US09748220B1
A gate-bounded silicon controlled rectifier includes a substrate, an N-type well region, a P-type well region, a first N-type semiconductor region, a first P-type semiconductor region, a second N-type semiconductor region, a second P-type semiconductor region and a third semiconductor region. The N-type well region and the P-type well region are disposed in the substrate. The first N-type semiconductor region is disposed in the N-type well region. The first P-type semiconductor region is disposed in the P-type well region. The second N-type semiconductor region is disposed in the P-type well region and located between the first N-type semiconductor region and the first P-type semiconductor region. The second P-type semiconductor region is disposed in the N-type well region and located between the first N-type semiconductor region and the first P-type semiconductor region. The third semiconductor region is located between the second N-type semiconductor region and the second P-type semiconductor region.
US09748217B2
A semiconductor device production method where separate semiconductor chips are stacked on a semiconductor substrate having a main surface on which multiple semiconductor chips including semiconductor integrated circuits are formed, the semiconductor chips in different layers are connected to each other to enable signal transmission, and a structure formed thereby is separated into multiple stacks of the semiconductor chips. The method includes a first step of forming an insulating layer on the main surface of the semiconductor substrate; a second step of stacking the separate semiconductor chips, which include the integrated semiconductor circuits on main surfaces thereof, via the insulating layer on the semiconductor chips formed on the semiconductor substrate such that opposite surfaces of the separate semiconductor chips opposite to the main surfaces face the insulating layer; and a third step of forming connecting parts that enable signal transmission between the semiconductor chips in different layers.
US09748212B2
Interconnect structures, packaged semiconductor devices, and methods of packaging semiconductor devices are disclosed. In some embodiments, an interconnect structure includes a first post-passivation interconnect (PPI) layer. The first PPI layer includes a landing pad and a shadow pad material proximate the landing pad. A polymer layer is over the first PPI layer, and a second PPI layer is over the polymer layer. The second PPI layer includes a PPI pad. The PPI pad is coupled to the landing pad by a via in the polymer layer. The shadow pad material is proximate the PPI pad and comprises a greater dimension than a dimension of the PPI pad. The shadow pad material is disposed laterally around the PPI pad.
US09748201B2
A semiconductor package may include a first semiconductor chip, second semiconductor chips disposed to respectively overlap with portions of the first semiconductor chip, a interposer disposed to overlap with a portion of the first semiconductor chip, and a package substrate disposed on backside surfaces of the second semiconductor chips opposite to the first semiconductor chip. The interposer may be disposed between the first semiconductor chip and the package substrate. First conductive coupling members connect the first semiconductor chip to the second semiconductor chips. Second conductive coupling members connect the first semiconductor chip to the interposer. Third conductive coupling members connect the interposer to the package substrate.
US09748198B2
Hybrid bonding systems and methods for semiconductor wafers are disclosed. In one embodiment, a hybrid bonding system for semiconductor wafers includes a chamber and a plurality of sub-chambers disposed within the chamber. A robotics handler is disposed within the chamber that is adapted to move a plurality of semiconductor wafers within the chamber between the plurality of sub-chambers. The plurality of sub-chambers includes a first sub-chamber adapted to remove a protection layer from the plurality of semiconductor wafers, and a second sub-chamber adapted to activate top surfaces of the plurality of semiconductor wafers prior to hybrid bonding the plurality of semiconductor wafers together. The plurality of sub-chambers also includes a third sub-chamber adapted to align the plurality of semiconductor wafers and hybrid bond the plurality of semiconductor wafers together.
US09748196B2
The present disclosure relates to a semiconductor package structure, including a die and a package substrate. The die includes a semiconductor substrate, multiple interconnect metal layers, and at least one inter-level dielectric disposed between ones of the interconnect metal layers. Each inter-level dielectric is formed of a low k material. An outermost interconnect metal layer has multiple first conductive segments exposed from a surface of the inter-level dielectric. The package substrate includes a substrate body and multiple second conductive segments exposed from a surface of the substrate body. The second conductive segments are electrically connected to the first conductive segments.
