US09474195B2

An image generating apparatus includes: a lighting apparatus that emits illumination light to an imaging area where at least a part of an electronic component is located; an imaging apparatus that images the imaging area irradiated with the illumination light; and an image processing apparatus that processes a captured image obtained by the imaging. The image processing apparatus generates a before-adjustment image based on the captured image, generates an adjusted image by adjusting luminance of the before-adjustment image, and generates an optimal image by setting a difference in average luminance between a designated area and a comparison area in the adjusted image largest.
US09474194B2

An electronic component mounting system configured by joining together a plurality of electronic component mounting apparatuses (M2) to (M5*), each of which has a first mounting lane (L1) and a second mounting lane (L2), is configured so as to be able to carry out any one selected from a first operation mode of letting one operation performance mechanism carry out operation performance while taking as a target only a substrate of a substrate conveyance mechanism corresponding to the operation performance mechanism and a second operation mode in which one operation performance mechanism can carry out operation performance while taking as targets all of a plurality of substrates conveyed by a plurality of substrate conveyance mechanisms, and only the two electronic component mounting apparatuses (M5*) each of which is equipped with a tray feeder (30) is brought into the second operation mode.
US09474192B2

A method for manufacturing a housing for an electronic equipment containing metal housing configured to house an electronic equipment therein and a resin film with which the metal housing is coated includes the steps of heating a resin film so as to soften the resin film, coating a metal housing with the heated resin film, and adhering the coated resin film to the metal housing. The preferred housing is one in which an adhesive layer, a print layer, or both thereof is disposed between a resin layer contained in the resin film and the metal housing, and in which the resin film contains at least one thermoplastic resin selected from the group consisting of polycarbonate (PC), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), and polylactic acid (PLA).
US09474190B1

A rack-mountable computer system directs separate portions of a cooling airflow from an inlet air plenum in the computer system interior through separate air passages to remove heat from separate portions of a set of heat-producing components. The air passages can preclude a portion of cooling airflow removing heat from a component from being preheated by another component. Plenums and air passages can be established through the arrangement of components in the interior. Components can be arranged in progressive offsets throughout the depth of the interior to vary plenum flow area throughout the depth, which can progressively impede and redirect airflow through the inlet plenum into the air passages. Arrangements can include an angled row, a staggered configuration, etc. The computer system can include a chassis which can translate, while maintaining operation of hot-pluggable electronic components coupled throughout the depth, to enable swapping of hot-pluggable electronic components throughout the interior.
US09474184B2

A chassis with distributed jet cooling is provided. The chassis includes one or more sidewalls defining a volume configured to substantially surround one or more heat generating components positioned within the volume. The chassis further includes at least one array of fins thermally coupled to a respective one of the one or more sidewalls and at least one synthetic jet assembly comprising a multi-orifice synthetic jet or a number of single orifice synthetic jets disposed on a side of a respective one of the array(s) of fins. The chassis further includes at least one attachment means for attaching a respective one of the at least one synthetic jet assemblies to a respective one of the one or more sidewalls.
US09474166B2

A printed wiring board has a heat transfer pattern facing a heat sink of an electronic component, on a first surface layer on which the electronic component having the heat sink is mounted. The printed wiring board has a through hole conductor formed in a through hole penetrating the printed wiring board corresponding to the heat transfer pattern, and thermally connected to the heat transfer pattern. The heat transfer pattern has a plurality of connecting lands exposed so as to be connectable to the heat sink of the electronic component by solder while being divided by a solder resist. The plurality of the connecting lands include lands adjacent to the through holes, and lands not adjacent to the through holes. The heat dissipation of the electronic component is enhanced while enhancing the connectability of the heat transfer pattern with the heat sink of the electronic component, at being mounted.
US09474153B2

A method includes forming a multi-stacked electronic device having two or more electronic components, each of the electronic components includes a leadframe, the leadframes of each electronic component are physically joined together using a non-solder metal joining process to form a joint, and the joint is located outside a solder connection region.
US09474152B2

An electronic device includes a dielectric substrate having a first surface, a conductive circuit deposited on the first surface and having a printed conductive ink trace on the first surface, and a conductive interposer mechanically coupled to the substrate. The conductive interposer is electrically coupled to the conductive circuit. The conductive interposer has a separable contact interface configured to be mechanically and electrically connected to a removable contact. Optionally, the conductive interposer may include a main body and a flexible element extending between the main body and the conductive circuit. The flexible element electrically connects the conductive circuit with the main body.
US09474151B2

According to the present invention, an electronic textile (1) is provided. The electronic textile comprises an electronic structure (3) including conductive wires (4) being at least partly spaced apart from each other and one or more electronic components (5) connected to the conductive wires. One or more gaps (14) are formed in the electronic structure between the at least partly spaced apart conductive wires. The electronic textile further comprises a fabric structure (2) including two fabric portions (10), wherein the electronic structure is sandwiched between the two fabric portions. Further, the two fabric portions are joined together according to a bonding pattern including bonding segments (8), the bonding segments being arranged in one or more of the gaps of the electronic structure such that the electronic structure is held in place in the fabric structure by the bonding pattern. With the present invention, the separation of the electronics from the fabric is made easier, which is advantageous in that waste sorting of the electronic textile is facilitated.
US09474145B2

A substrate for a semiconductor package and a method for manufacturing a semiconductor package are disclosed. The substrate comprises a surface, and package unit regions arranged on the surface in a row direction to form a plurality of rows. The package unit regions of an n+1-th row are arranged offset in a row direction from the package unit regions of an n-th row. The method includes molding semiconductor chips and spaces between the substrate and the semiconductor chips on the package unit regions of the last row at substantially the same time.
US09474142B2

A plasma generating apparatus includes: a DC power source; a toroidal core oscillation circuit including a first choke coil connected to the DC power source, a first capacitor connected to the first choke coil, and a first switching element and second choke coil connected to the first capacitor; a toroidal core resonance circuit including a third choke coil connected to the second choke coil; and a pair of electrodes connected to the third choke coil.
US09474130B2

Disclosed are methods and apparatus for lighting control. Initial lighting may be applied to an object in response to identifying presence of the object. The initial lighting may be adjusted based on a user lighting manipulation gesture made proximal to the object. Also, for example, in some embodiments a lighting system (100, 200) may be provided that includes at least one light source (164, 264), an object sensor (153, 255), a gesture sensor (156, 255), and a controller (150, 250). The controller may provide lighting having a first state in response to the object sensor initially identifying presence of the object and may adjust the lighting in correspondence with a lighting manipulation gesture sensed via the gesture sensor to achieve a second state distinct from the first state.
US09474126B2

Exemplary embodiments represent an operating device (100) for a light-emitting means (12) with an interface (15) for the bidirectional data interchange with a control device (20), wherein the operating device (10) has an energy or power measuring device (25) for determining an energy or power consumption of the light-emitting means. In this case, the operating device (10) is designed to send information relating to the energy or power consumption to the control device (20) or is designed such that the information relating to the energy or power consumption is accessible to the control device (20).
US09474120B2

A controller for a driver circuit of a solid state lighting (SSL) device is described. The driver circuit comprises a power converter to transfer energy from AC mains voltage to the SSL device. The controller determines a dim level for the SSL device. The controller also determines a synchronization signal by comparing a voltage derived from the input voltage with a pre-determined threshold. The controller determines a sequence of PWM pulses based on the synchronization signal. The controller operates the power converter in a first operation mode for supplying energy to the SSL device at a first energy level within the sequence of PWM pulses, and operates the power converter in a second operation mode in between the PWM pulses. The second energy level is lower than the first energy level and the first energy level and/or a width of the PWM pulses depend on the dim level.
US09474112B2

A dimmable LED reading light unit includes a dimming module and an LED module, connected in series. The dimming module has an input being connectable to a power supply supplying direct voltage and includes a potentiometer allowing section of a dimming rate and a current controller providing an operating current for the LED module. The LED module includes at least one LED and a current consumer connected in parallel and the current controller is configured to supply direct current to the LED module that substantially corresponds to the sum of the driving current necessary for driving the at least one LED to emit light with an intensity of illumination corresponding to the dimming rate of the potentiometer, and the current consumption of the current consumer.
US09474109B2

An induction heating apparatus capable of heating a conductive plate member throughout in a widthwise direction is disclosed. Specifically, the present invention is configured to have flat-shaped coils, each forming a magnetic path in a center portion thereof, provided on upper and lower sides of the conductive plate member so as to heat the conductive plate member and to have circumferential coils provided on right and left end sides of magnetic metal casings through which the circumferential magnetic paths of the flat-shaped coils pass, whereby magnetic paths of the circumferential coils pass through both end portions of the conductive plate member.
US09474108B2

A device for processing hydrocarbon resources in a subterranean formation may include a radio frequency (RF) source, a dielectric cooling liquid source, and an RF applicator in the subterranean formation and coupled to the RF source to supply RF power to the hydrocarbon resources. The RF applicator may include concentric tubular conductors defining cooling passageways therebetween coupled to the dielectric cooling fluid source. At least one property of the dielectric cooling liquid, a flow rate of the dielectric cooling liquid, and a configuration of the cooling passageways may be operable together to generate a turbulent flow of the dielectric cooling liquid adjacent surfaces of the plurality of concentric tubular conductors to enhance thermal transfer.
US09474101B2

A method for remotely managing a sensor network topology includes: receiving a device management DM command sent by a device management server, where the DM command acts on a preconstructed management object MO node and the MO node includes a node configured to discover a sensor network topology, a node configured to describe a sensor network topology, or a node configured to modify a sensor network topology; and managing a sensor network according to the DM command, where the management includes discovering the sensor network topology, describing the sensor network topology, or modifying the sensor network topology. By adopting the present invention, remote topology management of a sensor network successive to an M2M gateway can be implemented and the complexity for implementing the management is reduced.
US09474087B2

A method and apparatus for scheduling uplink (UL) transmission in a wireless communication system is provided. A user equipment (UE) receives a backoff parameter from a network, and determines whether or not to apply the received backoff parameter before transmitting a scheduling request (SR) to the network via a dedicated channel. Whether or not to apply the received backoff parameter is determined according to a prioritized access, and the prioritized access corresponds to one of emergency access, high priority access, control element/information in media access control (MAC), radio link control (RLC) or packet data convergence protocol (PDCP), data radio bearer (DRB) for voice/video service, signaling radio bearer (SRB) 0, SRB 1, SRB 2, multimedia telephony service (MMTEL)-voice, MMTEL-video, and voice over long-term evolution (VoLTE).
US09474084B2

The present invention relates to a MAC protocol in a wireless body area network capable of processing emergency data and a wireless network communication method using the same. More specifically, the present invention replaces a Contention Free Period (CFP) of a WBAN MAC protocol with a Mixed Period (MP) for processing the emergency data, and sets an inactive period as an Extended Period (EP) for additional allocation due to the emergency data processing and re-allocation of a pre-guarantee Guaranteed Time Slot (GTS). As described above, the present invention can efficiently process the emergency data and enables emergency data processing which can guarantee low delay and high reliability of the emergency data.
US09474082B2

The invention relates to a method and apparatus for determining whether two user equipments (UEs) in a wireless network can be co-scheduled by an uplink scheduler. The method includes the determination of orthogonality factors for each pair of equipments to be considered and, from the orthogonality factors, selecting UEs to be co-scheduled.
US09474080B2

A backhaul radio is disclosed that operates in multipath propagation environments such as obstructed LOS conditions with uncoordinated interference sources in the same operating band. Such a backhaul radio may use a combination of interference mitigation procedures across multiple of the frequency, time, spatial and cancellation domains. Such backhaul radios may communicate with each other to coordinate radio resource allocations such that accurate interference assessment and channel propagation characteristics assessment may be determined during normal operation.
US09474078B2

Embodiments herein include a method in a server for scheduling of an information transmission from an information providing device to a subscriber equipment in a communication system. The method comprises determining a moment in time at which the subscriber equipment desires information. Also, an estimation of the communication intensity in the communication system at the determined moment in time is obtained. If the estimated communication intensity exceeds a certain threshold value, an appropriate period in time for the information providing device to send desired information to the subscriber equipment is calculated, based on the communication intensity in the communication system. Furthermore, a trigger signal is sent to the information providing device, requesting the information providing device at what moment in time to provide information to the subscriber equipment. A method in an information providing device is also disclosed.
US09474076B2

System(s), apparatus(es), and method(s) are provided to for providing femtocell service through a secondary connection to a network gateway node that is part of a service provider network. The secondary connection can be established in response to at least one telecommunication performance condition of a primary connection to the network gateway node; the at least one performance condition includes connectivity state of the primary connection or quality of traffic delivery through the primary connection. The secondary connection can be established, in part, via a home gateway node that is alternative to a home gateway node associated with a femtocell access point (AP) that enables, in part, the femtocell wireless service. The main home gateway node or the femtocell AP can initiate establishment of the secondary connection. Home gateway node(s) or femtocell AP(s) that can provide femtocell service through the secondary connection can manage connectivity with the network gateway node.
US09474066B2

A method and apparatus for transmitting and receiving system information in a wireless communication system are disclosed. A method for receiving system information by a mobile station (MS) of a wireless communication system includes receiving a secondary superframe header (S-SFH) change cycle from a base station (BS), and receiving a primary superframe header information element (P-SFH IE) including a first field indicating a change count of a plurality of secondary superframe header subpacket information elements (S-SFH SP IEs) from the base station (BS). Once each of the plurality of S-SFH SP IEs is changed, each of the plurality of S-SFH SP IEs remains unchanged during one or more S-SFH change cycles.
US09474058B2

A method for operating channel request and responding to the operating channel request in a wireless local area network (WLAN) is disclosed. A method of operating channel request by a first station in a regulatory domain where an unlicensed device is permitted to operate at a given time in a given geographical area with regard to a licensed device in a wireless local area network (WLAN) comprises transmitting, to a second station, first frame including a first operating class field and a first channel number field, wherein the first operating class field indicates a number of an operating class of a first channel included in a first channel set for operating channel request and the first channel number field indicates a number of the first channel; and receiving, from the second station, second frame including a second operating class field and a second channel number field, wherein the second operating class field indicates a number of a operating class of a second channel included in a second channel set granted by the second station and the second channel number field indicates a number of the second channel.
US09474054B1

A method and apparatus to help manage allocation of resources in a wireless communication system. A base station dynamically decides based on a type of bearer communication in which a user equipment device (UE) is engaged whether the base station will apply a buffer status report (BSR) process or a non-BSR process. In the BSR process, the base station responds to a scheduling request from the UE by allocating uplink resources for the UE to transmit a BSR to the base station, and the base station then receives the BSR and uses it as a basis to then allocate uplink resources for the UE to transmit bearer data to the base station. In a non-BSR process, the base station forgoes receipt and use of a BSR and instead responds to the scheduling request by allocating uplink resources for the UE to transmit bearer data to the base station.
US09474050B2

The present invention relates to a wireless communication system, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for transmitting an uplink signal. A method for transmitting an uplink signal at a UE in a wireless communication system includes, when a virtual cell ID for a reference signal for demodulation of a physical uplink channel is provided, generating a sequence of the reference signal on the basis of the virtual cell ID, and transmitting the generated reference signal to an eNB. A cycle shift hopping pattern of the reference signal can be determined on the basis of the virtual cell ID.
US09474041B1

A first access point including a receiver, a transmitter, a feedback module, and a location determining module. The receiver receives a first frame from a client station. The transmitter transmits a second frame to the client station. The first and second frames are also received by second and third devices, which are located at predetermined locations. The feedback module receives a first feedback from the client station including times of departure and arrival of the first and second frames at the client station, and a second feedback from the second and third devices including times of arrival of the first and second frames at the second device and the third device. The location determining module determines a location of the client station based on the times of arrival and departure of the first and second frames at the first access point, the first and second feedbacks, and the predetermined locations.
US09474040B2

An example method for independently verifying a transit point in a network environment is provided and includes receiving, at a transit point in a packet network, at least two radio signals from corresponding different radio sources, receiving, at the transit point, a sampling request in an packet message, and transmitting in another packet message a sample of the at least two radio signals such that by comparing the sample with an expected sample, a location of the transit point is determined. The expected sample can comprise another sample of the at least two radio signals that would have been received by the transit point at an expected location at a time of receipt of the sampling request, and if the expected sample matches the sample, the transit point is determined to be at the expected location.
US09474029B2

Methods and apparatus for power optimization in e.g., a wireless mobile device. In one embodiment, the optimization is effected via intelligent idle mode current drain management. In an exemplary LTE cellular network context, the user equipment (UE) only powers on its transceiver for a subset of Discontinuous Reception (DRX) cycles based on e.g., the quality of the radio environment, power considerations, location, etc. For example, if a UE has not moved, and its radio reception quality is good, the UE is likely to successfully receive a paging notification (i.e., without multiple attempts). Consequently, the UE configures itself to receive only a single paging indication.
US09474021B2

Embodiments are described for handling situations when a window or application is repositioned and clipped in a multi-screen device. In embodiments, if the window is repositioned such that it cannot be displayed entirely on one display, but would otherwise spillover or spill onto another display, the window or application is clipped. Such clipping is performed based on the size and location of the window and the size and location of the display.
US09474011B2

An approach is provided for enabling a subscriber to establish rules for controlling user interaction with a resource based on the activity of the user. A reactive control platform monitors a current activity of a user of a device, one or more services, or a combination thereof associated with a subscriber during access by the user to a network of a subscriber. The status of the user is determined based on the monitoring, profile information associated with the user, or a combination thereof. A request for input from the subscriber for specifying one or more rules to be enforced for affecting a use of the device, the one or more services, the network of the subscriber, or a combination thereof by the user is then generated based on the determination.
US09474006B2

A method for performing cell reselection first determines a current cell selection quality value. The cell selection quality value is compared to a predetermined threshold. Measurements of neighboring cells are taken if the cell selection quality value is less than or equal to the predetermined threshold. Measurements can be taken of intra-frequency cells, inter-frequency cells, and inter-radio access technology cells. If a neighboring cell is found that is better than the current cell based on the measurements, then the better neighbor cell is reselected to.
US09474001B2

In an access apparatus which has an offloading function, resources of the access apparatus are excessively consumed when handover occurs between access apparatuses. A communication system (1) according to the present invention includes an access apparatus (access functions (11, 12)) including means for terminating a communication path with a communication terminal (50), and an access control apparatus (access GW function (C-plane) (20)) that controls the access apparatus. The communication system (1) according to the present invention includes determination means (communication terminal management function (20a)) for determining whether or not to prompt a switching process of the communication path in accordance with a movement history of the communication terminal (50) based on an operation state of the communication terminal (50).
US09473997B2

The present invention relates to a method for offloading data in a wireless communication system for supporting a multiple radio access network and an apparatus for same. Specifically, the method includes the steps of: receiving a message of a connected cell report including an identifier of a wireless local area network (WLAN) access point (AP) to which a terminal is connected via a base station, from the terminal connected to the base station of a cellular network; transmitting scheduling information on a data transmission time to the base station, when data to be transmitted to the terminal is determined to be transmitted via the WLAN AP; and transmitting the data via the WLAN AP to the terminal according to the scheduling information.
US09473993B2

Novel techniques of access network selection in multi-access network environment are provided, which allow for avoiding access selection loops for independent access selection processes. The multi-access network environment provides a first access selection function, e.g. a 3GPP access selection function, and a second access selection function, e.g. an ANDSF based access selection function. At least a portion of the first access selection function may be implemented by a network component. At least a portion of the second access selection function may be implemented by a user equipment, e.g. a mobile terminal. According to the proposed concepts, a selection priority information of the first access selection function is made available to the second access selection function.
US09473990B2

Schedule and channel assignment (SCA) in a wireless mesh network (WMN) is disclosed. A method includes: forming a representation of a sequence of permutation matrices from an n×n rate matrix. The entries of the rate matrix define the bandwidth of links between the n nodes of the WMN. Each of the permutation matrices represents active radio links between the n nodes. The sequence of permutation matrices defines a sequence of radio links to provide the desired bandwidth of links between said n nodes. Further, a representation of a sequence of partial permutation matrices corresponding to the sequence of permutation matrices is formed in such a way that each of the permutation matrices can be decomposed into a group of partial permutation matrices. Each of the partial permutation matrices in a group represents non-interfering radio links between the n nodes. In each timeslot, the n nodes are configured for radio transmission and reception in accordance with at least one of the partial permutation matrices in each group to transmit traffic between the n nodes. Example SCA can be used to provision longer-term guaranteed-rate backhaul traffic flows supporting multimedia services such as VOIP or IPTV between base-stations in a WMN, with near-minimal delay and jitter and near-perfect Quality-of-Service for every provisioned traffic flow.
US09473983B1

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for determining, by a first device, that a second device is within range for direct communications and that the second device is capable of performing transpositional modulation (TM) communications. Determining to use transpositional modulation to send data to the second device. Sending the data to the second device using a TM signal.
US09473980B2

The transmission of a warning message to a mobile terminal in a mobile communication network is triggered by an emergency event. The mobile terminal is first made aware of the need to receive a warning message by reception of an emergency event notification. The warning message is divided into a plurality of message segments. Each segment is transmitted in a separate paging message over a paging channel to mobile terminals in an idle mode. Information is added to each message segment to enable the mobile terminal to discriminate between segments belonging to different warning messages.
US09473973B1

It may be determined that a HARQ transmission schedule from a RAN to a WCD includes HARQ acknowledgment bundling. An indication of signal quality as measured by the WCD may be received by the RAN. The indicated signal quality may be associated with a first transmission rate. The RAN may determine a first set of one or more data slots of the HARQ transmission schedule for which the WCD bundles HARQ acknowledgments. In response to this determination, one or more HARQ subpackets may be transmitted to the WCD in the first set of one or more data slots. The one or more HARQ subpackets may be transmitted at a second transmission rate that is less than the first transmission rate.
US09473970B2

A communication control method including a first base station and a second base station having a smaller coverage area than the first base station, comprises: a step A, performed by the second base station, of notifying the first base station of a reference signal transmission power of the second base station; a step B, performed by a user terminal connected to the first base station, of measuring a reference signal received power from the second base station, and then reporting the reference signal received power to the first base station; and a step C, performed by the first base station, of estimating a path loss between the second base station and the user terminal, on the basis of the reference signal transmission power notified from the second base station in the step A and the reference signal received power reported from the user terminal in the step B.
US09473969B2

Provided are methods, corresponding apparatuses, and computer program products for performing spectrum sensing on a spectrum. A method comprises receiving, at a user equipment, information regarding performing spectrum sensing from a base station; performing, based upon the information, the spectrum sensing by the user equipment in an idle mode; and transmitting, by the user equipment out of the idle mode, to the base station a result of the spectrum sensing. With the claimed inventions, transmission interruption caused by non-idle user equipments performing the spectrum sensing would be eliminated.
US09473965B2

The present invention relates to a method for monitoring, by a terminal, an enhanced physical downlink control channel (EPDCCH) in a wireless communication system supporting carrier aggregation. In detail, the method includes the steps of receiving monitoring information about a first cell from a base station and a second cell cross-carrier scheduled from the first cell; and monitoring the EPDCCH on the basis of the monitoring information, wherein the monitoring information includes information that the number of EPDCCH candidates on the first cell is reallocated, when the maximum number of enhanced control channel elements (ECCE)) available in a specific EPDCCH set on the first cell does not support the number of the EPDCCH candidates of an aggregation level with respect to the second cell.
US09473962B2

The present invention discloses a wireless transmission rate adjustment method for adjusting the wireless transmission rate of a wireless transmission device. The method comprises: having the wireless transmission device enter a try state from a normal state; under the try state, transmitting a plurality of test packets according to a first modulation and coding scheme (MCS) and determining whether the transmission is successful in accordance with a predetermined condition; if the transmission is successful with the first MCS, returning to the normal state and transmitting data with the first MCS; if the transmission is unsuccessful with the first MCS, staying in the try state and transmitting a plurality of test packets according to a second MCS, and then determining whether the transmission is successful in accordance with the predetermined condition; if the transmission is successful with the second MCS, returning to the normal state and transmitting data with the second MCS; and if the transmission is failed with the second MCS, returning to the normal state and transmitting data at an original transmission rate or with the first MCS.
US09473957B2

Optimization of a wireless communications network may be accomplished by evaluating relationships between a source cell and a plurality of target cells, determining an optimization value based on the evaluated relationships, and adjusting an antenna parameter of the source cell based on the optimization value.
US09473952B2

A method and relay node for managing a relay node that is moving relative to a source network node, the method receiving parameters of a target network node from a source network node at the relay node; initiating a direct attachment of the relay node to the target network node; and detaching the relay node from the source network node. Also, a method and network node for managing a relay node that is moving relative to a source network node, the method sending a handover request of a relay node from the source network node to a target network node; performing handover of a plurality of user equipments (UEs) from the source network node to the target network node, wherein the plurality of UEs are attached to the relay node, and establishing an interface between the relay node and the target network node.
US09473950B2

A method predicting coverage area of a radiocommunications network including plural network cells distributed over a geographic area. The method includes calculating by simulation an irradiated electromagnetic field irradiated by a radio base station of the network in plural measure locations within the geographic area corresponding to respective expected positions of a user terminal. The calculating includes, for each measure location, calculating a basic transmission curve indicative of a basic attenuation of a radioelectric signal strength in the measure location, and associating to the basic transmission curve at least one correction factor for refining the radioelectric signal strength basic attenuation by taking account of shielding effects on the radioelectric signal strength due to obstacles to the propagation of the radioelectric signal.
US09473948B2

Embodiments of the present invention disclose a method for analyzing pilot pollution, and further disclose an apparatus for analyzing pilot pollution. The method includes: generating a preprocessed map according to an actual engineering parameter table and drive test data that are in pre-imported information, where the preprocessed map includes a cell distribution map and a pilot pollution distribution map, the actual engineering parameter table includes actual longitude information, actual latitude information, and actual azimuth information; obtaining selection information of a target area to determine the target area; and generating, for the target area, a map of abnormal cells of the target area according to the cell pilot identifiers and the signal strength corresponding to the pilot identifier of each test-marked cell. With the present invention, it is unnecessary to review test data and view the review connection, and the analysis efficiency is high.
US09473947B2

A received signal strength indicator returned from a femto cell is employed to optimize a multiple access wireless communication network. For example, a method operable in a wireless communications network is disclosed. The method comprises receiving a received signal strength indicator from a femto cell situated in a geographical area within a multiple access wireless communication network, and optimizing the multiple access wireless communication network as a function of the received signal strength indicator.
US09473939B2

Aspects of a method and system for service mobility via a femtocell infrastructure are provided. In this regard, a mobile cellular enabled communication device may detect a femtocell operable to deliver content for one or more services to the mobile cellular enabled communication device, where the one or more services may be provided via a set-top-box communicatively coupled to the femtocell. The mobile cellular enabled communication device may communicate a user profile to the femtocell, wherein information in the profile may be utilized by the set-top-box to authenticate and/or authorize access to the services by the mobile cellular enabled communication device and thus the mobile cellular enabled communication device may receive the content from the set-top-box based on the authentication and/or authorization. The content may comprise voice, video, data, text and/or still images. The mobile cellular enabled communication device may detect the femtocell by receiving one or broadcast messages from the femtocell.
US09473937B2

A method and system for processing information based on dual-tone multifrequency, and a receiving terminal are disclosed in the present document. The method includes: a sending terminal establishing a voice call with a receiving terminal; the sending terminal receiving input key information, encoding the key information into dual-tone multifrequency information, and transmitting the dual-tone multifrequency information and voice call audio information to the receiving terminal together; and the receiving terminal decoding and restoring the dual-tone multifrequency information to the key information; determining a type of the key information according to a preset key information judgment policy, and performing corresponding operations according to the key information.
US09473930B2

Contact management using a callsheet record, including: enabling a user to make entries and selections to the callsheet record, wherein the entries and selections to the callsheet record creates call scripts and tracks results and status of calls made by the user; and storing the entries and selections made to the callsheet record for future reference and modification.
US09473926B2

Methods, systems, and computer readable media for supporting local breakout (LBO) are disclosed. According to one aspect, the subject matter described herein includes a method for supporting LBO. The method occurs at a signaling platform. The method includes receiving a signaling message associated with a roaming subscriber. The method also includes determining whether a roaming provider is appropriate for performing an LBO service. The method further includes in response to determining that the roaming provider is appropriate for performing the LBO service, forwarding the signaling message to a destination, wherein the signaling message includes control information for performing the LBO service.
US09473923B2

An apparatus and method combine an augmented reality scheme with an AP search function and visually provide positions of searched APs as well as names of the searched APs and strength of signals received from the searched APs. The apparatus includes a communication unit for receiving signals of APs around the portable terminal, an input unit for receiving input for searching the APs, a camera unit for photographing environments around the portable terminal when searching the APs, a display unit for outputting an image photographed by the camera unit on a preview picture, an AP attribute ascertaining unit for ascertaining attributes of the APs which exist around the portable terminal and ascertaining positions of the APs, and a controller for outputting the APs on the preview picture to correspond to the positions of the ascertained APs.
US09473922B2

A system and method for setting a billing allocation between a user and a company allowing the costs for personal and work use of a mobile device during a period to be allocated as desired. The system and method further provides for allocation of costs associated with obtaining a new mobile device. The billing allocation model provides maximum flexibility to allow a user to obtain the mobile device desired, while still allowing the user to take advantage of a company's preferred corporate rates and discounts and allowing a company to maintain control of mobile device costs relating to purchase and use of the mobile device.
US09473919B2

The embodiments herein provide a system and method for enabling anti-texting feature in a cell phone when the cell phone is operated by a driver in a dangerous manner such as text messaging or holding the cell phone to the driver's ear while driving a vehicle. The system creates a green zone or life zone around a driver's seat that controls the driver not to participate in distracting activities while driving a vehicle. The system comprises a sensor module, Bluetooth transmitter, and a Bluetooth receiver installed in driver's cell phone. The Bluetooth transmitters are placed at different locations in vehicle and analyzes the driver behavior while driving the vehicle. The sensor in vehicle monitors the driver behavior and transmits appropriate signals. The Bluetooth receiver receives the signals from the transmitter and disables keypad interface of the driver cell phone through an anti-texting application.
US09473911B2

A method for interworking messages of heterogeneous, and which includes acquiring a temporary identifier of the sending terminal when the sending terminal is a terminal that subscribes in an IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) without a mobile communication global unique number, in which the temporary identifier is an identifier used for transmitting a short message during an IMS registration valid period of the sending terminal; receiving a session initiation protocol (SIP) based message transmitted by the sending terminal from an IMS based session controller; acquiring a temporary identifier of a receiving terminal based on an SIP based identifier of the receiving terminal encapsulated in the SIP based message; and generating a short message service (SMS) based message based on the received SIP based message, the temporary identifier of the receiving terminal, and the temporary identifier of the transmitting terminal.
US09473908B2

