top electrode on the resistive material layer, and a conductive material connecting the bottom electrode to the source/drain region.
US09356064B2

A solid state imaging device includes a substrate, in which the substrate includes a photoelectric conversion unit that generates a charge according to a light amount of incident light by a pixel unit, an accumulation unit that divides the charge of the pixel unit which is generated in the photoelectric conversion unit and accumulates the charge, a first element isolation unit that is formed at a boundary of the photoelectric conversion unit of the pixel unit, and a second element isolation unit that is formed at a boundary of the accumulation unit of a divided unit of the pixel.
US09356063B2

Provided is an image sensor including a photoelectric conversion unit for converting a received light into an electric charge; a semiconductor substrate including the photoelectric conversion unit; and a plurality of areas each having a refractive index different from a refractive index of the semiconductor substrate formed between a surface of the semiconductor substrate on which light is incident and the photoelectric conversion unit. Also, provided are an apparatus and a method of producing the image sensor, and an electronic device including the image sensor.
US09356060B2

A system and method for blocking light from regions around a photodiode in a pixel of an image sensor is provided. In an embodiment a first optical block layer is formed on a first glue layer and a second glue layer is formed on the first optical block layer. The formation of the first optical block layer and the second glue layer is repeated one or more times to form multiple optical block layers and multiple glue layers. As such, if voids open up in the optical block layers during further processing, there is another optical block layer to block any light that may have penetrated through the void.
US09356058B2

An embodiment method for forming an image sensor includes forming an anti-reflective coating over a surface of a semiconductor supporting a photodiode, forming an etching stop layer over the anti-reflective coating, forming a buffer oxide over the etching stop layer, and selectively removing a portion of the buffer oxide through etching, the etching stop layer protecting the anti-reflective coating during the etching. An embodiment image sensor includes a semiconductor disposed in an array region and in a periphery region, the semiconductor supporting a photodiode in the array region, an anti-reflective coating disposed over a surface of the semiconductor, an etching stop layer disposed over the anti-reflective coating, a thickness of the etching stop layer over the photodiode in the array region less than a thickness of the etching stop layer in the periphery region, and a buffer oxide disposed over the etching stop layer in the periphery region.
US09356053B2

A thin film transistor array substrate, a driving method therefore, and a liquid crystal display are disclosed. The thin film transistor array substrate includes at least a sub-pixel region formed by a gate line and a data line intersected with each other, wherein, each sub-pixel comprises a first transistor (21) of which the gate is connected with a gate line and the drain is connected with a data line and a first storage capacitor (23) of which one end is connected with the source of the first transistor (21) and the other end is connected with an output of a reference voltage, the sub-pixel further comprises a second storage capacitor (24) and a second transistor (25), wherein one end of the second storage capacitor (24) is connected with the source of the first transistor (21), and the other end of the second storage capacitor (24) is connected with the drain of the second transistor (25); the source of the second transistor (25) is connected with the output of the reference voltage, and the gate of the second transistor (25) is connected with an output of an Enable signal. Since a second storage capacitor (24) is additionally added to each sub-pixel in the thin film transistor array substrate, the capacitance of the storage capacitors during static display is increased, the voltage conversion frequency during static display is deceased, and the system power consumption is decreased.
US09356046B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide an improved structure and method for forming CMOS field effect transistors. In embodiments, silicon germanium (SiGe) is formed on a PFET side of a semiconductor structure, while silicon is disposed on an NFET side of a semiconductor structure. A narrow isolation region is formed between the PFET and NFET. The NFET fins are comprised of silicon and the PFET fins are comprised of silicon germanium.
US09356037B2

A 3D memory device includes a first plurality and a second plurality of stacks of semiconductor material strips on a substrate. The second plurality of stacks of gate material strips on the substrate is interleaved with, and coplanar with, the first plurality of stacks. The second plurality of stacks is configured as gates for the first plurality of stacks. A first plurality of word lines is arranged orthogonally over, and having surfaces conformal with, the first plurality of stacks, such that a 3D array of memory elements is established at cross-points between surfaces of the first plurality of stacks and the plurality of word lines.
US09356008B2

A semiconductor package is provided, which includes: a first semiconductor device having a first top surface and a first bottom surface opposite to the first top surface; a plurality of conductive balls formed on the first top surface of the first semiconductor device; a second semiconductor device having a second top surface and a second bottom surface opposite to the second top surface; and a plurality of conductive posts formed on the second bottom surface of the second semiconductor device and correspondingly bonded to the conductive balls for electrically connecting the first semiconductor device and the second semiconductor device, wherein the conductive posts have a height less than 300 um. Therefore, the present invention can easily control the height of the semiconductor package and is applicable to semiconductor packages having fine-pitch conductive balls.
US09356004B2

Disclosed is a light emitting device array. The light emitting device array comprises a light emitting device and a body comprises first and second lead frames electrically connected to the light emitting device and a substrate on which the light emitting device package is disposed, the substrate comprises a base layer and a metal layer disposed on the base layer and electrically connected to the light emitting device package, wherein the metal layer comprises first and second electrode patterns electrically connected to the first and second lead frames and a heat dissipation pattern insulated from at least one of the first or(and) second electrode patterns, absorbing heat generated from at least one of the base layer or(and) the light emitting device package and then dissipating the heat.
US09356000B2

A semiconductor integrated circuit may include a plurality of semiconductor chips configured to be stacked in three dimensions, a first group of through-chip vias configured to go through the plurality of semiconductor chips, respectively, and to be used for density extension of the semiconductor integrated circuit, and a second group of through-chip vias configured to go through the plurality of semiconductor chips, respectively, and to be used for a bandwidth extension of the semiconductor integrated circuit. Each of the plurality of semiconductor chips includes a path selection unit configured to select one of the first group of through-chip vias arranged in the semiconductor chip or one of the second group of through-chip vias arranged in the semiconductor chip in response to a mode switching signal, and an internal circuit configured to be selectively coupled to a through-chip via selected by the path selection unit.
US09355998B2

In a semiconductor device, a first semiconductor chip includes a first circuit and a first inductor, and a second semiconductor chip includes a second circuit and chip-side connecting terminals. An interconnect substrate is placed over the first semiconductor chip and the second semiconductor chip. The interconnect substrate includes a second inductor and substrate-side connecting terminals. The second inductor is located above the first inductor. The chip-side connecting terminals and the two substrate-side connecting terminals are connected through first solder balls.
US09355988B2

A semiconductor device has a semiconductor element provided with a functional surface on which a functional circuit is formed and with a back surface facing in the opposite direction to the functional surface, while also having a lead supporting the semiconductor element and electrically connected to the semiconductor element, and a resin package covering at least a portion of the semiconductor element and the lead. The semiconductor element has a functional surface side electrode formed on the functional surface and equipped with a functional surface side raised part that projects in the direction in which the functional surface faces. The functional surface side raised part of the functional surface side electrode is joined to the lead by solid state bonding.
US09355981B2

Provided is a semiconductor device in which misalignment between a semiconductor die and a substrate (e.g., a circuit board) can be prevented or substantially reduced when the semiconductor die is attached to the circuit board. In a non-limiting example, the semiconductor device includes: a semiconductor die comprising at least one bump; and a circuit board comprising at least one circuit pattern to which the bump is electrically connected. In a non-limiting example, the circuit board comprises: an insulation layer comprising a center region and peripheral regions around the center region; a plurality of center circuit patterns formed in the center region of the insulation layer; and a plurality of peripheral circuit patterns formed in the peripheral regions of the insulation layer. The center circuit patterns may be formed wider than the peripheral circuit patterns, formed in a zigzag pattern, and/or may be formed in a crossed shape.
US09355976B2

Provided are semiconductor memory chips and semiconductor packages with the same. The semiconductor package may include a memory chip including first data pads and first command/address pads arranged adjacent to a first side region thereof and second data pads and second command/address pads arranged adjacent to a second side region thereof arranged opposite to the first side region, and a package substrate including first CA connection pads and second CA connection pads. The memory chip may be mounted on a top surface of the package substrate, the first CA connection pads may be connected to the first command/address pads, and the second CA connection pads may be provide to be opposite to the first CA connection pads and be connected to the second command/address pads.
US09355973B2

Packaged semiconductor devices, methods of packaging semiconductor devices, and package-on-package (PoP) devices are disclosed. In some embodiments, a method of packaging a semiconductor device includes forming through-package vias (TPVs) over a carrier, and coupling a semiconductor device to the carrier. The semiconductor device includes contact pads disposed on a surface thereof and an insulating material disposed over the contact pads. A molding material is formed over the carrier between the TPVs and the semiconductor device. Openings are formed in the insulating material using a laser drilling process over the contact pads, and a redistribution layer (RDL) is formed over the insulating material and the openings in the insulating material. A portion of the RDL is coupled to a top surface of each of the contact pads.
US09355972B2

Structures and methods of making a dielectric region in a bulk silicon (Si) substrate of a mixed-signal integrated circuit (IC) provide a high-Q passive resonator. Deep trenches within the bulk Si substrate in <100> directions are expanded by wet etching to form contiguous cavities, which are filled by Si oxide to form a dielectric region. The dielectric region enhances the quality (Q) of an overlying passive resonator, formed in metallization layers of the mixed-signal IC.
US09355964B2

A method of fabrication of alignment marks for a non-STI CMOS image sensor is introduced. In some embodiments, zero layer alignment marks and active are alignment marks may be simultaneously formed on a wafer. A substrate of the wafer may be patterned to form one or more recesses in the substrate. The recesses may be filled with a dielectric material using, for example, a field oxidation method and/or suitable deposition methods. Structures formed by the above process may correspond to elements of the zero layer alignment marks and/or to elements the active area alignment marks.
US09355963B2

A semiconductor package according to some examples of the disclosure may include a base with a first redistribution layer on one side, first and second side by side die attached to the base on an opposite side from the first redistribution layer, an interposer attached to active sides of the first and second die to provide an interconnection between the first and second die, a plurality of die vias extending from the first and second die to a second redistribution layer on a surface of the package opposite the first redistribution layer, and a plurality of package vias extending through the package between the first and second redistribution layers.
US09355960B2

An electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) cell comprises a plurality of first conductive line layers beneath a first integrated circuit (IC) die, wherein wires on at least one of the first conductive line layers are each connected to one of a high voltage source and a low voltage source and are oriented to form a first mesh structure at a bottom of the EBG cell. The EBG cell further comprises a pair of through-substrate-vias (TSVs) above the plurality of first conductive line layers, wherein the pair of TSVs penetrate the first IC die and are connected to a high voltage source and a low voltage source, respectively, and a pair of micro bumps above a dielectric layer above the pair of TSVs, wherein the micro bumps connect the TSVs of the first IC die with a plurality of second conductive line layers formed on a second IC die.
US09355956B2

An inductor includes a plurality of first conductive lines, a plurality of second conductive lines and a plurality of contacts. Each of the first conductive lines is spaced apart from one another. Each of the second conductive lines is spaced apart from one another, and each of the second conductive lines crosses over each of the first conductive lines. Each of the contacts electrically interconnects one of the first conductive lines and one of the second conductive lines. These contacts are arranged in a way such that at least parts of the first conductive lines and at least parts of the second conductive lines form an electric current path serving as an inductor.
US09355952B2

Package substrates enabling reduced bump pitches and package assemblies thereof. Surface-level metal features are embedded in a surface-level dielectric layer with surface finish protruding from a top surface of the surface-level dielectric for assembly, without solder resist, to an IC chip having soldered connection points. Package substrates are fabricated to enable multiple levels of trace routing with each trace routing level capable of reduced minimum trace width and spacing.
US09355950B1

A power semiconductor module includes a metallization layer and a power semiconductor die attached to the metallization layer. The die has a first terminal and a second terminal disposed at a side of the die facing away from the metallization layer. The power semiconductor module further includes a first interconnect attached to the first terminal, a second interconnect attached to the second terminal and a flexible board including a first metal layer, a second metal layer and an insulator between the first and the second metal layers so that the first and the second metal layers are electrically insulated from one another. The first metal layer is attached to the first interconnect and the second metal layer is attached to the second interconnect such that the flexible board is spaced apart from the power semiconductor die by the first and the second interconnects.
US09355947B2

A printed circuit board (PCB) includes a base substrate including upper and lower surfaces, a plurality of solder ball pads separately formed on the lower surface of the base substrate in a radial direction and forming one or more radial pad groups, a plurality of first traces respectively connected to the plurality of solder ball pads and extending to an inside of the radial pad group, and a plurality of second traces respectively connected to the plurality of first traces and extending to an outside of the radial pad group.
US09355939B2