US09748195B2
The present invention aims to provide a method for producing a semiconductor device, the method being capable of achieving high reliability by suppressing voids. The present invention also aims to provide a flip-chip mounting adhesive for use in the method for producing a semiconductor device. The present invention relates to a method for producing a semiconductor device, including: step 1 of positioning a semiconductor chip on a substrate via an adhesive, the semiconductor chip including bump electrodes each having an end made of solder; step 2 of heating the semiconductor chip at a temperature of the melting point of the solder or higher to solder and bond the bump electrodes of the semiconductor chip to an electrode portion of the substrate, and concurrently to temporarily attach the adhesive; and step 3 of removing voids by heating the adhesive under a pressurized atmosphere, wherein the adhesive has an activation energy ΔE of 100 kJ/mol or less, a reaction rate of 20% or less at 2 seconds at 260° C., and a reaction rate of 40% or less at 4 seconds at 260° C., as determined by differential scanning calorimetry and Ozawa method.
US09748194B2
An electronic device includes a mount board, first and second electronic components flip-chip mounted on a surface of the mount board with bumps interposed therebetween, and a sealing member that seals the first and second electronic components on the mount board. A thickness of the first electronic component is larger than a thickness of the second electronic component, and a height of the bump bonded to the first electronic component is smaller than a height of the bump bonded to the second electronic component.
US09748189B2
A device comprises a first semiconductor die embedded in a molding compound layer, a surface-mount device embedded in the molding compound layer, a plurality of interconnect structures formed on the molding compound layer, wherein the first semiconductor die is electrically coupled to the interconnect structures and the surface-mount device is electrically coupled to the interconnect structures through at least one V-shaped via and a plurality of bumps formed on and electrically coupled to the interconnect structures.
US09748188B2
The embodiments described above provide enlarged overlapping surface areas of bonding structures between a package and a bonding substrate. By using elongated bonding structures on either the package and/or the bonding substrate and by orienting such bonding structures, the bonding structures are designed to withstand bonding stress caused by thermal cycling to reduce cold joints.
US09748186B2
A semiconductor device has a module structure in which a semiconductor element and a circuit layer are electrically connected to each other by a wire. A front metal layer is formed on a surface of a top side electrode of the semiconductor element and the wire is bonded to the front metal layer by wire bonding. The front metal layer has a higher hardness than the top side electrode or the wire. A bonding interface of the wire with the metal film has a recrystallization temperature that is equal to or higher than 175° C. According to this structure, it is possible to improve the power cycle resistance of the semiconductor device.
US09748184B2
A semiconductor device includes an interposer having a first side and a second side opposite to the first side; a first semiconductor die mounted on the first side within a first chip mounting area through a plurality of first bumps; a second semiconductor die mounted on the first side within a second chip mounting area being adjacent to the first chip mounting area; a ring-shaped supporting feature disposed on the first side and encompassing the first chip mounting area and the second chip mounting area; and a plurality of solder bumps mounted on the second side.
US09748180B2
Techniques are disclosed for through-body via liner structures and processes of forming such liner structures in an integrated circuit. In an embodiment, an integrated circuit includes a silicon semiconductor substrate having one or more through-silicon vias (TSVs), although other through-body vias can be used as will be appreciated in light of this disclosure. Each TSV extends through at least a portion of the substrate, for example, from one side (e.g., top) of the substrate to the opposite side of the substrate (e.g., bottom), or from one internal layer of the substrate to another internal layer. A liner is disposed between the substrate and each TSV. The liner is formed of multiple alternating layers of dissimilar insulation films (e.g., tensile films and compressive films) sandwiched together.
US09748174B1
An alternating stack of insulating layers and spacer material layers is formed over a substrate. Memory stack structures are formed through the alternating stack. The spacer material layers are removed to form backside recesses. The backside recesses are sequentially filled with a continuous layer stack including a first continuous metallic nitride layer, a continuous tungsten layer, a second continuous metallic nitride layer, and a continuous metal fill layer. The continuous layer stack is patterned to form electrically conductive layers. Each electrically conductive layer includes a liner stack of a first metallic nitride liner, a tungsten liner, and a second metallic nitride liner. The liner stack is a diffusion barrier for high diffusivity species such as fluorine and boron.