A communication system (100) formed of a portable radio (102) and radio accessory (106) is provided in which the accessory (106) provides emergency strobe and flashlight modes, the flashlight mode further providing a low battery indicator. Strategic control of lighting triggers and patterns allows for a single high intensity LED (132) to be used for both emergency strobe and flashlight modes, with minimized impact on battery life.
US09473900B2

Methods and apparatuses are provided which may be implemented in various devices to provide navigation assistance data and/or the like to a mobile station with regard to at least one of a plurality of different indoor regions. For example, a computing platform of a map inference device may establish encoded metadata for at least a portion of an indoor region based, at least in part, on an electronic map, an access point locator, or some combination thereof, and provide such encoded metadata to a repository device that may provide at least a portion of the encoded metadata to a mobile station.
US09473899B2

Some demonstrative embodiments include devices, systems and/or methods of determining whether a mobile device is located in an indoor location or an outdoor location. For example, an apparatus may include a controller to control a mobile device to transmit a wireless transmission and to listen for one or more received echoes of the wireless transmission received from one or more directions. The controller may determine whether the mobile device is located in an indoor location or an outdoor location, for example, based on the received echoes.
US09473897B2

Determining referenced based location information for a wireless radio network is described. Referenced based location information can include determining location reference information and corresponding location offset information based on location information. In an aspect, location information can be timed fingerprint location information. Location offset information can be communicated in a wireless network at a lower operational cost than the associated location information. As such, use of referenced based location information for a wireless network can reduce bandwidth consumption as compared to location information communicated at similar intervals. This is particularly true in large wireless networks. Moreover, the use of referenced based location information for determining timed fingerprint location information can be highly attractive in light of timed fingerprint location information facilitating location information for many non-GPS enabled devices and being associated with significant increases in the frequency and density of location event requests.
US09473881B2

The invention relates to locating mobile terminals comprising a plurality of recording servers, adapted to communicate with recorded mobile terminals, for communication relays, with the recording servers communicating between them and with location servers via an extended network and organized in a hierarchical tree of parent servers and child servers. Each location server comprises a database of mobile terminals constituted of a plurality of mobile terminal records, each of said mobile terminal records comprising address data of a mobile terminal recorded with a descending recording server of said location server in the hierarchical tree.
US09473880B2

A method of switching operation modes in a mobile device is provided. The method includes receiving current location information; determining an on-the-map location corresponding to the current location information; extracting a location property of the determined on-the-map location; and setting an operation mode of the mobile device based on the extracted location property.
US09473879B2

A control system includes a portable device transmitting to a proximity control signal controlling locking/unlocking of an opening/closing body of the vehicle from near the vehicle, and a remote control signal controlling an engine remotely, intensity of the remote control signal higher than the proximity control signal, and a control device receiving a signal transmitted by the portable device. The portable device transmits by a same transmission antenna the whole of the proximity control signal at a single center frequency, and all of divided signals obtained by dividing the whole of the remote control signal into plural pieces at plural center frequencies. The control device receives by a same reception antenna the whole of the proximity control signal at the single center frequency, and all of the divided signals at center frequencies corresponding to frequencies used upon transmission of the divided signals by the portable device.
US09473858B2

A hearing device comprising a first and a second input sound transducers, a processing unit, and an output sound transducer. The first transducer is configured to be arranged in an ear canal or in the ear of the user, to receive acoustical sound signals from the environment and to generate first electrical acoustic signals from the received acoustical sound signals. The second transducer is configured to be arranged behind a pinna or on, behind or at the ear of the user, to receive acoustical sound signals from the environment and to generate second electrical acoustic signals from the received acoustical sound signals. The processing unit is configured to process the first and second electrical acoustic signals. The output sound transducer is configured to be arranged in the ear canal of the user and to generate acoustical output sound signals from electrical acoustic signals.
US09473854B2

The configuration is provided with three flexible arms extending in the same circumferential direction, as a suspension for supporting the magnetic circuit unit in displaceable fashion in the vertical direction with respect to a coil support member. This assures sufficient length of each of the flexible arms, enhancing the vibration characteristics. Next, arm insertion slots having approximately the same vertical Width as the flexible arms are formed at three locations in the circumferential direction in the coil support member. The distal end of each flexible arm is then inserted into the arm insertion slot, doing so in the aforementioned same circumferential direction, causing a barb to engage an engaging part and detain the flexible arm.
US09473851B2

In one embodiment, a method for speaker operation comprises sensing an input common mode signal of a driver, wherein the driver drives a speaker, and adjusting the input common mode signal of the driver based on a difference between the sensed input common mode signal and a reference signal. The method also comprises sensing a current of a coil of the speaker, and control an output volume of the speaker based at least in part on the sensed current.
US09473850B2

Methods and systems for enhancing signal quality are disclosed. A method includes receiving buffers of sound samples including a first microphone signal and a second microphone signal from a first and a second microphone; generating a first cardioid shape signal by subtracting a delayed second microphone signal from the first microphone signal; generating a second cardioid shape signal by subtracting the second microphone signal from a delayed first microphone signal; generating a first level output signal based on the first cardioid shape signal; detecting at least one speech and non-speech region of the first level output signal; generating a second level output signal based on the second cardioid shape signal, and at least one of the speech and non-speech regions of the first level output signal; and removing residuals of noise from the first level output signal based on adaptive weights output and generated second level output signal.
US09473847B2

An acoustic apparatus includes a vibration part configured to generate an acoustic vibration, a tube having a cavity that faces the vibration part, and at least one open tube connected to the tube via a first open end and a second open end. A length of the at least one open tube is an integer-fold of substantially a half of a wavelength of a standing wave produced in the tube. The first open end is positioned substantially at an anti-node of the standing wave produced in the tube.
US09473836B2

A device determines a zero-distance equalization delay and an order for optical line terminal (OLT) channel terminations (CTs), and determines a round-trip propagation time between a first OLT CT, based on the order, and an optical network unit (ONU). The device determines an equalization delay based on the round-trip propagation time, and hands over the ONU to a next OLT CT. The device calculates a round-trip delay for the next OLT CT based on a propagation time between the next OLT CT and the ONU, a processing time of the ONU, and the equalization delay. The device compares the round-trip delay, for the next OLT CT, with the zero-distance equalization delay to obtain a comparison result, and alters the zero-distance equalization delay based on the comparison result. The device repeats the performing, the calculating, the comparing, and the altering for remaining OLT CTs.
US09473835B2

An optical module and an optical device applicable to the optical module, wherein the optical module includes a laser emission unit, a laser reception unit, a video detector and an optical assembly, the optical assembly including: a band-pass device F1 with a small-angle incidence filter sheet, wherein among optical signals transmitted to F1 via a common port of F1, the optical signal in a first optical wavelength band is passed by the small-angle incidence filter sheet and output to the video detector via the passing port thereof; and the optical signals in other bands are reflected by the small-angle incidence filter sheet and output via the reflection port thereof; a filter sheet F2 configured to pass the optical signal emitted by the laser emission unit to the reflection port of F1 and to reflect the optical signal, received by the laser reception unit, output via the reflection port of F1.
US09473830B2

A smart metering system using a white space band includes a band search sensor installed in a predefined area which scans a digital public broadcast channel band; a band management server which manages area specific broadcast channel status information based on a scanning result obtained by the band search sensor and which searches a white space band that is an idle channel band of a corresponding area based on the broadcast channel status information to allocate the white space band as a smart metering data transmission channel; and a base station which allocates the smart metering data transmission channel from the band management server and which forms a wireless communication channel between a smart meter and a grid central server via the allocated smart metering data transmission channel.
US09473826B2

A real time video stream production system includes: (a) an advertising insertion server receiving over a wide area network a real time video stream; and (b) an advertising controller, which receives the real time video stream from the advertising insertion server. The advertising controller has a user interface which allows an operator to cause advertising impression data available from an advertising server to be included in a modified video data stream presented to a media player client for display.
US09473823B2

The present invention provides an improved method and apparatus to collect and provide viewer feedback to broadcasts. According to one aspect of the present invention, a rating is generated for a broadcast by a server system. The rating is based at least in part on viewer feedback to the broadcast, and the rating indicates a likelihood of interest in the broadcast for potential subsequent viewers. Access to the rating is then provided so that predications can be made as to whether or not the broadcast will be of interest to potential subsequent viewers. According to another aspect of the present invention, the rating is provided from the server system to an entertainment system, and the broadcast can be selected for viewing at an entertainment system based on the rating generated by the server system. In one embodiment, the viewer feedback is received at the entertainment system in response to a feedback questionnaire.
US09473821B2

In one aspect of the invention, a TV includes a TV service module, a user service module, a media service module, a system service module, and a user interface (UI) view service module. The TV service module is adapted for providing a standard interface. The user service module is adapted for managing users of a cloud platform to which the TV belongs. The media service module is adapted for collecting resources. The system service module is adapted for forwarding an instruction corresponding to a broadcast sent by a remote control to a corresponding module. The UI view service module is adapted for analyzing a component invoking instruction sent by another module in the TV, and selecting an invoked component according to data carried in the component invoking instruction. Embodiments of the invention can reduce operations of a user and improves the user experience.
US09473819B1

A method for notifying a viewer of content relevant to the viewer's interests is provided. A computer identifies an identity of a viewer of a display device, wherein the display device is displaying a first video feed. A computer determines a plurality of preferences of the viewer. A computer retrieves a profile of the viewer, wherein the profile includes the plurality of preferences of the viewer. In response to a determination that a content of a second video feed that is available for viewing on the display device matches at least one of the plurality of preferences of the viewer, a computer generates a notification of the second video feed. In response to receiving an acceptance of the notification, a computer sends a command to the display device to display the second video feed.
US09473814B1

Profiling a television viewer by monitoring and processing, locally at a television viewing environment, the viewer's interactivity (e.g., via a remote control unit) with the television viewing environment. Generating one or more profiles for each viewer based on one or more of the multitude of interactions of each viewer and on, in general, the viewing habits and preferences of the viewer. Automatically and reliably, detecting or inferring at a particular time, which specific individual or individuals, are actually interacting with the TV in household comprising more than one individual. Such viewer identification and profile generation can be used to facilitate the delivery of targeted content, including targeted advertising.
US09473811B1

A system includes a kiosk that receives signals broadcast from a service provider and a wireless interface that receives, from a mobile device, a request for first content included in the signals received by the kiosk. The first content corresponds to a first channel. The kiosk includes a plurality of tuners. The kiosk tunes a first tuner of the plurality of tuners to the first channel and the first tuner outputs the first content. The kiosk provides the first content to the wireless interface. The wireless interface transmits the first content to the mobile device.
US09473810B2

Enhancing a live performance of one or more actors with digital content by tracking a movement of the one or more actors and augmenting the live performance with the digital content based on the tracked movement in real time is described.
US09473781B2

A video encoder (70) for coding moving pictures comprising a buffer (16c) with a plurality of memory areas capable of storing frames composed of top fields and bottom fields, a motion estimation unit (19) operable to code, field by field, inputted pictures performing moving estimation and moving compensation by referring, field by field, to the picture data stored in a memory area, a motion compensation unit (16d), a subtractor (11), a transformation unit (13) and a quantization unit (14), a memory management unit (71) operable to manage, frame by frame, a plurality of memory areas, an inverse quantization unit (16a) and inverse discrete cosine transform unit (16b) operable to decode picture data in coded fields and store the picture data in the decoded field in any of the plurality of memory areas under the management by the memory management unit (71).
US09473780B2

A system, method and computer-readable medium are disclosed that uses previously transmitted video frames and associated video frame content information to reduce the amount of information to be transmitted from a sending device to a receiving device during a video transmission.
US09473779B2

In one example, a device for coding video data includes a video coder configured to code data indicating whether tile boundaries of different layers of video data are aligned and whether inter-layer prediction is allowed along or across tile boundaries of enhancement layer blocks, code an enhancement layer block in an enhancement layer tile of the video data without using inter-layer prediction from a collocated base layer block for which inter-layer filtering or reference layer filtering across tile boundaries in a reference layer picture in an access unit including both the enhancement layer tile and the base layer block is enabled, and code the collocated base layer block.
US09473778B2

The video encoders described herein may make an initial determination to designate a macroblock as a skip macroblock, but may subsequently reverse that decision based on additional information. For example, an initial skip mode decision may be based on aggregate distortion metrics for the luma component of the macroblock (e.g., SAD, SATD, or SSD), then reversed based on an individual pixel difference metric, an aggregate or individual pixel metric for a chroma component of the macroblock, or on the position of the macroblock within a macroblock row. The final skip mode decision may be based, at least in part, on the maximum difference between any pixel in the macroblock (or in a region of interest within the macroblock) and the corresponding pixel in a reference frame. The initial skip mode decision may be made during an early stage of a pipelined video encoding process and reversed in a later stage.
US09473776B2

A video decoding method involving intra prediction includes: parsing a most probable mode (MPM) flag of a block while parsing symbols of the block of an encoded video from a received bitstream; determining whether a predetermined number of a plurality of candidate intra prediction modes are used to predict an intra prediction mode of the block based on the MPM flag; when it is determined that the plurality of candidate intra prediction modes are used based on the MPM flag, determining the plurality of candidate intra prediction modes based on intra prediction modes of a left block and an upper block that are adjacent to the block while restoring the intra prediction mode of the block by using the parsed symbols.
US09473764B2

Embodiments that relate to displaying a computer generated image to a viewer via a stereoscopic display system are disclosed. One disclosed embodiment comprises establishing a predetermined threshold distance from an eye of a viewer to a threshold displayed position of a computer generated image. The method includes determining that a vergence distance from the eye of the viewer to a current displayed position of the image is at or below the predetermined threshold distance. Based on the vergence distance being at or below the predetermined threshold distance, a size of the image is increased while maintaining the vergence distance at the predetermined threshold distance as the eye of the viewer moves toward the image.
US09473763B2

In some embodiments, a system for tracking with reference to a three-dimensional display system may include a display device, an image processor, a surface including at least three emitters, at least two sensors, a processor. The display device may image, during use, a first stereo three-dimensional image. The surface may be positionable, during use, with reference to the display device. At least two of the sensors may detect, during use, light received from at least three of the emitters as light blobs. The processor may correlate, during use, the assessed referenced position of the detected light blobs such that a first position/orientation of the surface is assessed. The image processor may generate, during use, the first stereo three-dimensional image using the assessed first position/orientation of the surface with reference to the display. The image processor may generate, during use, a second stereo three-dimensional image using an assessed second position/orientation of the surface with reference to the display.
US09473760B2

A variety of techniques are disclosed for incorporating displays into three-dimensional printers.
US09473752B2

In general, techniques are described for separately coding depth and texture components of video data. A video coding device for coding video data that includes a view component comprised of a depth component and a texture component may perform the techniques. The video coding device may comprise, as one example, a processor configured to activate a parameter set as a texture parameter set for the texture component of the view component, and code the texture component of the view component based on the activated texture parameter set.
US09473750B2

An Internet direct device comprises an imaging system to capture at least one of audio, still images and video images, and a microprocessor. The microprocessor transmits at least one of the captured audio, the captured still images and the captured video images to a website archive and review center and/or another Internet direct device upon image capture over a communications network. The Internet direct device automatically connects to the communications network on power-up using one of a plurality of available modes of connection, which is designated as a primary mode of connection. The Internet direct device automatically switches to another available mode of connection when the communications network is unavailable.
US09473744B2

A method and apparatus for providing a user input back channel (UIBC) in an audio/video (AV) source device and an AV sink device communicating according to a wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) display (WFD) standard is provided. The method includes: setting up an AV control session and an AV data session between the AV source devices according to the WFD standards; enabling the UIBC from the AV sink device to the AV source device by using the AV control session; and transmitting a user input from the AV sink device to the AV source device through the UIBC.
US09473743B2

A control device belongs to a network equipment connected to a communication network to which are coupled communication equipments of users capable of storing contents. This control device comprises i) a first analyzing means arranged for determining respective popularities of contents of a collection from at least user information, and for determining a number of replicas for each content of this collection from at least its determined content popularity, and/or ii) a second analyzing means arranged for determining content preference(s) of users from content ratings, and iii) a computation means arranged for determining location(s) for storing the replica(s) of each content, from the determined content replica numbers and/or the determined user's content preferences, in order to optimize the access to these contents by the users.
US09473737B1

During a voice call between a resident of a controlled-environment facility and another party, an indication by the resident or the other call party to convert the voice call to a video communication between the resident and the other party may be made. Whereupon, a controlled-environment communications processing system may confirm that both parties agree to convert the voice call to a video communication, and may query a controlled-environment facility administration and management system to confirm that the resident may take part in a video communication. Thereafter, such as in response to confirmation both parties agree to convert the voice call to a video communication and/or that the resident may take part in a video communication, a video communication link may be established between a communication device in use by the resident and a communication device in use by the other party.
US09473732B2

Systems and methods for a self-correcting DVR record pipeline may provider for simpler, lower cost transport producer hardware elements. A free running transport pipeline producer may fill transport buffers without waiting for feedback from the data consumer that data has been completely processed. The pipeline data consumer independently detects transport buffers that are overwritten before processing on the buffer content is complete. The pipeline data consumer drops or deletes any invalid content or stream data to recover from the data overflow condition.
US09473719B2

A semiconductor image sensor device having a conformal protective layer includes a semiconductor substrate a pixel-array region and a peripheral region. The conformal protective layer is disposed over a plurality of pixels having a photodiode and a plurality of transistors in the pixel-array region. Contacts to the plurality of transistors are surrounded by the conformal protective layer. In some embodiments, the conformal protective layer is the same material as transistor gate spacers in the peripheral region.
US09473697B2

A mobile terminal including a camera; a display unit configured to display a preview image input through the camera; and a controller configured to select an object in the preview image in response to a user input for touching the object or setting a specific region comprising the object; and output an alarm when the object moves out from the preview image.
US09473692B2

An image processing apparatus includes: an evaluation value calculation unit configured to calculate a contrast evaluation value of each of first image data and second image data in which an object is imaged in a state in which auxiliary light is emitted to the object included in a first image corresponding to the first image data; a determination unit configured to determine that fog or haze is occurring at a time the contrast evaluation value of the first image data, which has been calculated by the evaluation value calculation unit, is equal to or greater than the contrast evaluation value of the second image data; and an image processing unit configured to perform image processing to the first image data or the second image data based on a determination result of the determination unit.
US09473691B2

An optoelectronic apparatus (10) for the detection of object information from a monitored zone (12), comprising an image sensor (16), a receiving optics (14) associated with the image sensor (16), the receiving optics having an adaptive lens (26) with variable tilt and an evaluation unit (18) for the generation of object information from a received signal of the image sensor (16) is provided. In this respect the evaluation unit (18) is adapted to determine a first position of an image feature (24) in a recording of the image sensor (16) on a control of a first tilt angle of the adaptive lens (26) and to determine a drift correction for the adaptive lens (26) from the first position.
US09473675B2

A color conversion processing apparatus acquires spot color information, which is capable of defining a spot color with device-dependent color values. The color conversion processing apparatus further acquires a reference profile and an updated profile, and using the spot color information, converts an image signal of a spot color plate into a first image signal of a process color plate. Then, by having the reference profile and the updated profile act successively thereon, the color conversion processing apparatus converts the first image signal into a second image signal of a process color plate.
US09473673B2

A read image capturing system includes a reading device, a read image capturing circuit, and a signature managing circuit. The reading device reads an image from an original document. The read image capturing circuit captures the read image read by the reading device. The signature managing circuit manages a signature image for causing the read image capturing circuit to capture the read image as a signature capturing image for each user. The read image capturing circuit that captures the read image in association with a user who is associated with the signature capturing image by the signature managing circuit, the signature capturing image having a similarity degree with the signature image included in the read image equal to or more than a similarity degree for capture.
US09473670B2

A peripheral includes a scanning module and a control processing module. In a restoration mode, the scanning module performs a one-time scan operation on a punched document to obtain a visible light image and an infrared image. The infrared image includes an infrared hole image corresponding to one hole or multiple holes of the punched document. The visible light image includes a visible light hole image corresponding to one hole or multiple holes of the punched document. In the restoration mode, the control processing module, electrically connected to the scanning module, determines the infrared hole image according to the infrared image, determines the visible light hole image according to the infrared hole image and processes the visible light image into a final image according to the visible light hole image, wherein the final image does not contain the visible light hole image.
US09473666B2

A multifunctional business machine includes a foldable-cover machine, a sheet-fed scanner and two fasteners. The foldable-cover machine has a cover and a platform covered by the cover. The sheet-fed scanner is disposed on the platform. One end of each fastener is fixed in one side of the cover, and another end of each fastener is configured with a shaft applied for pivoting the cover to the sheet-fed scanner. The cover rotates relative to the platform to be lifted with an angle and enable to lean against the sheet-fed scanner.
US09473660B2

An information processing apparatus includes a determination unit and an adjustment unit. The determination unit determines a rating item for which a degree of interest of a user is high among plural rating items set for an image to be formed. The adjustment unit sets a standard for the rating item determined by the determination unit among the plural rating items and performs an adjustment process such that the standard is satisfied, the rating item being the rating item for which the degree of interest of the user is high.
US09473649B2

In event type push scan, information identifiable by communication between a scanner and a PC is limited by a communication protocol, and there is no method of notifying settings for scan from the scanner to the PC. For this reason, settings for push scan made by a user cannot be reflected on execution of scan. According to an embodiment, the scanner is controlled in the following way. That is, a condition to execute image reading is set, and the setting is stored. When image reading is instructed, an information processing apparatus is notified of an image reading event before the start of image reading. After that, control is performed to start image reading based on the stored condition in accordance with the instruction from the information processing apparatus according to the event notification.
US09473648B2

A communication module and corresponding portable terminal are provided. The communication module includes an NGFF interface, a switch unit, a charge protection unit, and a delay unit. The switch unit is for controlling connection and disconnection of a power supply between a power supply end of the communication module and the power supply pins. The charge protection unit is for power charging when the switch unit is turned off, and for eliminating an impact current generated at the instant when the switch unit is turning on. The delay unit is for controlling the switch unit's delay turning on. The communication module and corresponding portable terminal are able to ensure the integrality and stability of data.
US09473646B1

An acoustic echo canceller (AEC) system may be configured to reset the coefficients of a transform equation when an estimated echo diverges from actual acoustic echo. Features are disclosed for determining when to reset the coefficients, and for enabling the reset operation to be performed reliably. Additional features are disclosed for detecting other signal conditions besides AEC divergence, for adjusting the rate at which the coefficients are adapted in response to such conditions, and for prioritizing between potentially incompatible adjustments.
US09473644B2

Methods, systems, and computer program products for hairpin condition elimination in a telecommunications network are disclosed. A method is disclosed herein for eliminating a hairpin condition at a network node. According to one method, a first and second call leg, each using packet processing resources in a bearer node, are identified; if the first and second call legs are in a hairpin condition, the first and second call legs are connected together in the bearer node in a manner that bypasses and releases packet processing resources.
US09473638B1

The availability of one or more agents of an institution to communicate with a user may be determined and reported to the user. An application on a user computing device may provide an indication as to how many agents are currently available to speak with the user and/or a wait time until an agent becomes available. The user computing device may display a call icon that the user may select to place a call to an available agent. The user computing device may display a call icon that the user may select to receive a callback from an available agent. Call volume statistics may be provided to the user and may be used to determine when an agent is most likely unavailable and/or most likely available.
US09473632B2

System and method to improve self-service operation in a contact center, the method including: monitoring progress of a self-service customer support session for a customer of the contact center; monitoring surplus status of agents in the contact center; determining a system state related to the customer by use of the monitored progress and the monitored surplus status; setting an indicator signal to a first state if the system state is in an agent-support domain, otherwise setting the indicator signal to a second state if the system state is in an self-support domain; and assigning the customer to an agent-supported session if the indicator signal is in the first state.
US09473628B2

An approach is provided for providing media and alert notification during a hold status of a communication session. The approach includes detecting a hold status of a communication session associated with a device. The approach also includes monitoring hold media transmitted to the device during the hold status and processing the monitored hold media to determine a variation in a characteristic of the hold media. The approach further includes determining a change in the hold status based on the variation; and presenting an alert notification on the device, another device, or a combination thereof to indicate the change in the hold status.
US09473625B1

A computer-implemented method for managing outgoing calls comprises receiving, at an intermediate server a request from the mobile phone to make an outgoing call, the request including a recipient phone number. In response to receiving the request to make an outgoing call, the intermediate server selects caller identification information (“caller ID” information), wherein identifying caller ID information comprises selecting the first phone number as the caller ID information in response to the recipient phone number being included in the first contact group, and selecting the second phone number as the caller ID information in response to the recipient phone number being included in the second contact group. The intermediate server modifies the request to make an outgoing call to include the selected caller ID information and routes the modified outgoing call request to a mobile service provider.
US09473624B2

The invention concerns telecommunications methods and systems, and more particularly methods and systems for enabling respondents, who may be potential customers, to respond to advertisements for items (goods or services) advertised by or on behalf of advertisers. Telecommunications methods and systems of the invention provide selective communication routing or forwarding to advertisers of communications made to anonymous contact identifiers selected from a pool of anonymous contact identifiers, each anonymous contact identifier able to be allocated to an item to be advertised by or on behalf of the advertiser. The anonymous contact identifier is a public telephone number or an email address, for example. The service is provided by way of hosted system for use by a plurality of advertisers. The invention has particular application in the area of classified or personal advertising in printed or online publications, such as for real estate, automotive, travel or job advertising, for sale or auction item advertising, or for dating agency advertising.
US09473619B2

Devices, terminals and methods are provided for contacts management. For example, one or more first contacts included in a communication log are received, wherein the communication log includes a call log or an SMS log; contact frequencies of the first contacts are calculated based on at least information associated with the communication log; one or more second contacts are selected to be managed from the first contacts based on at least information associated with the contact frequencies; if the second contacts exist in an address book is determined; and in response to the second contacts existing in the address book, the second contacts in the address book are extracted as frequent contacts; and a list of frequent contacts are generated based on at least information associated with the frequent contacts.
US09473603B2

A memory system is constituted of a file storage flash memory storing a control program required for a control portion and a large amount of data, and a random access memory storing a program used by the control portion and functioning as a buffer memory for received data. Thus, a memory system for a portable telephone capable of storing a large amount of received data at high-speed and allowing reading of the stored data at high-speed is provided.
US09473602B2

A portable electronic device including a first section, a second section and a connecting section. The first section has a user input section and a first tubular housing member. The first tubular housing member forms a majority of opposite exterior lateral sides of the first section. The second section has a display and a second tubular housing member. The second tubular housing member forms a majority of opposite exterior lateral sides of the second section. The connecting section movably connects the second section with the first section. The first tubular housing member at least partially houses the user input section. The second tubular housing member at least partially houses the display.
US09473596B2

A transport layer connection is established between a first system and a second system. The establishment of the transport layer connection includes identifying a remote direct memory access (RDMA) connection between the first system and the second system. After establishing to transport layer connection, the first and second systems exchange data using the RDMA connection identified in establishing the transport layer connection.
US09473593B2

An integrated system and method to permit coaches, trainers and other life enhancement entities and individuals to monitor, manage, support, schedule, prompt and otherwise motivate clients to achieve set goals, establish new goals and continue routines during times of non-personal interaction between the coach, trainer or enhancement entity or person and the client.
US09473589B1

A system and method executed by a server for communicating between the server and a client over a Fiber Channel (FC) network. The method includes receiving, from the client over the FC network, a first Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) request including a client call message and a virtual connection identifier. A server process is identified that is associated with the virtual connection identifier. The client call message is extracted from first SCSI request and provides the client call message to the identified server process.
US09473581B2

The present invention provides a system and method for real-time communication signaling between HTML5 endpoints and between HTML5 endpoints and the IMS Core of a telecommunications network. The method adapts complex signaling on the server-side into simple operations towards the Web. In an embodiment the system includes an integrated web-enable session border controller (WSBC) including a network-side controller/a signaling engine, a media gateway and a client-side controller. The client-side controller provides a JavaScript API to encapsulate the signaling layer. The WSBC also includes session border control functionality, terminates Internet domain communications with the client-side, parses, and normalizes the Internet domain communications into an internal protocol suitable for communication with telecommunications network systems. The system thereby provides a dedicated signaling channel with the network-side controller for applications on the client to interact with telecommunications network services.
US09473577B2

Systems, methods, and apparatus for facilitating dynamic provisioning of a virtual storage appliance in a cloud computing environment are presented herein. A storage system management component can provision storage from a storage medium to facilitate access of at least a portion of the storage by a virtual storage appliance (VSA) based on a request for at least one resource associated with the VSA. Further, a network management component can provision the VSA to facilitate the access of the portion of the storage by the VSA. Furthermore, a storage fabric management component can configure a network to facilitate the access of the portion of the storage by the VSA via the network.
US09473575B2

For instance, in the case of a software implementation, the terms “component” or “functionality” may refer to program code that performs specified tasks when executed on a processing device or devices (e.g., processor(s) 720). The program code can be stored in one or more computer readable memory devices as described above. The illustrated separation of components and functionality into distinct units may reflect an actual physical grouping and allocation of such software and/or hardware, or can correspond to a conceptual allocation of different tasks performed by a single software program and/or hardware unit.
US09473574B2

A system, apparatus and method for synchronizing devices in a peer-to-peer communication environment. Devices select a master to facilitate their synchronization, and rendezvous according to a schedule of availability windows broadcast by the master. Devices may attend some or all of the availability windows, during which they may send and receive unicast and/or multicast messages. Individual devices conserve power by being automatically synchronized instead of having to individually discover other devices and services, and can power off their radios without sacrificing discoverability. Synchronization and peer-to-peer communication as provided herein coexists with other device demands, such as Bluetooth® operations, infrastructure-based communications and so on.
US09473567B2

Concepts and technologies disclosed herein are directed to virtual zones for Open Systems Interconnection (“OSI”) communication model layers 4-7 services in a cloud computing system. According to one aspect of the concepts and technologies disclosed herein, a cloud computing system can include a hardware resource and a virtual zone. The virtual zone can include a virtual network function (“VNF”) that is executable by the hardware resource. The VNF can support a service that operates within one of layers 4-7 of the OSI communication model. A computing system can detect new subscribers to the service within the virtual zone. The computing system also can determine that a capacity constraint exists within the virtual zone as a result of the new subscribers. The computing system also can home the new subscribers to the further virtual zone so that the further VNF can provide the service to the new subscribers.
US09473566B2