A method of manufacture of an integrated circuit package system includes: providing a base package substrate including: forming component contacts on a component side of the base package substrate, forming system contacts on a system side of the base package substrate, and forming a reference voltage circuit between the component contacts and the system contacts; mounting a first integrated circuit die on the component contacts; mounting a lead frame on the first integrated circuit die and coupled to the component contacts; and isolating a conductive shield from the lead frame, the conductive shield coupled to the reference voltage circuit.
US09355934B2

A method of making a semiconductor die includes forming a trench around a conductive stud extending from the first side to a second side of a substrate to expose a portion of the stud and then forming a conductive layer inside the trench and in electrical contact with the stud.
US09355931B2

Package-on-package (POP) devices and methods of manufacturing the POP devices are provided. In the POP devices, a thermal interface material layer disposed between lower and upper semiconductor packages may contact about 70% or greater of an area of a top surface of a lower semiconductor chip. According to methods, the upper semiconductor package may be mounted on the lower semiconductor chip using a weight.
US09355927B2

The present disclosure provides a semiconductor package includes a contact pad, a device external to the contact pad and a solder bump on the contact pad. The device has a conductive contact pad corresponding to the contact pad. The solder bump connects the contact pad with the conductive contact pad. The solder bump comprises a height from a top of the solder bump to the contact pad; and a width which is a widest dimension of the solder bump in a direction perpendicular to the height. A junction portion of the solder bump in proximity to the contact pad comprises an hourglass shape.
US09355922B2

A method of conditioning internal surfaces of a plasma source includes flowing first source gases into a plasma generation cavity of the plasma source that is enclosed at least in part by the internal surfaces. Upon transmitting power into the plasma generation cavity, the first source gases ignite to form a first plasma, producing first plasma products, portions of which adhere to the internal surfaces. The method further includes flowing the first plasma products out of the plasma generation cavity toward a process chamber where a workpiece is processed by the first plasma products, flowing second source gases into the plasma generation cavity. Upon transmitting power into the plasma generation cavity, the second source gases ignite to form a second plasma, producing second plasma products that at least partially remove the portions of the first plasma products from the internal surfaces.
US09355917B2

A complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) device includes an n-type first transistor on a silicon substrate, the n-type first transistor including a Group III-V compound semiconductor substrate, and a p-type second transistor on the silicon substrate, the p-type second transistor including a germanium based substrate.
US09355914B1

In one aspect thereof the invention provides a structure that includes a substrate having a surface and a plurality of fins supported by the surface of the substrate. The plurality of fins are formed of Group IVA-based crystalline semiconductor material and are spaced apart and generally parallel to one another. In the structure at least some of the plurality of fins comprise an amorphous region forming a nanowire precursor structure that is located along a length of the fin where a Group III-V transistor is to be located. A method to fabricate the structure and other structures is also disclosed.
US09355912B2

A device includes an active region in a semiconductor substrate, a gate strip over and crossing the active region, and a jog over the active region and connected to the gate strip to form a continuous region. The jog is on a side of the gate strip. A first contact plug is at a same level as the gate strip, wherein the first contact plug is on the side of the gate strip. A second contact plug is over the jog and the first contact plug. The second contact plug electrically interconnects the first contact plug and the jog.
US09355911B2

A fine-patterning method includes forming a mask layer with lower and upper mask layers on an underlying layer, forming a pair of sacrificial patterns on the mask layer, forming a connection spacer between the sacrificial patterns and first spacers that are spaced apart from each other with the pair of sacrificial patterns interposed therebetween and covering side surfaces of the sacrificial patterns, etching the upper mask layer using the first spacers and the connection spacer as an etch mask to form upper mask patterns, forming second spacers to cover side surfaces of the upper mask patterns, etching the lower mask layer using the second spacers as an etch mask to form lower mask patterns, and etching the underlying layer using the lower mask patterns as an etch mask.
US09355908B2

According to an embodiment, a semiconductor device includes an underlying layer and a plurality of transistors. The underlying layer includes a first region and a second region provided adjacently to the first region. The transistors are arranged in a plane parallel to an upper surface of the underlying layer. Each transistor includes a channel allowing a current to flow in a first direction intersecting the plane. The plurality of transistors includes a first transistor provided on the first region and a second transistor provided on the second region, a first channel of the first transistor having a first crystal orientation, and a second channel of the second transistor having a second crystal orientation different from the first crystal orientation.
US09355895B2

A method of providing a via hole and routing structure includes: providing a substrate wafer having recesses and blind holes provided in the surface of the wafer; providing an insulating layer in the recesses and holes; metallizing the holes and recesses; and removing the oxide layer in the bottom of the holes to provide contact between the back side and the front side of the wafer. A semiconductor device, including a substrate having at least one metallized via extending through the substrate and at least one metallized recess forming a routing together with the via. There is an oxide layer on the front side field and on the back side field. The metal in the recess and the via is flush with the oxide on the field on at least the front side, whereby a flat front side is provided. The thickness of the semiconductor device is <300 μm.
US09355892B2

An integrated circuit structure includes a two-tier die including a first tier and a second tier over and bonded to the first tier. The first tier includes a first substrate including a semiconductor material, an active device at a surface of the first substrate, and a first interconnect structure over the first substrate, wherein the first tier is free from passive devices therein. The second tier includes a second substrate bonded to and in contact with the first interconnect structure, and a second interconnect structure over the second substrate, wherein metal lines in the second interconnect structure are electrically coupled to the first interconnect structure. The second tier further includes a plurality of through-vias penetrating through the second substrate, wherein the plurality of through-vias lands on metal pads in a top metal layer of the first interconnect structure, and a passive device in the second interconnect structure.
US09355890B2

Disclosed is a miniaturized semiconductor device having an SOI layer, in which: a silicon layer is formed over a semiconductor substrate via an BOX film; after the silicon layer is patterned by using a nitride film as a mask, an insulating film covering the surface of each of the nitride film, the silicon layer, and the BOX film is formed; subsequently, an opening, which penetrates the insulating film and the BOX film and which exposes the upper surface of the semiconductor substrate, is formed, and an epitaxial layer is formed in the opening; subsequently, the SOI region and a bulk silicon layer are formed over the semiconductor substrate by flattening the upper surface of the epitaxial layer with the use of the nitride film as an etching stopper film.
US09355887B2

The present invention provides a semiconductor structure in which different types of devices are located upon a specific crystal orientation of a hybrid substrate that enhances the performance of each type of device. In the semiconductor structure of the present invention, a dual trench isolation scheme is employed whereby a first trench isolation region of a first depth isolates devices of different polarity from each other, while second trench isolation regions of a second depth, which is shallower than the first depth, are used to isolate devices of the same polarity from each other. The present invention further provides a dual trench semiconductor structure in which pFETs are located on a (110) crystallographic plane, while nFETs are located on a (100) crystallographic plane. In accordance with the present invention, the devices of different polarity, i.e., nFETs and pFETs, are bulk-like devices.
US09355886B2

A method and apparatus for conformally depositing a dielectric oxide in high aspect ratio gaps in a substrate is disclosed. A substrate is provided with one or more gaps into a reaction chamber where each gap has a depth to width aspect ratio of greater than about 5:1. A first dielectric oxide layer is deposited in the one or more gaps by CFD. A portion of the first dielectric oxide layer is etched using a plasma etch, where etching the portion of the first dielectric oxide layer occurs at a faster rate near a top surface than near a bottom surface of each gap so that the first dielectric oxide layer has a tapered profile from the top surface to the bottom surface of each gap. A second dielectric oxide layer is deposited in the one or more gaps over the first dielectric oxide layer via CFD.
US09355879B2

A substrate transfer robot includes a hand and a controller. The hand includes at least one detector configured to detect an arrangement state of a substrate in a substrate storage. The controller is configured to control the at least one detector to detect the arrangement state of the substrate in the substrate storage with the hand inclined in plan view toward a rotation center of the substrate transfer robot relative to a substrate storage center line. The substrate storage center line is in a direction perpendicular to a front surface of the substrate storage.
US09355874B2

A single wafer etching apparatus and various methods implemented in the single wafer etching apparatus are disclosed. In an example, etching a silicon nitride layer in a single wafer etching apparatus includes: heating a phosphoric acid to a first temperature; heating a sulfuric acid to a second temperature; mixing the heated phosphoric acid and the heated sulfuric acid; heating the phosphoric acid/sulfuric acid mixture to a third temperature; and etching the silicon nitride layer with the heated phosphoric acid/sulfuric acid mixture.
US09355872B2

A substrate treatment apparatus includes: a substrate holding unit which horizontally holds a substrate; a liquid droplet nozzle which generates droplets of a treatment liquid which are sprayed on a spouting region on an upper surface of the substrate held by the substrate holding unit; and a protective liquid nozzle which spouts a protective liquid obliquely onto the upper surface of the substrate held by the substrate holding unit for protection of the substrate to cause the protective liquid to flow toward the spouting region on the upper surface of the substrate, whereby the spouting region is covered with a film of the protective liquid and, in this state, the treatment liquid droplets are caused to impinge on the spouting region.
US09355870B1

A technique for forming an integrated circuit die that contains an integrated sensor is provided. The integrated circuit die may be configured such that the sensor is exposed to ambient environmental conditions such that the sensor may detect ambient conditions. The integrated circuit die may be generally protected from environmental exposure by a mold resin. The mold resin may be formed in areas outside of a sensor region. Resin bleed from the mold resin into the sensor region may be prevented by the use of a resin dam that extends from the surface of the integrated circuit die. The resin dam may surround the sensor region.
US09355869B2

In a semiconductor device formed by mounting a chip laminate including a semiconductor chip having a small diameter and a semiconductor chip having a large diameter over the top surface of a substrate, an excessive stress is prevented from being added to a joint of the two semiconductor chips. By mounting a first semiconductor chip having a large diameter over a support substrate and thereafter mounting a second semiconductor chip having a small diameter over the first semiconductor chip, it is possible to: suppress the inclination and unsteadiness of the second semiconductor chip mounted over the first semiconductor chip; and hence inhibit an excessive stress from being added to a joint of the first semiconductor chip and the second semiconductor chip.
US09355867B2

The present invention relates to a method for producing solar cells with local back surface field (LBSF) using an alkaline etching paste which allows the back surface to be polished and the back surface edges to be insulated in a single process step.
US09355866B2

Provided is a configuration capable of suppressing a variation in characteristics of transistor. The configuration includes: a process chamber; a gas supply unit configured to supply a hard mask forming gas into the process chamber; a substrate support table configured to support a substrate Wn of an nth lot having a film to be etched formed thereon; a heater embedded in the substrate support table; and a controller configured to control a temperature distribution of the heater based on an etching information of a substrate Wm of an mth lot processed prior to the nth lot.
US09355838B2

Embodiments of the invention provide an oxide TFT and a manufacturing method thereof. The oxide thin film transistor comprises: a substrate; a gate electrode formed on the substrate; a gate insulation layer covering the gate electrode; an oxide active layer formed on the gate insulation layer and comprising a source region, a drain region, and a channel between the source region and the drain region; an etching barrier layer entirely covering the active layer and the gate insulation layer; and a source electrode and a drain electrode formed on the etching barrier layer and respectively provided on both sides of the channel. The etching barrier layer is a metal layer. The oxide thin film transistor further comprises a channel protective layer, which is a non-conductive oxidation layer converted from the metal layer by performing an oxidation treatment on the metal layer.
US09355837B2

Some embodiments include methods utilizing atomic layer deposition to form material containing silicon and nitrogen (e.g., silicon nitride). The atomic layer deposition uses SiI4 as one precursor and uses a nitrogen-containing material as another precursor. Some embodiments include methods of forming a structure in which a chalcogenide region is formed over a semiconductor substrate; and in which SiI4 is used as a precursor during formation of silicon nitride material directly against a surface of the chalcogenide region.
US09355834B2

An adhesive transfer method includes depositing an adhesive on a first substrate, transferring a layer of the adhesive from the first substrate to an intermediate substrate, and transferring adhesive from the layer of the adhesive to at least one area of a second substrate.
US09355833B2

Provided is an excimer lamp having a simple and small structure, which can be used in, for example, a refrigerator, and can emit ultraviolet light at a wavelength effective in disinfection processing without generating ozone in a surrounding atmosphere, without leaving gas impurities and moisture in an electrical discharge vessel, and without causing a steep illuminance decrease. A fluorescent substance is disposed on an inner face of the electrical discharge vessel for converting ultraviolet light emitted upon excimer electrical discharge of a light emitting gas to ultraviolet light having a longer wavelength. An inner electrode has a coil shape. A tight winding portion is formed at a certain area of the interior electrode which extends in the center axial direction of the interior electrode such that the coil is tightly wound in the tight winding portion. A getter is attached to the tight winding portion.
US09355832B2

Certain embodiments described herein are directed to reflectron assemblies and methods of producing them. In some configurations, a reflectron comprising a plurality of lenses each comprising a planar body and comprising a plurality of separate and individual conductors spanning a central aperture from a first side to a second side of a first surface of the planar body is described. In some instances, the plurality of conductors are each substantially parallel to each other and are positioned in the same plane.
US09355815B2