US09748172B2
A 3D nonvolatile memory has memory elements arranged in a three-dimensional pattern with a plurality of memory layers stacked over a semiconductor substrate. It has a 2D array of vertical bit lines and a plurality of staircase word lines. Each staircase word line has a series of alternating segments and risers and traverses the plurality of memory layers with a segment in each memory layer. The plurality of staircase word lines have their segments lined up to form a 2D array of stacks of segments. Riser for a pair of segments from each adjacent stacks at different memory layers is provided by a conductive sidewall layer of a stairwell disposed between the adjacent stacks. Multiple insulated conductive sidewall layers provide multiple risers for the adjacent stacks. Layer-by-layer stairwell excavation and sidewall processes between adjacent stacks create risers for different pairs of segments between stacks to form the staircase word lines.
US09748164B2
A lead frame of high quality which can endure direct bonding to the electrodes of a semiconductor element and a metal member, and a semiconductor device of high reliability which utilizing the lead frame. The lead frame includes a pair of lead frame portions which are arranged spaced apart from and opposite to each other to be electrically connected to a pair of electrodes of a semiconductor element respectively, and a pair of support bars which are arranged spaced apart from the lead portions and extending from a side of either one of the lead portions to a side of the other lead portion.
US09748163B1
A chip package, in some embodiments, comprises: a die flag; one or more die supports; and a die mounted on the die flag and on said one or more die supports, at least one surface of said die having an area larger than an area of at least one surface of the die flag.
US09748155B2
A printed wiring board includes a power supply conductor pattern arranged on one conductor layer, one ground conductor pattern arranged on the one conductor layer, and another ground conductor pattern arranged on the another conductor layer so as to be opposed to the power supply conductor pattern. The power supply conductor pattern includes a power supply pad on which a terminal of a capacitor is to be bonded. The one ground conductor pattern includes a ground pad on which another terminal of the capacitor is to be bonded. A slit is formed in the another ground conductor pattern so as to pass through a projection portion defined by projecting the power supply pad onto the another ground conductor pattern and divide a projection portion defined by projecting the power supply conductor pattern onto the another ground conductor pattern.
US09748154B1
A wafer level fan out semiconductor device and a manufacturing method thereof are provided. A first sealing part is formed on lateral surfaces of a semiconductor die. A plurality of redistribution layers are formed on surfaces of the semiconductor die and the first sealing part, and solder balls are attached to the redistribution layers. The solder balls are arrayed on the semiconductor die and the first sealing part. In addition, a second sealing part is formed on the semiconductor die, the first sealing part and lower portions of the solder balls. The solder balls are exposed to the outside through the second sealing part. Since the first sealing part and the second sealing part are formed of materials having thermal expansion coefficients which are the same as or similar to each other, warpage occurring to the wafer level fan out semiconductor device can be suppressed.
US09748150B2
Test line structures on a wafer are provided. A first testing pad is formed in a scribe line of the wafer. A second testing pad is formed in the scribe line. A transistor under test is formed in the scribe line and is coupled between the first testing pad and the second testing pad. A device is formed in the scribe line and is coupled between the first testing pad and the transistor under test. A third testing pad is formed in the scribe line and is coupled between the device and the transistor under test. A current passing through the transistor under test is measured via the second testing pad or the first testing pad when a first voltage is applied to the first testing pad, wherein the first voltage is determined according to a second voltage from the third testing pad.
US09748148B2
Embodiments of the disclosure provide apparatus and methods for localized stress modulation for overlay and edge placement error (EPE) using electron or ion implantation. In one embodiment, a process for correcting overlay error on a substrate generally includes performing a measurement process in a metrology tool on a substrate to obtain a substrate distortion or an overlay error map, determining doping parameters to correct overlay error or substrate distortion based on the overlay error map, and providing a doping recipe to a doping apparatus based on the doping parameters determined to correct substrate distortion or overlay error. Embodiments may also provide performing a doping treatment process on the substrate using the determined doping repair recipe, for example, by comparing the overlay error map or substrate distortion with a database library stored in a computing system.