Systems, methods, and devices of the various embodiments enable objects associated with a service available in a MBMS network to be delivered through more than one delivery method or context. In various embodiments, an application service document may map objects of a service to their respective delivery methods or contexts. In an embodiment, an application service document may also identify service area restrictions applicable to an object. In an embodiment, an application service document may further identify group restrictions applicable to an object. In a further embodiment, the application service document may identify identical and alternative objects that are available.
US09473560B1

A method for enabling a user of a computing device to designate a content item for subsequent review is provided. The computing device is coupled to a memory device and a display. The method is implemented using the computing device. The method includes displaying, by the computing device, a first publication. The method further includes the steps of displaying, by the computing device, a content item at a first time, wherein the content item is displayed in conjunction with the first publication. The method further includes receiving, by the computing device, a first input from the user to designate the content item for subsequent review, generating an indicator that the content item has been designated for subsequent review, causing the memory device to store the indicator, determining a second time to display the content item, and displaying the content item at the second time.
US09473557B2

A server device includes a first accepting unit, a converting unit, a notifying unit, and a providing unit. The first accepting unit accepts a specification from a specifying device that specifies first content. In a case where a data format of the first content indicated by the specification is not a certain data format in which data is capable of being output by an output device, the converting unit converts the data format of the first content to the certain data format, thereby generating second content having the certain data format, and stores the second content. The notifying unit notifies the specifying device of a storage site of the second content. In a case where the output device requests to get content from the storage site of the second content by using information acquired from the specifying device, the providing unit provides the second content to the output device.
US09473554B2

An information processing apparatus includes a first communication unit, a second communication unit, and a control unit. The first communication unit is configured to be capable of communicating with a first apparatus via a predetermined communication path. The first apparatus has a predetermined sensing function and does not have an Internet connecting function. The second communication unit is configured to be capable of communicating with a second apparatus via the Internet. The control unit is configured to be capable of controlling the first communication unit to receive sensed data from the first apparatus and controlling the first communication unit to transmit the received data to the second apparatus.
US09473547B2

A method or apparatus that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, a method for retrieving a plurality of sensory information from an environment of a device. A digital representation of the environment of the device is identified corresponding to the plurality of sensory information from the environment of the device. A media presentation element of the device associated with media content of the device is identified. A user interface of the media presentation element is adapted to modify a presentation of the media content by the media presentation element of the device according to the digital representation of the environment of the device. Other embodiments are disclosed.
US09473540B2

A method of operating a network server, such as a mobile application gateway, connect devices on a cellular or carrier network with individual networks, such as enterprise voice and data networks or residential networks. The effects of the present invention are far reaching in terms of transferring effective call control from the cellular network into the control of the individual network, such as the enterprise, and enabling new business models for the purchase of cellular service from a public cellular carrier by an enterprise.
US09473534B2

A system and method are provided for switching between messaging security policies. The method includes determining that a messaging security policy for the electronic device has been downgraded from a higher security level to a lower security level; and removing protected content on the electronic device that has been subjected to the higher security level. Removing protected content can include any one or more of removing access to at least one protected instant messaging group, removing at least one multiparticipant instant messaging conversation, and removing at least a portion of protected content from within a one-to-one conversation with an instant messaging contact.
US09473530B2

Methods and systems for mitigating denial-of-service attacks include a proxy server that monitors a set of application servers configured to receive and service requests from clients. The proxy server intercepts the requests, and in response, provides the clients with customized client-side scripts embedded in markup language. The client-side scripts may include random strings to generate follow-through random uniform resource identifier redirection requests expected by the proxy server. The client-side scripts, upon execution, may challenge the clients by demanding user interaction within a specified period of time, requesting a delay before responding, and/or attempting to set a challenge cookie multiple times. If a client provides the demanded user interaction within the specified time, honors the delay, and/or sets the challenge cookie with the correct value, then the client-side scripts may generate a redirection request expected by the proxy server for that client and the proxy servers may whitelist that client for a configurable duration and forward that client's subsequent requests to the application servers without challenge.
US09473528B2

In some embodiments, identification of malware sites using unknown URL sites and newly registered DNS addresses includes performing a heuristic analysis for information associated with a network site; and assigning a score based on the heuristic analysis, in which the score indicates whether the network site is potentially malicious. In some embodiments, the system includes a security appliance that is in communication with the Internet. In some embodiments, the network site is associated with a network domain and/or a network uniform resource locator (URL). In some embodiments, performing a heuristic analysis for information associated with a network site further includes determining if a network site has recently been registered. In some embodiments, performing a heuristic analysis for information associated with a network site further includes determining if a network site is associated with recently changed DNS information. In some embodiments, performing a heuristic analysis for information associated with a network site further includes determining geographical information as well as an IP network location associated with the network site.
US09473525B2

Artificial Immune Systems (AIS) including the Dendritic Cell Algorithm (DCA) are an emerging method to detect malware in computer systems. The DCA implementation may use an inflammation signal to communicate information among the processes of device or a network or among nodes of a network, where the inflammatory signal indicates a likelihood that a process or a node has been attacked by malicious software. The DCA implementation may dynamically change the malware sensitivity and responsiveness based on the inflammation signals without requiring user intervention. The inflammatory signal includes one or more inflammatory tuples, which may include multiple components such as a strength, a PrimeIndicator, and an optional third element, p. The strength component may be an indication of the magnitude of an attack and provide a degree of certainty of the attack. The PrimeIndicator may be an identifier of the indicator type that is the source of the inflammation tuple.
US09473523B1

A given application is instrumented to trace its execution flow. Constraints and/or transformation associated with input identified in the execution flow are mirrored on a set of candidate test payloads. The set of candidate test payloads are modified or pruned based on the execution flow of the instrumented application reaching a security operation with the input satisfying the constraints while the payloads may not. If the set of candidate test payloads is not empty at reaching the security operation, it is determined that the give application has vulnerability and a signal issuing a warning may be generated and transmitted.
US09473520B2

Systems and methods for tracking malware operator behavior patterns in a network environment simulated for an extended period of time include a processor that causes the system to receive organizational data that describes a virtual organization, obtain additional data related to the organizational data, and provide a simulated computer network of the virtual organization based on the organizational data. The process can further cause the system to install at least one malware on the simulated computer network, monitor one or more interactions between the simulated computer network and an operator of the malware, and build a malware operator profile that characterizes the operator of the malware based on the one or more interactions, with which the operator of the malware can be identified in subsequent interactions.
US09473518B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide methods, systems, and computer program products that enable secure network communications with logical partitions. A gateway between a physical network adapter and at least one virtual network trunk adapter receives a packet. The gateway tags the packet with an indication of an origin of the packet. The gateway delivers the tagged packet to an intrusion prevention system for intrusion analysis. When the gateway receives the tagged packet from the intrusion prevention system, the gateway forwards the tagged packet according to the indication of origin of the tagged packet.
US09473511B1

The method includes identifying a computing device attempting to access content. The method further includes identifying a defined geographical boundary that is associated with the content, wherein the defined geographical boundary includes coordinates that define a geographical area that allows access to the content within the defined geographical boundary. The method further includes determining a geographical location of the computing device. The method further includes determining whether the geographical location of the computing device is within the identified defined geographical boundary.
US09473508B2

A method for the protected deposit of event protocol data of a computer system provides access control which prohibits access to event protocol data in the computer system and also performs: reading event protocol data generated in the computer system, sequential assignment of individual data sections of the read event protocol data to one of at least two categories in accordance with predetermined criteria, merging the categorized data sections for each respective category into a sub-file, and separate storage of created sub-files and setting up an access option to access the individual sub-files.
US09473505B1

A user clicks on a link on a third-party Web site from his computer in order to utilize a third-party application with a Web service with which the user has an account. The application contacts the Web service and requests permissions from the user's account. The Web service sends the request to the user's computer asking to grant these permissions to the application. A software module on the user's computer intercepts this request, retrieves a user profile for this Web service, and compares the permissions requested with the permissions allowed from the profile. If any requested permissions are not allowed then the module automatically denies granting permissions and the user is not presented with an option of granting the request. A warning screen may be displayed. If all requested permissions are allowed then the request is presented to the user. A profile may apply to more than one Web service.
US09473499B2

In various embodiments, techniques for federated role provisioning are provided. A federated role definition for a resource is constructed and distributed. The federated role definition includes a role hierarchy having role assignments and constraints for dynamically resolving and binding a resource to particular ones of the role assignments. A resource may have role assignments statically bound to its identity and dynamically bound to its identity. Furthermore, some role assignments may be inherited from the role hierarchy.
US09473495B2

Methods, systems and computer readable media for user authentication for proxy-configured clients in captive portal deployments are described. In some implementations, the method can include receiving, at a captive portal, a request from a client device to resolve a proxy IP address, and determining whether the client device has been authenticated. The method can also include, when the client device has not been authenticated, causing the captive portal to act as an intermediate domain name system (DNS) server and forwarding the DNS request to one or more other DNS servers, and evaluating any received responses from the one or more other DNS servers. The method can include, when received responses contain an IP address, replying to the client with the received IP address, and when the received responses do not contain an IP address, replying to the client with an IP address of the captive portal.
US09473492B2

A password scheme is provided that can be used for security of cable modems in a cable network. In the system, the password is unique to each modem, the password is not fixed for the life of the device, is not shared across cable systems, is easily recoverable after a compromise, and is changed periodically based on some type of configuration. In the system each modem creates its own random password. Then the modem encrypts the password using a public key provided by the cable system and stores the encrypted password in a Management Information Base (MIB) operated by the cable system. The MIB operator decrypts the encrypted password corresponding to the public key and recovers the password. The cable operator uses the password to log in remotely to the modem. If a compromise or change of the public key or password occurs, the password is regenerated using the same procedure.
US09473487B2

Systems, methods and apparatuses for ensuring that a computing device is attempting to connect to a network, such as a wireless network, provided by an expected or trusted entity. For instance, a certificate may be generated for a network and/or associated with the network. The certificate may then be transmitted to one or more computing devices that may be authorized to access the network. Accordingly, when the computing device selects the network for connection, the system may determine whether the certificate associated with the network is paired with the certificate provided on the computing device. If so, the computing device may be permitted to transmit data over the network. Alternatively, if the network certificate is not paired with the certificate provided on the computing device, the computing device may be prevented from transmitting data over the network.
US09473485B2

A mobile device user is able to execute an app in a federation of wrapped apps without having to login to that app provided that the user has already logged into another app in that federation. The federation of apps on the device uses multi-app authentication to enable the user to start subsequent apps after explicitly entering login credentials for another app in that federation. This feature is loosely referred to as single sign-on for apps in the federation. The multi-app authentication is implemented by giving the second app a chance to prove two facts. One that it knows where in the operating system keychain a login ticket is stored and two, what the hash value of a random byte array is. By showing these facts, the logged-into app can safely provide login credentials to subsequent app without the user having to enter a login name or password.
US09473478B2

Various exemplary embodiments relate to a method performed by a policy server in a communication network. The method includes receiving an access request message including a residential gateway identifier and a subscriber identifier; evaluating a policy rule based on the residential gateway identifier, the policy rule including a condition referencing the residential gateway identifier; and responding to the access request message based on evaluation of the policy rule and the subscriber identifier. The method may further include: receiving an IP address of the residential gateway; storing the IP address in association with the residential gateway identifier; receiving, from a service portal, a request for identification of a residential gateway associated with an IP address; sending the stored residential gateway identifier to the portal; receiving new subscriber information; and changing the authorization of the residential gateway based on the new subscriber information.
US09473476B2

An exemplary system includes a data loader and a data slicer. The data loader is configured to receive and process raw program guide data, and to store the processed program guide data in a data store, the processing including generating a unique program identifier for each program represented in the raw program guide data. The data slicer is configured to generate a program guide data configuration from the processed program guide data, the program guide data configuration including program guide data organized into a plurality of data structures based on categories of the program guide data. The plurality of data structures includes at least one channel data structure, at least one schedule data structure, at least one detailed program information data structure, and indices for use as references between different ones of the data structures.
US09473474B2

An identity is communicated by a client device to a server without requiring the identity to be disclosed to eavesdroppers and without requiring the use of symmetric or asymmetric cryptography. In one example, the identity is an identity of the client device, where the identity has been assigned to the client device by the server through the provisioning of a unique subset of client-identifying keys. In another example, the identity is an identity of a group shared secret that has been provisioned by the server to the client device.
US09473469B2

A method and a system is provided for establishing a communications path over a communications network between a personal security device (PSD) and a remote computer system without requiring the converting of high-level messages such as API-level messages to PSD-formatted messages such as APDU-formatted messages (and inversely) to be installed on a local client device in which the PSD is connected.
US09473462B2

A computer-implemented method for configuring and securing a first device, the method including performing a first check of the first device to determine the presence of unauthorized components or modules in a memory of the first device, performing a second check of the device to compare hardware components of the first device against a predetermined list of authorized components, initiating an encrypted virtual private network (VPN) tunnel between the first device and a second device that is remote from the first device by transmitting a request from the first device to the second device including data representing multiple parameters associated with the first device.
US09473459B2

A resin-rich peel ply that does not leave behind residual fibers after peeling and can work well with different resin-based composite substrates. The resin-rich peel ply is composed of a woven fabric impregnated with a resin matrix different from the resin matrix of the composite substrate. The peel ply is designed such that, upon manual removal of the peel ply from the composite substrate's surface, a thin film of the peel ply resin remains on the composite substrate's surface to create a bondable surface capable of bonding with another composite substrate, but no fibrous material from the woven fabric remains on the same surface.
US09473457B2

A computer implemented method, information processing system, and computer program product manage web application firewall rule configuration. A web application is analyzed. A set of data elements within the web application is identified. Each data element in the set of data elements stores information that is sent from a web client to a web server. Each data element in the set of data elements is analyzed. A data type is associated with each data element in the set of data element. The data type describes a type of data stored by the data element. A web application firewall rule recommendation is automatically generated for each data element based at least on the data type associated therewith.
US09473453B2

A method, system, and computer program product for tokenized domain name resolution are provided. The method includes receiving a tokenized domain name, where the tokenized domain name includes a domain name with one or more embedded tokens. The method also includes parsing the tokenized domain name to identify the one or more embedded tokens. The method further includes extracting the one or more embedded tokens from the tokenized domain name, and performing at least one predefined process in response to extracting the one or more embedded tokens. The method may also forward control to the domain name.
US09473448B2

A system for extracting and monitoring media tags within video content includes at least one server in communication with a plurality of content sources, the server receiving video content from the content sources, a recorder saving the video content, a detector receiving at least one frame of the video content, the detector detecting one or more unknown text within the frame and creating one or more images, each image associated with one of the one or more unknown text, the detector generating metadata associated with the one or more unknown text appearing in the frame, and an optical character recognition engine scanning the one or more images and converting the one or more images into one or more known text. The server further determines that the one or more known text is a media tag.
US09473447B1

An electronic communication system, such as a question-and-answer service, is provided in which a user submitting a question specifies one or more recipients of the question. Authenticated responses by a recipient are published to the asker and other recipients. Responses may be made available to external users, with content contributors being either publicly identified or anonymous.
US09473443B2

A method for sharing an email in a multi-tenant database system is provided. The method receives, at one or more computer systems associated with the multi-tenant database system, the email from a first user; determines, at the one or more computer systems, a database object associated with the email; maps, at the one or more computer systems, the email to the associated database object; and provides viewing access to the email to a second user with access rights to the database object.
US09473434B2

Methods, systems, and computer-readable media are provided. Some embodiments include receiving, at a first server from a client, a request to access a data object associated with an application on a second server. The first server sends a request for the data object to the second server and the first server receives the data object from the second server. The first server receives a first file from the client and determines whether a second file is attached to the data object. In response to determining that the second file is attached to the data object, the first server obtains the second file and generates a third file by merging the first file and the second file, and an update process is performed such that the third file is attached to the data object and the second file is not attached to the data object.
US09473432B2

An embodiment of the present invention, a computer receives, on a first computer, a request to locate a topic. The computer determines a second computer to query for the topic. The computer queries the second computer for the topic. The computer receives identification information of participants of an instant messaging conversation corresponding to the topic. The computer stores, on the first computer, the identification information of the participants and indexing the stored identification information by the topic.
US09473431B2

Systems and methods that may be used in instant messaging (IM) environments to allow users in IM environments to share information and render shared information are described herein. In at least one embodiment, a system can receive an indication to publish a geographical location of a client and based on the indication to publish, a system can provide the geographical location of the client and instruction code for rendering an indication of the geographical location of the client within a map. In some embodiments, the geographical location of the client can be presented to one or more users, or contacts, in instant messaging environments.
US09473423B2

A method includes establishing a communication link between a first Fiber Channel Forwarder (FCF) and a Fiber Channel (FC) fabric. The first FCF provides a first domain. The method includes establishing a communication link between a second FCF and the FC fabric. The second FCF provides a second domain. The method includes establishing a first intra-domain link between the first FCF and a first device. The first device including one of a Fiber channel over Ethernet Data Forwarder (FDF) and a Fiber Channel Data Forwarder (FCDF). The method includes establishing an inter domain link between the first device and the second domain.
US09473418B2

Embodiments include a method, system, and computer program product for managing workloads in a network. A switch receives data associated with a workload. The received data is tagged with an identifier that associates the data with the workload. The received data is compressed based on determining that second data stored in a buffer of the switch exceeds a threshold. The switch stores the compressed data in the buffer. The compressed data is transmitted to a second network based on a determination that the switch is over-subscribed.
US09473416B2

Techniques of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) packet transmission for wireless communication are provided for a user equipment (UE). The UE receives a plurality of TCP packets on a downlink channel from a network. In response, the UE generates a plurality of TCP Acknowledgment (ACK) packets corresponding to the plurality of received TCP packets. The plurality of TCP ACK packets is prioritized based on certain criteria. A TCK ACK packet with a highest priority among the plurality of TCP ACK packets is selected. The selected highest priority TCP ACK packet is then sent to the network on an uplink channel.
US09473414B2

A method of packet prioritization at a data network is disclosed. The data network contains a number of data plane nodes carrying user traffic and a control node managing the data plane nodes. The method starts with receiving a packet at a data plane node. The data plane node determines that it needs help from the control node for processing the received packet. It then quantizes a congestion level at the data plane node and encoding the quantized congestion level in the packet, where a number of bits in the packet indicates the quantized congestion level. It sends a portion of the packet from the data plane node to the control node, where the portion of the packet includes the number of bits encoding the quantized congestion level.
US09473392B2

A technique for mid-span re-optimization of traffic engineered label switched paths within a network that uses a label switching protocol (e.g., MPLS) enables a network operator to move traffic to quickly prepare for link or nodal maintenance. The technique establishes, at an intermediate router, a first label switch path (LSP) along a path between an ingress router and an egress router. The intermediate router forwards traffic via the first LSP and establishes a bypass tunnel to protect against link failure between the intermediate router and a next intermediate router on the first LSP. The intermediate router continues forwarding traffic on the first LSP, instead of the bypass tunnel, based on the receipt of a link failure simulation instruction at the intermediate router from a network administration node. The intermediate router discontinues forwarding the traffic via the first LSP based on the receipt of second signaling.
US09473390B2

A layer one link aggregation master comprises a port coupled to receive customer traffic; a first switch configured to communicate the customer traffic from the port over a first channel to an aggregation engine, the aggregation engine including a splitter configured to use layer one information to segment a portion of the customer traffic into a first virtual container and a second virtual container, the aggregation engine further including an encapsulation circuit configured to encapsulate the second virtual container for transport over the second channel; a radio access card configured to generate an air frame based on the first virtual container for transmission over a first wireless link of a link aggregation group to a receiver; and a second switch configured to communicate the encapsulated second virtual container over a cable to a slave for transmission over a second wireless link of the link aggregation group to the receiver.
US09473386B1

A distributed system for collecting and processing packet routing information is provided. A service provider, such as a content delivery network service provider, can maintain multiple Points of Presence (“POPs”). Routing computing devices associated with each POP can forward information about the packet routing information to a packet routing management component. The packet routing component can process the information provided by the various POPs. The packet routing component can then update, or otherwise modify, packet routing information used by one or more of the POPs. Accordingly, the packet routing management component can then selectively distribute the updated or modified packet routing information, including the distribution to all POPs, the targeted distribution to specific POPs and the creation of centrally accessible routing information.
US09473359B2

Example implementations described herein are directed to a consolidated specification with information to generate and optimize the NoC. The consolidated specification can also facilitate the generation of traffic trace files. Based on the trace files, performance simulation where packets are injected in the NoC can be conducted. The consolidated specification can include parameters for bandwidth, traffic, jitter, dependency information, and attribute information depending on the desired implementation.
US09473355B2

Disclosed are various embodiments for an application inventory application. Computing resource usage data and configuration data is obtained for machine instances executed in a cloud computing architecture. The usage data and configuration data are used as factors to identify applications executed in the machine instance. Reports embodying the application identifications are generated.
US09473354B2

A method of assigning a resource from amongst a plurality of resources to a resource-utilizing entity from amongst a plurality of resource-utilizing entities, wherein a resource-to-resource-utilizing entity assignment has an associated cost. The method includes computing network flow costs of assignments for assigning resources to the resource-utilizing entities. The method constructs a flow network including source nodes corresponding to the resources, transhipment nodes corresponding to the assignments and a demand node, the flow network having arcs representing flow between the nodes, each arc having an associated network flow cost. The method then solves a Minimum Cost Flow problem for the flow network with negated arc costs to obtain flow values for the assignments, and assigns a resource to a resource-utilizing entity dependent on the flow value obtained.
US09473353B2

Assigning a set of port names to storage access paths of virtual machines accessing storage resources via storage area networks is provided. A first computing system cluster that is associated with a set of computing system identifiers is created. A first computing system identifier associated with a first computing system is added to the set of computing system identifiers. The first computing system is disassociated from the first computing system identifier. The first computing system is added to the first computing system cluster.
US09473349B2

A mobile device may receive updates, support and other data from a current data center agent platform. When the mobile device travels to another location the nearest data center agent may be different from the previous agent. A changeover determination must be performed prior to determining whether the new agent should be assigned to the mobile device. One example method of operation may include receiving current location information of the mobile device and identifying a present location of the mobile device and a current service center assigned to the mobile device. The method may also provide determining whether a new service center location at a remote location from the current service center location should be assigned to the mobile device based on predefined assignment criteria.
US09473344B2

An integrated circuit is disclosed, including at least one configuration pin, an interface circuit, a detecting circuit, a determining circuit and a storage unit. A physical layer circuit of the invention not only increases the flexibility of setting PHY addresses, but also reduces the number of configuration pins.
US09473342B2

The subject matter described herein includes methods, systems, and computer readable media for single and multi-carrier downlink and uplink control information resolution. A method for downlink and uplink control information resolution includes receiving a downlink signal including downlink control information and uplink control information. The downlink signal is processed to segregate at least some of the downlink control information in the signal from the uplink control information in the signal. The segregated downlink control information is processed using downlink control information processing resources. The uplink control information in the signal is processed using uplink control information processing resources.
US09473333B2

A communications system that may include a transmitter, a receiver, connected over a communications network. A communication link on the communications network may transfer data between the transmitter and the receiver. The system may also include a logic unit to scramble a plurality of portions of the data at the transmitter based upon the communication link and may unscramble the plurality of portions of the data at the receiver. As a result, the logic unit may provide improved performance of the communication link and/or reduced power consumption of the communication link.
US09473326B2

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method for signal compensation. The method includes: receiving, by a receiver via N receiving antennas, a plurality of channel estimation preamble signals sent by M transmitting antennas of a remote transmitter, wherein the plurality of channel estimation preamble signals contain measurement signals of the M transmitting antennas; determining, by the receiver, channel estimation parameters and channel phase shift parameters according to the measurement signals of the M transmitting antennas of the remote transmitter; and determining, by the receiver, signal compensation according to the channel estimation parameters and the channel phase shift parameters. According to the method for signal compensation and the multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing communication system provided by the embodiments of the present invention, accuracy of an estimated value of transmitted data is improved.
US09473325B2

A channel estimation method estimates a data channel of a data resource element of a physical resource block in a time-frequency domain. The method includes: utilizing a detection circuit to perform a first physical resource block bundling detection in a first direction of the time-frequency domain to detect if at least one neighboring physical resource block is allowed to be bundled with the physical resource block, and accordingly generating a first physical resource block bundling detection result; determining a physical resource block processing range according to at least the first physical resource block bundling detection result, wherein at least the physical resource block is included in the physical resource block processing range; obtaining a plurality of pilot channels for pilot resource elements in the physical resource block processing range; and estimating the data channel of the data resource element according to the pilot channels.
US09473323B2

Disclosed are a system and method for selective delivery of text messages using a global text gateway in communication with a database of delivery criteria for text messages in which a user can program delivery criteria for text messages directed to a telephone number, wherein the global text gateway is associated with the telephone number so that text messages addressed to the telephone number are routed to the global text gateway and wherein the global text gateway is adapted to forward text messages to a communication network for delivery based on the delivery criteria.
US09473316B2

Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to resource consumption in a clustered environment hosting an e-meeting and provide a method, system and computer program product for resource consumption reduction for an e-meeting via meeting affinity. In one embodiment of the invention, an e-meeting affinity method can be provided. In a clustered environment, the e-meeting affinity method can include identifying a clone supporting an e-meeting and having session affinity with a moderator to the e-meeting. The method further can include establishing session affinity between the clone and other participants to the e-meeting for requests relating to the e-meeting while permitting parallel session affinity to other clones for requests from the other participants not relating to the e-meeting.
US09473314B2

A very large number of applications communicate logically through a many-to-many multicast cloud on the common carrier Internet. Three types of systems operate together to implement the method. The first is a network enabled client application, such as a distributed simulation or game, which joins an application cloud or federation and communicates its internal state changes into the cloud via a communication applications programming interface. The second is a lobby manager or broker which accepts entry into a communication cloud or federation and provides information to the federation and the client application for establishing communications between them. And third, is an application-specific routing system which provides the normal function of routing packets between Internet hosts (client applications running on these hosts), but also allows the routing functions to affected by modules in the router which are associated with the distributed application or simulation being implemented.
US09473307B2

Provided are apparatuses and methods of generating and verifying signature information for data authentication. A method of verifying signature information may involves receiving signature information with respect to a predetermined number of data segments from a transmitter, constructing a hash tree based on the signature information, and verifying a validity of the signature information, by verifying trapdoor hash values using a root hash value of the constructed hash tree.
US09473303B2

During manufacturing a unique encrypted authentication code is created for each product based upon device specific information relating to that product. The unique encrypted authentication code together with the device specific information is stored in a database, and a representation of the unique encrypted authentication code is stored on the product. To determine whether a product in question is authentic, the readable representation of the unique encrypted authentication code is read and sent to a server along with a request for product authentication. The server provides an indication of authenticity of the product in question based upon the unique encrypted authentication code received and the device specific information associated with that unique encrypted authentication code in the database.
US09473301B2

Techniques for temporal quantum key distribution between at least a first entity and a second entity include measuring an arrival time of each of a plurality of photons within each of a set of time frames. The arrival time can correspond to one of the plurality of time bins within the time frame. Measuring can occur in a randomly selected one of at least two mutually unbiased bases. The mutually unbiased bases can include a basis corresponding to a measurement with dispersion and a basis corresponding to a measurement without dispersion. The randomly selected basis for each time frame can be communicated, via a classical communications channel. A quantum key can be generated from the time bins corresponding to the arrival time of photons within at least some of the time frames for which the randomly selected basis is consistent between the first and the second entity.
US09473296B2

A processor includes an input-circuit and a Simon block cipher. The Simon block cipher includes a data transformation circuit, a constant generator, and a key expansion circuit. The data transformation circuit includes logic to shift content of data storage registers. The key expansion circuit includes logic to determine a round key based upon an input symmetric key and data input, a previous round key, and a value from the constant generator. The constant generator includes logic to output a successive one of a list of constants each clock cycle, and to store the outputted constants in storage units. The number of storage units is less than the size of the list of constants.
US09473294B2

A radio transceiver is disclosed. It comprises a first transceiver circuit and a second transceiver circuit, the latter requiring an LO signal having higher LO frequency than the former. It further comprises a frequency synthesizer comprising a first clock-signal generator adapted to generate the LO signal for the first transceiver circuit based on a first reference oscillation signal and a second clock-signal generator adapted to generate the LO signal for the second transceiver circuit based on a second reference oscillation signal, which is or is derived from the LO signal for the first transceiver circuit. A radio communication apparatus comprising the radio transceiver is also disclosed.
US09473293B2

A phase lock loop monitor circuit is disclosed. The phase lock loop monitor circuit may include a coarse tuning circuit operable to generate a coarse tune failure indicator, a frequency target lock detector circuit operable to generate a frequency target failure indicator, a cycle slip monitor circuit operable to generate a cycle slip lock failure indicator, and an abort logic circuit communicatively coupled to the coarse tuning circuit, the frequency target lock detector circuit, and the cycle slip monitor circuit, the abort logic circuit operable to generate a radio operation abort indicator based at least on the coarse tune failure indicator, the frequency target failure indicator, or the cycle slip lock failure indicator.
US09473287B2

According to a disclosed method, an MME in a network analyzes KPIs from the cells it serves and based on the KPIs, it decides to engage in sharing. The MME then contacts a sharing entity (SE) to announce that it wants to borrow or to supply resources. The MME obtains terms of a sharing agreement from the SE and the MME obtains the identity of the other network. In response to this information, the MME configures its network elements to share. The MME's own network may be a supplier or a borrower. If the network is a supplier, the MME configures its base stations to support UEs subscribing to the other network. If the network is a borrower, the MME configures its UEs to accept service from the other network's base stations. The SE applies knowledge of network topology and of services offered. This knowledge is obtained from a sharing database. At the expiration of the sharing agreement, the SE tells the MMEs to deactivate the sharing agreement.
US09473284B2

A method, apparatus, and computer program for configuring channel sensing parameters of an apparatus are disclosed in this document. The method comprises providing a mapping between reception sensitivity thresholds for determining whether a radio channel is busy or available for channel access and time values affecting a back-off time representing a time interval the apparatus refrains from channel access upon determining that the radio channel is busy, wherein a first time value is mapped to a first reception sensitivity threshold and a second time value is mapped to a second reception sensitivity threshold such that when the first reception sensitivity threshold provides a higher probability for the apparatus to determine that the channel is busy than the second reception sensitivity threshold, the first time value provides the apparatus with a lower back-off time than the second time value; and selecting a combination of a reception sensitivity threshold and a time value mapped to each other.
US09473283B2

The present disclosure discloses a method, a device and a system for performing NAV control on a node and a node. The method includes: updating a local NAV value to a preset first value when it is determined that a preset first field of a monitored MAC frame carries a first identity, wherein the first value is less than a current local NAV value and the MAC frame of which the preset first field carriers the first identity is transmitted by a TXOP responder after receiving a last MAC frame transmitted by a TXOP holder. The method, device, system and node may enable a hidden station to enter a channel access competition state timely, thereby solving a problem of regional discrimination of a station.
US09473281B2