An electron microscope is provided with a scintillator (7) and a light guide (8). The scintillator (7) has an index of refraction greater than the index of refraction of the light guide (8), and an end surface (72) joined to the light guide (8) is formed from a curved surface with a convex shape on the outside. The scintillator (7) is formed by a Y—Al—O based ceramic sintered body represented by the compositional formula (Ln1-xCex)3M5O12 (wherein Ln represents at least one element selected from the group consisting of Y, Gd, La, and Lu, and M represents either or both of Al and Ga).
US09355814B2

Aiming for easily carrying out an energy discrimination or an angle discrimination of a secondary particle emitted from a sample or easily setting an optimal observation condition, a charged particle beam apparatus is provided with a charged particle source for emitting a charged particle beam, a lens for focusing the charged particle beam to a sample, a detector for detecting a secondary particle emitted from the sample, and an orbit simulator for calculating a position at which the secondary particle emitted from the sample arrives; and in this structure, the orbit simulator calculates an orbit of a secondary particle that satisfies a predetermined condition, and a sample image is formed by using a signal detected at a position where the secondary particle satisfying the predetermined condition arrives at the detector.
US09355807B2

A touch-sensing liquid crystal panel and a fabrication method thereof are provided. The touch-sensing liquid crystal panel includes a color filter substrate and a transistor substrate. In the fabrication method, at first, a first glass substrate is provided. Thereafter, a sensing matrix is formed on a first surface of the first glass substrate at a baking temperature. The sensing matrix is formed from indium tin oxide (ITO), and a sheet resistance of the sensing matrix is equal to or less than 30 ohm/square. Then, color filters and a common electrode are disposed on a second surface of the first glass substrate to form a color filter substrate, wherein the second surface is opposite to the first surface. Thereafter, the transistor substrate is provided and combined with the color filter substrate. Thereafter, a slimming process is performed to slim a second glass substrate of the transistor substrate.
US09355803B2

An electromagnetic actuator including a saturable magnetic shunt system. The shunt is associated with a coil of the actuator and allows channeling of a more or less large part of the flow according to current circulating in the product. In this way, when the actuator is used in a circuit breaker, the actuator allows the circuit breaker to be triggered from a short circuit as usual and also from overload caused by action of the shunt.
US09355797B1

Switch gear for interconnecting a plurality of power transmission lines including a number of high voltage switches arranged in three phases for routing power in multiple directions. The switches are pre-mounted on a beam to form a three phase unit as a unitized assembly which is attached in the field to a vertical support structure. Each phase includes a vertical break switch and two side break switches for a three-way switch. For a two-way, each phase includes two side break switches. The vertical break switch and the two side break switches for each phase are operatively and electrically connected to a common electric power interrupter. The unitized assembly for each phase has the insulators and power interrupter arranged in cantilevered horizontal relationship with the beam which is attached to the vertical support structure. Operating links between phases are operatively connected in a push-pull relationship with the high voltage outdoor electric switches.
US09355787B2

This invention relates to a method for making soluble precursors to imides, polyimides, and polymers containing imide groups, and a method of making thin films of the same by solution casting and then removing the solubilizing group to produce thermally stable and insoluble materials.
US09355786B2

The invention relates to electrical engineering. The multi-element electrochemical capacitor of this invention comprises at least one layer of electrical insulation film with alternating opposite-polarity electrode films placed thereon in succession and interspaced by a porous ion-permeable separator, coiled into a roll. Each electrode sheet is a substrate of nonwoven polymer material at a high pore ratio, with at least one electrode in the form of an electrochemically active layer attached to one side or both sides thereof, or embedded within the same. The capacitor also comprises contact electrodes. The method for manufacturing a multi-element electrochemical capacitor comprises preparing electrode mixtures; making opposite-polarity electrode sheets by applying an electrode mixture thereto; placing the opposite-polarity electrode sheets successively on the electrical insulation film layer; coiling the electrode sheets and film layer into a roll around a central electrode; connecting the outer surface of the roll to a peripheral electrode; and impregnating the roll with electrolyte. The technical effect consists in improved specific characteristics of the electrochemical electric energy storage, stability of the specific characteristics, and a longer service life of the capacitor.
US09355784B2

A variable rotating capacitor or RotCo 5 that can be connected via a transmission line 3 to the dee 2 of a synchrocyclotron 1 so as to adjust a resonant frequency of the synchrocyclotron as a function of time and which comprises a cylindrical rotor 10 and a cylindrical stator 20 that are coaxial with the Z axis. The rotor comprises a plurality of circumferentially-distributed rotor electrodes 11 extending parallel to its rotation axis Z. The stator comprises a plurality of circumferentially-distributed stator electrodes 21 extending parallel to the rotation axis Z. Each stator electrode 21 consists of a single metal plate and all said plates are distributed over one and the same stator circumference 25. This makes it possible for the RF currents in the electrodes to be better distributed and thus reduces the local overheating.The present invention also relates to a synchrocyclotron comprising such a RotCo.
US09355783B2

A variable capacitance device that operates properly at a point along a signal line through which a high-voltage RF signal passes while reducing a necessary DC voltage includes a substrate, a beam, and lower drive electrodes. The beam is connected to the substrate through a support portion. Lower drive electrodes and the beam generate a capacitance when a DC voltage is applied, and an electrostatic force due to this capacitance deforms the beam. The lower drive electrodes face the beam and are coupled to each other through the beam. An RF signal propagates between the lower drive electrodes.
US09355777B2

A slurry composition including a polyvinyl acetal resin and an organic solvent. The polyvinyl acetal resin has a degree of polymerization of 500 or more and 6000 or less, has a vinyl ester unit content of 0.01 to 30 mol %, has a degree of acetalization of 50 to 83 mol %, includes the structural unit represented by chemical formula (1): in an amount of no less than 30 mol % relative to the total molar amount of all acetalized structural units in a molecule, and includes 10 to 1000 ppm of 2-methyl propanoic acid relative to the polyvinyl acetal resin.
US09355776B2

Embodiments of a capacitor assembly for coupling radio frequency (RF) and direct current (DC) power to an electrode and substrate support incorporating same are provided herein. In some embodiments, the capacitor assembly includes a first conductive plate to receive RF power from an RF power source, the first conductive plate including a central bore; at least one capacitor coupled to the first conductive plate and surrounding the central bore; and a second conductive plate electrically coupled to the first conductive plate via the at least one capacitor, the second conductive plate including an input tap to receive DC power from a DC power source and at least one output tap to couple the RF and DC power to an electrode.
US09355773B2

A leakage magnetic field shielding apparatus includes a resonator configured to counterbalance a leakage magnetic field generated when a source resonator and a target resonator resonate at a resonant frequency of the source resonator and the target resonator.
US09355772B2

The present invention relates to a dry distribution transformer comprising a housing (1′), a coil (200), a sealed compartment (100) and a taps panel (110) associated to the coil (200). The taps panel (110) has an electrostatic shield (107) and is positioned inside the sealed compartment (100), the sealed compartment (100) being filled with a solid dielectric material and protected by a cover (120). One also describes an electric insulation method for a taps panel of a dry distribution transformer and taps panel for a dry distribution transformer filled with removable insulating resin. The coil (200) has a grounded (115) electrostatic shield (107).
US09355768B1

A battery removal tool including a cylindrical housing having a front segment and a back segment, an opening continuously disposed within a front end of the front segment, a channel disposed within an interior surface of the front segment, a wall laterally disposed between the opening and the channel, a pair of magnets comprising a first magnet and a second magnet, a plurality of hollow cylindrical adjustable grips, and a cap. Each of the plurality of adjustable grips slidingly engages an exterior surface of the front segment.
US09355759B2

A high speed Ethernet cable constructed of two groups of two twisted wire pairs each. The two groups radiationally isolated from each other by one or more foil radiation shields.
US09355751B2

The invention relates to an electrode stack (70) comprising stacked electrodes (71-80) for manipulating a charged particle beam along an optical axis (A). Each electrode comprises an electrode body with an aperture for the charged particle beam. The electrode bodies are mutually spaced and the electrode apertures are coaxially aligned along the optical axis. The electrode stack comprises electrically insulating spacing structures (89) between each pair of adjacent electrodes for positioning the electrodes (71-80) at predetermined mutual distances along the axial direction (Z). A first electrode and a second electrode each comprise an electrode body with one or more support portions (86), wherein each support portion is configured to accommodate at least one spacing structure (89). The electrode stack has at least one clamping member (91-91c) configured to hold the support portions (86) of the first and second electrodes, as well as the intermediate spacing structure (89) together.
US09355748B2

A rotary actuator has a driven element including a plurality of recesses that are spaced in a circumferential arrangement around an axis of rotation of the driven element by a spacing angle, and first, second and third latch elements that are each movable between a retracted position, and an extended position in which it is engageable with a corresponding one of the recesses. Sequential movement of the first, second and third latch elements between retracted and extended positions causes rotation of the driven element.
US09355747B2

A 17×17 jacketless fuel assembly for a PWR-type light-water reactor uses thorium as the fuel. The fuel assembly has a square shape in the plan view, a seed region, a blanket region that encircles it, an upper nozzle, and a lower nozzle. The fuel elements of the seed region re arranged in the rows and columns of a square coordinate grid and have a four-lobed profile that forms spiral spacer ribs along the length of a fuel element. The blanket region contains a frame structure within which a bundle of fuel elements made from thorium with the addition of enriched uranium is positioned. The blanket region fuel elements are arranged in the two or three rows and columns of a square coordinate grid.
US09355745B2

The BIST circuit includes an address data converting circuit that receives the logical address signal, the logical data signal, and the logical expected value signal. The address data converting circuit converts the logical data according to a physical configuration in the memory so as to generate a physical data signal specifying physical data to be written into the memory. The address data converting circuit converts the logical address according to the physical configuration in the memory so as to generate a physical address signal specifying a physical address of the memory for the physical data. The address data converting circuit converts the logical expected value according to the physical configuration in the memory so as to generate a physical expected value signal specifying a physical expected value that is an expected value of read data of the memory for the physical data.
US09355743B2

A test circuit for a static random access memory (SRAM) array includes a plurality of stages coupled in a ring. Each stage includes a plurality of bit cells to store information, a bit line and a complementary bit line coupled to the plurality of bit cells, and a plurality of word lines coupled to the plurality of bit cells. Subsets of the plurality of word lines of each of the plurality of stages are selectively enabled based on signals asserted on the complementary bit line of another one of the plurality of stages. The test circuit also includes inversion logic deployed between two of the plurality of stages.
US09355740B2

A semiconductor nonvolatile memory device of an embodiment includes: a plurality of transistors arranged in a matrix, the transistors in the same row being connected in series to form a transistor string having a first terminal and a second terminal; a plurality of first wiring lines each corresponding to one of the columns, and being connected to the gates of the transistors of the corresponding column; a common first electrode connected to each semiconductor region in which each transistor is disposed; and a write unit that selects one of the first wiring lines and one of the transistor strings, and applies a first voltage to the first electrode, a first write voltage to the selected first wiring line, a second voltage to the other first wiring lines, and a second write voltage to the first terminal and the second terminal of the selected transistor string in a write operation.
US09355738B2

An operating method of a memory controller configured to control a nonvolatile memory device including a plurality of memory cells is provided. The operating method includes: programming evaluation data into desired memory cells among the plurality of memory cells; performing initial verify shift (IVS) charge loss evaluation on the desired memory cells after a time elapses from a time point when the evaluation data is programmed, the IVScharge loss evaluation including an operation of detecting threshold voltage variation of the desired memory cells over a period based on the time elapsed from the time point when the evaluation data is programmed; and storing a result of the IVScharge loss evaluation; and adjusting levels of a plurality of read voltages used in the nonvolatile memory device based on the stored result of the charge loss evaluation.
US09355733B2

A memory system performs a first sensing operation to sense whether multi-level cells assume an on-cell state or an off-cell state in response to a first read voltage applied to a selected word line. It then supplies a pre-charge voltage to bit lines corresponding to multi-level cells that have been sensed as assuming the off-cell state in response to the first read voltage, and it performs a second sensing operation with the supplied pre-charge voltage to sense whether each of the multi-level cells that have been sensed as assuming the off-cell state assumes an on-cell state or an off-cell state in response to a second read voltage applied to the selected word line.
US09355727B1

A memory stack structure includes a cavity including a back gate electrode, a back gate dielectric, a semiconductor channel, and at least one charge storage element. In one embodiment, a line trench can be filled with a memory film layer, and a plurality of semiconductor channels can straddle the line trench. The back gate electrode can extend along the lengthwise direction of the line trench. In another embodiment, an isolated memory opening overlying a patterned conductive layer can be filled with a memory film, and the back gate electrode can be formed within a semiconductor channel and on the patterned conductive layer. A dielectric cap portion electrically isolates the back gate electrode from a drain region. The back gate electrode can be employed to bias the semiconductor channel, and to enable sensing of multinary bits corresponding to different amounts of electrical charges stored in a memory cell.
US09355723B1