US09748139B1
A substrate having thereon a first dielectric layer, a second dielectric layer, and a hard mask layer is provided. A partial via is formed in the second dielectric layer and the hard mask layer. A first photoresist pattern with a first trench opening above the partial via and a second trench opening is formed on the hard mask layer. The hard mask layer and the second dielectric layer are etched through the first trench opening and the second trench opening, thereby forming a first dual damascene structure comprising a first trench and a first via, and a second trench in the second dielectric layer, respectively. A second photoresist pattern having a self-aligned via opening above the second trench is formed. The second dielectric layer is etched through the self-aligned via opening, thereby forming a second dual damascene structure comprising the second trench and a second via under the second trench.
US09748124B2
An operating ratio is improved in a vacuum processing apparatus to which a plurality of vacuum transfer chambers are connected through a vacuum transfer intermediate chamber.In a method of operating the vacuum processing apparatus having the plurality of vacuum transfer chambers connected through the vacuum transfer intermediate chamber and a plurality of vacuum processing vessels connected to the vacuum transfer chambers, respectively, the plurality of vacuum transfer chambers are made to communicate through the vacuum transfer intermediate chamber, a purge gas is supplied to the vacuum transfer chamber connected to a lock chamber in the plurality of vacuum transfer chambers, an inside of the transfer chamber of the vacuum transfer chamber which is far from the lock chamber is decompressed/exhausted, and pressures in all the transfer chambers of the plurality of vacuum transfer chambers are raised to be higher than the pressure in the vacuum processing vessel.
US09748100B2
There is provided a method of processing a substrate using a block copolymer composed of a first polymer containing an oxygen atom and a second polymer containing no oxygen atom, the method including: coating the block copolymer onto the substrate on which a predetermined pattern is formed; phase-separating the block copolymer into the first polymer and the second polymer; and heating the substrate in a low oxygen atmosphere to selectively remove the first polymer from the phase-separated block copolymer.
US09748096B2
A method for preparing semiconductor nanocrystals is disclosed. The method includes adding one or more cation precursors and one or more anion precursors in a reaction mixture including a solvent in a reaction vessel, maintaining the reaction mixture at a first temperature and for a first time period sufficient to produce semiconductor nanocrystal seed particles of the cation and the anion, and maintaining the reaction mixture at a second temperature that is higher than the first temperature for a second time period sufficient to enlarge the semiconductor nanocrystal seed particles to produce semiconductor nanocrystals from the cation and the anion.
US09748090B2
A semiconductor manufacturing apparatus according to an embodiment includes a first cleaner and a second cleaner. The first cleaner polishes a semiconductor substrate or a polishing target material on the semiconductor substrate with an abrasive and then cleans a top face of the semiconductor substrate or of the polishing target material while the semiconductor substrate is rotated. The second cleaner rubs an end portion of the semiconductor substrate with a physical contact according to rotation of the semiconductor substrate.
US09748088B2
A method includes processing each of a plurality of lots with at least one first equipment and moving some of the plurality of lots to a first storage. For each of a plurality of second equipments, an expected dispatch time of one or more next lots for processing by the second equipment is determined. Each of the lots in the first storage is assigned to one of the plurality of second equipments on the basis of at least the determined expected dispatch times and moved to one of a plurality of second storages that is associated with one of the plurality of second equipments to which the respective lot was assigned. For each of the plurality of second equipments, each of the lots in the second storage associated with the second equipment is moved to the second equipment and are processed with the second equipment.
US09748082B2
A cathode target assembly for use in sputtering target material onto a substrate includes a generally cylindrical target and a magnetic array. The magnetic array is adapted to provide a plasma confinement region adjacent an outer surface of the target. End portions of the magnetic array are adapted to make the shape and strength of the confinement field at the turns of the racetrack closely match the shape and strength of the confinement field along the straight part of the racetrack so as to significantly reduce cross-corner effect.
US09748072B2
In an exemplary process for lower dose rate ion implantation of a work piece, an ion beam may be generated using an ion source and an extraction manipulator. The extraction manipulator may be positioned at a gap distance from an exit aperture of the ion source. A current of the ion beam exiting the extraction manipulator may be maximized when the extraction manipulator is positioned at an optimal gap distance from the exit aperture. The gap distance at which the extraction manipulator is positioned from the exit aperture may differ from the optimal gap distance by at least 10 percent. A first potential may be applied to a first set of electrodes. An x-dimension of the ion beam may increase as the ion beam passes through the first set of electrodes. The work piece may be positioned in the ion beam to implant ions into the work piece.