A method provides information to a UE specifying a UL-DL configuration to be applied to the UE. The information is indicative of: (a) a signaling time at which a UL-DL configuration signaling for a new UL-DL configuration is to take place, and (b) an application time at which the new UL-DL configuration is to be applied. This method complements UL-DL configuration signaling by providing more reliable reception of UL-DL configuration information. This indication is performed with smaller signaling overhead compared to conventional schemes and with reasonable complexity on both the UE side and an eNB side.
US09473279B2

A method is provided for communication in a wireless telecommunication system. The method comprises transmitting, by a first access node, an indicator to a second access node over an interface between the first access node and the second access node, wherein the indicator provides information on a transmission of a control channel by the first access node.
US09473274B2

The present invention discloses methods and systems for transmitting data packets from a first communications router to a second communications router through an aggregated connection comprising a plurality of tunnels. The first communications router receives a first data packet belonging to a data session from a first host. The first communications router then transmits the first data packet to the second communications router and stores the first data packet in a local storage medium. The first communications router determines whether an error correction mode is activated. If an error correction mode is activated, the first communications router retransmits the first data packet and also transmits an error correction packet corresponding to the first data packet.
US09473256B2

A first device and a second device may coordinate to determine a power level or frequency in a first frequency band that is associated with causing intermodulation (IM) interference at a second frequency band (e.g., a protected frequency band). An IM interference detection test may include at least a first test signal transmitted from the first device to the second device via a communications medium. The second device may detect for the presence of IM interference associated with the first test signal. A series of test signals may be used to identify power levels and/or frequencies that cause IM interference in the second frequency band. A transmitting device may improve performance by increasing power for particular frequencies up to a power level that maintains IM interference below a threshold level.
US09473253B1

Aspects of the disclosure are directed to interference cancellation. A method of performing interference cancellation in a wireless communications device having a transmitter, a receiver, a coefficient controller and an analog interference cancellation (AIC) circuit includes utilizing the receiver for receiving a signal, wherein the received signal includes an interference signal within a spectral region; measuring the received signal to obtain a measurement of the interference signal within a guard region of the spectral region; and determining a set of coefficients based on the measurement of the interference signal within the guard region.
US09473252B2

A problem is to increase possibility of extracting data from sound in a system which transmits data using the sound as a transmission medium. Frames are transmitted while shifting the transmission timing among a plurality of frequency bands, whereby tolerance for multipath fading, noise mixing, or the like is obtained and improvement of a substantial transmission rate can be expected compared to a case where one frame is transmitted using only one frequency band. When selecting blocks forming a frame, since a block is selected under a condition that a time period necessary for collecting sound, on which the blocks to be selected are superimposed, becomes shorter, even if a phenomenon, in which a substantial rate of data transmission decreases, occurs, it becomes possible to suppress a decrease in rate.
US09473251B2

Embodiments of the present invention use one or more audible tones to communicate metadata during a transfer of an audio file. Embodiments of the present invention communicate an audio file from a speaker in a recording device (e.g., a recordable book, toy, computing device) to a microphone in a receiving device. The audio file is transferred by audibly broadcasting the audio file content. The audio file may be a recording made by the user (e.g., the user singing a song, a child responding to a storybook prompt intended to elicit a response). The file transfer process uses one or more audible tones, such as dual-tone multi-frequency signaling (“DTMF”) tones to communicate metadata associated with the audio file. Audible tones may also be used to communicate commands that delineate the beginning and/or end of a file broadcast.
US09473246B2

A method for tuning a tunable optical transmitter to a target wavelength includes applying at least one tuning signal to the tunable optical transmitter to control the tunable optical transmitter to create an optical calibration signal according to nominal tuning information for the tunable optical transmitter. The optical calibration signal has a wavelength lying within a secure wavelength range, and the nominal tuning information is based on a nominal wavelength dependency for the tunable optical transmitter. The method also includes measuring a deviation between an actual wavelength dependency of the tunable optical transmitter and the nominal wavelength dependency, and determining calibration information based on that deviation. The calibration information is applied to determine a corrected nominal wavelength dependency from which target tuning information is determined. The tunable optical transmitter is controlled to create an optical channel signal according to the target tuning information.
US09473245B2

An optical module that processes an input optical signal and outputs a processed optical signal is disclosed. The optical module provides a housing and an optical processing device in the housing. The housing provides an optical input port and an optical output port in a first wall thereof in side-by-side arrangement. A third wall of the housing only provides RF terminals. Second and fourth walls of the housing provide DC terminals. Electrical connection between the DC terminals with DC pads on the device is realized through a wiring substrate whose top avoids an optical path from the optical input port to the input port of the device.
US09473240B2

A communication system, device and method for providing twisted pair multilink communications are provided. The system includes a first operator end terminal unit configured to couple to a first customer premises equipment (CPE) via a first twisted pair and configured to exchange first communications with the first CPE for transmission of a first part of traffic data of the first CPE over a first communication link on a first twisted pair. The system further includes a second operator end terminal unit configured to couple to a second CPE via a second twisted pair and configured to exchange second communications with the first CPE for transmission of a second part of traffic data of the first CPE over a second communication link that is a crosstalk link induced by the second twisted pair to the first twisted pair.
US09473235B2

In an embodiment, a method of routing packets at a first node in an ad-hoc network is provided. The method includes receiving, at the first node, a plurality of route-alive messages corresponding to a destination, each of the plurality of route-alive messages including a route time indicating a length of time in which a communicative connection is available between the second node that sent the respective route-alive message and the destination. The method also includes determining an updated route time for each second node. The updated route time corresponds to a length of time in which a communication connection is available between the first node and the destination through the respective second node. A second node is selected for sending a packet to based on the updated route time for each of the second nodes, wherein a node having a longer updated route time is given higher priority for selection.
US09473232B2

A method and a relay node are described for transmitting and receiving data. The relay node receives a downlink data in a subframe n−k from a base station. The subframe n−k is configured as a multicast broadcast single frequency network (MBSFN) subframe by the relay node. The relay node transmits to the base station, in response to receiving the downlink data in the subframe n−k, an acknowledgement (ACK)/negative acknowledgement (NACK) in an uplink subframe n, where n is an index number of the uplink subframe for transmitting the ACK/NACK. A value of n is associated with a parameter indicating subframe configuration related with at least one hybrid automatic repeat request (HARM) process between the relay node and the base station. The value of k is equal to or greater than 4.
US09473224B2

Methods and apparatuses for wireless communication are provided. In an aspect, the method includes receiving a plurality of channel quality reports based on a multiple description coding schedule and determining a transmission parameter based on the plurality of channel quality reports. In another aspect, the method includes receiving a family of codebooks organized based on a transmission rank, and reporting, using a multiple description coding scheme, a channel quality parameter using a codebook entry from the family of codebooks.
US09473223B2

A system and method for collaboratively designing optimized beamforming vectors is disclosed for a wireless multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) space division multiple access (SDMA) communication system to optimize an aggregate SNR performance metric across the different users, thereby permitting the flexibility to trade off computational requirements and size of control information exchanged with performance. Using adaptive vector space search methods, the space of all receive beamformers is searched to find the set which maximizes either the sum or product of SNRs of the users.
US09473211B2

A device for the inductive transmission of electrical energy having a coil which can be inductively coupled to another coil for energy transmission; a power electronic unit for drawing electrical power from the coil or for outputting electrical power into the coil; and a feedline connecting the coil to the power electronic unit. The feedline includes at least two multi-conductor cables with conductors which are insulated from one another and the connection of each terminal of the coil to a respectively assigned terminal of the power electronic unit includes a plurality of conductors of the multi-conductor cables. Each terminal of the coil is preferably connected to the respectively assigned terminal of the power electronic unit by conductors of at least two different cables and the same number of conductors of each individual cable connect each terminal of the coil to the respectively assigned terminal of the power electronic unit.
US09473209B2

In accordance with various aspects of the disclosure, a method and apparatus is disclosed that includes features of a receiving antenna configured to wirelessly receive power transmitted by a transmitting device and arranged to associate or dissociate with the transmitting device.
US09473194B2

Systems, devices and methods related to radio-frequency (RF) step attenuators. In some embodiments, a step attenuator can include an attenuator circuit having stages connected in series between a first node and a second node. The stages can include a plurality of first attenuation steps with each configured to provide switchable attenuation with a first gain. The stages can further include a plurality of second attenuation steps with each configured to provide switchable attenuation with a second gain. The step attenuator can further include a controller in communication with the attenuator circuit. The controller can be configured to control the switchable attenuation of each of the first attenuation steps and the second attenuation steps.
US09473190B1

A case for an electronic device such as a smart phone includes a handle with a trigger element. The handle is selectively rotatable from a closed position in which the handle is disposed adjacent to the case and an active position in which the electronic device is positioned and oriented to take a picture in a predetermined direction (for example for taking a “selfie.”) The handle preferably includes several telescoping sections to extend the effective length of the handle.
US09473188B2

A portable radio communication device is provided that receives communications on a primary channel and a secondary channel as part of a dual-watch mode of operation. The portable radio communication device detects a gesture associated with the portable radio communication device and identifies a channel from one of the primary channel and the secondary channel corresponding to the detected gesture. Further, the portable radio communication device associates controls of a user interface in the portable radio communication device to the identified channel for controlling one or more operational parameters pertaining to the identified channel during the dual-watch mode of operation.
US09473185B2

An impedance matching circuit for a wireless communication device includes: a first node that receives a first impedance; a second node that is connected to an antenna having a second impedance; a first variable capacitor that is connected between the first node and a third node; a second variable capacitor that is connected between the third node and a reference potential; a first inductive element that is connected in parallel with the second variable capacitor between the third node and the reference potential; and a third variable capacitor and a second inductive element that are connected in series between the third node and the second node.
US09473181B1

Methods and systems for receiving radio frequency (RF) signals include adjusting a digital baseband signal from a first RF front-end to compensate for errors based on a correlation value from a first Golay correlator. A set of digital baseband signals from a set of respective additional RF front-ends is adjusted to compensate for errors based on correlation values from a second Golay correlator. A digital baseband signal to be adjusted is selected on a time-sharing basis. The adjusted digital baseband signal from the first RF front-end and the adjusted set of digital baseband signals from the set of respective additional RF front-ends are combined.
US09473178B2

The present disclosure relates to methods, systems, and computer-readable media for varying a memory size in a data stream processing while improving a connection degree sketch. Embodiments of the present disclosure may encode an input data by using an error coding technique to produce an encoded data, wherein the encoded data results in a modified memory size; generate a host connectivity using a set of parameters and applying a reverse sketching technique over the encoded data in order to obtain estimated encoded data; and decode the encoded data after the host connectivity is established using a decoding technique and obtaining an output data. The memory size of the output data may be proportional to the memory size of the input data.
US09473172B2

A system and method for receiving includes an input multiplexer configured to select between one or more input data streams and a pseudo random bit sequence (PRBS) to provide a serial stream. A plurality of storage devices is configured to sample the serial stream. An output demultiplexer is configured to demultiplex the sampled serial stream into a plurality of output streams. A PRBS checker is configured to compare a PRBS pattern on the plurality of output streams with a predicted PRBS pattern. A phase rotator is configured to adjust a data control clock based upon the comparison of the PRBS checker to reduce latency in the receiver.
US09473171B2

Provided is a data encoding method such that memory cells storing the data form a biased threshold voltage distribution. The data encoding method may include receiving N bits of first data, and converting the first data into M bits of second data, wherein the proportion of a first value in the second data is higher than the proportion of a second value.
US09473169B2

Decomposing a value range of the respective syntax elements into a sequence of n partitions with coding the components of z laying within the respective partitions separately with at least one by VLC coding and with at least one by PIPE or entropy coding is used to greatly increase the compression efficiency at a moderate coding overhead since the coding scheme used may be better adapted to the syntax element statistics. Accordingly, syntax elements are decomposed into a respective number n of source symbols si with i=1 . . . n, the respective number n of source symbols depending on as to which of a sequence of n partitions into which a value range of the respective syntax elements is sub-divided, a value z of the respective syntax elements falls into, so that a sum of values of the respective number of source symbols si yields z, and, if n>1, for all i=1 . . . n−1, the value of si corresponds to a range of the ith partition.
US09473166B2

An analog-to-digital converter includes a modulator, a controller, and a digital filter. The modulator generates a modulated signal based on an analog signal. The controller generates a weight control signal. The digital filter includes a weight signal generator and a first integrator. The weight signal generator generates a weight signal based on the weight control signal. The first integrator generates a digital signal corresponding to the analog signal by integrating the weight signal in response to the modulated signal. The weight control signal corresponds to a type and an order of the digital filter.
US09473165B2

Reducing signal dependence for a reference voltage of a CDAC includes: splitting a decoupling capacitor into a plurality of capacitors smaller in size than a size of the decoupling capacitor; isolating at least one of the plurality of capacitors from a sampling buffer coupled to the reference voltage during a conversion phase; and supplying an appropriate amount of charge needed to replenish charge drawn by capacitors in the CDAC at each conversion step using a charge pump to pump in a dummy charge to the CDAC so that resulting configurations of the CDAC draw substantially similar amount of charge for each code change of the each conversion step.
US09473164B1

A data processing system having an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and method for testing the ADC are provided. The data processing system also comprises a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and test logic. The DAC has a first voltage range, an input for receiving a test code, and an output. The ADC has a second voltage range larger than the first voltage range, an input coupled to the output of the DAC, and an output for providing a series of output codes over the second voltage range. The test logic is coupled to the ADC and is for controlling testing of the ADC using the DAC. A plurality of series of test codes are provided to the DAC for testing portions of the second voltage range output from the ADC. A beginning series of test codes is for testing a beginning portion of the second voltage range and subsequent series of test codes are for testing subsequent portions of the second voltage range. Subsequent portions of the second voltage range are tested until a maximum voltage of the second voltage range of the ADC is reached.
US09473159B2

A method, computer-readable storage medium, and signal processing apparatus for processing a plurality of input signals. The method includes receiving or generating a first intermediate signal and a second intermediate signal. The first and second intermediate signals are summed and the summed signals are output to a signal analog-to-digital converter having a predetermined sampling frequency.
US09473155B2

A novel and useful apparatus for and method of software based phase locked loop (PLL). The software based PLL incorporates a reconfigurable calculation unit (RCU) that is optimized and programmed to sequentially perform all the atomic operations of a PLL or any other desired task in a time sharing manner. An application specific instruction-set processor (ASIP) incorporating the RCU includes an instruction set whose instructions are optimized to perform the atomic operations of a PLL. The RCU is clocked at a fast enough processor clock rate to insure that all PLL atomic operations are performed within a single PLL reference clock cycle.
US09473145B2

Methods and apparatus for providing either high-speed, or lower-speed, flexible inputs and outputs. An input and output structure having a high-speed input, a high-speed output, a low or moderate speed input, and an low or moderate speed output is provided. One of the input and output circuits are selected and the others are deselected. The high-speed input and output circuits are comparatively simple, in one example having only a clear signal for a control line input, and are able to interface to lower speed circuitry inside the core of an integrated circuit. The low or moderate speed input and output circuits are more flexible, for example, having preset, enable, and clear as control line inputs, and are able to support JTAG boundary testing. These parallel high and lower speed circuits are user selectable such that the input output structure is optimized between speed and functionality depending on the requirements of the application.
US09473144B1

An integrated circuit (IC) device can include a plurality of analog blocks, including at least one fixed function analog circuit, a plurality of reconfigurable analog circuit blocks, at least one analog routing block reconfigurable to provide signal paths between any of the analog blocks; and a digital section comprising digital circuits; wherein each analog block includes dedicated of signal lines coupled to the at least one analog routing block.
US09473134B2

A drive circuit includes an input, a driver, a first buffer, a second buffer, a first capacitance element, and a second capacitance element. The driver includes a first PMOS transistor and a first NMOS transistor coupled in series between a supply terminal and a reference terminal. The first buffer is coupled between the input and a control terminal of the first PMOS transistor. The second buffer is coupled between the input and a control terminal of the first NMOS transistor. The first capacitance element is coupled to the control terminal of the first PMOS transistor through a first semiconductor switch. The second capacitance element is coupled to the control terminal of the first NMOS transistor through a second semiconductor switch.
US09473132B2

A circuit arrangement is disclosed for controlling the switching of a field effect transistor (FET). A current controlled amplifier may be configured to amplify a current in a current sense device to generate an amplified current, wherein the current in the current sense device indicates a current through the FET. A comparator may be coupled to the current sense amplifier to compare a voltage corresponding to the amplified current with a voltage reference and to generate a comparator output based on the comparison, wherein the comparator output controls whether the FET is on or off.
US09473130B2

Various aspects of the disclosure are directed to methods and apparatuses involving providing a clock signal. As consistent with one or more embodiments herein, a sawtooth waveform signal is generated in a manner that facilitates low power operation. In some implementations, the sawtooth waveform signal is generated using an oscillator that operates without necessarily employing R-C circuits and/or without rail-to-rail voltage supply, such as via a nonlinear oscillator. The sawtooth waveform signal is used to generate a trapezoidal waveform signal, and a clock signal is generated using the trapeziodal waveform signal.
US09473127B1

An I/O driver and related method are provided herein. The I/O driver includes circuitry for expediting the configuring of the corresponding output FET to operate in the linear region to reduce delay between the transition of the input signal and the corresponding transition of the output signal. Additionally, the I/O driver includes circuitry for controlling the slew rate at which the output signal transitions from a low logic state to a high logic state, or vice-versa. Further, the I.O driver includes circuitry for turning off the turned-on output FET before turning on the other output FET. This prevents “shoot-thru” current from flowing through the output FETs to reduce power consumption associated with the I/O driver.
US09473121B1

A scannable flip-flop circuit and method for low power scan operation are provided. The scannable flip-flop includes a flip-flop for receiving an input signal, and for generating a flip-flop output signal. The scannable flip-flop also includes a voltage selection circuit coupled to the flip-flop. The voltage selection circuit supplies a first voltage to the flip-flop during a first state of a voltage selection signal, and supplies a second voltage to the flip-flop during a second state of the voltage selection signal. A series of scannable flip-flops may be arranged in a scan chain for testing during a scan test mode.
US09473112B1

Systems and methods are provided for distributing clocks or other signals on an integrated circuit. In some aspects, one or more distributed deskewing objects are provisioned for reducing or eliminating skew while linking multiple clock distribution segments into one clock tree of an arbitrary shape and size.
US09473111B2

A sensor device for monitoring the environment of a vehicle includes at least two sensors, each with a signal generator, a transmitting antenna, and at least two receiving antennas, characterized in that at least one reference clock pulse generator for generating a common reference clock pulse for the signal generators of the at least two sensors is provided.
US09473104B2

A surface acoustic wave filter includes a piezoelectric substrate, a lower-layer wiring line, an upper-layer wiring line, and an interlayer insulating film. The lower-layer wiring line is disposed on the piezoelectric substrate. The upper-layer wiring line crosses the lower-layer wiring line. The upper-layer wiring line has a potential that is different from the potential of the lower-layer wiring line. The interlayer insulating film is disposed between the lower-layer wiring line and the upper-layer wiring line. The interlayer insulating film has a portion that has a width that is not greater than the width of the upper-layer wiring line in a cross-sectional view taken along a direction in which the lower-layer wiring line extends.
US09473100B2

Methods and systems for amplitude estimation and gain adjustment using noise as a reference are described. An example receiver can include an antenna and a front end amplifier coupled to the antenna. The receiver can also include a detector circuit coupled to the front end amplifier. The receiver can be configured to determine a power of a received signal at the antenna based on a gain of the receiver. The gain of the receiver can be determined based on a noise figure of the front end amplifier and a noise amplitude.
US09473092B2

An amplifier receives a differential signal and, in response, generates a first negative input current and a first positive input current. In a first operating mode, the amplifier receives a second differential signal, and, in response, generates a second negative input current and a second positive input current. In a second operating mode, the amplifier receives the second differential signal, and, in response, generates a third negative input current and a third positive input current. When the device is operating in the first operating mode, the first negative input current is summed with the second negative input current and the first positive input current is summed with the second positive input current. When the device is operating in the second operating mode, the first negative input current is summed with the third negative input current and the first positive input current is summed with the third positive input current.
US09473086B2

A voltage-switched class-S amplifier circuit includes an output stage configured to receive at least one control signal and operative to generate an output signal as a function of the at least one control signal. The amplifier circuit further includes a driver circuit coupled with the output stage. The driver circuit is configured to receive an input bit stream signal and is operative to generate the control signal as a function of the input bit stream signal in such a manner that a common mode component is eliminated from the control signal.
US09473077B2

A device and method of predistortion linearization that account for both EVM and spectral mask are disclosed. The device and method are based on transforming the predistorter optimization problem from the time domain to the frequency domain, and weighting the equations according to one or more desired objectives. One objective focuses on abiding by the spectral mask, whereas another objective focuses on improving the EVM.
US09473070B2

An apparatus for determining and/or monitoring at least one process variable of a medium, comprising: an oscillatable unit, which has a membrane and at least one oscillatable element, wherein the oscillatable element is secured to the membrane at least in a first securement region and in a second securement region. At least one driving/receiving unit, which excites the oscillatable unit to execute mechanical oscillations and which produces a received signal dependent on the oscillations of the oscillatable unit; and a control/evaluation unit, which evaluates the received signal with reference to the process variable. The apparatus is distinguished by features including that the driving/receiving unit is embodied in such a manner and arranged on a rear face of the membrane facing away from the oscillatable element that the oscillatable element executes torsional oscillations.
US09473068B2

Embodiments provide a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) having reduced single-ended capacitance. In one embodiment, the VCO may include a transformer, a capacitor bank, and a gain stage. The transformer may include a primary inductor and a secondary inductor, and the secondary inductor may be inductively coupled to the primary inductor. The capacitor bank may be coupled to the secondary inductor and may provide a majority of a total capacitance of the VCO. The gain stage may be coupled to the primary inductor and configured to receive a supply signal and to drive a differential current in the primary inductor, thereby inducing an output signal across the secondary inductor having a frequency equal to a resonant frequency of the VCO.
US09473058B2

A motor control device for controlling a multiphase brushless motor in a vector control manner includes: a current command value generation unit that generates q-axis and d-axis current command values; a controller that calculates q-axis and d-axis voltage command values; a saturation guard unit that corrects the q-axis or d-axis voltage command value to set a magnitude of a voltage vector of the q-axis or d-axis voltage command value to be equal to or smaller than a predetermined voltage guard value; and a current command value limiting unit that limits the q-axis or d-axis current command value using a current limit gain and a current guard value, which are calculated based on a voltage saturation amount as the magnitude of the voltage vector of the q-axis or d-axis voltage command value corrected by the saturation guard unit.
US09473053B2

A fastening power tool such as a nailer is provided including a tool housing, an input unit actuated in response to an operator input, and a motor assembly including a motor housed within the tool housing. A control unit is provided including a controller programmable to control an operation of the motor and a decoder circuit configured to control a supply of power from a power source to the controller based on a status of the power source and a status of the input unit. The decoder circuit is configured to connect supply of power from the power source to the controller when the power tool is coupled to the power source prior to an engagement of the input unit, but disconnect the supply of power when the power tool is coupled to the power source after the engagement of the input unit.
US09473047B2

A system and method reduce stiction while manipulating micro objects on a surface. The system and method employed a field generator configured to generate a driving force at a frequency and amplitude to at least partially overcome stiction between the micro objects and the surface. The field generator is further configured to generate a manipulation force to manipulate the micro objects on the surface in two dimensions. The manipulation force is spatially programmable.
US09473045B2

A soft-switching and low input current ripple power inversion circuit, in which the inversion circuit is connected in parallel to an input DC voltage source and includes a top cell, a bottom cell and at least one transformer, in which the top cell and the bottom cell have its individual impedance adjusting unit of which the impedance can easily be adjusted to obtain the required equivalent resonant inductance or capacitance. Thus, the semiconducting switches therein can be soft-switched alternately to reduce the switching loss. Moreover, the inversion circuit can be modified by adding at least one middle cell inserted between the top cell and the bottom cell to reduce the voltage stress on the semiconductor switch. Consequently, low voltage rating semiconductor switch accompanied with lower RDS(on), conduction losses can be reduced to improve the converter efficiency.
US09473029B2

A time off estimator and an adaptive controller implemented on an integrated circuit to emulate current dependent zero crossing circuitry to permit improved performance of a buck type switching mode power supply. The time off estimator circuit is enhanced by an automatic correction circuit for the timing of a zero crossing where energy to a reference capacitor returns to zero and is turned off awaiting the next cycle where the capacitor is again charged and discharged.
US09473021B2

A parallel-connected power conversion system of a multi-phase generator configured to provide a power factor correction for a multi-phase generator. The parallel-connected power conversion system includes a parallel-connected power conversion apparatus and a control unit. The parallel-connected power conversion apparatus has a plurality of power conversion units connected in parallel to each other. The parallel-connected power conversion apparatus receives a plurality of generator currents and a plurality of generator voltages generated from the multi-phase generator, and outputs a DC voltage. The control unit generates a plurality of control signals to correspondingly control the power conversion units so that the generator currents linearly follow the generator voltages, therefore the power factor correction of the multi-phase generator is achieved.
US09473014B2

It is provided a mechanical bypass switch device arranged to bypass a converter cell in a power converter. The mechanical bypass switch device includes: a mechanical switch; a mechanical switch actuator arranged to make the mechanical switch conduct when supplied with an electric signal; a first control input; and a second control input. The mechanical bypass switch device is arranged such that a control signal, provided on either one of the first control input and the second control input or on both of the first control input and the second control input, causes the mechanical switch to conduct. A corresponding converter arm and bypass converter are also presented.
US09473011B2

A resistance generating device for a vehicle includes first and second transmission members placed next to each other along a rotary axis of the transmission members and a fixing member provided to form a clearance between the fixing member and a set of the plural transmission members in a radial direction of the rotary axis of the set of the plural transmission members. Each of the transmission members includes a position changing portion generating or releasing a resistance against a rotary motion of a rotary body so that the first transmission member is aligned in line with, or is displaced from the second transmission member along the rotary axis in a case where the first transmission member and the second transmission member rotate in accordance with a rotation of the rotary body, or in accordance with a rotation of a power receiving portion in response to a power.
US09472991B2

A motor for a cooling fan of a vehicle has a rotor including a driving shaft mounted so as to be rotatable in a stator and a bowl-shaped metal case, having a lateral skirt wall which extends around the stator, and having a bottom wall in which there is constructed a tubular fixing formation through which the shaft extends and which is fixed to the shaft. The tubular fixing formation of the rotor case has an internal diameter which is greater than the diameter of the driving shaft. The motor further has an intermediate insert including a tubular portion which is fixed to the shaft and on which there is fixed the tubular formation of the rotor case, and a transverse connecting portion which extends adjacent to the external surface of the bottom wall of the rotor case, and which is connected or connectable to the impeller.
US09472990B2

Systems and methods for insulating the Y-points of three-phase electric motors commonly used in ESP systems, in which the Y-points are not grounded or tied to a reference voltage, and may consequently experience high voltages. One embodiment is an apparatus for insulating the Y-point of the motor using an electrically insulating enclosure. The enclosure has apertures that extend from a cavity therewithin the to the exterior of the enclosure. The cavity accommodates the Y-point of the motor. The conductors which are connected at the Y-point junction extend from the cavity to the coils of the three-phase motor, and possibly to an instrument package. Seals are formed at the apertures to provide an electrically insulating barrier between the Y-point and the exterior of the enclosure. The cavity may be filled with an insulating material such as potting compound or oil.
US09472984B2

A rotor includes a rotation shaft having a rotation axis; a rotator core fixed to the rotation shaft and having an axial end face and an outer circumference face; an end plate covering the axial end face of the rotator core; and a magnet cover covering the outer circumference face of the rotator core. The magnet cover has a first end portion adjacent to the end plate and a second end portion which is opposite to the first end portion in an axial direction. The first end portion of the magnet cover covers entire outer periphery edge of the end plate. The first end portion of the magnet cover is bent toward the rotation axis in entire outer periphery edge of the magnet cover.
US09472983B2

A method for controlling a wireless power transmitter that transmits charging power to a wireless power receiver is provided. The method includes driving the wireless power transmitter; determining whether latch fault mode entry conditions are met, in which the wireless power transmitter is allowed to enter a latch fault mode in which the wireless power transmitter periodically applies first power having a first power value in a first cycle; and if the latch fault mode entry conditions are met, periodically applying the first power in the first cycle.
US09472968B1

A battery is rendered to a consistent discharged state in a two-phase battery discharge operation. In a first of the two discharge phases, a constant discharge current is drawn from the battery until a threshold battery voltage is reached. In the second of the two discharge phases, executed after the threshold battery voltage is reached during the first-phase, a time-varying discharge current is drawn from the battery at a constant battery voltage until a threshold discharge current is reached.
US09472962B2

Method for managing a battery comprising several accumulators that can be linked in series or in parallel, comprising a charging or discharging phase during which the accumulators are disposed in series, characterized in that it thereafter comprises a balancing phase comprising the placing of the accumulators in parallel, during which an electrical quantity Gmin representing the balancing of the accumulator that has attained the maximum voltage during the charging phase or minimum voltage during the discharging phase is measured or estimated, and during which an electrical quantity Gi representing the balancing of another accumulator i of the battery is also measured or estimated, and in that the state of health SOHi of this other accumulator i is computed on the basis of the two electrical quantities Gmin and Gi and on the basis of the knowledge of the performance of the accumulator i at the start of life.
US09472960B2

A regulating device includes: a generating means for generating an output voltage from an input voltage; a plurality of first switches, respectively corresponding to the plural storage battery units connected in parallel, with each of said first switches interposed between the corresponding storage battery unit and the input side of the generating means; a plurality of second switches, respectively corresponding to the plural storage battery units, with each of said second switches interposed between the corresponding storage battery unit and the output side of the generating means; a detecting means for detecting the voltage of each of the plural storage battery units; and, a control means that, referring to the result of detection from the detecting means, identifies first storage battery units whose voltages are higher than the average value of voltage of the plural storage battery units and second storage battery units whose voltages are lower than the average value, from the plural storage battery units, and turns on the first control switches corresponding to the first storage battery units from among the plural first switches and the second control switches corresponding to the second storage battery units from among the second switches.
US09472959B2

System and methods for balancing a vehicle battery system are presented. In certain embodiments, a method for balancing battery system having multiple battery sections may include receiving estimated states of charge of the battery sections. Based on the estimated states of charge, a determination may be made whether the battery sections have states of charge within one of plurality of regions included in a state of charge window. Based on the determination, one of a plurality of different balancing algorithms may be utilized to control transfer energy between the battery sections to balance the battery sections.
US09472953B2