A semiconductor device may include a controller configured to generate a data retention path control signal in response to a power condition change signal. The semiconductor device may include a plurality of data retention paths configured to sequentially couple a plurality of global input/output (I/O) lines coupled to a volatile memory to a dummy I/O line in response to the data retention path control signal. The semiconductor device may include a dummy I/O pad coupled to the dummy I/O line. The semiconductor device may include a non-volatile memory device coupled to the dummy I/O pad, configured to retain a plurality of storage data received from the volatile memory when the volatile memory is powered off, or provide data retained in the volatile memory as recovery data when power is recovered by the volatile memory.
US09355715B1

A memory system and a method of operating the same are provided. The method includes reading least significant bit (LSB) data of a first physical page based on a first pre-read voltage and performing a most significant bit (MSB) program based on the LSB data of the first physical page when the MSB program is performed on the first physical page, defining a management area by comparing the number of error bits included in MSB data of the first physical page with a first threshold value, preforming an LSB program on a second physical page of the management area, reading LSB data of the second physical page based on a second pre-read voltage, which is lower than the first pre-read voltage, and performing the MSB program on the second physical page based on the LSB data of the second physical page.
US09355710B2

A hybrid write-assist memory system includes an array voltage supply and a static random access memory (SRAM) cell that is controlled by bit lines and a word line and employs a separable cell supply voltage coupled to the array voltage supply. Additionally, the hybrid write-assist memory system includes a supply voltage droop unit that is coupled to the SRAM cell and provides a voltage reduction of the separable cell supply voltage during a write operation. Also, the hybrid write-assist memory system includes a negative bit line unit that is coupled to the supply voltage droop unit and provides a negative bit line voltage concurrently with the voltage reduction of the separable cell supply voltage during the write operation. A method of operating a hybrid write-assist memory system is also provided.
US09355700B2

Embodiments are directed to detecting a state of a memory element in a memory device, comprising: applying a pulse of a predetermined magnitude and duration to the memory element to induce a transition in the state of the memory element when a polarity of the pulse is opposite to the state, monitoring, by a device, a signal associated with the memory element to detect a presence or absence of a transition in the signal in an amount greater than a threshold, and determining the state of the memory element based on said monitoring.
US09355699B2

Voltage controlled magnetic tunnel junctions and memory devices are described which provide efficient high speed switching of non-volatile magnetic devices at high cell densities. Implementations are described which provide a wide range of voltage control alternatives with in-plane and perpendicular magnetization, bidirectionally switched magnetization, and control of domain wall dynamics.
US09355698B2

In accordance with one exemplary embodiment of the present technique, there is disclosed a spins selective device, including a first layer comprising a ferromagnetic material. The spin selective device further includes a second layer coupled to the first layer. The second layer includes at least one molecule having a specified chirality, such that when an electrical current flows between the first layer and the second layer one or more regions of the ferromagnetic material become magnetically polarized along a certain direction.
US09355691B2

A system provides synchronous read data sampling between a memory and a memory controller, which includes an asynchronous FIFO buffer and which outputs a clock and other control signals. An outbound control signal (e.g., read_enable) is used to time-stamp the beginning of a read access using a clock edge counter. The incoming read data is qualified based on the time-stamped value of the read_enable signal plus typical access latency by counting FIFO pops. The system performs correct data sampling irrespective of propagation delays between the controller and memory. The system may be implemented in a System on a Chip (SOC) device having a synchronous communication system.
US09355690B1

A method for asynchronous time multiplexing of information with synchronous interfacing includes, responsive to a first edge of a clock signal, asynchronously loading first data, including first multiple sets of data for multiple operations, into a first asynchronous shift register. The first data is asynchronously unloaded from the first asynchronous shift register to a function block for processing to provide second data, including second multiple sets of data as results of the multiple operations. The second data is asynchronously loaded into a second asynchronous shift register. Responsive to a second edge of the clock signal, the second data is asynchronously unloaded from the second asynchronous shift register as the results of the multiple operations. The first edge and the second edge of the clock signal are associated with a same period of the clock signal.
US09355685B2

A multi-chip package includes a first group of memory chips that includes a first memory chip and a second memory chip, a second group of memory chips that includes at least one memory chip, a first internal wiring system that couples the first memory chip and the second memory chip to a first terminal configured to receive a chip-enable signal, a second internal wiring system that couples the at least one memory chip to a second terminal configured to receive the chip-enable signal. The first memory chip and the second memory chip each include a chip address memory region configured to store an address associated with the memory chip, and an address rewrite module configured to rewrite the address associated with the memory chip and stored in the chip address memory region in response to an external operation.
US09355679B1

The disclosure is related to apparatuses and methods for characterizing and compensating for curvature in a write field generated by a data storage device transducer. In some embodiments, the curvature of a write field generated by a data storage device transducer may be characterized. Some embodiments can include a circuit to apply a phase compensation value based on a deterministic phase offset value, which may correspond with the write field curvature characterization.
US09355660B2

A testing method of a magnetic head includes: applying a first magnetic field with a constant intensity in a first direction that is the same with that of the longitudinal bias field to the magnetic head, simultaneously applying a second magnetic field with variant intensities in a second direction traversing the air bearing surface, and measuring a first noise; applying a third magnetic field with a constant intensity in a third direction that is opposite to the first direction to the magnetic head, simultaneously applying the second magnetic field with variant intensities in the second direction, and measuring a second noise; and analyzing noise change between the first noise and the second noise. The invention can screen out defective magnetic heads that possess poor noise characteristic and unstable performance.
US09355653B2

The magnetic data eraser includes: a mounting and immobilizing tray on which a magnetic recording medium is mounted, the mounting tray being inclined at an angle of 60±10 degrees to the horizontal; a magnetizer that is encircled by a magnetizing coil, the magnetizer having a hollow portion into which the mounting and immobilizing tray is inserted; and a controller that causes an electric current to flow as an excitation current through the magnetizing coil, the excitation current generating a magnetic field that erases data stored in the magnetic recording medium.
US09355652B2

Described are embodiments of an invention for a textured interface between a notch of a data storage cartridge and a retention tab of a storage cell. The textured surface reduces the contact surface between the retention tab and the notch of the data storage cartridge. The reduced contact surface between the retention tab and notch of the data storage cartridge reduces the amount of friction between the retention tab and the notch of the data storage cartridge. The data storage cartridge can thus be removed from the storage cell with less force than that required by the prior art having a generally smooth interface between the notch of the data storage cartridge and the retention tab of the storage cell.
US09355648B2

A voice separation means 82 separates an input voice of a volume adjusted by an input volume adjustment means 81, into a voice recognition voice and a monitoring voice. A monitoring volume adjustment means 83 adjusts a volume of the monitoring voice. An output volume adjustment means 84 adjusts a volume of an output voice and causes an output device to output the output voice of the adjusted volume, the output voice being a voice obtained by synthesizing a synthetic voice and the monitoring voice of the volume adjusted by the monitoring volume adjustment means 83, the synthetic voice being a voice synthesized from information generated as a result of voice recognition of the voice recognition voice. A control means 85 instructs the monitoring volume adjustment means 83 to adjust the volume of the monitoring voice so that an amplification factor of the volume of the output voice with respect to the volume of the input voice does not exceed 1.
US09355637B2

A method and an apparatus are provided for retrieving keyword. The apparatus configures at least two types of language models in a model file, where each type of language model includes a recognition model and a corresponding decoding model; the apparatus extracts a speech feature from the to-be-processed speech data; performs language matching on the extracted speech feature by using recognition models in the model file one by one, and determines a recognition model based on a language matching rate; and determines a decoding model corresponding to the recognition model; decoding the extracted speech feature by using the determined decoding model, and obtains a word recognition result after the decoding; and matches a keyword in a keyword dictionary and the word recognition result, and outputs a matched keyword.
US09355631B2

A polymer interlayer having improved sound insulation is disclosed. The polymer interlayer comprises at least one soft layer wherein the soft layer comprises: a first poly(vinyl butyral) resin having a first residual hydroxyl content and a first glass transition temperature (Tg); a second poly(vinyl butyral) resin having a second residual hydroxyl content and a second glass transition temperature (Tg), wherein the difference between the first residual hydroxyl content and the second residual hydroxyl content is at least 1.0 weight percent; wherein the difference between the first glass transition temperature (Tg) the second glass transition temperature (Tg) is at least 1.5° C.; and a plasticizer; at least one stiffer layer comprising a third poly(vinyl butyral resin) having a third residual hydroxyl content; and a plasticizer, wherein the polymer interlayer has a damping loss factor (η) (as measured by Mechanical Impedance Measurement according to ISO 16940) of at least about 0.16 measured at two or more different temperatures selected from 10° C., 20° C. and 30° C.
US09355616B2

The invention provides, in some aspects, a system for rendering images, the system having one or more client digital data processors and a server digital data processor in communications coupling with the one or more client digital data processors, the server digital data processor having one or more graphics processing units. The system additionally comprises a render server module executing on the server digital data processor and in communications coupling with the graphics processing units, where the render server module issues a command in response to a request from a first client digital data processor. The graphics processing units on the server digital data processor simultaneously process image data in response to interleaved commands from (i) the render server module on behalf of the first client digital data processor, and (ii) one or more requests from (a) the render server module on behalf of any of the other client digital data processors, and (b) other functionality on the server digital data processor.
US09355615B2

In one embodiment, the converter is configured to receive a first sync signal from a display driver and to convert the first sync signal into a second sync signal. The second sync signal is for controlling image sensing.
US09355614B2

This embodiment herein relates to an image quality processing method and a display device using the same which decrease a hardware processing load of the display device and improve both a contrast ratio and sharpness of edges in an image.
US09355609B2

Provided is a malfunction prevention circuit for a COG-form source driver integrated circuit with a power sequence in which a low voltage is applied after a high voltage is applied. The malfunction prevention circuit includes: a level shifter configured to process an input signal using the low voltage and output a control signal using the high voltage; and an initialization circuit configured to initialize the control signal to a constant voltage while an initialization signal is enabled. The initialization signal is enabled during a predetermined time from the time at which the low voltage starts to be applied at the initial stage of the power sequence.
US09355607B2

There is provided a projection device including a projecting unit that projects an image onto a screen, an acquiring unit that acquires image data of the image to be projected onto the screen, a generating unit that generates first pixel data representing pixels of first spot beams to be projected onto the screen without overlapping with each other among a plurality of spot beams to be projected at different timings based on the image data, and a driving control unit that controls driving of the projecting unit based on the first pixel data in a manner that the first spot beams are projected onto the screen as pixels of the image data.
US09355606B2

A liquid crystal display device includes: a data signal line; a scan signal line; a pixel electrode; a transistor connected to (i) the data signal line, (ii) the scan signal line, and (iii) the pixel electrode; and a common electrode, the liquid crystal display device being configured to turn on the transistor during a power-off sequence by causing a change in an electric potential of the scan signal line, the electric potential of the scan signal line reaching a first electric potential at a first timing after the change is initiated, and the common electrode being in an electrically floating state at a second timing which comes after the first timing. This, in a case where the transistor is turned on in preparation for an operation to turn off a power source of the liquid crystal display device, makes it unlikely for a DC voltage to be applied across a pixel even if potential variation (kickback) occurs at the pixel electrode in reaction to a change in status of the transistor from an on state to an off state.
US09355603B2

A method for adjusting saturation degree and a color adjusting system are provided. The method for adjusting saturation degree includes the following steps. A hue circle is divided into a plurality of hue regions, and each of the hue regions is divided into a plurality of saturation regions according to at least one saturation threshold. A plurality of first input saturation degrees of a first saturation region of a first hue region of the hue regions are weighted by a first weighting formula for obtaining a plurality of first output saturation degrees. A plurality of second input saturation degrees of a second saturation region of the first hue region of the hue regions are weighted by a second weighting formula for obtaining a plurality of second output saturation degrees. The first weighting formula is different from the second weighting formula.
US09355602B2

To provide a hold-type display device without a problem of motion blur and a driving method thereof. The length of a period for displaying a blanking image in one frame period is controlled in accordance with a control parameter showing the degree of motion blur, and the level of a signal supplied to a display element is changed in accordance with the length of the period for displaying the blanking image. Accordingly, the hold-type display device without a problem of motion blur and the driving method thereof can be provided.
US09355596B2