US09748063B2
An overvoltage protection element with a housing, an overvoltage-limiting component arranged in the housing, and with two connection elements for electrically connecting the overvoltage protection element to the current or signal path to be protected, wherein, normally, the connection elements are each in electrical contact with a pole of the overvoltage-limiting component. Reliable and effective electrical connection in the normal state and reliable isolation of a defective overvoltage-limiting component are ensured by the fact that a thermally expandable material is arranged within the housing in a way that, in the event of thermal overloading of the overvoltage-limiting component, the position of the overvoltage-limiting component is changed by expansion of the thermally expandable material relative to the position of the connection elements in a way that causes at least one pole of the overvoltage-limiting component to be out of electrical contact with the corresponding connection element.
US09748058B2
A key structure includes a key cap, a bridge assembly, a first supporting part, a second supporting part, an attractable element and a magnet. The bridge assembly includes first and second hinge parts. One end of the first hinge part has a first link bar, and the other end has a first pivot coupling portion and a first shaft having a first connecting portion. One end of the second hinge part has a second link bar, and the other end has a second pivot coupling portion and a second shaft having a second connecting portion coupled to the first connecting portion. When the magnet under a first attractive position, the first end of the attractable element is attracted to the first attractive position. When the magnet under a second attractive position, the second end of the attractable element is attracted to the second attractive position.
US09748056B2
A push-button switch (1) is arranged such that, once a user presses an operation button (8), a switch body (20) performs an operation, and light from an LED (21) passes through a transmission plate (70) and then illuminates the operation button (8). A structure (700) is provided on a lower surface (70b) of the transmission plate (70) to refract the light from the LED (21) so that the refracted light is reflected within the transmission plate (70) and then guided to an upper circumferential wall (71) of the transmission plate (70).
US09748028B2
In a method for producing a grain-oriented electrical steel sheet by hot rolling a steel slab having a chemical composition including C: 0.001˜0.10 mass %, Si: 1.0˜5.0 mass %, Mn: 0.01˜0.5 mass %, Al: less than 0.0100 mass %, each of S, Se, O and N: not more than 0.0050 mass % and the remainder being Fe and inevitable impurities, subjecting the resulting hot rolled sheet to a single cold rolling or two or more cold rollings sandwiching an intermediate annealing therebetween to a final thickness, subjecting to a primary recrystallization annealing, applying an annealing separator thereto and then subjecting to a finish annealing, a zone of 550˜700° C. in a heating process of the primary recrystallization annealing is rapidly heated at an average heating rate of 40˜200° C./s, while any temperature zone of 250˜550° C. is kept at a heating rate of not more than 10° C./s for 1˜10 seconds, whereby secondary recrystallized grains are refined to obtain a grain-oriented electrical steel sheet stably realizing a low iron loss.
US09748027B2
Provided is a method for stably obtaining a non-oriented electrical steel sheet with high magnetic flux density and excellent productivity, at a low cost by casting in a continuous casting machine a slab having a chemical composition including by mass %, C≦0.0050%, 3.0%
US09748026B2
Provided are hexagonal ferrite magnetic powder for magnetic recording, being comprised of hexagonal ferrite magnetic particles having a crystalline metal oxide adhered to a surface thereof, a method for producing hexagonal ferrite magnetic particles having a crystalline metal oxide adhered to a surface thereof, and a magnetic recording medium.
US09748024B2
A passive arc control system for a motor control center 60 includes an arc attenuating box having sides separating adjacent vertical bus bar phases 54, providing a physical barrier to arc flash energy. The box is open at its top and bottom forming a chimney 55. A shutter assembly for each box includes an insulator cap 62 on a free end of the bus bar and an independently moveable, box-shaped shutter 64 that slides along the bus bar away from the insulator cap, when a device is connected to the bus bar. The shutter has an opening 65 through which the bus bar passes when the device is connected to the bus bar and an opening 55′ aligned with the box's chimney. The arc control system provides a high degree of arc protection for personnel working around open motor control centers and is highly modular and easy to construct.