A dynamic high-energy switch used for correcting load imbalance through connecting and disconnecting capacitance in a power feed circuit.
US09472950B2

The present invention discloses a protection circuit of Power Over Ethernet (POE) port and an Ethernet power-sourcing equipment. The port protection circuit includes: a first common mode suppression component, a second common mode suppression component, and a rectifier bridge. A first input end and a second input end of the rectifier bridge are connected to a first direct current output end and a second direct current output end of a PoE control chip, respectively. A first output end or a second output end of the rectifier bridge is connected to an uncharged signal line of a PoE port. An end of the first common mode suppression component is connected to the first output end of the rectifier bridge, and another end thereof is grounded. An end of the second common mode suppression component is connected to the second output end of the rectifier bridge, and another end thereof is grounded.
US09472948B2

A semiconductor device is disclosed. In one embodiment a semiconductor device includes a semiconductor chip including a substrate, a ground terminal configured to be provided with a reference potential and a supply terminal electrically coupled to the substrate, the supply terminal configured to be provided with a load current and configured to be provided with a supply voltage between the substrate and the ground terminal. The semiconductor device further comprises an overvoltage protection circuit disposed in the semiconductor chip and coupled between the supply terminal and the ground terminal, the overvoltage protection circuit including a first transistor having a load current path coupled between the supply terminal and an internal ground node and a second transistor having a load current path coupled between the internal ground node and the ground terminal.
US09472947B2

A protecting circuit includes: a discharge switch configured to connect to a first terminal and a second terminal; a trigger circuit comprising load devices configured to be connected in series between the first terminal and the second terminal, each of the load devices being configured to consume power; and a shunt circuit comprising, between the trigger circuit and the first terminal or the second terminal, at least one shunt pathway configured to be capable of bypassing at least one of the load devices. The trigger circuit is configured to turn on the discharge switch when a voltage between the first terminal and the second terminal is higher than a first voltage value, and the shunt circuit is configured to electrically connect the shunt pathway when the voltage is higher than a second voltage value that is greater than the first voltage value.
US09472945B2

An electrical switching apparatus includes a transductor circuit that senses a direct current between at least one input terminal and at least one output terminal and outputs an alternating current proportional to the direct current between the input terminal and the output terminal. The electrical switching apparatus also includes a current sensor configured to sense an alternating current component of the direct current. The electrical switching apparatus further includes an alternating current electronic trip circuit including an arc fault detection circuit configured to detect an arc fault based on the sensed alternating current component. The alternating current electronic trip circuit is also configured to control pairs of separable contacts to trip open based on the alternating current output from the transductor circuit or the detected arc fault.
US09472940B2

When a power switch is turned off, a protection device for an electricity supply circuit starts keeping time using a timer and turns on a disconnection flag. Then the protection device turns off the disconnection flag when the timer has counted a predetermined time. When the power switch is turned off, the disconnection flag does not subsequently turn off until the predetermined time has passed. Therefore, it is possible to prevent an excessive temperature increase in the power switch and prevent damage to the power switch.
US09472938B2

Provided is a busbar coupling device. The busbar coupling device includes: a plate including a first side and a second side disposed opposite to each other; a first end wall part protruding and extending in a direction that the first side faces at a first end part in a length direction of the plate; a first protrusion part disposed at the plate, spaced from the first end wall part, and protruding in the direction that the first side faces; a second end wall part protruding and extending from a second end part disposed opposite to the first end part to a direction that the second side faces in the length direction of the plate; and a second protrusion part disposed at the plate, spaced from the first end wall part, and protruding in the direction that the first side faces.
US09472935B1

An FS box holder for mounting a field service (FS) electrical box to a cylindrical structure. The FS box holder includes a front panel and two end walls and two side walls extending from the front panel. Elongated slots are provided in the side walls and a threaded nipple extends from the front panel. A post attachment means is provided for securing said FS box holder to a post or similar upright support. The post attachment means includes a pipe clamp for securing through the elongated slots of the FS box holder. The invention further includes an electrical box having a threaded socket therein and a box attachment means for securing the electrical box to the FS box holder. The box attachment means includes a threaded socket on the electrical box and a threaded nipple on the FS box holder.
US09472934B2

An enclosure for an electrical device includes a five-sided case with an open side closable by a removable cover. First and second pocket plates are mounted in the case and ogether with a side wall of the case define a compartment for receiving the electrical device. The first pocket plate flexes away from a side wall of the case to enlarge the opening into the compartment for receiving the electrical device. Once the electrical device is in the compartment the first pocket plate is biased into engagement with the device to retain it in the compartment. The second pocket plate is spaced from the back wall of the case to prevent contact between the electrical device and the back wall.
US09472928B2

A coaxial connector junction includes first and second coaxial connectors. The first coaxial connector engages the second coaxial connector, a substantially cylindrical member of a first central conductor extension of the first connector being inserted into the cavity of a second central conductor extension of the second connector, and a second outer conductor extension of the second connector being inserted into a first outer conductor extension of the first connector such that a capacitive element is created between the first and second outer conductor extensions by a gap between the first outer conductor extension and the second outer conductor extension. At least one of a length of the gap, an inner diameter of the second outer conductor extension, a thickness and dielectric constant of the capacitive element is selected such that the return loss of the junction is maintained below a preselected level over a preselected frequency range.
US09472923B2

A laser component includes a carrier having a lens carrier surface and a chip carrier surface raised relative to the lens carrier surface, wherein an optical lens is arranged on the lens carrier surface, a laser chip is arranged on the chip carrier surface, the chip carrier surface and the lens carrier surface are formed by materially uniformly continuous sections of the carrier, the carrier includes a plastic material, and the laser component is configured as a surface-mountable SMD component.
US09472922B2

An external cavity semiconductor laser light source comprises includes a semiconductor gain device operable to provide light amplification; a wavelength selection element including a diffraction grating; and light re-directors. The gain device, light re-directors and grating are arranged so that an optical resonator is established for light portions emitted by the gain device and diffracted by the diffraction grating. The resonator is an external cavity laser resonator. The light source is capable of varying an angle of incidence of radiation circulating in the resonator onto wavelength selection element to select a resonator radiation wavelength dependent on the angle of incidence.
US09472920B2

A method and system generates two synchronized trains of laser pulses at different wavelengths, wherein the two pulse trains are temporally synchronized and have a stable phase relation, and wherein the wavelength of one of the pulse trains is de-tunable. The method includes the steps of: generating a train of ultra-short seed laser pulses; splitting the train of seed laser pulses into a first pulse train and a second pulse train; and frequency-shifting the first pulse train by soliton self-frequency shift in an optically pumped waveguide having anomalous dispersion, wherein the spectrum of the frequency-shifted first pulse train is de-tunable by varying the pump power.
US09472916B2

Distal connector assemblies that are on the distal end of medical lead extensions provide increased rigidity by including a rigid holder that contains the electrical connectors. The electrical connectors are separated within the rigid holder by insulative spacers that may be individual items or may be formed from a compliant carrier that the electrical connectors may reside within where the carrier is positioned within the rigid holder. The rigid holder may also contain a set screw block defining set screw bore or the rigid holder may include an integral portion that defines a set screw bore. The integral portion may include a slot to allow a molding pin loaded with the electrical connectors and other components to be dropped into a cavity of the rigid holder. An overmold may be present to surround the rigid body containing the electrical connectors and insulative spacers.
US09472915B1

A spring ring circuit assembly is provided for transmitting electricity between a first structure and a second structure which rotates relative to the first structure. The spring ring circuit assembly includes a spring ring which is affixed to and concentrically positioned around a spindle. The spring ring circuit assembly further includes a circular band concentrically positioned around the spring ring so as to create an annular space between the spring ring and circular band. The spring ring circuit assembly further includes an inner set of rollers positioned around and engaging the spring ring, and an outer set of rollers positioned within and engaging the circular band. The spring ring, rollers and circular band are made of electrically conductive materials so as to allow electricity to transmit between the spring ring and the circular band which is capable of rotating around the spring ring.
US09472909B2

A mobile device case is generally described. In some examples, the mobile device case may include a retracting mechanism. In some examples, the retracting mechanism may be coupled to a cable. The cable may be effective to allow the cable to be extended away from the mobile device case, lock the cable into place at a length of extension, and retract the cable into the mobile device case. In some examples, the cable may be electrically coupled to a connector piece formed within the mobile device case. In various examples, the cable may be effective to provide power or sync data to a mobile device installed within the mobile device case.
US09472901B2

A shield connector includes: a housing fixed to an outer surface of the metallic case; a shield member connecting a shield portion of a shield wire to the metallic case: a shield pipe as a pressure-bonding-member for swaging and connecting the shield portion and the shield member. The shield pipe includes: a tubular portion through which the shield wire and the shield member are inserted; a flange portion extended radially from the other side edge of the tubular portion; and a swage portion where the tubular portion is deformed to press the shield portion and the shield member 12.
US09472898B2

A small form factor pluggable connector with a locking and unlocking mechanism is disclosed. The locking and unlocking mechanism includes a torsion spring mounted on a base, an actuator rotatably mounted on a cover, a rotating member rotatably mounted on the cover and the base, and a fastening shaft inserting into a cylindrical spring body of the torsion spring and shaft holes of the cover and the base. When the locking and unlocking mechanism is in an initial state or a locking state, a hook of the rotating member protrudes from a top surface of a front portion of the cover, and a spring-pressing portion of the rotating member presses a horizontal pin of the torsion spring. When the locking and unlocking mechanism is in an unlocking state, a handle of the actuator need be lifted up.
US09472897B2

A connector has a male-side housing provided with terminals and a female-side housing provided with contact portions to contact the terminals. In a state in which the male-side housing and the female-side housing are rotated relative to each other and engaged with each other, the terminals and the contact portions are contact each other to be electrically connected.
US09472896B2

A connector system includes a cavity configured to hold a connector module. The cartridge has a port opening to the cavity. The cartridge removably receives the connector module through the port. The connector system also includes an ejector mechanism. The ejector mechanism has a slider latch movable in a longitudinal direction relative to the cartridge. The slider latch has a profiled groove configured to cam therein. The slider latch has a linear gear. The ejector mechanism includes a rotatable handle having a circular gear configured to engage the linear gear to cause the slider latch to move as the rotatable handle is rotated between a closed position and an open position. The profiled groove engages the cam to secure the connector module to the connector assembly when the rotatable handle is in the closed position and unlock the connector module when in the open position.
US09472894B2

An electrical connector for mounting to a flexible substrate and for coupling with a mating connector having a low-profile. The connector comprises a cover portion arranged to extend in a plane parallel to the substrate so as to cover a mounting hole in the substrate. The connector further comprises a body portion comprising a connection port projecting from the cover portion, the connection port having electrical contacts within an end face of the port. The body portion further comprising an alignment collar arranged circumferentially around the connection port, the alignment collar being provided with an alignment feature at a discrete circumferential position for angularly aligning the mating connector with respect to the connection port.
US09472888B2

An electronic device may include a connector body that accommodates a connector terminal, and a sealing member provided in the connector body to seal a gap between the connector body and the electronic device.
US09472884B2

A connector (11) is provided with a connector housing (13) which is formed to be divided into a connector section (17) with a terminal accommodation chamber (23) formed therein, and a connector cover section (19), and in which the connector section (17) and the connector cover section (19) are integrated with each other by being slide-fitted to each other. A spacer (15) which is locked to the connector housing (13) at a temporary locking position and a final locking position penetrates the connector section (17) and the connector cover section (19), thereby restricting movements of the connector section (17) and the connector cover section (19) in a slide fitting release direction (E), whereby the connector housing (13) is integrally retained.
US09472882B2

A terminal-fitted retainer (20) includes terminals (50) that have recesses (57) provided on outer peripheral surfaces thereof and to be inserted and accommodated into terminal accommodating chambers (38) formed in a housing (30) from behind. A retainer (70) is mounted into the housing (30) while retaining the terminals (50). The retainer (70) includes terminal holding portions (74) for holding the terminals (50) by being fit into the recesses (57) and thick portions (78) to be accommodated into clearances formed between the terminal holding portions (74) and either front or rear surfaces of the recesses (57) in a front-back direction.
US09472872B2

An electrical harness is formed from a flexible printed circuit board which provides a plurality of conductive tracks. The harness has one or more harness connectors at respective terminating regions of the flexible printed circuit board for joining the harness to complementary connectors. The or each harness connector includes a back-shell and one or more elongate terminals which are supported at a position within the back-shell such that, in use, when the harness connector joins with a complementary connector, the elongate terminals are presented for electrical connect at first ends thereof with mating terminals of the complementary connector. The or each terminating region of the harness has one or more receiving holes extending to respective conductive tracks of the harness.
US09472871B2

A wire terminal connector includes a terminal member having a base panel, two resilient clamp plates that project from the base panel for clamping a wire conductor therebetween, and a stop plate that projects from the base panel and extends transversely of the clamp plates for abutting against one end of the wire conductor, and an insulative housing having a receiving space, a first open end that permits the terminal member to enter and to be disposed in the receiving space, and a second open end that is opposite to the first open end and that is adapted for the wire conductor to enter the receiving space.
US09472868B2

A permanent ground point for a splicing connector is provided. The ground point is comprised of a ground rod that is permanently attached to a port on the splicing connector. A grounding clamp may then be attached to the ground point after the system is de-energized in order to provide a safe connection to system ground.
US09472850B2

An antenna apparatus is provided. A control unit adjusts an adjustment voltage outputted to a parasitic ground antenna unit according to a first voltage generated by a sensing unit and a second voltage generated by a frequency detecting unit.
US09472848B2

A multi-feed antenna in provided, including multiple feed elements associated with multiple frequency regions, respectively, and a folded loop element for radiating energy. Each of the multiple feed elements is capacitively coupled to the folded loop element.
US09472845B2

A compact multiband 40 degree split beam antenna system for a wireless network is disclosed. Each band employs a 3 column array with a special 3 output feed network. The 3 output feed network employs either a broadband 90 degree hybrid coupler with a 180 degrees splitter, or 2 broadband 90 degree hybrid couplers. The arrays employ dipole antenna elements, patch antenna elements, or a combination of both types. The antenna may exhibit 35 to 40 degrees horizontal beamwidth.
US09472844B2

Some demonstrative embodiments include apparatuses, systems and/or methods of wireless beamformed communication. For example, an apparatus may include a controller to receive image information representing a plurality of images captured by a mobile device during communication of the mobile device over a wireless beamformed link, and to update a beamforming scheme of the wireless beamformed link based on the image information.
US09472837B1

An (M+1)-for-M redundant switch, where M is an integer greater than 1, is provided. The (M+1)-for-M redundant switch includes a first switch-triad-assembly including a first switching element circulator and two element isolators; a second switch-triad-assembly including a second switching element circulator and two element isolators and; and at least one inverted-switch-triad-assembly including a third switching element circulator and two element isolators. One of the element isolators of the first switch-triad-assembly is arranged to couple power with one of the two element isolators of one of the at least one inverted-switch-triad-assembly. One of the element isolators of the second switch-triad-assembly is arranged to couple power with another one of the two element isolators of one of the at least one inverted-switch-triad-assembly.
US09472822B2

An example method of controlling a fuel cell power plant based on provided power includes selectively varying an electrical resistance of the variable resistive device responsive to at least one of a power provided by the fuel cell power plant, a current provided by the fuel cell power plant, or a voltage decay rate.
US09472815B2

A separator for a fuel cell and a method for manufacturing the same comprise two sheets of metal plates integrally formed to minimize contact resistance between an upper metal plate and a lower metal plate. The method for manufacturing the separator includes steps of preparing an upper metal plate and a lower metal plate, each plate having opposing main sides, and applying a coating liquid containing a polymer composite material on both sides of the upper and lower metal plates, to form first and second composite material layers on both sides of the upper plates and third and fourth composite material layers on both sides of the lower plates. The method further includes stacking the upper metal plate on the lower metal plate, before drying the respective composite material layers, and integrally bonding the second composite material layer and the third composite material layer to form a single intermediate composite material layer.
US09472805B2

A method for synthesizing alkali metal silicate which can be easily microparticulated, a method for synthesizing, with the use of the alkali metal silicate, alkali transition metal silicate, and alkali metal silicate and alkali transition metal silicate which are synthesized by the synthesis methods are disclosed. The alkali metal silicate is synthesized by the following steps: forming a basic solution including an alkali metal salt; mixing the basic solution including the alkali metal salt with silicon particles to form a basic solution including the alkali metal silicate; and adding the basic solution including the alkali metal silicate to a poor solvent for the alkali metal silicate to precipitate the alkali metal silicate. Further, the alkali metal silicate is mixed with a microparticulated compound including a transition metal to form a mixture, and the mixture is subjected to heat treatment, whereby the alkali transition metal silicate is generated.
US09472795B2

A cylindrical lithium ion battery in which an electrode group formed by winding a positive electrode and a negative electrode is housed in a battery case is disclosed. A sealing plate seals an opening of the battery case. An insulating plate having a plurality of openings is provided on a side of the electrode group closer to the sealing plate. The plurality of openings include a first hole with a largest opening area, and a plurality of second holes with opening areas smaller than the opening area of the first hole. An opening ratio of the first hole is 12% or more and 40% or less; a sum of opening ratios of the second holes is 0.3% or more and 10% or less; and a total opening ratio of all the openings is 20% or more and 50% or less.
US09472787B2

The invention relates to a fabrication apparatus for fabricating a patterned layer (18) on a substrate (14). Protective material (17) is applied in second regions on the substrate (14) and liquid layer material (18) is then printed in first regions being different to the second regions on the substrate (14). The layer material (18) is dried by heating the layer material (18) to a drying temperature being smaller than a melting temperature of the protective material (17), before removing the protective material (17) from the substrate (14) by using a removing temperature being larger than the melting temperature of the protective material (17). A patterned layer (18) can therefore be produced, without using, for example, a costly photolithography process, and because of the use of the protective material (17) the layer material (18) is present in the desired first regions only and not in the second regions. This improves the quality of the patterned layer, which may be used for producing an OLED.
US09472783B2

The present techniques provide systems and methods for protecting electronic devices such as organic light emitting devices (OLEDs) from adverse environmental effects using a thin film encapsulation with reduced process time. In some embodiments, the process time of forming a graded barrier over the OLED structure may take less than 5 minutes, and may result in substantially similar barrier properties as those of metal and epoxy sealants and/or typical thin film encapsulations. The process time of forming the barrier may be reduced by increasing deposition rates for organic and/or inorganic materials, reducing the thicknesses of organic and/or inorganic layers, and/or varying the number of zones in the barrier.
US09472780B2

The present invention discloses an organic electroluminescent display device and a display apparatus comprising a substrate, an organic electroluminescent pixel array disposed on the substrate, and a package film coated on an outside of the organic electroluminescent pixel array. The organic electroluminescent display device further comprises an optical film laminate body at a light output side thereof; and the optical film laminate body is a preformed integral component including a plurality of functional film layers. Since the optical film laminate body including the plurality of functional film layers can be bonded on organic electroluminescent display device by a single film-bonding process, it simplifies the manufacturing process, decreases the cost, reduces the thickness, and improves the flexibility of the organic electroluminescent display device. In addition, the present invention also discloses a display apparatus comprising the organic electroluminescent display device.
US09472774B2

An electroluminescence generating device comprising e. a channel of organic semiconductor material, said channel being able to carry both types of charge carriers, said charge carriers being electrons and holes; f. an electron electrode, said electron electrode being in contact with said channel and positioned on top of a first side of said channel layer or within said channel layer, said electron electrode being able to inject electrons in said channel layer; g. a hole electrode, said hole electrode being spaced apart from said electron electrode, said hole electrode being in contact with said channel and positioned on top of said first side of said channel layer or within said channel layer, said hole electrode being able to inject holes into said channel; h. a control electrode positioned on said first side or on a second side of said channel; whereby light emission of said electroluminescence generating device can be acquired by applying an electrical potential difference between said electron electrode and said hole electrode.
US09472772B2

An active device substrate includes a flexible substrate, an inorganic de-bonding layer, and at least one active device. The flexible substrate has a first surface and a second surface opposite to the first surface, wherein the first surface is a flat surface. The inorganic de-bonding layer covers the first surface of the flexible substrate, and the material of the inorganic de-bonding layer is metal, metal oxide or combination thereof. The active device is disposed on or above the second surface of the flexible substrate.
US09472767B2

An organic light-emitting device and a method of manufacturing the same. The organic light-emitting device includes a substrate, a first electrode formed on the substrate, a second electrode, an emission layer between the first electrode and the second electrode, a hole transport layer between the first electrode and the emission layer, and an electron transport layer between the second electrode and the emission layer. The hole transport layer includes a first hole transport unit comprising: a first hole transport layer comprising a hole transporting material, a third hole transport layer formed on the first hole transport layer and comprising a charge generating material; and a fifth hole transport layer formed on the third hole transport layer and comprising the hole transporting material.
US09472746B2

There is provided a vibrator including: a housing including an internal space; an elastic member mounted within the internal space so as to be elastically deformed; and a piezo actuator mounted on one surface of the elastic member, wherein the elastic member includes a reinforcement emboss protruding toward a surface opposite to a surface on which the piezo actuator is mounted in a portion on which the piezo actuator is mounted.
US09472740B2

A light emitting diode (LED) package may include a package body provided with a pair of lead frames, and an LED chip mounted on the package body and electrically connected to the lead frames through wire bonding. Each lead frame may include a first reflective layer disposed on a mounting surface on which the LED chip is disposed and a second reflective layer disposed on the first reflective layer. A wire may penetrate through the second reflective layer to be connected to the first reflective layer. Accordingly, the LED package may provide the uniform amount of light by suppressing discoloration of the lead frames, and the manufacturing time of the LED package may be reduced, leading to a reduction in manufacturing costs.
US09472731B2

A phosphor-containing resin molded body and a wavelength conversion member, in each of which one or more kinds of spherical phosphors represented by (AxByCz)3C5O12 (wherein A represents one or more rare earth elements selected from among Y, Gd and Lu; B represents one or more rare earth elements selected from among Ce, Nd and Tb; C represents Al and/or Ga; and x, y and z respectively represent positive numbers satisfying 0.002≦y≦0.2, 0
US09472729B2

A method of manufacturing a semiconductor light emitting device package includes arranging a plurality of light emitting structures on a support substrate, each light emitting structure including a first conductivity-type semiconductor layer, an active layer and a second conductivity-type semiconductor layer, bonding a light transmissive substrate to the plurality of light emitting structures, the light transmissive substrate having a plurality of wavelength conversion regions corresponding to the plurality of light emitting structures, respectively, removing the support substrate from the plurality of light emitting structures, and separating individual semiconductor light emitting device packages from one another by removing at least a portion of the light transmissive substrate.
US09472727B2

A vertical structure light-emitting device includes a conductive support, a light-emitting semiconductor structure disposed on the conductive support structure, the semiconductor structure having a first semiconductor surface, a side semiconductor surface and a second semiconductor surface, a first electrode electrically connected to the first-type semiconductor layer, a second electrode electrically connected to the second-type semiconductor layer, wherein the second electrode has a first electrode surface, a side electrode surface and a second electrode surface, wherein the first electrode surface, relative to the second electrode surface, is proximate to the semiconductor structure; and wherein the second electrode surface is opposite to the first electrode surface, and a passivation layer disposed on the side semiconductor surface and the second semiconductor surface.
US09472726B2

An integrated LED light-emitting device includes: at least two mutually-isolated LED light-emitting epitaxial units having an upper and a lower surface, in which, the upper surface is a light-emitting surface; an electrode pad layer over the lower surface of the LED light-emitting epitaxial unit, with sufficient thickness for supporting the LED epitaxial unit and connecting to each LED light-emitting epitaxial unit to form a connection circuit plane with no height difference; and the electrode pad layer is divided into a P electrode region and an N electrode region. The LED light-emitting epitaxial units constitute a series, parallel or series-parallel circuit. Embodiments disclosed herein can effectively improve the problems of package welding, electrode shading and poor wiring stability.
US09472725B2

A light-emitting device comprises a semiconductor layer sequence comprising a first semiconductor layer having a first electrical conductivity, a second semiconductor layer having a second electrical conductivity, and an active layer interposed between the first semiconductor layer and the second semiconductor layer; a plurality of protruding structures; a plurality of beveled trenches in the semiconductor layer sequence and respectively accommodating the plurality of protruding structures; a dielectric layer on the second semiconductor layer and an inner sidewall of the plurality of beveled trenches, wherein the dielectric layer comprises a surface perpendicular to a thickness direction of the semiconductor layer sequence; a metal layer formed along the inner sidewall of the plurality of beveled trenches and extending to the surface of the dielectric layer, wherein the metal layer is insulated from the second semiconductor layer by the dielectric layer; and a first electrode formed on the plurality of protruding structures.
US09472721B2

An epitaxial substrate for growing a lighting emitting structure of a light emitting diode, includes a transparent base, a first buffer layer and a second buffer layer formed on the transparent base. The transparent base includes a first surface and a second surface opposite to the first surface. Plural protrusions are formed on the first surface of the transparent base. Each first buffer layer is formed on the outer surfaces of the plural protrusions. The second buffer layer fills in the recesses defined between two adjacent protrusions, and covers the first buffer layer. The refractive index of the first buffer layer is larger than that of the transparent base, and is less than that of the second buffer layer. This disclosure also relates a method for manufacturing the epitaxial substrate and a light emitting diode having the same.
US09472719B2

A light-emitting diode, comprises an active layer for emitting a light with a phase and a peak wavelength λ in air, a reflector, a lower semiconductor stack between the active layer and the reflector, wherein the lower semiconductor stack comprises multiple semiconductor layers, and each of the multiple semiconductor layers has a refractive index ni, a thickness di and two sides each contacting adjacent layers to form two interfaces, wherein each interface has a phase shift when the light passes through the interface.
US09472717B2

A novel quantum dot containing two different metals at non-toxic levels which is capable of narrow bandwidth near infrared emissions at wavelengths of 600-1100 nm. The quantum dot is fabricated via an aqueous method which forms a structure having an inner region of one composition and an outer region of a different composition, wherein the inner region contains at least a first metal and the outer region contains at least a second metal. The quantum dots may be enabled for bioconjugation and may be used in a method for tissue imaging and analyte detection.
US09472716B1

A lattice constant formatted epitaxial template for light emitting devices includes a starting epitaxial template having a base, a plurality of alternately arranged protrusions and depressions on the base; first material portions epitaxially formed on top of the protrusions and second material portions epitaxially formed in the depressions, wherein lattice constants of the first material portions on the protrusions are different from those of the second material portions in the depressions. A method for making a lattice constant formatted epitaxial template is provided. Also provided is a light emitting device containing a lattice constant formatted epitaxial template.
US09472705B2

An integrated avalanche photodetector and a method for fabrication thereof. The integrated avalanche photodetector comprises a Ge body adapted to conduct an optical mode. The Ge body comprises a first p-doped region that extends from a first main surface to a second main surface of the Ge body. The Ge body further comprises a first n-doped region that extends from the first main surface towards the second main surface of the Ge body. An intrinsic region occupies the undoped part of the Ge body. A first avalanche junction is formed by the first n-doped region that is located aside the p-doped region. The Ge body further comprises an incidence surface, suitable for receiving an optical mode, and a second n-doped Ge region that covers the Ge body and forms a second avalanche junction with the first p-doped region at the first main surface.
US09472704B2

A radiation detector is disclosed, including a plurality of detector elements arranged adjacent to one another in a planar manner. In an embodiment, for the purpose of radiation detection, a semiconductor layer with an upper side and a lower side is present, the semiconductor layer on one of the sides including an electrode embodied so as to extend across a number of detector elements and electrodes subdivided into individual electrodes being arranged on the other side of the semiconductor layer so that by applying voltage between the electrodes of the two sides, an electrical field is generatable and each individual electrode is assigned an effective volume so as to collect charge in the semiconductor layer. In an embodiment, the individual electrodes are alternately connected to at least two different voltage potentials. Furthermore, a medical diagnostic system is disclosed, including at least one such radiation detector.
US09472700B2

A solar cell assembly including: a solar cell for generating electric power from sunlight; a cover glass for covering the solar cell; transparent shims, which are disposed between the solar cell and the cover glass at the points were the distance between the solar cell and the cover glass needs to be controlled, and form a space between the solar cell and the cover glass; and a transparent adhesive layer, which fills the space between the solar cell and the cover glass and has the thickness the same as that of the transparent shims.
US09472698B2

The method of manufacturing a compound thin-film photovoltaic cell includes preparing a metal substrate, whose main constituent is iron, containing aluminium (Al) and chromium (Cr), and forming an insulating layer on an element forming surface of the metal substrate by baking an insulating material; depositing first electrode layer on the insulating layer; depositing a compound light absorption layer on the first electrode layer; and depositing a second electrode layer on the compound light absorption layer, wherein in the forming the insulating layer, an alumina layer is formed at least on a back surface of the metal substrate by thermal oxidation while baking the insulating material.
US09472687B2

A Schottky diode and a method for making one. The method includes the following steps: providing a semiconductor base body, preferably in the form of a wafer, having a high dopant concentration and having a first main surface, which forms the first electrical contact surface of the Schottky diode; epitaxially depositing a semiconductor layer having the same conductivity and a lower dopant concentration on that surface of the semiconductor base body which lies opposite the first main surface; arranging a first metal layer on the semiconductor layer with the formation of a Schottky contact between the first metal layer and the semiconductor layer; connecting a planar contact body to the first metal layer by means of a connecting means; forming at least one individual Schottky diode; and arranging a passivation layer in the edge region of the at least one Schottky diode.
US09472676B2

A semiconductor device having excellent electric characteristics and a method for manufacturing the semiconductor device are provided. A method for manufacturing a semiconductor device includes the steps of: forming a gate electrode; forming a gate insulating film to cover the gate electrode; forming an oxide semiconductor film over the gate insulating film; forming a hydrogen permeable film over the oxide semiconductor film; forming a hydrogen capture film over the hydrogen permeable film; performing heat treatment to release hydrogen from the oxide semiconductor film; forming a source electrode and a drain electrode to be in contact with a part of the oxide semiconductor film; and removing an exposed portion of the hydrogen capture film to form a channel protective film formed of the hydrogen permeable film. A semiconductor device manufactured by the above method is also provided.
US09472669B1