An organic light emitting diode display including a display including data lines, scan lines, sense lines, and pixels electrically coupled to the data, scan, and sense lines, a compensator for sensing first and second driving currents flowing to the pixels corresponding to first and second test data in a compensation mode, to compare first and second reference currents with the first and second driving currents, respectively, and to update compensation data, a signal controller for compensating input data according to the compensation data to generate image data, and for changing the input data into the first and second test data in the compensation mode; and a data driver for generating a plurality of data signals by using one of the image data, the first and second test data, and to supply the data signals to the data lines.
US09355594B2

A pixel and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display are disclosed. In one aspect, the pixel includes an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) configured to emit light based on a driving current. The OLED includes first and second electrodes. The pixel also includes a first transistor configured to generate the driving current. The first transistor includes a gate electrode, a first electrode, and a second electrode. The pixel further includes a capacitor transistor including a gate electrode configured to receive a gate turn-on voltage, a first electrode, a second electrode electrically connected to the first electrode of the first transistor. The capacitor transistor further includes a channel located between the first and second electrodes of the capacitor transistor. The channel of the capacitor transistor is configured to be activated by the gate turn-on voltage.
US09355586B2

A display device includes: a plurality of display panels arranged adjacent to each other in a line scanning direction to form one screen; a master controller configured to drive one of the display panels; and one or more slave controllers configured to drive the other display panels, each of the slave controllers corresponding to each of the other display panels. The master controller is configured to drive the display panel based on a scanning control signal and a clock signal which are generated, and output the generated scanning control signal and the generated clock signal and each of the slave controllers is configured to drive the corresponding display panel based on the scanning control signal and the clock signal inputted from the master controller.
US09355584B2

A system to improve the extraction of transistor and OLED parameters in an AMOLED display includes a pixel circuit having an organic light emitting device, a drive device to provide a programmable drive current to the light emitting device, a programming input to provide the programming signal, and a storage device to store the programming signal. A charge-pump amplifier has a current input and a voltage output. The charge-pump amplifier includes an operational amplifier in negative feedback configuration. The feedback is provided by a capacitor connected between the output and the inverting input of the operational amplifier. A common-mode voltage source drives the non-inverting input of the operational amplifier. An electronic switch is coupled across the capacitor to reset the capacitor. A switch module including the input is coupled to the output of the pixel circuit and an output is coupled to the input of the charge-pump amplifier.
US09355578B2

A label for a container may include a planar body comprising a first edge and a second edge, the first and second edges disposed at opposite sides of the body from each other; a cut-out portion of the planar body disposed between the first and second edges; and first and second tear lines extending from the cutout portion to respective first and second termination locations at or proximate to the first and second edges, respectively. The first and second tear lines may diverge at an angle away from each other in a direction from the cut-out portion to the respective first and second termination locations.
US09355574B2

A method is provided for a 3D virtual training system. The 3D virtual training system includes a 3D display screen and an operating device, and the method includes initializing a virtual medical training session to be displayed on the 3D display screen, where 3D display contents include at least a 3D virtual image of a surgery site. The method also includes obtaining user interaction inputs via the operating device and the 3D display screen, and displaying on the 3D display screen a virtual surgery device and a virtual surgery operation on the surgery site by the virtual surgery device. Further, the method includes determining an operation consequence based on the user interaction inputs and the surgery site, rendering the operation consequence based on the surgery site and effects of the virtual surgery operation, and displaying 3D virtual images of the rendered operation consequence on the 3D display screen.
US09355558B2

Aspects of the disclosure provide an audio circuit that includes a clock circuit, a transmitting circuit, an audio data preparation circuit and a controller. The controller is configured to provide control signals to configure the transmitting circuit and the audio data preparation circuit according to one of a plurality of link protocol. The clock circuit is configured to provide a clock signal for bit transmission. The transmitting circuit is configured to transmit a bit in response to a transition edge of the clock signal according to the link protocol. The audio data preparation circuit is configured to insert audio data into a bit stream and provide the bit stream to the transmitting circuit according to the link protocol.
US09355557B2

A universal remote controller and a remote control method thereof are provided. The remote controller includes a display screen, a communication module configured to communicate with a plurality of devices, an input unit configured to receive a user command, a controlling unit configured to receive identification information from a device of the plurality of devices which is pointed at by the remote controller through the communication module, control the display screen to display a user interface customized for the device corresponding to the identification information, and receive information input through the user interface for communication with the device so that the remote controller can operate with the device.
US09355545B2

A secure optionally passive RFID tag or sensor system comprises a passive RFID tag having means for receiving radio signals from at least one base station and for transmitting radio signals to at least one base station, where the tag is capable of being powered exclusively by received radio energy, and an external power and data logging device having at least one battery and electronic circuitry including a digital memory configured for storing and recalling data. The external power and data logging device has a means for powering the tag, and also has a means.
US09355540B2

A programmable interface module includes a linear power regulator to control and provide power to interfaced components on an as needed basis. The interface module is implemented in, for example, a sensor pack and multiplexed to a plurality of sensor modules. In a first mode, the linear voltage regulator provides a relatively small amount of power which allows a sensor module to output a signal responsive to detecting an environmental condition (e.g., gamma or x-ray radiation, extreme temperatures, etc.). The interface module can switch the linear voltage regulator to a second mode in which the linear voltage regulator ramps up the amount of power provided to a detecting sensor module. The sensor module can then provide a level indicative of a concentration or intensity of the environmental condition. If the level surpasses a predetermined threshold, the senor pack can output an alert signal to security server.
US09355535B2

A strobe device that operates in multiple modes is disclosed. The strobe device may include an LED-based strobe element and a controller. In response to receiving a command to generate an output, the controller determines in which of at least a first mode and second mode to operate, and sends one or more signals to the LED-based strobe element based on the determination. The first mode and the second mode may differ from one another in at least one aspect, such as duration, luminosity, current supplied to LED, or wavelength range. The controller may select both of the first mode and the second mode (such as alternating between the first mode and the second mode). Or, the controller may select one of the first mode and the second mode. For example, depending on the ambient light at or near the strobe device, the controller may select either the first mode or the second mode.
US09355528B2

A gaming system including a cascading symbol or tumbling reel game which utilizes a plurality of symbol display position matrices or grids. Each symbol display position matrix includes a plurality of symbol display positions, wherein at least one of the symbol display position matrices includes one or more symbol display positions associated with a plurality of different symbol display positions of a plurality of the symbol display position matrices.
US09355524B2

The present invention is a gaming machine, including a display which displays a plurality of cells for presenting a plurality of symbols in a game, a processor which executes the game, chooses at least two cells from the plurality of cells and a symbol from the plurality of symbols and presents the chosen symbol in the chosen cells, and a payout device which awards a reward according to an symbol arrangement on the cells, wherein each of the plurality of cells displays a symbol independently from each other.
US09355522B2

A gaming system and method includes a primary wagering game displayed in a display area that is subdivided into display regions. The primary game includes a plurality of base games. The base games are displayed in a respective one of the display regions and each has a virtual character associated therewith. A simulated top box is displayed in one of the display regions. The simulated top box includes a secondary game common to the plurality of base games. In response to play of the primary wagering game being initiated, an outcome is determined for each of the plurality of base games and the outcomes are concurrently displayed. In response to a bonus trigger, at least two of the plurality of base games combine into a single bonus array of symbols for a bonus game. The single bonus array of symbols is displayed in one or more of the display regions.
US09355520B2

A gaming system having a game outcome generator separate from a gaming device, where the gaming device is wirelessly connected to the game outcome generator and, upon a game play request from a player, generates a request for a game play result. The game outcome generator generates a specific game outcome (won amount if the game play is a winning result, or a no-win, 0-value result) and sends it back to the gaming device. The gaming device uses the predetermined result to mimic or simulate a skill based game. The skill based game is designed to play just like an actual skill based game, which may result in poor players not getting the game to a state that has an equivalent value as that which is supposed to be awarded (equal to the predetermined game play). Each game includes a final game event, consistent with the game just played, which enables the game to make up any difference between the actual result of the skill based and the predetermined amount. This preserves the look and feel of the skill based game while allowing the game to award the player the total amount of the predetermined award.
US09355517B2

Machines and methods are described for displaying a particular symbol at a corresponding symbol position for multiple consecutive outcome events, such as outcome events including a wager game played on a stand-alone machine located within a casino or a machine within a client-server architecture. After displaying the particular symbol for a first outcome event, the particular symbol can be displayed at the same symbol position within a symbol-display-portion for one or more successive outcome events without the particular symbol being selected to be displayed at the same symbol position. Other symbols displayed within the symbol-display-portion for the first and successive outcome events can be determined or selected by a processor using a random selection process. The particular symbol can be a Wild symbol. A data structure can include data for tracking whether the particular symbol is locked down for an outcome event after the first outcome event.
US09355504B2

A data processing apparatus (30) comprising: a local source of data (4); a first controller (31); and a tamper-resistant second controller (32) configured to communicate with the first controller, the first controller being configured to control and receive data from the local source of data and from a sensing unit connected to the first controller via a communication interface and to perform a series of calculation operations on the data, wherein the second controller is configured to verify the integrity of a selected subset of the operations performed by the first controller.
US09355497B2

An image processing system includes an imaging unit for imaging an outside world to generate a captured image, a position and orientation estimation unit for estimating a position and orientation of the imaging unit, a feature point estimation unit for estimating a position of a feature point in the captured image, a clipping unit for clipping an image for combining, and clipping an image for feature detection, a measurement unit for detecting a feature point from the image for feature detection, and measuring a position and orientation of the imaging unit, a generation unit for generating a CG image based on the position and orientation measured by the measurement unit, a combining unit for combining the image clipped by the clipping unit with the CG image, and a display control unit for displaying the image combined by the combining unit on a display unit.
US09355492B2

A system, method, and computer program product are provided for utilizing a wavefront path tracer. In use, a set of light transport paths associated with a scene is identified. Additionally, parallel path tracing is performed, utilizing a wavefront path tracer.
US09355491B2

An image processing apparatus is provided. A splitting unit of the image processing apparatus may split a first space within an input three-dimensional (3D) model into a plurality of subspaces in order to generate an acceleration structure of the input 3D model. A decision unit of the image processing apparatus may set a subspace determined as having a relatively high probability of including a ray progress path among the plurality of subspaces, as a child node having a relatively high traversal priority in the acceleration structure among a plurality of child nodes.
US09355488B2

A liquid crystal (LC) display system includes an LC panel and a backlight unit. A controller controls the LC panel to display first and a second images forming a stereoscopic pair; controls the backlight unit to only illuminate the LC panel during a first time period after pixels of the LC panel have a stable optical state according to the first image, and during a second time period after the pixels have a stable optical state according to the second image; and generates a control signal for controlling a first shutter glass of a pair of 3D shutter glasses to be in a transmissive state for enabling viewing of the pixels of the LC panel only during the first time period, and a second shutter glass to be in a transmissive state for enabling viewing of the pixels of the LC panel only during the second time period.
US09355486B2

It is an object to generate a desired composite image in which a motion area of a subject is correctly composited.A difference image between a base target and an aligned swap target is generated (S1021), and an extracted contour in the difference image is determined according to the active contour model (S1022). The inner area of the contour and the outer area of the contour are painted with different colors to be color-coded so as to generate a mask image for alpha blending (S1023). Using the mask image thus generated, the swap target that is aligned with respect to the base target is composited with the base target of the base image by alpha blending (S1024).
US09355484B2

A device selectively loads map tiles into its memory while re-using others. As a user chooses different sections of a master map to be displayed, the device determines an intersection between the formerly and currently viewed sections. The device copies selected references to map tiles in the intersection, with some re-indexing, from an array for the formerly displayed section into an array for the newly displayed section. The view of the map might be a three-dimensional perspective view of a two-dimensional surface. The device can create bounding boxes around polygonal perimeters of the viewed areas. The bounding boxes are divided into rectangles corresponding to the tiles located on the master map. The device determines which rectangles within the bounding boxes both (a) contain portions of their respective polygons and (b) overlap each other respective to their locations on the master map. The device already stores map tiles for those rectangles.
US09355467B2

An image decoding method obtains pieces of coded data which are included in a bitstream and generated by coding tiles obtained by dividing a picture. The pieces of coded data are decoded to generate image data of the tiles. When obtaining the pieces of coded data, tile boundary independence information is further obtained from the bitstream. The tile boundary independence information indicates whether each boundary between the tiles is a first or second boundary. Image data of a first tile is generated by decoding a first code string included in first coded data with reference to decoding information of an already-decoded tile when the tile boundary independence information indicates the first boundary. The first code string is decoded without referring to the decoding information of the already-decoded tile when the tile boundary independence information indicates the second boundary.
US09355465B2