US09748014B2
An electrical connection powder comprising particles obtained by pulverizing a skeleton of open cell metal foam chosen from the group consisting of iron, cobalt, nickel and the alloys of same covered with at least one coating of tin or indium or one of the alloys of same. The paste is formed from this powder dispersed in a binder such as grease. The powder or paste is particularity useful for improving the conductivity of an electrical connection consisting of a terminal (20) linked to a cable (24) consisting of a plurality of strands (30, 32, 34) by means of a crimping ring (26).
US09748009B2
A container and system for handling damaged nuclear fuel, and a method of making the same. In one embodiment, the invention is a damaged fuel container having a specially designed top cap that can be detachably coupled to the elongated tubular wall by simply translating the top cap into proper position within, the elongated tubular wall, wherein biased locking elements automatically lock the top cap to the elongated tubular wall. In another embodiment, the vent screens of the damaged fuel container are integrally formed rather than being separate components. In still other embodiments, the lower vent screens are arranged on an upstanding portion of the damaged fuel container. In an even further embodiment, the elongated tubular wall is formed by an extrusion process.
US09748007B2
A method, system, and apparatus for the thermal storage of energy generated by multiple nuclear reactor systems including diverting a first selected portion of energy from a portion of a first nuclear reactor system of a plurality of nuclear reactor systems to at least one auxiliary thermal reservoir, diverting at least one additional selected portion of energy from a portion of at least one additional nuclear reactor system of the plurality of nuclear reactor systems to the at least one auxiliary thermal reservoir, and supplying at least a portion of thermal energy from the auxiliary thermal reservoir to an energy conversion system of a nuclear reactor of the plurality of nuclear reactors.
US09748006B2
A method and apparatus for maintaining or establishing a readiness state in a fuel cell backup system of a nuclear reactor system are disclosed. A method includes maintaining a readiness state of a fuel cell system within a set of readiness parameters, the readiness parameters a function of a characteristic of the nuclear reactor system. Another method includes monitoring a nuclear reactor system characteristic and, responsive to the monitored nuclear reactor system characteristic, establishing a readiness state of a fuel cell system. An apparatus includes a fuel cell system associated with a nuclear reactor system and a fuel cell control system configured to maintain a readiness state of the fuel cell system. Another apparatus includes a fuel cell system associated with a nuclear reactor system, a nuclear reactor characteristic monitoring system, and a fuel cell control system configured to establish a readiness state of the fuel cell system.
US09748002B2
A system-in-package module with memory includes a non-memory chip, a substrate, and a memory chip. The non-memory chip has a first portion and a second portion. The substrate has a window and the substrate is electrically connected to the second portion of the non-memory chip. The memory chip is placed into the window of the substrate to electrically connect the first portion of the non-memory chip, and there is no direct metal connection between the memory chip and the substrate.
US09748001B2
Column based defect management techniques are presented. Each column of the memory has an associated isolation latch or register whose value indicates whether the column is defective, but in addition to this information, for columns marked as defective, additional information is used to indicate whether the column as a whole is to be treated as defective, or whether just individual bits of the column are defective. The defective elements can then be re-mapped to a redundant element at either the appropriate bit or column level based on the data. When a column is bad, but only on the bit level, the good bits can still be used for data, although this may be done at a penalty of under programming for some bits, as is described further below. A self contained Built In Self Test (BIST) flow constructed to collect the bit information through a set of column tests is also described. Based on this information, the bad bits can be extracted and re-grouped into bytes by the controller or on the memory to more efficiently use the column redundancy area.
US09747995B2
Nonvolatile memory devices, operating methods thereof, and memory systems including the same. A nonvolatile memory device may include a memory cell array and a word line driver. The memory cell array may include a plurality of memory cells. The word line driver may be configured to apply word line voltages to a plurality of word lines connected to the plurality of memory cells, respectively. Magnitudes of the word line voltages may be determined according to locations of the plurality of word lines.