In a method of fabricating a Fin FET, first and second fin structures are formed. The first and second fin structures protrude from an isolation insulating layer. A gate structure is formed over the first and second fin structures, each of which has source/drain regions, having a first width, outside of the gate structure. Portions of sidewalls of the source/drain regions are removed to form trimmed source/drain regions, each of which has a second width smaller than the first width. A strain material is formed over the trimmed source/drain regions such that the strain material formed on the first fin structure is separated from that on the second fin structure. An interlayer dielectric layer is formed over the gate structure and the source/drain regions with the strain material. A contact layer is formed on the strain material such that the contact layer wraps around the strain material.
US09472659B2

Semiconductor devices include a channel layer on a substrate, the channel layer including a material having a lattice constant different from a lattice constant of the substrate, a first gate electrode on the channel layer, a first source region of a first conductivity type at a first side of the first gate electrode, a first body region of a second conductivity type under the first source region and contacting the first source region, a first drain region of the first conductivity type disposed at a second side of the first gate electrode, a first drift region of the first conductivity type under the first drain region and contacting the first drain region, and a first stud region in the channel layer and the first drift region. The first stud region has an impurity concentration higher than an impurity concentration of the first drift region.
US09472655B1

An improvement is made in the reliability of a semiconductor device having a split gate type MONOS memory. An ONO film covering a control gate electrode, and a dummy memory electrode gates are formed, and then a diffusion region on a source-region-side of a memory to produced is formed across the dummy memory electrode gates. Subsequently, the dummy memory electrode gates is removed, and then a memory gate electrode is formed which is smaller in gate length than the dummy memory electrode gates. Thereafter, an extension region on the source-region-side of the memory is formed.
US09472654B2

A method for making a fin MOSFET with substantially reduced parasitic capacitance and/or resistance is provided. The fin MOSFET includes: a patterned fin structure on a substrate, the substrate including a first semiconductor layer; an epitaxy layer covering the substrate and a first portion of the fin structure, the first portion of the fin structure being doped to be integrated with the epitaxy layer, wherein a source and drain region is formed in the epitaxy layer; a metal gate high-k structure covering a second portion of the fin structure; a nitride structure covering the metal gate high-k structure; an oxide spacer structure enclosing the metal gate high-k structure and the nitride structure; and a metal contact structure for the source and drain region.
US09472646B2

A transistor includes a substrate having an active region defined by an isolation layer; a first trench defined in the active region and a second trench defined in the isolation layer; a fin region formed under the first trench; and a buried gate electrode covering sidewalls of the fin region and filling the first and second trenches. The buried gate electrode includes a first work function layer formed on the sidewalls of the fin region; a second work function layer formed on sidewalls of the first trench and the second trench; a third work function layer positioned over the fin region and contacting the second work function layer; and a low resistance layer contacting the third work function layer and partially filling the first and second trenches.
US09472641B2

Device architectures based on trapping and de-trapping holes or electrons and/or recombination of both types of carriers are obtained by carrier trapping either in near-interface deep ambipolar states or in quantum wells/dots, either serving as ambipolar traps in semiconductor layers or in gate dielectric/barrier layers. In either case, the potential barrier for trapping is small and retention is provided by carrier confinement in the deep trap states and/or quantum wells/dots. The device architectures are usable as three terminal or two terminal devices.
US09472640B2

Transistors with self-aligned source/drain regions and methods for making the same. The methods include forming a gate structure embedded in a recess in a substrate; removing substrate material around the gate structure to create self-aligned source and drain recesses; forming a channel layer over the gate structure and the source and drain recesses; and forming source and drain contacts in the source and drain recesses. The source and drain contacts extend above the channel layer.
US09472639B2

A method of manufacturing a substrate of a liquid ejection head including: forming a plurality of recesses in a silicon wafer; etching the silicon wafer with etchant to form a depression and a plurality of through holes formed from the plurality of the recesses in the depression; and manufacturing a plurality of substrates of the liquid ejection head from the silicon wafer by dividing the silicon wafer on the basis of through holes.
US09472638B2

A device includes a substrate, a semiconductor fin over the substrate, and a gate dielectric layer on a top surface and sidewalls of the semiconductor fin. A gate electrode is spaced apart from the semiconductor fin by the gate dielectric layer. The gate electrode includes a top portion over and aligned to the semiconductor fin, and a sidewall portion on a sidewall portion of the dielectric layer. The top portion of the gate electrode has a first work function, and the sidewall portion of the gate electrode has a second work function different from the first work function.
US09472637B2

Provided is a semiconductor device including a metal film which can be formed with lower costs but still mange to have a necessary work function and oxidation resistance. The semiconductor device includes: an insulating film disposed on a substrate; and a metal film disposed on the insulating film to directly contact the insulating film, the metal film including a laminated structure where a first metal film and a second metal film are alternately and repeatedly laminated, wherein the second metal film has a work function different from that of the first metal film and is different from the first metal film in material, and an oxidation resistance of the first metal film is greater than that of the second metal film.
US09472635B2

A silicon carbide semiconductor device includes a silicon carbide substrate, a main electrode, a first barrier layer, and an interconnection layer. The main electrode is directly provided on the silicon carbide substrate. The first barrier layer is provided on the main electrode, and is made of a conductive material containing no aluminum. The interconnection layer is provided on the first barrier layer, is separated from the main electrode by the first barrier layer, and is made of a material containing aluminum.
US09472626B2

A III-nitride semiconductor device which includes a barrier body between the gate electrode and the gate dielectric thereof.
US09472625B2

A power circuit is described that includes a semiconductor body having a common substrate and a Gallium Nitride (GaN) based substrate. The GaN based substrate includes one or more GaN devices adjacent to a front side of the common substrate. The common substrate is electrically coupled to a node of the power circuit. The node of the power circuit is at a particular potential that is equal to, or more negative than, a potential at one or more load terminals of the one or more GaN devices.
US09472623B2

A nitride semiconductor element capable of accommodating GaN electron transfer layers of a wide range of thickness, so as to allow greater freedom of device design, and a nitride semiconductor element package with excellent voltage tolerance performance and reliability. On a substrate, a buffer layer including an AlN layer, a first AlGaN layer (with an average Al component of 50%) and a second AlGaN layer (with an average Al component of 20%) is formed. On the buffer layer, an element action layer including a GaN electron transfer layer and an AlGaN electron supply layer is formed. Thus, an HEMT element is constituted.
US09472612B2

A method includes forming first, second, and third conductive leaf structures. The first conductive leaf structure includes a first conductive midrib and conductive veins. The second conductive leaf structure is electrically connected to the first conductive leaf structure, and includes a second conductive midrib, conductive veins extending toward the first conductive midrib, and conductive veins extending away from the first conductive midrib. The third conductive leaf structure includes a third conductive midrib between the first conductive midrib and the second conductive midrib, conductive veins extending toward the first conductive midrib, and conductive veins extending toward the second conductive midrib.
US09472609B2

Various embodiments provide computer program products and computer implemented methods. In some embodiments, aspects provide for a method of manufacturing a polysilicon resistor with a selected temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR), the method including selecting a sheet resistance for the polysilicon resistor, the selected sheet resistance being related to a selected film thickness of the polysilicon resistor, selecting a dose level for a grain size modulating species (GSMS) for modulating an average grain size of grains of the polysilicon resistor, selecting a thermal coefficient of resistance (TCR) for the polysilicon resistor, the TCR being related to a selected average grain size of the polysilicon and forming the polysilicon resistor on a substrate, the polysilicon resistor having the selected sheet resistance, the selected GSMS dose level and the selected TCR.
US09472605B2

An organic light-emitting diode display may have an array of pixels. Each pixel may have an organic light-emitting diode with an anode and cathode. The anodes may be formed from a patterned layer of metal. Thin-film transistor circuitry in the pixels may include transistors such as drive transistors and switching transistors. Data lines may supply data signals to the pixels and horizontal control lines may supply control signals to the gates of the transistors. A switching transistor may be coupled between a voltage initialization line and each anode. The voltage initialization lines and capacitor structures in the thin-film transistor circuitry may be formed using a layer of metal that is different than the layer of metal that forms the anodes.
US09472601B2

A technique of manufacturing a display device with high productivity is provided. In addition, a high-definition display device with high color purity is provided. By adjusting the optical path length between an electrode having a reflective property and a light-emitting layer by the central wavelength of a wavelength range of light passing through a color filter layer, the high-definition display device with high color purity is provided without performing selective deposition of light-emitting layers. In a light-emitting element, a plurality of light-emitting layers emitting light of different colors are stacked. The closer the light-emitting layer is to the electrode having a reflective property, the longer the wavelength of light emitted from the light-emitting layer is.
US09472593B2

A light source and method for making the same are disclosed. The light source includes a plurality of Segmented LEDs connected in parallel to a power bus and a controller. The power bus accepts a variable number of Segmented LEDs. The controller receives AC power and provides a power signal on the power bus. Each Segmented LED is characterized by a driving voltage that is greater than 3 times the driving voltage of a conventional LED fabricated in the same material system as the Segmented LED. The number of Segmented LEDs in the light source is chosen to compensate for variations in the light output of individual Segmented LEDs introduced by the manufacturing process. In another aspect of the invention, the number of Segmented LEDs connected to the power bus can be altered after the light source is assembled.
US09472592B2

An imaging device includes: a photodiode configured to perform photoelectric conversion and to generate electric charge in accordance with an amount of received light; a floating diffusion section configured to accumulate the electric charge generated in the photodiode; a reading circuit configured to output a pixel signal having a voltage in accordance with a level of the electric charge accumulated in the floating diffusion section, the reading circuit including one or a plurality of transistors each having a gate that is electrically connected to a wiring used for selecting a pixel; and an insulating section extending into part or whole of a bottom surface of the floating diffusion section, part or whole of bottom surfaces of source-drain regions in the one or the plurality of transistors, or both. The photodiode, the floating diffusion section, the reading circuit, and the insulating section are provided in a semiconductor layer.
US09472583B2

A method of manufacturing a display device including providing a substrate, forming a semiconductor layer on the substrate, forming a first insulating layer on the semiconductor layer, forming a metal layer on the first insulating layer, forming a second insulating layer on the metal layer, forming an etching buffer layer on the second insulating layer, forming a photosensitive film pattern on the etching buffer layer, and etching the etching buffer layer and the first and second insulating layers to expose the semiconductor layer.
US09472568B2

A semiconductor device is provided as follows. A peripheral circuit structure is disposed on a first substrate. A cell array structure is disposed on the peripheral circuit structure. A second substrate is interposed between the peripheral circuit structure and the cell array structure. The cell array structure includes a stacked structure, a through hole and a vertical semiconductor pattern. The stacked structure includes gate electrodes stacked on the second substrate. The through hole penetrates the stacked structure and the second substrate to expose the peripheral circuit structure. The vertical semiconductor pattern is disposed on the peripheral circuit structure, filling the through hole.
US09472551B2

A method for forming stacked, complementary transistors is disclosed. Selective deposition techniques are used to form a column having a lower portion that includes one type of semiconductor (e.g. germanium) and an upper portion of another type of semiconductor (e.g. indium arsenide. The lower portion of the column provides a channel region for a transistor of one type, while the upper column provides a channel region for a transistor of another type. This provides a complementary pair that occupies a minimum of integrated circuit surface area. The complementary transistors can be utilized in a variety of circuit configurations. Described are complementary transistors where the lower transistor is p-type and the upper transistor is n-type.
US09472547B2

A power element and a temperature sensing element are formed on the same semiconductor substrate, and one end of a PN junction of the temperature sensing element is connected to a ground potential (VSS) or a power supply potential (VDD) through an intermediation of a resistor. A sum of a potential difference between both ends of the PN junction and a potential difference between both ends of the resistor is used as a temperature detection signal. The temperature sensing element can thus be formed in a recess formed in the power element while avoiding latch-up.
US09472542B2

Some embodiments include a DRAM array layout. Wordlines extend along a first direction, and bitlines extend along a second direction that crosses the first direction. Cell active material structures are at intersections of the wordlines and bitlines. The cell active material structures have a first side coupled to a bitline and a second side coupled to a capacitor. The second side is on an opposite side of a wordline passing through a cell active material structure relative to the first side. Each cell active material structure has a connection to a bitline which is not shared with any other cell active material structures. Some embodiments include DRAM arrays and semiconductor constructions.
US09472540B2

Various embodiments of the present invention include a method for making a semiconductor device the method including disposing a first semiconductor chip on a first surface of a first substrate, the first substrate comprising a second surface opposing the first surface, depositing a first resin above the first semiconductor chip, disposing a built-in semiconductor device on the first resin. The built-in semiconductor device including a second substrate, a second semiconductor chip disposed on the second substrate, and a second resin that seals the second semiconductor chip. The method including depositing a third resin above the built-in semiconductor device and the first resin and covering a side surface of the first substrate and not extending beyond the second surface of the first substrate. According to an aspect of the present invention, it is possible to provide a high-quality semiconductor device fabrication method, in which downsizing and cost reduction can be realized.
US09472538B2

Fixing a semiconductor element to a substrate, electrically connecting signal and main terminals to the semiconductor element, a terminal aggregate includes a frame portion, the signal terminal, the main terminal, which has a larger width than the signal terminal, and a dummy terminal, and forming a to-be-encapsulated body in which the substrate, the semiconductor element, and the terminal aggregate are integrated, mounting the to-be-encapsulated body on a lower mold half such that a plurality of blocks formed in the lower mold half are meshed with the signal, main, and dummy terminals with no space left therebetween after the mounting, placing a bottom surface of an upper mold half on top surfaces of the plurality of blocks, and top surfaces of the signal, main, and dummy terminals to form a cavity for the substrate and the semiconductor element, and performing molding by injecting mold resin into the cavity are included.
US09472535B2

Tunable p-i-n diodes comprising Ge heterojunction structures are provided. Also provided are methods for making and using the tunable p-i-n diodes. Tunability is provided by adjusting the tensile strain in the p-i-n heterojunction structure, which enables the diodes to emit radiation over a range of wavelengths.
US09472534B2

A method of arranging a multiplicity of LEDs in packaging units includes defining a desired range for at least one photometric measurement variable for each of the packaging units; selecting an LED from the multiplicity of LEDs not yet arranged in one of the packaging units; measuring the at least one photometric measurement variable for the selected LED; equipping one of the packaging units containing fewer than N−1 LEDs with the selected LED; storing a measured value and a position of the selected LED in the packaging unit in a memory; repeating until the packaging units are equipped with N−1 LEDs; repeating and calculating the average value of the photometric measurement variable, equipping a packaging unit for which the calculated average value of the variable lies in a defined range with the selected LED; and storing the measured value and the position of the selected LED.
US09472515B2

Embodiments of the present disclosure are directed towards a method of assembling an integrated circuit package. In embodiments the method may include providing a wafer having an unpatterned passivation layer to prevent corrosion of metal conductors embedded in the wafer. The method may further include laminating a dielectric material on the passivation layer to form a dielectric layer and selectively removing dielectric material to form voids in the dielectric layer. These voids may reveal portions of the passivation layer disposed over the metal conductors. The method may then involve removing the portions of the passivation layer to reveal the metal conductors. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.
US09472514B2

To reduce radio frequency (RF) losses during operation of a radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) module, the RFIC module is fabricated such that at least one of an edge of the wirebond pad on the copper trace and a sidewall of the copper trace is free from high-resistivity plating material. The unplated portion provides a path for the RF current to flow around the high-resistivity material, which reduces the RF signal loss associated with the high resistivity plating material.
US09472512B1

Integrated circuits and methods of producing the same are provided. In an exemplary embodiment, an integrated circuit includes a substrate, where the substrate includes a buried oxide (BOX) layer positioned between a handle layer and a semiconductor layer. An electronic component overlies the buried oxide layer on a semiconductor layer side, and a gate line is electrically connected to the electronic component. A body line is also electrically connected to the electronic component. A first through BOX contact electrically connects the gate line with the handle layer, and a second through BOX contact electrically connects the body line with the handle layer.
US09472508B2

A semiconductor device structure and a method of fabricating the same are provided. The semiconductor structure includes a substrate and an interconnection structure formed over the substrate. The interconnection structure includes a first dielectric layer and a first stress-reducing structure formed in the first dielectric layer. The interconnection structure further includes a first conductive feature formed in the first dielectric layer, and the first conductive feature is surrounded by the first stress-reducing structure.
US09472503B2

An electrical device including an opening in a low-k dielectric material, and a copper including structure present within the opening for transmitting electrical current. A liner is present between the opening and the copper including structure. The liner includes a superlattice structure comprised of a metal oxide layer, a metal layer present on the metal oxide layer, and a metal nitride layer that is present on the metal layer. A first layer of the superlattice structure that is in direct contact with the low-k dielectric material is one of said metal oxide layer and a final layer of the superlattice structure that is in direct contact with the copper including structure is one of the metal nitride layers.
US09472497B2

A semiconductor device is disclosed. The semiconductor comprises a field effect transistor (FET) provided in a substrate, the FET including a plurality of gates, sources, and drains each extending in parallel along a longitudinal direction of the gates, the sources, and the drains; an upper electrode provided above the substrate with an insulating layer therebetween, the upper electrode having an opening where the FET is disposed, and a plurality of source extractions each connected to respective sources through via structures passing the insulating layer and to the upper electrode, the source extractions extending along the longitudinal direction.
US09472490B1

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide an integrated circuit (IC) structure with a recessed solder bump area, and methods of forming the same. An IC structure according to embodiments of the present disclosure can include: a semiconductor material, wherein an upper surface of the semiconductor material includes a non-recessed area and a recessed area laterally separated from each other, the recessed area of the upper surface being shaped to receive a solder bump therein; at least one first through-semiconductor via (TSV) positioned within the semiconductor material and including an upper surface protruding from the recessed area of the semiconductor material; and a metal layer formed over the recessed area and electrically connected to the at least one first TSV.
US09472486B2

A circuit device for controlling a transmission of a vehicle comprises an integrated circuit, which is mounted with a first surface on a first support surface of a circuit substrate and on a second surface opposite to the first surface comprises a heat-conducting surface for dissipating heat from the integrated circuit, in particular wherein the heat-conducting surface is designed as a contacting surface for contacting a heat sink.
US09472485B2

Flip chip packages are described that include two or more thermal interface materials (TIMs). A die is mounted to a substrate by solder bumps. A first TIM is applied to the die, and has a first thermal resistance. A second TIM is applied to the die and/or the substrate, and has a second thermal resistance that is greater than the first thermal resistance. An open end of a heat spreader lid is mounted to the substrate such that the die is positioned in an enclosure formed by the heat spreader lid and substrate. The first TIM and the second TIM are each in contact with an inner surface of the heat spreader lid. A ring-shaped stiffener may surround the die and be connected between the substrate and heat spreader lid by the second TIM.
US09472463B2

After forming an organic planarization layer (OPL) atop a substrate which includes a plurality of semiconductor fins and a gate structure thereon, the OPL is recessed such that uppermost surfaces of remaining portions of the OPL are located below an uppermost surface of the gate structure but above top surfaces of the semiconductor fins. The remaining portions of the OPL are patterned to expose semiconductor fins in a pFinFET region for subsequent ion implantation. Portions of the OPL that remain on the semiconductor fins in an nFinFET region act as an implantation mask to shield the semiconductor fins in the nFinFET region from the ion implantation.
US09472459B2

A divider which divides a wafer having a division start points formed along the scheduled divisions into a plurality of device chips. The divider includes a placement table on which a wafer is placed, and division unit adapted to divide the wafer on the placement table into a plurality of device chips starting from the division start points. The placement table includes: a plurality of spherical bodies having the same diameter; a container that accommodates the plurality of spherical bodies in close contact with each other; and a placement surface formed by connecting vertices of spherical surfaces of the plurality of spherical bodies that are accommodated in close contact with each other.
US09472456B2

Methods for selectively etching titanium and titanium nitride are disclosed. In some embodiments the method involve exposing a workpiece to a first solution to remove titanium nitride, exposing the workpiece to a second solution to remove titanium, and exposing the workpiece to a third solution to remove residual titanium nitride, if any. The solutions are formulated such that they may selectively remove titanium and/or titanium nitride, while not etching or not substantially etching certain other materials such as dielectric materials, oxides, and metals other than titanium.
US09472454B2

In a tungsten film forming method, a substrate having a recess is provided in a processing chamber, and a first tungsten film is formed on the substrate to fill the recess with a tungsten by simultaneously or alternately supplying WCl6 gas as a tungsten source and a reducing gas under a depressurized atmosphere of the processing chamber, and by reacting the WCl6 gas with the reducing gas while heating the substrate. Then, an opening is formed in the tungsten filled in the recess by supplying WCl6 gas into the processing chamber and etching an upper portion of the tungsten. Thereafter, a second tungsten film is formed on the substrate having the opening by simultaneously or alternately supplying the WCl6 gas and the reducing gas into the processing chamber, and by reacting the WCl6 gas with the reducing gas while heating the substrate.
US09472439B2

Provided are a reinforcing sheet which is capable of forming a secondary mounted semiconductor device excellent in impact resistance and which is capable of enhancing efficiency of a secondary mounting process; and a method for producing a secondary mounted semiconductor device using the reinforcing sheet. The present invention provides a reinforcing sheet for reinforcing a secondary mounted semiconductor device in which a primary mounted semiconductor device with a bump electrode formed on a first main surface is electrically connected to a wiring substrate through the bump electrode, wherein the reinforcing sheet includes a base material layer, a pressure-sensitive adhesive layer, and a thermosetting resin layer in this order, and the pressure-sensitive adhesive layer has a breaking strength of 0.07 MPa or more, and a melt viscosity of 4000 Pa·s or less at 60 to 100° C.
US09472432B1

Methods, systems and apparatuses for high throughput substrate transfer are provided. According to various embodiments, the methods and systems described use robots having dedicated end effectors for hot and cold wafers or other substrates). Throughput is increased by optimizing the transfer of both the hot and the cold wafers. Also described are wafer transfer apparatuses having end effectors configured for supporting either hot or cold wafers. In certain embodiments, dual arm robots having dedicated hot and cold wafer arms are provided. Also provided are methods of transferring substrates that to improve overall throughput. The methods involve transferring hot and cold substrates at different accelerations.
US09472428B2

A manufacturing method of electronic module components according to the present invention includes: forming a plurality of module components on a principal surface of a substrate; forming a groove by dicing between the module components; spraying a conductive paste toward the principal surface of the substrate; and separating the module components. The spraying is performed so that an angle formed between a spray direction and the principal surface is an angle θ. The angle θ is set so as to satisfy the following expression (1), assuming that a depth of the groove is D and a width of the groove is w. The expression (1) is tan−1(D/2w)≦θ≦tan−1(2D/w)
US09472427B2

A semiconductor device has a leadframe with first and second opposing surfaces and a plurality of notched fingers. The leadframe is mounted to a carrier. A first semiconductor die is mounted over the carrier between the notched fingers. Conductive TSVs are formed through the first semiconductor die. A bond wire is formed between a first contact pad on the first semiconductor die and notched finger. The conductive TSV are electrically connected to the bond wires. An encapsulant is deposited over the first semiconductor die and notched fingers. Bumps are formed over the first surface of the leadframe. The carrier is removed and the leadframe is singulated. The leadframe and first semiconductor die is mounted to a substrate. A second semiconductor die is mounted to a second contact pad on the first semiconductor die. A third semiconductor die is mounted to the second surface of the leadframe.
US09472416B2

Methods for surface interface engineering in semiconductor fabrication are provided herein. In some embodiments, a method of processing a substrate disposed atop a substrate support in a processing volume of a processing chamber includes: generating an ion species from an inductively coupled plasma formed within the processing volume of the processing chamber from a first process gas; exposing a first layer of the substrate to the ion species to form an ammonium fluoride (NH4F) film atop the first layer, wherein the first layer comprises silicon oxide; and heating the substrate to a second temperature at which the ammonium fluoride film reacts with the first layer to selectively etch the silicon oxide.
US09472405B2

A semiconductor power device of the present invention includes a first electrode and a second electrode, a breakdown voltage holding layer that is made of a semiconductor having a predetermined thickness and a predetermined impurity concentration, to which the first electrode and the second electrode are joined, and that has an active region in which carriers to generate electric conduction between the first electrode and the second electrode move, and an insulation film that is formed on the breakdown voltage holding layer and that has a high dielectric-constant portion having a higher dielectric constant than SiO2 at a part contiguous to the breakdown voltage holding layer.
US09472403B2

A SiC JFET that includes a plurality of trenches formed in a SiC semiconductor body of one conductivity each trench having a region of another conductivity formed in the bottom and sidewalls thereof.
US09472402B2

Increased protection of areas of a chip are provided by both a mask structure of increased robustness in regard to semiconductor manufacturing processes or which can be removed with increased selectivity and controllability in regard to underlying materials, or both. Mask structures are provided which exhibit an interface of a chemical reaction, grain or material type which can be exploited to enhance either or both types of protection. Structures of such masks include TERA material which can be converted or hydrated and selectively etched using a mixture of hydrogen fluoride and a hygroscopic acid or organic solvent, and two layer structures of similar or dissimilar materials.
US09472399B2

Three-dimensional germanium-based semiconductor devices formed on globally or locally isolated substrates are described. For example, a semiconductor device includes a semiconductor substrate. An insulating structure is disposed above the semiconductor substrate. A three-dimensional germanium-containing body is disposed on a semiconductor release layer disposed on the insulating structure. The three-dimensional germanium-containing body includes a channel region and source/drain regions on either side of the channel region. The semiconductor release layer is under the source/drain regions but not under the channel region. The semiconductor release layer is composed of a semiconductor material different from the three-dimensional germanium-containing body. A gate electrode stack surrounds the channel region with a portion disposed on the insulating structure and laterally adjacent to the semiconductor release layer.
US09472397B2

A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device includes performing a cycle a predetermined number of times, the cycle including supplying a first precursor containing a specific element and a halogen group to form a first layer and supplying a second precursor containing the specific element and an amino group to modify the first layer into a second layer. A temperature of the substrate is set such that a ligand containing the amino group is separated from the specific element in the second precursor, the separated ligand reacts with the halogen group in the first layer to remove the halogen group from the first layer, the separated ligand is prevented from being bonded to the specific element in the first layer, and the specific element from which the ligand is separated in the second precursor is bonded to the specific element in the first layer.
US09472385B2

The present invention provides a radio frequency (RF) power supply in a mass spectrometer. The power supply provides an RF signal to electrodes of a storage device to create a trapping field. The RF field is usually collapsed prior to ion ejection. In an illustrative embodiment the RF power supply includes a RF signal supply; a coil arranged to receive the signal provided by the RF signal supply and to provide an output RF signal for supply to electrodes of an ion storage device; and a shunt including a switch operative to switch between a first open position and a second closed position in which the shunt shorts the coil output.
US09472383B2

Provided is a copper or copper alloy target/copper alloy backing plate assembly in which the anti-eddy current characteristics and other characteristics required in a magnetron sputtering target are simultaneously pursued in a well balanced manner. This copper or copper alloy target/copper alloy backing plate assembly is used for magnetron sputtering, and the copper alloy backing plate is formed from low beryllium copper alloy or Cu—Ni—Si-based alloy. Further, with this copper or copper alloy target/copper alloy backing plate assembly, the copper alloy backing plate has electrical conductivity of 35 to 60% (IACS), and 0.2% proof stress of 400 to 850 MPa.
US09472381B2

A plasma reactor for abating hazardous materials included in process gases while being installed on an exhaust path of the process gases toward a vacuum pump is provided. The plasma reactor includes an insulator having a pipe shape through which process gases pass, a first ground electrode connected to a front end of the insulator facing the process chamber, a second ground electrode connected to a rear end of the insulator and provided with a facing part that faces a center of the inside of the insulator along the moving direction of process gases, and a driving electrode fixed to an external circumferential surface of the insulator and connected to a power supply applying an AC or RF voltage.
US09472375B2

A charged particle beam device provided with: a charged particle optical lens column generating a primary charged particle beam; a housing which has its inside evacuated by a vacuum pump; a first diaphragm that forms a part of the housing and able to keep an airtight state of the interior space of the housing; and a second diaphragm disposed between the first diaphragm and the sample, wherein a primary charged particle beam generated by the charged particle optical lens column is transmitted by or passes through the first diaphragm and the second diaphragm, and then is irradiated, on the sample that is in contact with the second diaphragm.
US09472373B1

A beam separator device (200) is described. The beam separator device (200) includes a first deflector (112) providing a first magnetic deflection field (B1) for deflecting a charged particle beam (101) propagating along a beam entrance axis (A1) by a first deflection angle (α1); a second deflector (114) arranged downstream from the first deflector (112) providing a second magnetic deflection field (B2) for deflecting the charged particle beam by a second deflection angle (α2) in the direction of an intermediate beam axis (A2), wherein the second deflector (114) is configured for deflecting the charged particle beam (102) re-entering the beam separator device (200) along the intermediate beam axis (A2) by a third deflection angle (α3); a third deflector (212) arranged downstream from the second deflector (114) providing a third magnetic deflection field (B2) for deflecting the charged particle beam (102) by a fourth deflection angle (α4) in the direction of a beam exit axis (A3); a first rotation-free lens to be arranged at a first crossover (X1) of the charged particle beam between the first deflector (112) and the second deflector (114) for at least partially compensating for a dispersion introduced by at least one of the first deflector and the second deflector; and a second rotation-free lens to be arranged at a second crossover (X2) of the charged particle beam between the second deflector (114) and the third deflector (212) for at least partially compensating for a dispersion introduced by at least one of the second deflector and the third deflector.
US09472363B2

A thermal protector has superiority in current responsiveness or thermal responsiveness with a simple configuration that does not need a separate manufacturing step of incorporating a resistor. At a stage of press processing for cutting from an original material, a movable plate body part of a movable plate is partitioned into a narrow-width part and a wide-width part by a slim hole. The movable plate is assembled to a fixed conductor with columns of an insulator, a bimetal is assembled to the movable plate, the entire configuration is pressed down by a resinous block, and the entire fixing part is fixed by melting tips of the columns. The wide-width part serves as a normal movable plate, whereas the narrow-width part serves as a conductor in a normal state and as a resistor against an overcurrent.
US09472360B2

Button assemblies using curable foam shims are disclosed. A button assembly may include a housing, a button positioned within the housing, and a curable foam shim positioned within the housing, the foam shim transformable between a compressible state having a first thickness, to a rigid state having a second thickness smaller than the first thickness. In this manner, the foam shim can be used to adaptively fill the interior of a button assembly by adapting to the dimensions of various components within the button assembly. In another example, a button assembly is formed using a foam shim by curing from a first state having a first thickness to a second state having a second thickness greater than the first thickness. In this manner, the foam shim can be used to adaptively fill the interior of a button assembly by adapting to the dimensions of various components within the button assembly.
US09472342B2