For a given texture address, a multi-mode texture sampler fetches and reduces texture data with a multi-mode filter accumulator suitable for providing a weighted average over a variety of filter footprints. A multi-mode texture sampler is configurable to provide both a wide variety of footprints and allow for a filter footprint significantly wider than the bi-linear (2×2 texel) footprint. In embodiments, filter coefficients specifying a weighting for each texel in a flexible footprint are cached from coefficient tables stored in memory. Techniques and systems are provided for dynamic allocation, update and handling of weighting coefficient tables as resources independent of sampler state.
US09355460B1

A motion detection method determines bit-rate changes of input pixels of a video frame by a grey relational analysis technique to establish a multi-quality background model, detects moving objects by two-stage block-based and pixel-based detection procedures to generate a binary motion mask, detects luminance changes of the video frame by entropy calculation to timely update the background model, provides a setting interface for a user to set a detection sensitivity, and examines false detections of the binary motion mask. Therefore, it can correctly interpret moving objects in VBR video streams, implement more accurate and complete motion detection, eliminate the influence of luminance changes, increase the detection accuracy, and decrease false detections.
US09355459B2

A method and system for characterizing cell motion comprising: receiving image data corresponding to a set of images of a cell culture captured at a set of time points; segmenting, from at least one image of the set of images, a cell subpopulation from the cell culture; determining a resting signal for the cell subpopulation; determining a single-peak motion signal based upon the set of images, the set of time points, and the resting signal; detrending the single-peak motion signal of the cell subpopulation based upon the resting signal; determining values of a set of motion features of the cell subpopulation, thereby characterizing cell motion; and clustering the cell subpopulation with at least one other cell subpopulation based upon at least one of the single-peak motion signal and a value of the set of motion features.
US09355457B1

Techniques are provided for detecting edges in a color image by analyzing variations in multiple color channels. No greyscale conversion is performed, thereby preserving color differences which might be lost in greyscale conversion. Gradients in multiple color channels are merged to compute a single edge snapping vector field from which edge locations are derived. By retaining the multidimensional characterization of the colors that comprise the processed image, a maximum color difference can be calculated using parameters which closely correspond to human perceptions of color. Maximum color difference is formulated using an LUV color model. The Euclidian distance between two pixels characterized using a multidimensional color model more closely approximates a perceived color difference between as compared to the Euclidian distance between the same pixels characterized using a greyscale color model. An edge snapping vector field is derived from these Euclidian distances, thereby providing a more accurate basis for edge detection.
US09355452B2

Camera and sensor augmented reality techniques are described. In one or more implementations, an optical basis is obtained that was generated from data obtained by a camera of a computing device and a sensor basis is obtained that was generated from data obtained from one or more sensors that are not a camera. The optical basis and the sensor basis describe a likely orientation or position of the camera and the one or more sensors, respectively, in a physical environment. The optical basis and the sensor basis are compared to verify the orientation or the position of the computing device in the physical environment.
US09355449B2

Provided is medical equipment and a technique for analyzing medical images. A method for automatically planning views in three-dimensional (3D) medical images includes: estimating a statistical model indicating positions of anatomical points, the statistical model having parameters calculated by minimizing energy of a loss function; training an anatomical point detector to detect the plurality of anatomical points by using the estimated statistical model; acquiring a 3D image having a region of interest; detecting a set of candidates of the anatomical points in the 3D image; searching the set of candidates for an optimal configuration corresponding to the plurality of anatomical points; and forming a view plane based on the optimal configuration found by the searching.
US09355447B2

A system and method for analyzing medical images of a subject includes acquiring the medical images of the subject and texture images. A computer system determines, using the medical images and the texture feature images, a plurality of segmentation surfaces by iteratively adjusting a relationship between a region growing algorithm that selects a region of interest (ROI) to determine a given segmentation surface and cost function for evaluating the given segmentation surface. The computer system generates a report using the plurality of segmentation surfaces indicating at least boundaries between anatomical structures with functional differences in the medical images.
US09355445B2

A breast cancer pathological image diagnosis support system for supporting a diagnosis of breast cancer based on a pathological image is provided. The breast cancer pathological image diagnosis support system includes an image obtaining unit which obtains an HE-stained image and an IHC image as pathological images to be diagnosed; an information obtaining unit which obtains information of a tumor area in the HE-stained image; a matching unit which calculates a matching position of the HE-stained image and the IHC image obtained by the image obtaining unit; a specifying unit which specifies a tumor area in the IHC image based on the information of the tumor area in the HE-stained image obtained by the information obtaining unit and information of the matching position calculated by the matching unit; and a calculating unit which calculates a staining positive cell content rate in the tumor area based on information of the tumor area in the IHC image specified by the specifying unit.
US09355444B2

Systems and methods for processing potentially defective individual packaged modules are presented. A Printed Circuit Board (PCB) that includes a set of individual module substrates can be received and an image of a first side of the PCB can be captured by an image capture module which can include one or more cameras. Based on the captured image, it can be determined whether the set of individual module substrates includes previously identified (e.g., inked) individual module substrates that correspond to potentially defective individual module substrates. In response to determining that the set of individual module substrates includes inked individual module substrates, a map of the inked individual module substrates can be created. Based on the map, locations corresponding to the inked individual module substrates can be marked with a laser on a second side of the PCB.
US09355438B2

The geometric distortions of videos and images are corrected wherein a plurality of geometrically distorted frames are mapped with a plurality of original frames of the video content. Further, one or more features associated with the mapped frames are identified as insensitive to the one or more geometric distortions. One or more features of the mapped frames are further mapped with original frames based on a predefined similarity threshold and thereafter one or more geometric distortion parameters are determined. Furthermore, a frame level average distortion and a video level average distortion of each of the one or more geometric distortion parameters are determined, based on which the one or more geometric distortions of the video content are corrected.
US09355437B2

A method and apparatus of image position compensation are provided. The method may include: measuring an actual height at Z position and a corresponding drop offset of a scanning table; adjusting, according to the drop offset of the scanning table, a vertical coordinate of an image center in the process of post-reconstruction, so as to obtain an adjusted image; and performing an interpolation process on coordinate information and pixel values of a row in the adjusted image, to obtain pixel values of a row in a target image. The target image is an image which has been processed by position compensation. According to the present disclosure, an image generated by a CT apparatus can be compensated to obtain a correct tomographic image and provide accurate image information for medical diagnosis.
US09355431B1

A source image to be projected onto a projection surface is transformed based on a three-dimensional representation of the projection surface to create a modified source image. When the modified source image is projected onto the projection surface, a resulting display image is less distorted as compared to the original source image than a resulting display image would be if the original source image were projected onto the projection surface.
US09355425B2

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for receiving a soft post authored by a user, the soft post including a content item and having a distribution associated therewith, the distribution including a selected group of users that are socially connected to the user, determining an interest level with respect to a content item of the soft post based on content items submitted by one or more users of the selected group of users, the interest level reflecting a likelihood that users of the selected group of users would be interested in the viewing the soft post, comparing the interest level to an interest level threshold associated with the soft post, and selectively providing user access to the content item of the soft post based on the comparing.
US09355420B2

A computer identifies a plurality of available network connections, wherein at least one of the identified network connections is contractually available to the computer under terms of a monthly data plan. The computer determines, based, at least in part, on characteristics of each network connection of the plurality of network connections and anticipated bandwidth consumption of the computer, a network connection to connect to from the plurality of network connections. The computer connects to the determined network connection. The computer determines, based, at least in part, on anticipated bandwidth consumption of the computer and contractual terms of the monthly data plan, an amount of excess bandwidth available for sale.
US09355414B2

For each first entity of a subset of a number of first entities, an expected improvement of a predictive performance of a collaborative filtering model if additional ratings of the first entity in relation to a plurality of second entities were obtained is estimated. Particular first entities from the subset of the first entities of which to obtain the additional ratings in relation to the second entities are selected based at least on the expected improvements that have been determined. The additional ratings of the particular first entities in relation to the second entities are obtained.
US09355411B2

The present disclosure identifies and/or delivers tailored content based upon a service dialog. For example, the systems may receive a request for tailored content, facilitate a service dialog to obtain information related to the request, and communicate a plurality of tailored content based upon the information related to the request. Further, the systems may identify tailored content based upon a consumer profile, communicate the tailored content to a web client, and/or receive a selection of the tailored content. Further still, the systems may modify a magazine (e.g., content that is presented electronically) based upon tailored content.
US09355404B2

A method of voting with your feet is disclosed. A notification regarding a survey question is communicated to a player of a computer implemented game. The notification includes an indication of a particular location-based action that is to be performed by the player to answer the survey question. The answer of the player to the survey question is determined based on detection of performance of the particular location-based action by the player.
US09355399B1

A system and method in accordance with exemplary embodiments may include an attachment with a near field communication antenna, a secure element, a plug capable of connecting the attachment to an audio jack on a mobile device. Further, a system and method in accordance with exemplary embodiments may include receiving a payment initiation instruction from a customer, using a near field communication antenna, sending payment information to a point of sale device, using one or more computer processors, encoding data related to the payment as audio data, and transmitting the data related to the payment through an audio jack.
US09355393B2

The MULTI-DIRECTIONAL WALLET CONNECTOR APPARATUSES, METHODS AND SYSTEMS (“W-CONNECTOR”) facilitates the enrollment of payment accounts in a consumer's virtual wallet. The consumer may be logged into their payment account issuer's web site and designate one or more payment accounts for enrollment in a virtual wallet. The issuer may then share account, billing and/or other relevant information with the virtual wallet provider to facilitate the enrollment of the designated payment accounts in the virtual wallet. The W-CONNECTOR may also be configured to facilitate the creation and funding of pre-paid accounts in a consumer's virtual wallet.
US09355384B2

Provided are a computer program product, system, and method for providing access to documents requiring a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) in an online document sharing community. A document request is received from a requesting participant at a requesting participant computer comprising one of the participant computers in the network environment. In response to receiving the document request, an access page is returned to the requesting participant computer including a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) requesting that the requesting participant accept terms of the NDA in order to access the content of the document in the storage system. The content of the document is returned to the requesting participant computer in response to receiving indication from the requesting participant computer accepting the terms of the NDA.
US09355380B2

The present invention relates to system and method for inventory management, more specifically to the tracking of use and/or consumption of tangible products at a user's location. In accordance with the invention, consumption data is determined and analyzed. Consumption data may include time-referenced and/or quantitative data about the tangible product, so that the origin/supplier is informed about the consumption behavior of the user.
US09355374B2

Systems and methods for creating fingerprints for encryption devices are described herein. In various embodiments, the system includes an encryption device operatively connected to a device management system. According to particular embodiments, the device management system: 1) receives a first payload from the encryption device, the first payload including data in a particular format; 2) creates a fingerprint for the encryption device, the fingerprint including a section format for each of one or more distinct sections of the particular format; 3) storing a record of the fingerprint for the encryption device and the unique identifier at the at least one database; and 4) comparing a format of each subsequent payload received from the encryption device to the fingerprint for the device to determine whether the device has been compromised.
US09355373B2

A test results screening tool allows capture of test item and test results data and provides a reviewer with a robust set of tools for entering screening criteria and display of test results by both test subject and test center. The tool includes parametrically sets flags for unwanted testing behaviors including test item harvesting, test subjects with pre-knowledge of the test subject matter, and proxy test takers for some a portion of a test.
US09355347B2

A card is provided comprising an information setting unit configured to output a first signal including unique information of the card, and a bending sensor configured to output a second signal corresponding to a curvature of the card. An information processing apparatus is also provided comprising a card reading unit configured to acquire information from a card a processor, and a memory device. The memory device stores instructions which when executed by the processor, causes the processor to acquire unique information from the card, and acquire curvature information from the card corresponding to a curvature of the card.
US09355339B2

Systems and methods for color reproduction tolerances are provided. One method according to the present disclosure may involve selecting a printing configuration, printing a color scale sample using the printing configuration, and scoring the printed color scale sample based at least in part on an extent to which transpositions of the color swatches occur over a color range. When the score of the printed color scale sample indicates a print quality is or will be above a threshold level of quality, a print job using colors of the color range may be printed using the printing configuration.
US09355338B2

A delivery device according to the present invention includes a learning image storage unit, a first recognition unit, a second recognition unit, and a registration unit. The learning image storage unit stores at least one piece of learning image. The first recognition unit recognizes a recognition target image using the learning image stored in the learning image storage unit. The second recognition unit recognizes the recognition target image with finer precision than that of the first recognition unit, when the first recognition unit fails to recognize the recognition target image. When the second recognition unit succeeds in recognizing the recognition target image, the registration unit registers information on the successfully recognized recognition target image in a storage unit.
US09355332B2

A method for recognizing a primitive in an image includes recognizing at least one primitive in the image to obtain at least one candidate shape of the at least one primitive, which at least one candidate shape has a respective confidence; determining whether the recognizing of the at least one primitive has a potential error based on the confidence; obtaining auxiliary information about the at least one primitive from a user in response to determining that the recognizing has the potential error; and re-recognizing the at least one primitive at least in part based on the auxiliary information.
US09355325B2