A stacked MLCC capacitor is provided wherein the capacitor stack comprises multilayered ceramic capacitors wherein each multilayered ceramic capacitor comprises first electrodes and second electrodes in an alternating stack with a dielectric between each first electrode and each adjacent second electrode. The first electrodes terminate at a first side and the second electrodes second side. A first transient liquid phase sintering conductive layer is the first side and in electrical contact with each first electrode; and a second transient liquid phase sintering conductive layer is on the second side and in electrical contact with each second electrode.
US09472338B2

This disclosure provides systems, methods and apparatus for wireless power transfer and particularly wireless power transfer to remote systems such as electric vehicles. In one aspect the disclosure provides for an apparatus for wirelessly transmitting power. The apparatus includes a first conductive structure configured to generate a first magnetic field in response to receiving a first time-varying signal from a power source. The apparatus includes a second conductive structure configured to generate a second magnetic field in response to receiving a second time-varying signal from the power source. The first and second structures are positioned to maintain a substantial absence of mutual coupling between the first and second magnetic fields.
US09472333B2

A planar type transformer includes: a multilayer substrate including a primary main winding pattern and a secondary main winding pattern that perform first power transmission, the primary main winding pattern and the secondary main winding pattern being stacked with an insulating layer interposed between the primary main winding pattern and the secondary main winding pattern; and an auxiliary winding that is disposed outside the multilayer substrate and performs second power transmission between the auxiliary winding and the primary main winding pattern or the secondary main winding pattern.
US09472332B2

A coil substrate includes a plurality of structural bodies, each of which comprises a first insulating layer, a wiring formed on the first insulating layer and configured to serve as a part of a spiral coil, and a second insulating layer formed on the first insulating layer and configured to cover the wiring. The plurality of structural bodies are stacked via an adhesion layer. The spiral coil is formed by series-connecting the wirings of adjacent ones of the plurality of structural bodies.
US09472323B2

A differential signal transmission cable is composed of a Twinax cable including twin electrically insulated wires, which are arranged side by side in contact with each other, and a drain wire, which is arranged in contact with and parallel to both of the twin electrically insulated wires, and a shield tape, which is wound around a circumference of the Twinax cable including the drain wire. When in cross sectional view, an isosceles triangle is defined as having, as its base, a line segment that joins respective centers of the twin electrically insulated wires, and as its vertex point, a center of the drain wire, the isosceles triangle has a vertex angle of not smaller than 74 degrees and not greater than 90 degrees.
US09472322B2

An electrical cable includes a cable jacket extending a length and having an internal passageway that extends along the length of the cable jacket. Twisted pairs of insulated electrical conductors extend within the internal passageway along the length of the cable jacket. Each twisted pair includes two insulated conductors twisted together in a helical manner. At least two optical fibers extend within the internal passageway along the length of the cable jacket. The optical fibers are independently held within the internal passageway of the cable jacket relative to each other.
US09472316B2

There are provided a dielectric composition for low-temperature sintering and a multilayer ceramic electronic component manufactured using the dielectric composition and the dielectric composition may contains: BaTiO3 as a main ingredient; and a Li2O—BaO compound as an accessory ingredient, wherein the accessory ingredient is contained in an amount of 0.2 mol % to 0.8 mol %, on the basis of 100 mol % of the main ingredient.
US09472310B2

A method is described for producing nuclear fuel products, including the steps of receiving metallic or intermetallic uranium-based fuel particle cores, providing at least one physical vapour deposited coating layer surrounding the fuel particle core and embedding the nuclear fuel particles in a matrix so as to form a powder mixture of matrix material and coated fuel particles. The at least one physical vapour deposited coating layer may include inhibitors of inhibiting, stabilizing and/or reducing interaction between metallic and intermetallic uranium-based fuel particles cores and the matrix wherein the fuel particles typically may be embedded. The deposited coating layer may include neutron poisons.
US09472309B1

An apparatus and method are disclosed for machine-replaceable plasma-facing tiles for fusion-power reactor environments. The apparatus and method involve a tile that is fish-scale shaped, and a tile support tube that is attached to the back portion of the tile. The tile support tube includes at least one coolant channel and at least one guard vacuum channel. In one or more embodiments, the method for removing the tile comprises providing a tile that is installed in a manifold channel of a first wall of a fusion power reactor, rotating the tile such that it is in an install/removal orientation, inserting two tines of a removal tool between the outer edges of the tile and the first wall of the fusion power reactor, rotating the removal tool such that the two tines grasp the tile support tube, and lifting the tile away from the wall with the removal tool.
US09472302B2

In accordance with some embodiments, fuse information may be written into a fuse array in a way that provides sufficient redundancy, making it harder for malicious parties to attack the fuse array.
US09472295B2

A nonvolatile semiconductor memory device according to one embodiment of the present invention includes: a memory cell array and a control circuit. The control circuit executes a first reading operation and a second reading operation. The first reading operation is an operation of reading a threshold voltage set in the selected memory cell by setting a voltage between a control gate electrode and source of the selected memory cell to a first value. The second reading operation is an operation of reading a threshold voltage set in the selected memory cell by setting a voltage between the control gate electrode and source of the selected memory cell to a second value lower than the first value. When executing the second reading operation, the control circuit keeps a voltage of the control gate electrode of the selected memory cell to 0 or a positive value.
US09472281B1

Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to non-volatile memory and, in particular, non-volatile memory with adjustable cell bit shapes. In one embodiment, an adjustable memory cell is provided. The memory cell generally includes a gate electrode, at least one recording layer and a channel layer. The channel layer generally is capable of supporting a depletion region and is disposed between the gate electrode and the at least one recording layer. In this embodiment, upon activating the gate, the channel layer may be depleted and current initially flowing through the channel may be steered through the at least one recording layer.
US09472277B2

According to one embodiment, a non-volatile memory device includes: first memory cell regions including first wirings extending in a first direction, second wirings extending in a second direction crossing the first direction, and first memory cells provided between the first wirings and the second wirings and being capable of changing resistance state; and second memory cell regions including third wirings extending in the first direction, fourth wirings extending in the second direction crossing the first direction, and second memory cells provided between the third wirings and the fourth wirings and being capable of changing resistance state, the second memory cell region having a smaller area than the first memory cell region in top view.
US09472273B2

A thin-film memory may include a thin-film transistor-free address decoder in conjunction with thin-film memory elements to yield an all-thin-film memory. Such a thin-film memory excludes all single-crystal electronic devices and may be formed, for example, on a low-cost substrate, such as fiberglass, glass or ceramic. The memory may be configured for operation with an external memory controller.
US09472269B2

Methods, systems, and structures for stress balancing field effect transistors subject to bias temperature instability-caused threshold voltage shifts. A method includes characterizing fatigue of a location in a memory array by skewing a bit line voltage of the location. The method also includes determining that the location is unbalanced based on the characterizing. Further, the method includes inverting a logic state of the location. Additionally, the method includes changing a value of an inversion indicator corresponding to the location.
US09472267B2

A static random access memory includes a first inverter and a second inverter, a first n-type metal-oxide-semiconductor (NMOS) transistor, and a second NMOS transistor. An output terminal of the first inverter is connected to an input terminal of the second inverter, and an input terminal of the first inverter is connected to an output terminal of the second inverter. The first NMOS transistor is configured to control a write signal, and the second NMOS transistor is configured to control a read signal. The first NMOS transistor is connected to the input terminal of the first inverter, the output terminal of the second inverter, a write word line, and a write bit line. The second NMOS transistor is connected to the output terminal of the first inverter, the input terminal of the second inverter, a read word line, and an internal line.
US09472258B2

A method of operating a memory device comprises receiving a first row address corresponding to a first word line in the first sub bank array and corresponding to a first word line in the second sub bank array, determining whether at least one of the first word lines has been replaced with a spare word line, (a) when neither of the first word lines has been replaced, receiving a first number of row addresses for refresh operations in order to refresh adjacent word lines to the first word lines, and (b) when at least one of the first word lines has been replaced with a spare word line, receiving a second number of row addresses for refresh operations in order to refresh adjacent word lines to any non-replaced first word and any spare word lines, wherein the second number is greater than the first number.
US09472255B2

A semiconductor device includes a data input/output circuit that has an ODT function and a DLL circuit that generates an internal clock for determining an operation timing of the data input/output circuit. The DLL circuit has a first mode for controlling a phase of the internal clock in a precise manner and a second mode for operating with low power consumption. When the data input/output circuit does not perform an ODT operation, the DLL circuit operates in the first mode, and when the data input/output circuit performs the ODT operation, the DLL circuit operates in the second mode. In this manner, the operation mode of the DLL circuit is switched over depending on the ODT operation, so that the power consumption in the ODT operation in which strict phase control is not required can be reduced.
US09472253B2

A semiconductor device disclosed in this disclosure includes a first terminal formed above a first surface of a semiconductor substrate, a second terminal formed above a second surface of the semiconductor substrate opposite to the first surface, a first through substrate via (TSV) penetrating the semiconductor substrate, and a first-in first-out (FIFO) circuit, wherein the first TSV and the FIFO circuit are coupled in series between the first terminal and the second terminal.
US09472252B2

Apparatuses and methods for improving retention performance of hierarchical digit lines are disclosed herein. An example apparatus may include a first digit line portion and a second digit line portion. The apparatus may further include a first selector configured to selectively couple the first digit line portion to the second digit line portion based, at least in part, on a first control signal. The apparatus may further include a second selector configured to selectively couple the second digit line portion to a voltage based, at least in part, on a second control signal.
US09472242B1

A storage base having an interior side and an exterior side is described. The storage drive base includes a slotted aperature, a flexible circuit and a sealing-adhesive barrier. The slotted aperature passes through the storage drive base from the interior side to the exterior side. The flexible circuit has a first end and a second end. The first end of the flexible circuit is installed in the slotted aperture and aligned so that the first end extends along an interior surface of the storage drive base in a location proximal to the slotted aperture. The sealing-adhesive barrier is applied between edges of the slotted aperture and the flexible circuit to form a hermetic seal between the exterior side and the interior side of the storage drive base.
US09472237B1

Embodiments of the present inventions are related to systems and methods for data processing, and more particularly to systems and methods for reducing inter-track interference in relation to processing data retrieved from a storage medium.
US09472231B2

An optical information recording medium has: a recording layer; a super-resolution functional layer; and a protective layer. Letting n be the refractive index of the protective layer with respect to a laser beam focused by a focusing optical system, λ, be the wavelength of the laser beam, and ds be the depth of recording marks, when the super-resolution functional layer is irradiated by the focused laser beam, it forms a focused light spot including central light that irradiates the recording marks and peripheral light that irradiates a region outside the central light. The optical information recording medium further satisfies either the condition that the central light has a positive phase difference with respect to the peripheral light and ds>λ/4n, or the condition that the central light has a negative phase difference with respect to the peripheral light and ds<λ/4n.
US09472223B1

Systems and methods are disclosed to perform media certification with different recording widths, in accordance with certain embodiments of the present disclosure. An apparatus may be configured to record data using at least two selectable recording widths. In some embodiments, the recording width may be controlled by adjusting a laser current supplied to a laser emitter of a heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) device. Certification data may be recorded to a storage medium at a selected recording width, with wider widths reducing testing time and narrower widths reducing wear on write heads. In some embodiments, an apparatus may be configured to record servo data using a first recording width to a storage medium, and record certification data using a second recording width. The drive may record servo data and certification during a first disc rotation, and may record servo data and read certification data during a second disc rotation.
US09472211B2

A magnetic recording system configured for recording to a bit patterned media using both hypertrack recording and shingled recording. The magnetic recording system includes a write pole with a notched trailing edge that results in a write bubble with a trailing edge that has two outer convex lobes separated by a centrally disposed concave region. By locating one of the lobes over first and second data tracks of a hypertrack, a proper alignment of the relative phase of the two tracks can be maintained. Further adjustment to the alignment can be achieved by adjusting the radial location of the write head.
US09472210B2

In one general embodiment, an apparatus includes a magnetic head. The magnetic head has a first portion and a second portion, the first portion and the second portion providing a tape bearing surface. The first portion has an opening at least partially encircling the second portion. The second portion has at least one array of transducers. A longitudinal axis of each of the at least one array of transducers is defined between opposite ends thereof, and is oriented at an angle relative to a line oriented orthogonally to the intended direction of tape travel thereacross, the angle being between 0.2° and about 10°. The second portion has a first edge oriented at a second angle between 0.2° and about 10° relative to the line, and a second edge opposite the first edge, the second edge being oriented at a third angle between 0.2° and about 10° relative to the line.
US09472205B2

Device voice recognition systems and methods are described herein. One example of a method for device voice recognition includes receiving a voice command, determining a number of devices relating to the voice command, and adjusting a setting of the number of devices based on the received voice command.
US09472202B2

The present invention relates to a method of evaluating intelligibility of a degraded speech signal received from an audio transmission system conveying a reference speech signal. The method comprises sampling said signals into reference and degraded signal frames, and forming frame pairs by associating reference and degraded signal frames with each other. For each frame pair a difference function representing disturbance is provided, which is then compensated for specific disturbance types for providing a disturbance density function. Based on the density function of a plurality of frame pairs, an overall quality parameter is determined. The method provides for compensating the overall quality parameter for the effect that the assessment of intelligibility of CVC words is dominated by the intelligibility of consonants.
US09472187B2

The present disclosure relates to training a speech recognition system. One example method includes receiving a collection of speech data items, wherein each speech data item corresponds to an utterance that was previously submitted for transcription by a production speech recognizer. The production speech recognizer uses initial production speech recognizer components in generating transcriptions of speech data items. A transcription for each speech data item is generated using an offline speech recognizer, and the offline speech recognizer components are configured to improve speech recognition accuracy in comparison with the initial production speech recognizer components. The updated production speech recognizer components are trained for the production speech recognizer using a selected subset of the transcriptions of the speech data items generated by the offline speech recognizer. An updated production speech recognizer component is provided to the production speech recognizer for use in transcribing subsequently received speech data items.
US09472172B1

A guitar pick dispenser may include a dispenser body. The dispenser body may include a bottom and a side wall attached to the bottom. The sidewall may define an opening opposite the bottom. A false bottom may be connected to the bottom by a resilient member. The resilient member may be configured to bias the false bottom toward the opening. A guitar pick retainer may be slidably disposed on the dispenser body. The guitar pick retainer may be further configured to partially cover the opening.
US09472162B2

In one implementation, the method includes applying color gamut mapping directly to incoming RGB color coordinates resulting in mapped source coordinates R″G″B″. The source coordinates are then transformed into target coordinates R′G′B′. According to another implementation, incoming source coordinates RGB are transformed into target coordinates R″G″B″ and the color gamut mapping is applied directly to the target coordinates R″G″B″ resulting in mapped target coordinates R′G′B′.
US09472160B2

Display apparatus, multi display system, and control method are provided. The display apparatus which comprises a display unit displaying an image, the display apparatus include: a storing unit in which information about a maximum resolution of the display unit is stored; a signal processing unit which captures an area of an input image signal of a high resolution, and processes the captured image signal to enable the display unit to display the input image signal if the input image signal has a resolution higher than the maximum resolution of the display unit stored in the storing unit; and an output unit which outputs the image signal input to the signal processing unit to an outside. With this, display apparatus, a multi media system and a control method thereof are capable of displaying an input image signal having resolution higher than a maximum resolution of a display unit.
US09472159B2

An approach is provided for annotating point of interest information to structures. One or more representations of at least one structure are determined. One or more partitions of the at least one structure is determined based, at least in part, on one or more features of the one or more representations. One or more points of interest associated with the at least one structure are determined. One or more points of interest are determined to be rendered for presentation based, at least in part, on the one or more partitions.
US09472157B2

A device according to an embodiment includes an array substrate including electrodes corresponding to pixels arranged in a matrix, a color filter substrate opposed to the array substrate and including color filters corresponding to the pixels, a liquid crystal layer provided between the substrates, a backlight, and a controller which controls the substrates and the backlight. The pixels are configured to each have a parallelogrammatic shape elongated in a lateral direction, such that identical colors are arranged in the lateral direction, and different colors are arranged in a vertical direction. Pixels neighboring in the lateral direction are in line-symmetry with respect to a center line of the neighboring pixels. Liquid crystal molecules have negative dielectric constant anisotropy, and rotate horizontally relative to a substrate plane in a direction of the line-symmetry with respect to the center line when the voltage is applied to the electrodes of the neighboring pixels.
US09472156B2

The present invention discloses a gamma voltage generator of a display driving device. The gamma voltage generator comprises a first reference voltage generator; a switch coupled to the first reference voltage generator; and a plurality of resistors connected in serial and coupled to the switch; wherein the switch controls a connection between the first reference voltage generator and the plurality of resistors.
US09472152B2

A circuit for driving a liquid crystal display includes a high selection unit turned on by a high selection signal, a low selection unit turned on by a low selection signal and transferring a low data signal to one side of the first storage capacitor, a high transfer unit connected to one side of the first storage capacitor, turned on by a high transfer signal and transferring voltage, a low transfer unit connected to one side of the first storage capacitor, turned on by a low transfer signal and transferring the voltage stored at one side of the first storage capacitor to one side of the liquid crystal capacitor, and a reset unit connected to one side of the liquid crystal capacitor, turned on by a reset signal and transferring a center voltage to one side of the liquid crystal capacitor.
US09472149B2

A display apparatus includes a display panel having a first liquid crystal layer, a timing controller that converts image signals to have gray scales corresponding to a first reference value, and compensates the converted image signals to over-drive the first liquid crystal layer, the first reference value being a product of a refractive index anisotropy and a thickness of the first liquid crystal layer, a first driver that converts the compensated image signals to voltages that drive the first liquid crystal layer, a liquid crystal lens panel including a second liquid crystal layer, a liquid crystal lens controller that generates lens signals corresponding to a second reference value defined by a product of a refractive index anisotropy and a second thickness of the second liquid crystal layer, and a second driver that convert the lens signals to voltages that drive the second liquid crystal layer.
US09472144B2

A display system, having an emissive body, emitting light in a way that is color temperature controllable. The light emission can be from zones. The emissive body can be a FIPEL type device with a first transparent conductive coating over a light emitting substrate. The zones are each separately controllable for color temperature.
US09472143B2

A pixel structure and driving method thereof, a display panel and a display device. The pixel structure includes a plurality of sub-pixels arranged in a form of array, each sub-pixel is driven by a thin film transistor; wherein, sub-pixels provided in a same row are driven by two gate lines located thereon and thereunder; one data line serves to drive two columns of sub-pixels located on two sides of it; a plurality of sub-pixels in two adjacent rows that are driven by one data line constitute one pixel unit. For the pixel structure, there is further provided a driving method, and the pixel structure is easy to be driven and has a simple sequence control.
US09472142B2

A liquid crystal display (LCD) device includes a first LCD panel and a second LCD panel. The first LCD panel is arranged on a backlight source, and is the black mode, the second LCD panel is the white mode. A response time of the first LCD panel changing from the black mode to the white mode is less than a response time of the second LCD panel changing from the black mode to the white mode, and a response time of the first LCD panel changing from the white mode to the black mode is longer than a response time of the second LCD panel changing from the white mode to the black mode.
US09472137B2

An organic light emitting display device includes a substrate including a display area on which a plurality of pixels are formed and a non-display area surrounding the display area; a first power line positioned on a lower non-display area; an auxiliary power line positioned on an upper non-display area; a first power supply supplying a first voltage to the first power line; and an auxiliary power supply supplying an auxiliary voltage to the auxiliary power line. Accordingly, it is possible to provide an organic light emitting display device capable of equalizing luminance by minimizing a variation in power supplied to each pixel.
US09472122B2

An anatomical simulation training device is disclosed in an embodiment herein. The anatomical device includes an anatomical model comprising a quadrant of a torso. The model includes a first opening and a second opening, wherein a first passageway connects between the first and the second opening. The model further includes a third opening, wherein a second passageway connects between the third opening and the second opening. The first passageway is configured to receive a first conduit, and the second passageway is configured to receive a second conduit. The first and second conduits are removable and replaceable. The model is comprised of, in part or in whole, a hydrogel, and said model quadrant torso mimics at least a portion of a human or non-human animal quadrant torso, and simulates at least one predetermined physical characteristic of a human or non-human animal torso with at least fifty percent or more similarity.
US09472118B2

A DJ table simulation apparatus that allows a DJ to practice different turntablism and scratching techniques without the use of a full turntable, mixer, and DJ equipment set up. The DJ table simulation apparatus is a portable tool that provides a platform for DJs to build up muscle memory and perfect the manipulation of vinyl records and sliders back and forth without requiring the use of electric powered turntables and mixer. The DJ table simulation apparatus is comprised of a modified turntable platter, a modified vinyl record, crossfader channels, and volume channels.
US09472116B2

One embodiment includes a computer-implemented method and system in a network environment using at least a display and a detached sensor. Another embodiment includes a computer-implemented system helping a user learn using a detached imaging sensor. In yet another embodiment, a computer-implemented system monitors automatically more than once a user's behavior while the user is working on materials. Through monitoring the user's voluntary or involuntary behavior, the system determines what to present by the display. The presentation could include providing rewards, punishments, stimulation, and other materials. The system can also react by asking the user a question. Based on the user's response, the system may change to more appropriate materials, or different presentation styles.
US09472114B2

Under the present invention a plurality of learning objects for an educational program are provided. Based on the selections, a solution scenario having contextual data for interrelating the plurality of learning objects is developed, and is maintained separately from each of the plurality of learning objects. Using the solution scenario, the plurality of learning objects are aggregated to form the educational program.
US09472111B2

Augmented autobrake systems useful in preventing accidents related to runway incursions are provided, as are related processes and program products. In one embodiment, the augmented autobrake system is deployed on an aircraft and utilized in conjunction with a Runway Warning and Status Lights (RWSL) system. The augmented autobrake system includes a wireless receiver configured to receive runway status data from the RWSL system, an aircraft brake mechanism, and a controller coupled to the wireless receiver and to the aircraft brake mechanism. The controller is configured to: (i) identify when the aircraft is projected to enter a runway incursion zone based at least in part upon the runway status data and vector data pertaining to the aircraft, and (ii) when the aircraft is projected to enter a runway incursion zone, commanding the aircraft brake mechanism to stop the aircraft prior to entry into the runway incursion zone.
US09472103B1

A method includes identifying, by an electronic tolling system, a node. The node is associated with a vehicle. The node is configured to identify the vehicle to the electronic tolling system. The method identifies, by the electronic tolling system, a vehicle height calculation system. The method receives, by the electronic tolling system, a height for the vehicle from the vehicle height calculation system. The method receives by the electronic tolling system, a height limit. The height limit is associated with one or more roadways for which the electronic tolling system is configured to collect tolls. The method compares, by the electronic tolling system, the vehicle height to the height limit. The method is responsive to the vehicle height is greater than the height limit, by generating, by the electronic tolling system, an alert. The method sends the alert from the electronic tolling system to an alert display.
US09472100B2

There is a system for RFID tag-based vehicle locating and sequencing at a site comprising a first vehicle or movable asset, having at least one tag, and a plurality of other vehicles in the site having tags and reference tags located within the site, whereby the communication between the first vehicle and other ATs and RTs allow locating (in one of a parking spot, a virtual parking spot or a boundary) and sequencing of the first asset.
US09472095B2

A second housing 200 is capable of moving in a direction in which the second housing covers one surface of a first housing 100. Oscillating elements of an oscillating element group 400 are arranged in a matrix and oscillate sound waves outward from the one surface of the first housing 100. A control unit controls the plurality of oscillating elements. A sound wave sensor constitutes the same matrix as the plurality of oscillating elements and detects sound waves having a specific wavelength. The detection results of the sound wave sensor are output to the control unit. A frame body holds the plurality of oscillating elements and the sound wave sensor. The control unit oscillates sensor sound waves having a specific wavelength outward from at least one of the oscillating elements. The control unit determines that the second housing 200 covers the one surface of the first housing 100 when the sound wave sensor detects the sound waves having the specific wavelength.
US09472094B2

A display device includes a display portion for displaying a video, a generator for generating a synchronization signal including a command signal synchronized with display of frame images of the video and a transmitter for transmitting the synchronization signal. The command signal including a predetermined member of pulse signals has a leading pulse signal for notifying a start of the command signal, a terminal pulse signal for notifying an end of the command signal and a control pulse signal for notifying a content of synchronization control synchronized with the display of the frame images.
US09472091B2

Methods and apparatus for providing indications of received emergency alert messages to devices within a consumer premises are disclosed. In one embodiment, a consumer premise equipment (CPE) receiving one or more emergency alert messages from a content provider or managed network determines one or more alert responses for one or more devices of the consumer premise network. In one implementation, the responses are based at least in part on the received emergency alert messages themselves. The CPE issues one or more commands to one or more devices present within the consumer premises (which may be for example a home automation system), to indicate the one or more determined alert indication responses, such as auditory alert and visual alert by the one or more devices. Thus, users in the consumer premises may be made aware of an alert message outside of the typical means in which an alert is displayed, such as via a television.
US09472086B2

Embodiments provide a system and method for noise detection.
US09472084B1

Monitoring circuitry monitors a computing device for configuration changes and performance changes. The monitoring circuitry also logs that data (CDD and PDD data) to a database. An analysis circuit analyzes the CDD and PDD data to determine whether an anomaly exists. If the analysis circuit determines that an anomaly exists, it generates an alarm to alert appropriate personnel to the anomaly.
US09472083B2

A system for event triggering comprises an interface and a processor. An interface configured to receive a face tracking data and receive a sensor data. The processor configured to determine a degree of drowsiness based at least in part on the face tracking data and the sensor data; in the event that the degree of drowsiness is greater than a first threshold, capture data; and in the event that the degree of drowsiness is greater than a second threshold, provide a warning.
US09472076B2

A method of supervising intruder alarm systems, each alarm system comprising a plurality of alarm sensors and at least one gateway communicating with a remote alarm receiving center. The method includes the steps: a) receiving in a first intruder alarm system radio signals transmitted from a second intruder alarm system, b) transmitting from said first intruder alarm system information relating to the received radio signals to said remote alarm receiving center, c) analysing in said remote alarm receiving center information received from intruder alarm systems to identify at least one first intruder alarm system and at least one second intruder alarm system capable of exchanging information via radio signals, d) transmitting from said remote alarm receiving center control signals to said first intruder alarm system and to said second intruder alarm system to operate as a supervising system by monitoring radio signals from the other intruder alarm system operating as a supervised system, e) observing in either one of said first intruder alarm system and said second intruder alarm system absence of the monitored radio signals, and f) transmitting from a supervising alarm system an alarm signal when absence of said monitored signals is detected.
US09472069B2

A single Point of Recordation Terminal (PORT) is disclosed. The PORT is configured to detect one or more events of interest, generate one or more representations of the event and establish the timing relationship among the multiple representations of the event of interest. The PORT is further configured to associate a unique ID of the PORT with the representations, encrypt and upload the representations to the cloud.
US09472065B2

A gaming system including a cascading symbol game which utilizes a plurality of interacting symbols. In certain embodiments, the cascading symbol game utilizes a plurality of symbol display position matrices or grids. Each symbol display position matrix includes a plurality of symbol display positions. In operation, the gaming system generates and displays a symbol at each symbol display position of each employed symbol display position matrix, wherein the gaming system utilizes a separate set or pool of available symbols for each employed symbol display position matrix. Upon an occurrence of an interacting symbol triggering event, such as the shifting of one or more symbols between symbol display position matrices, the gaming system causes one or more symbols to interact to provide one or more benefits to a player.
US09472064B2

This concept is directed to gaming devices configured to vary the speed of game play, as well as method of operating gaming devices to vary the speed of play. In some examples of the this concept, a gaming device may be configured to include a game initiating button that when pressed by a player triggers a game processor to ascertain and display a first game outcome, determine if the first game outcome is a winning outcome, and automatically ascertain and display a second game outcome if the first game outcome is not a winning outcome. If the first game outcome is a winning outcome the gaming device may pause to allow the player to appreciate the win before retriggering the processor to ascertain and display subsequent gaming event outcomes, or the gaming device may wait to receive further player input.
US09472052B2

On a network of electronic gaming machines, data regarding the performance of the machines or the players of the machines is collected and processed to make predictions of future jackpots and recommendations of games to play. The predictions and recommendations are delivered via at least one virtual persona that communicates with players or potential players via displays in a casino or on a web browser, via smartphone. Players can conduct conversations with the persona using cellular telephone, text messaging, or other types of Internet communications.
US09472051B2

A gaming system and method enables a player to assign at least one amplifier to at least one accumulator. In one embodiment, the amplifier causes an increase in the rate of advancement for the accumulator. In one embodiment, the gaming system provides the player any awards associated with the level of one or more of the accumulators.
US09472049B2

A wagering game system and its operations are described herein. In some embodiments, the operations can include determining that a mobile device, associated with a player, is brought to a casino. The mobile device runs an application that may have been downloaded and installed on the mobile device prior to the mobile device being brought to the casino. The operations can further include generating an offer to perform an activity within the casino. The award is attainable via performance of the activity. The operations can include providing information about the offer to the mobile device. The mobile device presents the offer via the application. The application can specify the award and the activity to perform. The operations can further include detecting performance of the activity via player input via one or more wagering game machines within the casino, and providing the award in response to the performance of the activity.
US09472046B2

Managing a plurality of electronic gaming machines includes receiving a designation at a first electronic gaming machine (EGM) that the first EGM is a service gateway, broadcasting to other EGMs of the plurality of EGMs that the first EGM is the service gateway, and performing at least one of: discovering the other EGMs, identifying the other EGMs as client EGMs, and obtaining data from all of the client EGMs and retrieving crash data from all of the client EGMs, and communicating with a server to request performance of the at least one of the operations on selected ones of the plurality of EGMs.
US09472045B2

The invention relates to a method and a system for managing a parking space for a vehicle, for a space comprising means for detecting whether the space is occupied and at least one power-charging terminal suitable for automatic charging, especially automatic electrical charging following manual correction. Said method comprises, within a so-called occupation monitoring phase (as opposed to other phases such as a non-allocated vehicle storage phase): detection of a state of presence or absence of a vehicle or an object occupying the managed space, and detection of a state of connection or disconnection (operation or state) of a vehicle at the charging terminal. According to the invention, said method also comprises, in the event of a detection of presence without detection of connection, at least one so-called parking processing operation, for example, emitting at least one alert by acoustic or visual means, or recording or emitting at least one computer message.
US09472044B2

A coat check system is provided to replace traditional coat check services with a conveyor assembly, storage units, and a control terminal. The need for human attendants is negated, with patrons at establishments interacting with the control terminal in order to gain access to one of the storage units. A drive mechanism moves the storage units along a track of the conveyor assembly, with the storage units being moved toward an item transfer section to grant a patron access to one of the storage units. The storage unit can be open (for example a simple hangar) or enclosed, including a lateral surface, floor, drain, air vent, and door for access. Interaction with the control terminal is facilitated by a user input device and an information output device which are mounted into a housing of the control terminal. Multiple payment options and wireless connectivity are also provided for the control terminal.
US09472043B2