The present invention relates to a method for differentiating between background and foreground in images or films of scenery recorded by an electronic camera. The invention relates in addition to a method for replacing the background in recorded images or films of scenery while maintaining the foreground.
US09355323B2

Disclosed are an image correction method and apparatus for a visually impaired person, which are capable of dividing, enlarging, and photographing a subject to be photographed, correcting images photographed in a divided state, and providing one image. The image correction method includes: a dividing process of dividing a subject to be photographed into at least two zones; an individual photographing process of, by an image photographing unit, photographing each of the divided zones along an arbitrarily set course; an image correcting process of correcting skewness of an image of each of the photographed zones; and an image synthesizing process of synthesizing the corrected images into one image. Thus, the image is divided, enlarged, and photographed, and the photographed images are generated into one image. Thereby, a high-resolution image is provided along with a high character recognition rate and a still image is provided with a high resolution.
US09355319B2

A system for identifying road surface conditions includes a road surface measurement sensor attached to a vehicle and configured to generate a measurement signal for a road surface condition, and a controller. The controller is configured to digitalize the measurement signal received from the road surface measurement sensor, calculate a curvature pattern for the road surface condition based on the digitalized measurement signal, and compare the calculated curvature pattern with a pre-stored curvature pattern to identify the road surface condition.
US09355318B2

A system and method for contextually interpreting image sequences are provided. The method comprises receiving video from one or more video sources, and generating one or more questions associated with one or more portions of the video based on at least one user-defined objective. The method further comprises sending the one or more portions of the video and the one or more questions to one or more assistants, receiving one or more answers to the one or more questions from the one or more assistants, and determining a contextual interpretation of the video based on the one or more answers and the video.
US09355317B2

The present invention is to notify a recognition result with respect to a recognition object in a video in real time while maintaining recognition accuracy. A recognition object and m-number of first local characteristic quantities which are respectively 1-dimensional to i-dimensional characteristic vectors are stored in association with each other, and n-number of second local characteristic quantities which are respectively 1-dimensional to j-dimensional characteristic vectors are generated for n-number of local areas respectively including n-number of characteristic points from an image in a video. In addition, a smaller dimension is selected from the dimension i and the dimension j, a recognition that the recognition object exists in an image in the video is made when it is determined that a prescribed proportion or more of the m-number of first local characteristic quantities which are characteristic vectors up to the selected number of dimensions correspond to the n-number of second local characteristic quantities which are characteristic vectors up to the selected number of dimensions, and information representing the recognition object is displayed in superposition on an image in which the recognition object exists in the video.
US09355315B2

Embodiments that relate to determining an estimated pupil region of an eye are disclosed. In one embodiment a method includes receiving an image of an eye, with the image comprising a plurality of pixels. A rough pupil region is generated using at least a subset of the plurality of pixels. A plurality of pupil boundary point candidates are extracted from the rough pupil region, with each of the candidates weighted based on color values of at least two neighbor pixels. A parametric curve may be fitted to the weighted pupil boundary point candidates to determine the estimated pupil region of the eye of the user.
US09355314B2

Head-mounted display apparatus and login method thereof are provided. The head-mounted display apparatus includes an image capturing device, a pico-projector, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), and an application processor. The image capturing device captures a first eye image and a plurality of second eye images corresponding to a locus image. The ASIC determines whether the first eye image passes an iris recognition test. The application processor controls a pico-projector to project the locus image when the first eye image passes an iris recognition test, and generates a pupil locus based on the plurality of second eye images. The application processor determines whether the pupil locus is compliant with the locus image, and allows a login request if the pupil locus is compliant with the locus image.
US09355310B2

One or more processors receive data from one or more devices including an image of an individual and information that indicates the identity of the individual. One or both of the image and the information include data that indicates a location. One or more processors analyze the image of an individual and the information to generate a set of identifying characteristics for the individual. Based on a result of the analysis, one or more processors determine whether the set of identifying characteristics of the individual matches a recorded set of identifying characteristics of that individual within a threshold. In response to a determination that there is a match within the threshold, one or more processors associate the location with the individual.
US09355302B2

A method for identifying facial features comprises following steps: An image tracing step is performed to receive video data of a plurality of face images and to obtain a real-time background image from the video data by a video tracing technique. A data calculating step is performed to calculate a video data difference between a current face image and the real-time background image. A process setting step is performed to set an iteration number according to the video data difference. A coordinate requesting step is performed to obtain facial feature coordinates of a previous face image, the previous one of the current face image, serving as initial facial feature coordinates. A localization step is performed to obtain current facial feature coordinates of the current image by conducting an iterative calculation according to the iteration number and based on the initial facial feature coordinates.
US09355298B2

A fingerprint authentication apparatus stores fingerprint data of plural fingers. The fingerprint authentication apparatus stores a history of a result of an authentication process executed using the fingerprint data. The fingerprint authentication apparatus determines the number of accepted fingers, which is the number of fingers from which the fingerprint data is accepted from a user during the authentication process, and a false acceptance rate based upon the history. The fingerprint authentication apparatus accepts the fingerprint data from the fingers in the determined number of accepted fingers. The fingerprint authentication apparatus collates whether each of the accepted fingerprint data coincides or not using the determined false acceptance rate. The fingerprint authentication apparatus authenticates a user based upon a collation result.
US09355293B2

A method (2304) of decoding a QR code having two initially detected finder patterns (2901, 2902; 2911, 2912) is provided. The method forms (2402) a pattern matching template (2700, 2800) based on characteristics of the detected finder patterns and determines (2403) at least one candidate region (2904, 2905; 2913, 2914) about the detected finder patterns. The candidate region is typically based at least on the relative positions of the detected finder patterns. The method detects (2404) a previously undetected third finder pattern of the QR code in the at least one candidate region by correlating content of the candidate region with the pattern matching template. With the identified third finder pattern and each of the two initially detected finder patterns, decoding (2305) the QR code can then be performed. Also disclosed is a method of detecting a two-dimensional code comprising known target features and coded data in an image. The target features comprise a continuous black region, enclosed entirely by a continuous white region, enclosed entirely by a continuous black region. The method performs line-by-line connected component analysis (403) of the image to determine candidate features of interest. The line-by-line connected component analysis aggregates metrics corresponding to candidate features of interest. The method evaluates (404) the aggregated metrics to determine how similar each candidate feature of interest is to the target feature and forms (405) a candidate region of interest from multiple candidate features of interest. Typically the target features include the copyright symbol © and the registered trade mark symbol ®.
US09355292B2

An optical information acquisition device that comprises a main body and a connector assembly associated with said main body and comprising three connectors. The connector assembly can be rotated with respect to said main body between a first operating position wherein said connectors extend substantially perpendicularly to a first side of said main body and a second operating position in which said connectors extend substantially perpendicularly to a second side of said main body. The three connectors are positioned at the vertices of an acute-angled triangle, more preferably at the vertices of an equilateral triangle.
US09355279B1

A system includes a security device, configured for cryptographic processing, coupled to receive incoming data from a plurality of data sources (e.g., data from different customers), wherein the incoming data includes first data from a first data source; a controller (e.g., an external key manager) configured to select a first set of keys from a plurality of key sets, each of the key sets corresponding to one of the plurality of data sources, wherein the first set of keys is used by the security device to encrypt the first data; and a common encrypted data storage, coupled to receive the encrypted first data from the security device.
US09355277B2

There is provided a pluggable secure device identity module (SDIM) attached to a peripheral where the SDIM includes one or more secret functions provided by a third party that are used by the peripheral to provide additional security features or functions that can only be authenticated by the third party. The peripheral is attached to a computer and a secure provisioning manifest is used to authenticate and communicate with the peripheral. The computer includes a processor that executes an operating system and transaction software. A secure I/O module, that has a processor and software that is separate and isolated from the processing environment of the computer, uses the secure provisioning manifest to authenticate the peripheral and then to establish a secure encrypted session for communicating with the peripheral.
US09355274B2

The method for archiving a document includes a step of encryption of the document with a symmetric key, a step of transmission of said encrypted document to an archiving operator, and a step of transmission of the symmetric encryption key of said document to an escrow operator distinct from the archiving operator. The method may also include a step of encrypting of the symmetric key with a key consisting of a dual key comprising asymmetric keys. Depending on whether it is applied to personal archiving or to document transmission, during the step of encryption with the asymmetric key, the asymmetric key is that of the user having transmitted said document or that of the recipient of the document.
US09355272B2

A computing system includes a context module configured to determine a sharing context; an option module, coupled to the context module, configured to generate a sharing option for the sharing context based on a default set for the sharing context, a user's past sharing selection for the sharing context, and a personalization degree for the sharing context; and a privacy preference module, coupled to the option module, configured to estimate a user's privacy preference based on the sharing option.
US09355264B2

An apparatus and a method for secretly transmitting messages over public channels is described. Data from a first enterprise service bus (ESB) of a first computer system is encoded in a new media file using steganography. The new media file is transmitted to a third party server over a public channel. The new media file is then downloaded and decoded at a second enterprise service bus (ESB) of a second computer system.
US09355262B2

Embodiments of an invention for modifying memory permissions in a secure processing environment are disclosed. In one embodiment, a processor includes an instruction unit and an execution unit. The instruction unit is to receive an instruction to modify access permissions for a page in a secure enclave. The execution unit is to execute the instruction. Execution of the instruction includes setting new access permissions in an enclave page cache map entry. Furthermore, the page is immediately accessible from inside the secure enclave according to the new access permissions.
US09355260B2

A method and system for securing access to configuration information stored in universal plug and play data models are provided. The method includes receiving a request to operate on at least one node of a data model from a Control Point (CP), where the data model includes a plurality of nodes and each of the plurality of nodes represents configuration information, determining a role associated with the CP, determining whether the role of CP is in a recommended role list, allowing, if the role is present, the CP to operate on the at least one node, and determining, if the role is not present, whether the CP has a role appropriate for operating on the at least one node based on ACL data associated with the at least one node. Accordingly, the CP is allowed to operate on the at least one node or an error message is returned on a display of the CP.
US09355259B1

Exposure of sensitive tenant information is minimized in a multi-tenant/multi-user environment. A unique encryption key is provided for each tenant. The tenant encryption key is never stored in the clear and each copy of the tenant encryption key is protected by a user derived password. A secure folder is created for each tenant and encrypted by the tenant encryption key. Secure folders are mounted only on-demand, i.e. when an authenticated request is received for that tenant. The secure folders are mounted only for specific durations only. Otherwise, they are un-mounted. When a secure folder is mounted, any read/write operation to the secure folder is encrypted/decrypted on-the-fly. When the secure folder is un-mounted, all file contents in the secure folder, and the secure folder itself, are not visible in the file system and no application can browse to the secure folder without the tenant encryption key.
US09355253B2

A media processing device, such as a set top box, having selectable hardware and software components for forming media pathways compliant with security definitions provided by downloaded or preinstalled software applications. Such applications may include, for example, a downloadable conditional access security or DRM element/definition. A corresponding certification process can entail certifying a portion of an overall secure pathway, with one or more applications providing the final portion of the certification. Alternatively, predefined conditional access mechanisms are provided, with an application establishing which mechanism is to be used. In various embodiments, a set top box or resident software application may exchange capabilities with other devices in a media consumption network to compare against the requirements of the software application. Once the information exchange is complete, the software application may select which one or more modes of operation or media pathways, if any, that it will permit.
US09355252B1

A service provider can maintain one or more host computing devices which may be utilized as bare metal instances by one or more customers of the service provider. Illustratively, each host computing device includes hardware components that are configured in a manner to allow the service provider to implement one or more processes upon a power cycle of the host computing device and prior to access of the host computing device resources by customers. In one aspect, a hosting platform includes components arranged in a manner to limit modifications to software or firmware on hardware components. In another aspect, the hosting platform can implement management functions for establishing control plane functions between the host computing device and the service provider that is independent of the customer. Additionally, the management functions can also be utilized to present different hardware or software attributes of the host computing device.
US09355250B2

The present embodiments provide a method and system for rapidly scanning a file, wherein the method includes obtaining a data packet, the data packet comprising secure file characteristic information for determining whether a file in a system is a secure file, and scanning file characteristic information of files in the system one by one, if the currently scanned file characteristic information matches secure file characteristic information in the data packet identifying a file as a secure file, skipping an anti-virus scanning for the current file, and continuing to scan a next file. By using the data packet, when a new user performs a first scanning, a file with identical characteristic information as that in the data packet can be skipped, which can reduce the time for the first scanning.
US09355248B1

Implementations provide for container and image scanning for a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) system. A method of the disclosure includes initiating, by a processing device executing a node of a multi-tenant Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) system, a scan process at the node to scan containers executing on the node, the containers executing functionality of multiple applications that are owned by multiple owners. The method further includes, for each container of the containers, scanning, by the processing device in accordance with the scan process, a top layer of application image instance used to launch the container in the node without scanning remaining layers of the application image instance, and terminating, by the processing device, the scan process for the container when the scanning generates a clean result.
US09355244B2

Systems and methods are provided for password reset. For example, a first server receives a request operation instruction from a user terminal, wherein the request operation instruction includes account information and identity information; the first server determines whether to permit password reset for a first account indicated by the account information; in response to the password reset for the first account being permitted, the first server authenticates the account information and the identity information; if the authentication of the account information and the identity information is successful, the first server processes the request operation instruction and sends a password reset prompt to the user terminal; the user terminal receives the password reset prompt and sends to the first server password information set by a user in response to the password reset prompt; and the first server sends to a second server a password reset request that carries the password information.
US09355237B2

A method includes receiving at a processor, an indication of a user touching a point on a data entry device, receiving at the processor, an indication of a user gazing in a direction, and comparing via the processor the touched point and the gazing direction to a known touch point and gaze direction to verify the user is an authorized user.
US09355230B2

Various embodiments provide methods and systems for controlling an access to applications on a mobile terminal. In an exemplary method, an opened application can be scanned and an application identification can be obtained. The application identification can be compared with a pre-stored target application identification. When the application identification is compared to be consistent with the pre-stored target application identification, an unlock interface can be displayed. An unlock command can be obtained to run the application on the mobile terminal. An exemplary system for controlling an access to an application on a mobile terminal can include a scanning module, a comparing module, a displaying module, and an executing module.
US09355225B2

Disclosed is a system and method for super-distribution of rights-protected digital content. A first terminal offers digital content to a second terminal, using a unique content identifier to identify the content in the request. The second terminal requests information regarding the content from a service provider platform. The content information request includes a terminal type identifier for the second terminal. The service provider platform obtains format capabilities information for the second terminal from a terminal capabilities database, and selects a format type for the content using the format capabilities information. The service provider platform obtains a content object in the selected format type from a content storage database. The service provider platform then delivers the content object in the selected format to the second terminal.
US09355224B1

A system for a dynamic adjustment of expiration date of an authorization key, the system comprising: a security product that will be installed on a predetermined number of computers. The administration key allows a use of the software product on the predetermined number of computers during a predetermined period of time. The plurality of authorization units purchased from a vendor that are the smallest increments of time that a duration period of the authorization key is measured in. The expiration date for all the computers can be updated at any time, depending on the number of computers on which the software is installed at any given time. The administration server determines a beginning and an ending date of a functionality of the authorization key for the security product. The data base receives and stores the beginning and the ending date of the functionality of the authorization key for the security product. The communication means that send the beginning and the ending date of the functionality of the authorization key to the software product. The expiration date of the authorization date dynamically changes when the number of computer on which the product is installed increases or decreases.
US09355218B2

A portable medication dispensing system is described. In some embodiments, the system includes a portable medication tote comprising a securable compartment configured to hold medication, and a controller, responsive to access information, configured to assign a patient to the securable compartment such that medications for the patient are authorized for placement into the securable compartment. The controller is also configured to selectively permit a user access to the medications for the patient in the securable compartment when the access information indicates the user has access to the securable compartment, and restrict access to retrieval of the medications for the patient in the securable compartment when the access information indicates the user does not have access to the securable compartment. The system also includes an information output module configured to output usage information regarding access to the securable compartment.
US09355216B2

An IPTV can receive a user name and present a screen enabling a user by means of a remote control to select health information categories, inputting numeric parameters into the selected categories which can be uploaded to an Internet server for analysis and viewed by the user for subsequent monitoring/charting.
US09355214B2

A clinical facility communication network connects a notification system to a plurality of patient monitors and to a plurality of clinician communication devices. Each of the patient monitors operate to detect physiological characteristics associated with a patient and to send event messages to the notification system. The notification system operates to receive the event messages and to determine which of the event messages include information of sufficient clinical significance to warrant generating and sending an alarm to a clinician. The event messages that are determine not to include clinically significant information are ignored.
US09355211B2

Systems, methods, and other embodiments associated with providing a unified tool for performing design constraints generation and verification for circuit designs are described. In one embodiment, the unified tool reads design data and design intent information for a circuit design. The unified tool generates physical flow elements and verification flow elements of the circuit design, together and in dependence on each other, based, at least in part, on the design data and the design intent information.
US09355205B2

An apparatus includes a first tier and a second tier. The second tier is above the first tier. The first tier includes a first cell. The second tier includes a second cell and a third cell. The third cell includes a first ILV to couple the first cell in the first tier to the second cell in the second tier. The third cell further includes a second ILV, the first ILV and the second ILV are extended along a first direction. The first tier further includes a fourth cell. The second tier further includes a fifth cell. The second ILV of the third cell is arranged to connect the fourth cell of the first tier with the fifth cell of the second tier. In some embodiments, the second tier further includes a spare cell including a spare ILV for ECO purpose.
US09355201B2

The disclosed technology is related to adjusting an integrated circuit design while accounting for a local density of the design. In particular exemplary embodiments, a local density value for a layout design that defines a plurality of geometric shapes is derived. Subsequently, one or more of the geometric shapes are adjusted such that the local density value is preserved. With some implementations, the local density value is preserved if the adjusted local density value is within a threshold amount of the derived local density value.
US09355198B1

A method for designing a system on a target device includes identifying requirements for a control status register (CSR) to be implemented on the system. Register transfer level description for the CSR is generated in response to the requirements identified.
US09355196B2

A model estimation device includes: a data input unit 101; a state number setting unit; an initialization unit; a latent variable variational probability computation unit which computes a variational probability of a latent variable so as to maximize a lower bound of a model posterior probability limited in degree of freedom; a component optimization unit which estimates an optimal type of each component and a parameter thereof so as to maximize the lower bound of the model posterior probability limited in degree of freedom and separated for each component of a latent variable model; a free parameter selection variable computation unit which computes the free parameter selection variable; an optimality determination unit which determines whether or not to continue the maximization of the lower bound of the model posterior probability; and a result output unit.
US09355192B2

A computer receives a retrieval request with a retrieval character string, adds control information to a region corresponding to code information included in a management region used for extending encoded data when an extension result of the code information matches a first character of the retrieval character string when the encoded data to be retrieved is sequentially extended in response to the retrieval request, and performs collation processing between the retrieval character string and character string information corresponding to data of the extension result of the code information when the control information is added to a partial region corresponding to code information to be extended in the extension.
US09355184B2

According to a general aspect, a method includes maintaining rating groups, each rating group providing a rating for content compiled based on information received from a user evaluating the content. The method also includes receiving, from a first user, a selection of a first rating group, from among the rating groups, to be applied to a set of users associated with the first user. The method also includes receiving, from a user, a request for a piece of content from the content. The method also includes determining that the user from which the request was received belongs to the set of users associated with the first user. The method also includes, based upon the determination that the user belonged to the set of users associated with the first user, accessing information associated with the first rating group and determining whether the first rating group includes a rating for the requested piece of content. The method also includes determining whether or not to provide information to the requesting user conditioned on the indication or absence of a rating for the requested piece of content within the first rating group.
US09355182B2

Methods and systems for text disambiguation and context designation in incremental search are provided. A method for selecting items in response to ambiguous keystrokes entered by a user and unambiguous metadata associated with a previously selected search result includes receiving ambiguous keystrokes, selecting and presenting a first subset of items and metadata associated with the items presented based on the ambiguous keystrokes. The method also includes receiving a selection of one of the items from the user, and, in response to a locking operation received from the user, locking in fixed relation at least one of the ambiguous keystrokes to at least one metadata term associated with the selected item. The method further includes, subsequent to receiving the locking operation, selecting and presenting a second subset of items based at least in part on the locked metadata term, and presenting the second subset of items.
US09355177B2

Systems and methods for scheduling documents for crawling are disclosed in which sitemap information is updated for a first website identified by a sitemap by downloading updated sitemap information for the first website and scheduling documents for crawling in accordance with the updated sitemap information for the first website. The sitemap information includes one or more sitemap indexes, where each respective sitemap index in the one or more sitemap indices includes a list of URLs corresponding to documents stored at a corresponding website in a plurality of websites, the plurality of websites including the first website, and each sitemap index in the one or more sitemap indexes includes information identifying one or more of: a last modification date of a URL in the list of URLs, a change frequency of a document specified by the URL, a document title, an authority of the document, and a priority of the document.
US09355174B2

A computer-implemented process comprises identifying, by a computer server system, a base topic for a personalized media stream for a user of a computer system; identifying, with the computer server system, a plurality of media items associated with the base topic using a plurality of different and independent categories of media categorization data, wherein each of the categories of media categorization data is assigned a weighting; building a collection of candidate media items from the identified plurality of media items; ordering the collection of candidate media items to form a personalized media stream; and providing the ordered collection of candidate media items for playing to the user.
US09355173B1

Disclosed are various embodiments for forming relationships among items to enhance user experiences in navigating a content database. A user may initiate a request to associate a keyword or label with an item. The keyword may be associated with the user to form a user-keyword association and may be associated with the item to form an item-keyword association. If the item-keyword association meets a predefined threshold, the keyword may be surfaced as a community keyword corresponding to the item.
US09355172B2

According to an example, a method for data trend analysis may include retrieving data from data sources, associating the data with a time, and identifying co-occurrences of terms and concepts within the data. In response to determining that co-occurrences of term and concept pairs reach a predefined threshold, the method may include adding the term and concept pairs to an ontology. The method may include logging occurrences of terms in the ontology within the data with respect to associated data times, identifying a plurality of time periods, and for one of the plurality of time periods and for the logged terms, determining a first score indicative of a weighted term frequency metric for a logged term within the data during the one time period, and determining a second score indicative of a commonality of a presence of the logged term within the data among the plurality of time periods.
US09355161B1

A system and method for event-driven live migration of applications between two or more servers. Primary applications runs on primary hosts and one or more replicated instances of each primary application run on one or more backup hosts. Event driven live migration is provided through a combination of process replication, logging, barrier synchronization, reliable messaging and message playback. The event driven live migration is transparent to the application and requires no modification to the application, operating system, networking stack or libraries.
US09355156B2

A method and system for determining a service description most closely matching a service name provided by a user. It is determined that the service name provided by the user is not an exact match to a service name in a service registry that comprises service names and associated service descriptions. A ranked service name is generated and includes at least one alternative service name and a respective rank of each alternative service name. The respective rank indicates how closely the alternative service name associated with the respective rank resembles the service name provided by the user. It is ascertained that a service description associated with a service name in the service registry that either matches the highest ranked alternative service name in the service name list or matches the next highest ranked alternative service name in the service name list. The ascertained service description is communicated to the user.
US09355152B2

Methods for non-exclusionary searching within clustered in-memory databases are disclosed. The non-exclusionary search methods may allow the execution of searches where the results may include records where fields specified in the query are not populated or defined. The disclosed methods include the application of fuzzy matching and scoring algorithms, which enables the system to search, score and compare records with different schemata. This may significantly improve the recall of relevant records.
US09355148B2

Systems and methods for in-memory processing of events are provided. A set of unique elements of a plurality of queries is determined. Each query is executed on a defined schedule and time duration. A plurality of events in an event stream are received. The events are filtered using the set of unique elements. For each query, a query result for each filtered event is determined. For each query, in-memory aggregation of the query result of each filtered event is provided.
US09355136B2

Arrangements described herein relate to automating generation of maps containing message formats and semantic validation rules. First unstructured data defining message formats for messages that conform to a particular standard and second unstructured data defining semantic validation rules to be applied to validate the messages can be scanned. First structured data corresponding to the first unstructured data defining the message formats and second structured data corresponding to the second unstructured data defining the semantic validation rules can be stored into a database. The first structured data and second structured data are configured to be processed to automatically generate a map comprising message formats and sematic validation rules for use in generating messages that conform to the particular standard and validating the messages.
US09355134B1

Disclosed are various embodiments for facilitating data redistribution in database sharding. A database is maintained that is horizontally partitioned into a set of first buckets using modulo-based assignments. A fixed number of the first buckets are stored in each of multiple physical data stores. The database is repartitioned into a set of second buckets using modulo-based assignments. The number of second buckets in the set is a multiple of the sum of a positive integer and the quantity of the physical data stores. The data in the database is unmoved between the physical data stores by repartitioning.
US09355133B2

Systems and methods are disclosed for compressing a radix tree. An example method of compressing a radix tree includes traversing a radix tree including a plurality of containers. The method also includes identifying, based on the traversing, a parent container having a single immediate child container. The parent container includes a first set of elements, and the child container includes a second set of elements. The method further includes determining whether a length of the first set of elements included in the parent container satisfies a threshold. The method also includes when the length of the first set of elements is determined to satisfy the threshold, combining the parent and child containers into a single container.