Systems and methods for users of an automated retail store, vending unit, digital signage or interactive retail display (self-service units) to interact with such display/unit, collectively referred to in this text as a machine, directly and/or simultaneously using a one or more mobile devices. In addition, system and methods are provided that can recognize registered users within a set proximity to the machine and broadcast messages and notifications such as machine information, inventory information, rewards, discounts and free products, all of which could be tailored to the specific user based on understanding gathered through analysis of prior interactions.
US09472042B2

Techniques are described to substantially reduce a return of wrong DVD or return of a right DVD in an improperly sized DVD case to a DVD rental kiosk. An RFID tag on the DVD, as well as an RFID tag on the case, are sensed external to the kiosk. A controllable shutter normally closes the return slot and is driven open only upon detecting the correct predetermined condition or conditions. A supplemental camera may be employed to detect if a single DVD in its case is being placed proximate the return slot by the user. Help screens are employed as part of the above described system to reduce potential customer frustration from returning a DVD to the wrong DVD rental kiosk and the like.
US09472017B2

Various improvements may lead to reducing or avoiding artifacts in curved planar reformation imaging. The source of voxels used in projection rendering may be verified to be from the vessels rather than intervening anatomy. To make the check more rapid, a hierarchal data structure may be used. Rather than using the vessels, geometric forms fit to the vessels may be used. Processing with geometric forms may be more rapid than a fine mesh or surface. Since tubular structures have a predictable change over length, the geometric forms or the vessel data itself may be filtered with a monotonicity constraint. Instead of using planes for segments based on the lumen or center line, a convex hull around the tubular structures is formed for the curved planar reformation.
US09472015B2

A business management system for visualizing transactional data objects in real time is provided. An example system accesses a stream of transactional data objects and generates a in a three-dimensional graphical paradigm. A viewer may manipulate the presentation of the transactional data objects by engaging gestures and visual controls that may be provided on a display screen.
US09472006B2

A system and method for label placement is disclosed that achieves the twin goals of practical efficiency and high labeling quality by employing cartographic heuristics. A caller defines map and label properties. Then labels are pulled within a map boundary. Labels are next ordered by priority in descending importance. The order of testing labels is determined. Attempts are made to move overlapping labels. This is an iterative process; therefore there must be criteria that halt the procedure. Upon reaching an acceptable solution, the label properties are adjusted to reflect the new label placements.
US09472001B2

The image reconstruction method includes performing a forward projection of a first image of an object using a line integral-based value and a point spread function (PSF)-based value to acquire a forward projection value, and performing a back projection of raw image data using the forward projection value to acquire a second image of the object.
US09472000B2

Systems and methods for tomographic reconstruction of an image include systems and methods for producing images from k-space data. A k-space data set of an imaged object is acquired using know k-space data acquisition systems and methods. A portion of the k-space data set is sampled so as to collect some portion of the k-space data. An image is then reconstructed from the collected portion of the k-space data set according to a convex optimization model.
US09471997B2

When a scene is generated, a content item may identify graphics object service requests associated with the scene. Each scene may have any number of associated graphics object service requests that may be sent to any number of different graphics object services. The graphics object services may be accessible over a network such as the Internet. By requesting object data from graphics object services, a content item may, for example, reduce at least part of the computational burden on a graphics processing unit of a client device.
US09471987B2

Disclosed herein is a framework for facilitating automatic planning for medical imaging. In accordance with one aspect, the framework receives first image data of a subject. One or more imaging parameters may then be derived using a geometric model and at least one reference anatomical primitive detected in the first image data. The geometric model defines a geometric relationship between the detected reference anatomical primitive and the one or more imaging parameters. The one or more imaging parameters may be presented, via a user interface, for use in acquisition, reconstruction or processing of second image data of the subject.
US09471985B2

A method for localizing a fiducial marker in a medical image includes: obtaining the medical image; and performing an analysis, using an analysis unit, to localize the fiducial marker in the medical image; wherein the fiducial marker is localized by the analysis unit without use of a marker template.
US09471983B2

An information processing device according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a detection unit, a calculation unit, a determination unit, and an estimation unit. The detection unit detects each three-dimensional position of a plurality of parts of an instruction object for indicating an image output surface. The calculation unit calculates an intersection point of a direction indicated by the instruction object and the image output surface based on each three-dimensional position of the parts of the instruction object. The determination unit determines whether the intersection point is within a predetermined range on the image output surface. The estimation unit estimates a position indicated by the instruction object on the image output surface based on the determination made by the determination unit.
US09471963B2

A depth noise filtering method and apparatus is provided. The depth noise filtering method may perform spatial filtering or temporal filtering according to depth information. In order to perform spatial filtering, the depth noise filtering method may determine a characteristic of a spatial filter based on depth information. Also, in order to perform temporal filtering, the depth noise filtering method may determine a number of reference frames based on depth information. The depth noise filtering method may adaptively remove depth noise according to depth information and thereby enhance a noise filtering performance.
US09471961B2

A method of rotating an original image includes performing a self-learning using addresses related to at least one page miss and generating address generation rules using a result of the self-learning. The method includes pre-fetching the original image from a memory device based on the address generation rules to obtain a pre-fetched image and generating a rotated image using the pre-fetched image.
US09471960B2

A display apparatus includes an image input unit capable of inputting an image in a first format in which a first resolution in a first direction is higher than a second resolution in a second direction and an image in a second format in which the second resolution is higher than the first resolution, a determination unit configured to determine whether a format of the image input via the image input unit is the first format or the second format, a rotation unit configured to rotate the image such that the first and second directions are replaced with each other, a rotation controller configured to control the rotation unit depending on the format of the image, and a display unit configured to display an output image from the rotation unit.
US09471953B1

A table with a digital display screen in communication with a computer tablet or cell phone for transfer of display digital content information to the screen via one or more HDMI cables. A method for using the table includes adapting the table to be used as a scorer's table and providing advertising and player and game information on the digital display screen.
US09471940B2

Operational data and metrics from a Self-Service Terminal (SST) network are continuously acquired in a first format at a server. The first format is normalized and delivered to a configured mobile application on a mobile device. The mobile application selectively renders the operational awareness data/metrics for the SST network within one or more screens of a display on the mobile device. The operator of the mobile application can define views of the data/metrics, define alerts or notifications to propagate, and interact with the data/metrics to obtain more or less detail for that data/metrics.
US09471933B2

A dimensional translator may automatically translate a dimension from an entity to a different dimension of another entity. The dimensional translator may do so by comparing attributes of the input dimension (the dimension to be translated) to attributes of a target data structure. An attribute may include, for example, hierarchy of a data structure, relationships of a data structure, a keyword associated with a data structure, and a data value associated with the data structure. The dimensional translator may automatically determine how a target entity would categorize the item. In particular, a Universal Product Code dimension of an item provided by an entity may be translated into a data structure of a target entity such as a retailer in order to determine how an item identified by the UPC will be categorized by the retailer.
US09471930B2

A method and system for delivering offers is provided. The method includes enabling for a user via a device, a Web browser and an associated URL. A processor determines a manufacturer and model of the device and that the device is associated with a shared device list. A user agent receives the manufacturer and model of the device and the processor transmits the user agent, the manufacturer and model of the device, and the associated URL. The manufacturer and model of the hardware device is extracted from the user agent and a rules engine is evaluated with respect to the manufacturer and model of the device. Specified content associated with the device is determined based on results of the evaluation. The specified content is transmitted to the Web browser.
US09471916B2

A method, a system, and a computer program product are provided for wireless establishment of identity via bi-directional radio-frequency identification (RFID). The method is implemented in a computer infrastructure having computer executable code tangibly embodied on a computer readable storage medium having programming instructions operable for sending device data including at least a username and a password to a transceiver. The method also includes receiving an identifier of an access point in a wireless network from the transceiver, the transceiver sending the device data to the access point via a security server. The device data is sent to the access point based on the identifier of the access point, the access point establishing a secure connection to the computer infrastructure based on the device data received from the transceiver and the computer infrastructure.
US09471915B2

A beverage holder apparatus includes a chip unit attached to a beverage holder and adapted to communicate with a chip unit reader to perform a payment transaction to purchase the beverage. The chip unit stores an account identifier associated with a financial account, and transmits the stored account identifier to the chip unit reader to perform the payment transaction.
US09471908B2

Embodiments of the invention are directed to a system, method, or computer program product for receiving a customization that will be displayed on the screen of an ATM based on a customer initiating a session with the ATM. The customization is associated with a function to perform a financial transaction. The function is performed as a result of the customer interacting with the customization on the screen of the ATM. The customization may be altered based on a handicap impairment of the customer. The displaying of the customization may be restricted for security purposes or as a request of the customer.
US09471905B2

A method, a system, and a computer program product for processing a plurality of electronic documents are provided. The method includes marking at least one area in an electronic document selected from the plurality of electronic documents. The marked at least one area is then matched with corresponding area in the remaining electronic documents of the plurality of electronic documents. A score is computed for each of the remaining electronic documents of the plurality of electronic documents based on the matching. The plurality of electronic documents is then grouped into one or more groups based on the score.
US09471897B1

A computer-implemented method includes identifying a document that is operated upon by a real-time collaborative editing system. The document includes a first active region and additional active regions. The method identifies a first node and one or more additional nodes, all accessing the document via the real-time collaborative editing system. The method identifies a second node that is one of the one or more additional nodes. The method identifies a second active region, which is one of the additional active regions. The method identifies a first node view, which displays the first active region via the first node. The method identifies a second node view. The second node view displays the second active region via the second node. The method responds to input from the first node by creating a third node view that is displayed via the second active region and presented via the first node.
US09471889B2

A method for updating an event sequence includes acquiring video data of a queue area from at least one image source; searching the frames for subjects located at least near a region of interest (ROI) of defined start points in the video data; tracking a movement of each detected subject through the queue area over a subsequent series of frames; using the tracking, determining if a location of the a tracked subject reaches a predefined merge point where multiple queues in the queue area converge into a single queue lane; in response to the tracked subject reaching the predefined merge point, computing an observed sequence of where the tracked subject places among other subjects approaching an end-event point; and, updating a sequence of end-events to match the observed sequence of subjects in the single queue lane.
US09471880B2

Systems and methods that employ interactions between quantum computing systems and digital computing systems are described. For an iterative method, a quantum computing system may be designed, operated, and/or adapted to provide a rate of convergence that is greater than the rate of convergence of a digital supercomputer. When the digital supercomputer is iteratively used to evaluate an objective function at a cost incurred of C per iteration, the quantum computing system may be used to provide the input parameter(s) to the objective function and quickly converge on the input parameter(s) that optimize the objective function. Thus, a quantum computing system may be used to minimize the total cost incurred CT for consumption of digital supercomputer resources when a digital supercomputer is iteratively employed to evaluate an objective function.
US09471879B2

Provided are techniques for dynamic mathematical validation using data mining. As text is being received, a mathematical statement is identified in the text based on context of the text. A mathematical solution to the mathematical statement is identified in the text based on the context of the text. It is determined that the mathematical solution is incorrect using data mining. In response to determining that auto-correction is to be performed, the mathematical solution is corrected.
US09471876B2

Methods and systems for creating one or more statistical classifiers. A first set of performance parameters, corresponding to the one or more applications and the one or more computing infrastructures, is extracted from a historical data pertaining to the execution of the one or more applications on the one or more computing infrastructures. Further, a set of application-specific and a set of infrastructure-specific parameters are selected, from the first set of performance parameters, based on one or more statistical techniques. A similarity between each pair of the applications, each pair of the computing infrastructures, and each pair of possible combinations of an application and a computing infrastructure is determined. One or more statistical classifiers are created, based on the determined similarity.
US09471868B2

A hang tag may be disclosed. The hang tag can include an RFID tag, a hole, and an upper and lower portion separated by a perforation. The hang tag can additionally be manufactured on a web whereby once the tag is removed from the web, substantially no tackiness may remain on the hang tag.
US09471867B2

Method of manufacturing at least one card each including an electronic module (2), this method providing a frame (14) or a plate (18) having at least one aperture (16) provided for receiving said electronic module. It is characterized in that at least one part of the peripheral area of said at least one aperture is deformed or crushed by localized application of pressure to said at least one part of the peripheral area on the frame or plate, so as to reduce locally the thickness of the frame or plate in said at least one part of the peripheral area, in that the electronic module is brought opposite the corresponding aperture so that at least one zone of the electronic module is superposed on said at least one part of the peripheral area, and in that a material connection is established between said at least one part of the peripheral area and said at least one corresponding zone of the electronic module for assembling said electronic module to the frame or plate before a resin is added at least on one side of the electronic module in a subsequent step of the method.
US09471865B2

In an IC (integrated circuit) card, a selection signal is received from a user-actuatable switch to select between two different payment card accounts, each represented by a respective account indicator number stored in the IC component of the card. In response to the selection signal, a light-emitting diode indicator on the IC card is illuminated to indicate selection of a corresponding one of the payment card accounts.
US09471856B2

An information processing apparatus for processing print data includes an extracting unit that extracts characters to be printed and coordinate information of the characters from the print data; an organizing unit that reorganizes the characters extracted by the extracting unit using the coordinate information of the characters; a sorting unit that sorts the characters extracted by the extracting unit into corresponding horizontal or vertical lines using the coordinate information of the characters; and a concatenating unit that concatenates the characters reorganized by the organizing unit and sorted by the sorting unit.
US09471853B2

A method is provided for classifying pixels in an image into super pixels that may be executed in one or more than one electronic devices. Seed pixels are pixels selected from the image. Color distances of a color space similar to human vision perception between the seed pixels and proximal pixels are calculated. The proximal pixels are pixels located proximally to corresponding seed pixels. Geographic distances are also computed for two pixels and the geographic distances are combined with the color distances as a reference for classifying pixels into super pixels.
US09471848B2

A method, system, and/or computer program product classifies a plurality of objects displayed on a display device and displays the classified plurality of objects. The method comprises: selecting one object from a plurality of objects as a selected object; and classifying the plurality of objects, where classification of each of the plurality of objects is based on a degree of association with the selected object. Classifying the plurality of objects comprises: reading a feature setting for computation of the degree of association; specifying a plurality of features that are subject to the computation of the degree of association; computing, for each of the plurality of objects, the degree of association based on a difference in feature value from the selected object with regard to the plurality of features; and dividing the plurality of objects into a plurality of groups, where each group is based on the degree of association.
US09471832B2

Automated analysis of video data for determination of human behavior includes segmenting a video stream into a plurality of discrete individual frame image primitives which are combined into a visual event that may encompass an activity of concern as a function of a hypothesis. The visual event is optimized by setting a binary variable to true or false as a function of one or more constraints. The visual event is processed in view of associated non-video transaction data and the binary variable by associating the visual event with a logged transaction if associable, issuing an alert if the binary variable is true and the visual event is not associable with the logged transaction, and dropping the visual event if the binary variable is false and the visual event is not associable.
US09471831B2

A control method of an apparatus for face recognition includes acquiring an image through an image acquirer, extracting a facial image from the acquired image, determining whether the extracted facial image meets a predetermined quality condition to decide use/non-use of the extracted facial image and performing a face recognizing operation by using the extracted facial image if the extracted facial image meets the predetermined quality condition.
US09471811B2

A secure provisioning manifest used to authenticate and securely communicate with peripherals attached to a computer is provided with techniques to learn about a new peripheral not authorized to be attached to the computer and possibly gain authorization for the peripheral. A secure I/O module, that is separate from an operating system and transaction software executed by a processor of the computer, uses the secure provisioning manifest to authenticate and establish a secure encrypted session for communicating with each peripheral authorized to be attached to the computer. When an unauthorized peripheral is found, identifying information for the peripheral is transmitted to an enterprise provisioning server with a request to authorize the peripheral.
US09471809B2

A broadband gateway may be used to authorize transactions associated with one or more accounts, which may be associated with a user of the broadband gateway. The transaction may be handled by the broadband gateway. The authorizations may be performed based on information associated with the accounts, whose storage may be controlled by the broadband gateway. The broadband gateway may block and/or terminate transactions failing authentication and/or validation, which may be performed based on the stored information. The transactions may be initiated within a network serviced by the broadband gateway. The transactions may also be initiated outside the serviced network. The stored information may comprise a user profile, which may comprise a plurality of settings for controlling and/or managing authorization performed by the broadband gateway. The user profiles may be configurable by users, wherein configuration may comprise initializing and/or modifying one or more of the transaction related settings.
US09471808B2

A file management system comprises an identification device, an administration device, and a supervisory device. A first computing processor of the administration device generates an encrypted file from an original file and encryption information, and stores the encryption information into the identification device. The first computing processor further defines file management information for access control of the encrypted file, and the first computing processor also stores the file management information into the identification device. A second processor of the supervisory device loads the encryption information and the file management information in the identification device to control the usage of the encrypted file. The second computing processor further records the file usage information into the identification device, and transmits to the administration device. The file management system also records the file usage information for clarifying the responsibility of disclosing the content of the encrypted files.
US09471804B2

A method, computer program product, and computer system for managing and controlling direct access of an administrator to a computer system. An interceptor application resides on the computer system and intercepts the direct access. The interceptor application receives a request for the direct access to the computer system and determines whether the administrator requests for a new ticket. The interceptor application redirects the administrator to log onto the service management system for generating the new ticket by the service management system, in response to determining that the administrator requests for the new ticket or open tickets are not found. The interceptor application receives from the service management system the new ticket and grants the administrator the direct access to the computer system.
US09471796B2

A method, computer program product, and system for selecting and generating a key to perform a cryptographic operation are described. The method includes receiving one or more inputs representing criteria for the key, the one or more inputs excluding an explicit identification of the key and one of the one or more inputs specifying the cryptographic operation; retrieving, from a memory device, information corresponding with the one or more inputs; selecting and generating the key based on the one or more inputs and the information; and performing the cryptographic operation using the key.
US09471792B2

There is provided a detection arrangement for detecting an attack to internal signals in a semiconductor device. The detection arrangement comprises a first input terminal, a second input terminal, and a comparison unit. The first input terminal is adapted to receive a first signal being indicative for a signal at a first stage of a driver of the semiconductor device, the driver being capable to drive signals internally to the semiconductor device. The second input terminal is adapted to receive a second signal being indicative for a signal at a second stage of the driver of the semiconductor device. The comparison unit is adapted to compare the first signal and the second signal and to determine a time period during which the signals are equal, wherein the determined time period is indicative for a potential attack, if the determined time period is above a predefined threshold.
US09471789B2

The present invention provides for analysis of cyber-physical systems with relation to compliance requirements such as regulatory compliance, maintenance compliance and safety compliance. Generally, the invention provides for a set of paths from an initial state to an end state, and analyzing the paths to determine which ones contain a violation state. Based on the resultant paths test scripts are generated. Additionally, other compliance related procedures can be performed utilizing the path analysis.
US09471788B2

Software applications receive input data, perform processing of the received data and generate output. In one aspect the output is modification of data structures. The software application is tested with instances of input data that lead to various data modifications in the data structures. In another aspect, patterns are found in the modifications of the data structures, which are evaluated and analyzed for software vulnerabilities.
US09471777B1

A processing device is configured to identify a plurality of defensive security actions to be taken to address a persistent security threat to a system comprising information technology infrastructure, and to determine a schedule for performance of the defensive security actions based at least in part on a selected distribution derived from a game-theoretic model, such as a delayed exponential distribution or other type of modified exponential distribution. The system subject to the persistent security threat is configured to perform the defensive security actions in accordance with the schedule in order to deter the persistent security threat. The distribution may be selected so as to optimize defender benefit in the context of the game-theoretic model, where the game-theoretic model may comprise a stealthy takeover game in which attacker and defender entities can take actions at any time but cannot determine current game state without taking an action.
US09471775B1

A system for providing security mechanisms for secure execution of program code is described. The system may be configured to maintain a plurality of virtual machine instances. The system may be further configured to receive a request to execute a program code and allocate computing resources for executing the program code on one of the virtual machine instances. One mechanism involves executing program code according to a user-specified security policy. Another mechanism involves executing program code that may be configured to communicate or interface with an auxiliary service. Another mechanism involves splitting and executing program code in a plurality of portions, where some portions of the program code are executed in association with a first level of trust and some portions of the program code are executed with different levels of trust.
US09471774B2

A method for providing secure access to a virtual machine includes dispensing an image corresponding to a virtual machine from a management appliance to a distributed computing system such that the virtual machine is implemented by at least one of a plurality of interconnected physical computing devices in the distributed computing system; establishing a trusted relationship between the management appliance and the virtual machine; and providing a user with access to the virtual machine from the management appliance without further authentication credentials from the user.
US09471771B1

A system and method for managing a user access to a device can include detecting a first language and a second language the user uses on the device, based on information from other applications running on the device or a user profile on the device; prompting the user to setup multiple security questions using multiple languages; receiving a first question in a third language from the user, wherein the user decides the first question and the third language; receiving, a first answer to the first question from the user, wherein the first answer is provided in a fourth language chosen by the user and different from the third language; receiving a second question in a fifth language from the user, wherein the user decides the second question and the fifth language; receiving a second answer to the second question from the user, wherein the second answer is provided in a sixth language chosen by the user and different from the fifth language; and storing the first question, the second question, the first answer, and the second answer.
US09471767B2

Techniques are disclosed for generating, utilizing, and validating traceable image CAPTCHAs. In certain embodiments, a traceable image is displayed, and a trace of the image is analyzed to determine whether a user providing the trace is human. In certain embodiments, a computing device receives a request for an image, and in response, creates a traceable image based upon a plurality of image elements. The computing device transmits data representing the traceable image to cause a second computing device to display the traceable image via a touch-enabled display. The computing device receives a user trace input data generated responsive to a trace made at the second computing device, and determines whether the trace is within an error tolerance range of the set of coordinates associated with the traceable image. The computing device then sends a result of the determination.
US09471760B2

A method and system for authenticating access of secure information by a user device. An authentication request for accessing the secure information is received, the authentication request including a user identifier of a user at the user device. A position of a secret quadrilateral within a first pattern of colored quadrilaterals is determined and is identifiable by the user identifier; the secret quadrilateral includes an authenticating color. The first pattern of colored quadrilaterals including the secret quadrilateral is generated. A second pattern including colored nodes that include the authenticating color at positions within a transparent authenticating card assigned to the user. The first pattern and the second pattern are sent to the user. Location information from the user device is received. It is determined that the subset of nodes that include the authenticating color, which allows access to the secure information by the user device.
US09471757B2

A system for controlling access to computing resources including an authentication device operatively associated with a computing device, the authentication device being configured to transmit an interrogation signal to a predetermined area. A computing device has at least one software application resides thereon. A wireless license device is configured to transmit license information to the authentication device in response to the interrogation signal and to allow the software application to run while the wireless license device is within the predetermined area and to prevent the software application from running when the wireless license device is not within the predetermined area.
US09471752B2

A programming system for an electronic medical device (EMD) is described. The programming system, as described in this disclosure, comprises a host computer, such as a general purpose computer in an in-clinic computer network, executing a software platform that provides an operating environment with which a user can interact to program an EMD. The software platform invokes monitoring software that ensures that the host computer satisfies criteria for safe operation of the operating environment, e.g., ensures that the host computer meets the minimum operating conditions required for reliable operation of the operating environment. In particular, the monitoring software may monitor system faults that occur during operation, as well as ensure that criteria for safe operation are satisfied prior to initiating the operating environment.
US09471742B2

A method includes (a) generating timing information of an integrated circuit (IC) floorplan by a processing unit, (b) displaying on a display device a representation of the IC floorplan according to the timing information, (c) receiving user input via an input device, the user input associated with an IC macro of the IC floorplan, (d) updating the timing information associated with the IC macro to generated updated timing information according to the user input, and (e) altering display of the representation according to the updated timing information.
US09471740B2

A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium having stored therein a program for causing a computer to execute a process is provided. The process includes calculating and outputting difficulty degrees on an index basis when a change instruction to change an arrangement of parts is received with respect to parts and wirings on a substrate in a design diagram, the difficulty degrees being related to the wiring between the parts after the change according to the change instruction; and calculating and outputting difficulty degrees on an index basis when a change instruction to change the wiring between the parts is received, the difficulty degrees being related to the wiring between the parts after the change according to the change instruction.
US09471737B1

A method of designing a semiconductor device is provided. The method includes a step of defining a dummy structure area on the floorplan layout of the semiconductor device. The method also includes a step of adding dummy cells to the dummy structure area. Each dummy cell may be associated with a different data type. The method may improve a design optimization process of dummy cells on the semiconductor device layout by automating the removal process of dummy cells to optimize dummy density. Apart from that, semiconductor devices that are manufactured using the described method, and an apparatus to perform the steps described in the method are also described.
US09471733B1

Any primitive cells or blocks can be represented physically by a Barycenter compact model, and any black box model can also be physically represented by a Barycenter compact model physically. A hierarchical boundary condition between blocks is formulated by the Barycenter model or Barycenter compact model. Hierarchical boundary condition problems between blocks can be limited within two levels only if using the Barycenter model or Barycenter compact model.
US09471728B2

Metrics for characterizing the focusing of a plenoptic imaging system. In one aspect, the metric is based on the high frequency content and/or the blurring of the plenoptic image.
US09471722B2

Systems and methods for evaluating a fault condition in a building include determining a change to energy use model parameters attributable to the fault condition. The change to the energy use model parameters are used to calculate a corresponding change to the building's energy consumption.
US09471719B2

A computerized method of for rendering a lighting effect can include receiving from a user inputs regarding the location of an object within a design space. Furthermore, the method can include receiving from the user one or more inputs regarding the location of one or more light sources within the design space. Additionally, the method can include calculating a lighting effect of the one or more lights on the object within the design space. Furthermore, the method can include rendering the lighting effect during a time interval that is independent of the number of the one or more light sources within the design space, such that rendering the lighting effect for one of the one or more light sources takes the same amount of time as rendering the lighting effect for a plurality of the light sources.
US09471714B2

A character string which is set in advance is stored (S4), and display data are obtained (S5), and link information is extracted from the obtained display data (S9), and a partial link character string is generated from the extracted link information (S10), and similarity of the character string and the partial link character string is calculated (S11), and a determination is made as to whether the link information is similar link information on the basis of the calculated similarity (S12), and when the link information is determined to be the similar link information, a display position 42 where the extracted link information is displayed is specified, and a display area (43, 44) for displaying existence information indicating existence of the similar link information is specified on the basis of the specified display position (S13), and the existence information indicating existence of the similar link information is displayed in the specified display area (S15).
US09471713B2

A result processor access a result table for an entry associated with a predetermined sub-expression of a regular expression in response to a finite state machine finding the predetermined sub-expression in the input stream. The result processor executes an instruction associated with the entry, the instruction including one or more operations to be performed on one or more bits in a bit vector register, and determines as a function of the one or more bits in the bit vector register whether the complex regular expression has been found in the input stream.
US09471708B2

An application processing system for placing applications and their associated data into a colocation data center, wherein an application placement module is configured to perform the method of steps including: constructing a facility communication node graph; constructing a composite elastic map which represents the compute nodes in the colocation data center; associating a force function between two nodes based on communication bandwidth; constructing an application usage data space; inserting the node graph into the application data space; assigning the applications to the compute nodes; associating a force function between each application and each compute node based on the assignment; determining an elastic map energy (EME) for the elastic map, wherein the EME is the total energy of the system; and assigning the real-world applications to the real-world compute nodes in the data center if the EME is less than a threshold energy.
US09471707B2

A stream of tuples are processed by a plurality of processing elements, each including one or more stream operators, operating on computer processors. A method determines whether a first stream operator includes a first operation that is deterministic and whether a second stream operator includes a second operation that is equivalent to the first operation. In response to determining that the first operation is deterministic and the second operation is equivalent to the first operation, the first stream operator is configured to include in a tuple output from the first stream operator a result of performing the first operation using a first input. The second stream operator, which uses a second input when performing the second operation, determines whether the second input is the same as the first input, and uses the result in lieu of performing the second operation when the first and second inputs are the same.
US09471705B2

In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a request for a target structured document. In a first response phase, the method includes accessing a data structure comprising an entry for the target structured document and one or more first resources associated with the target structured document, generating a first response portion including a first portion of the target structured document including one or more of the first resources or references for one or more of the first resources, and transmitting the first response portion to the client. The method further includes, in a second response phase, generating a second response portion that includes a second portion of the target structured document including one or more of: one or more second resources, or references for the one or more second resources, associated with the target structured document; and structured document language code, and transmitting the second response portion to the client.
US09471703B2

An information locating method and system. The method includes presenting by a computer processor, a Webpage to a user. The computer processor receives a search command for performing a search function associated with the Webpage. In response, the computer processor: analyzes source code of the Webpage; downloads and analyzes files associated with the Webpage; and analyzes viewable information of the Webpage. The computer processor locates specified information associated with the Webpage.
US09471702B2

A system and method for exposing internal search indices to Internet search engines. The internal search indices are exposed to external search engines in such a way that the data may be segregated into at least two types including one layer of search data specifically for the search engines, and another for potential users of the application. This significantly improves the probability of discovery by search engines and also provides for presentation of discovered content to users in a manner consistent with the content itself, or consistent with the intended controls or presentations established by the content's owner. The system and method also includes one or more components that reproduce information about IP in a format that search engines can recognize and locate.
US09471687B2

System, method, and computer program product to perform an operation, the operation comprising publishing a content according to a content class ratio and a content impact on each of a plurality of metrics.
US09471673B1

Systems and methods are provided herein relating to audio matching. Interest points that are onsets are generally very efficient in audio matching in that they are robust to multiple types of distortion. Prominent onsets can be detected within an audio signal excerpt as interest points and combined as a function of a set of interest points to form a descriptor. Descriptors associated with an audio signal excerpt that contain a set of prominent onsets as interest points can be used in matching the audio signal excerpt to an audio reference. The benefits in generating and using prominent onsets within descriptors improve the accuracy of an audio matching system.
US09471666B2

A machine-implemented method for supporting a natural language user request against a user's personal data cloud can include a machine receiving the natural language user request from the user, determining a semantic interpretation of the natural language user request, querying a semantically-indexed, integrated knowledge store based on the semantic interpretation, and responding to the natural language user request by displaying results of the querying, wherein the results correspond to an item within the user's personal data cloud.
US09471663B1

Systems and methods for classifying media items in a media system are provided. In particular, media items can be uploaded to a serve. Data describing the media items can be monitored. Alterations of data describing the media items or inconsistencies of the data describing can be detected. A corrective action can be determined based on the alterations and or the inconsistencies. The corrective action can manage media items in multiple classification systems.