US09747985B2
A non-volatile inverter may be configured to perform a memory function. The non-volatile inverter may include first and second transistors. The first transistor may include a first gate electrode, a first electrode, and a second electrode. The second transistor may include a second gate electrode and a third electrode and may share the second electrode with the first transistor. The first transistor may include a first switching layer and a charge trap layer. The first switching layer may be configured to switch between a high resistance state and a low resistance state. The charge trap layer may be configured to trap or de-trap charges according to the resistance state of the first switching layer. The first switching layer may include a P-N diode. The second transistor may include a second gate switching layer and a charge trap layer.
US09747978B2
The present disclosure relates to reference and sense architecture in a cross-point memory. An apparatus may include a memory controller configured to select a target memory cell for a memory access operation. The memory controller includes word line (WL) switch circuitry configured to select a global WL (GWL) and a local WL (LWL) associated with the target memory cell; bit line (BL) switch circuitry configured to select a global BL (GBL) and a local BL (LBL) associated with the target memory cell; and sense circuitry including a first sense circuitry capacitance and a second sense circuitry capacitance, the sense circuitry configured to precharge the selected GWL, the LWL and the first sense circuitry capacitance to a WL bias voltage WLVDM, produce a reference voltage (VREF) utilizing charge on the selected GWL and charge on the first sense circuitry capacitance and determine a state of the target memory cell based, at least in part, on VREF and a detected memory cell voltage VLWL.
US09747977B2
Technology for verifying cell programming for a phase change memory array is disclosed. In an example, a method may include sending a reset pulse to a phase change memory cell. The method may further include sensing a threshold voltage of the phase change memory cell in response to applying first and second verify voltages across the phase change memory cell, where the second verify voltage is lower than the first verify voltage. The method may also include determining whether the threshold voltage of the phase change memory cell was below the first or second verify voltages.
US09747972B2
A memory controller has a first input buffer that determines a data signal that is to be received, on the basis of a reference voltage, a second inputs buffer that inputs a data strobe signal that is to be received, a data latch circuit that fetches an internal data signal, which is outputted by the first input buffer, on the basis of a phase of a rising edge and a falling edge of an internal data strobe signal, which is outputted by the second input buffer, a duty ratio detection circuit that detects a duty ratio of the internal data strobe signal, and a reference voltage generating circuit that adjusts the reference voltage on the basis of the duty ratio detected by the duty ratio detection circuit.
US09747968B2
A magnetic random access memory (MRAM) array including: a plurality of MRAM cells arranged in an array configuration, each comprising a first type nTron and a magnetic memory element; a wordline select circuit comprising of a second type nTron to drive a plurality of parallel wordlines; and a plurality of bitline select circuits, each comprising of said second type nTron for writing to and reading from a column of memory cells in the array and each capable of selecting a single MRAM cell for a memory read or write operation, wherein the second nTron has a higher current drive than the first nTron.
US09747961B2
Examples of the present disclosure provide apparatuses and methods related to performing division operations in memory. An example apparatus might include a first group of memory cells coupled to a first access line and configured to store a dividend element. An example apparatus might include a second group of memory cells coupled to a second access line and configured to store a divisor element. An example apparatus might also include a controller configured to cause the dividend element to be divided by the divisor element by controlling sensing circuitry to perform a number of operations without transferring data via an input/output (I/O) line.
US09747958B2
An electronic device may receive a supply voltage from another external device, and detect when a level of the supply voltage drops below a threshold. In response, a controller of the electronic device may deactivate an interface configured for communication with the other electronic device. The controller may manage time periods and time period counters to determine when the check whether to reactivate the interface or conclude that the other external device is non-compliant.
US09747952B2
A method, system and apparatus for media storage is described. In one embodiment, an apparatus for storing media units has a housing having a lid and a base. The base has a plurality of receptacles. Each of the plurality of receptacles has a plurality of walls. A first writing surface is coupled to the housing.
US09747937B1
An apparatus comprises a slider having an air bearing surface (ABS) and a near-field transducer (NFT) at or near the ABS. An optical waveguide is configured to couple light from a laser source to the NFT. A resistive sensor comprises an ABS section situated at or proximate the ABS and a distal section extending away from the ABS to a location at least lateral of or behind the NFT. The resistive sensor is configured to detect changes in output optical power of the laser source and contact between the slider and a magnetic recording medium.
US09747935B1
A heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) write apparatus has a media-facing surface (MFS) and is coupled with a laser that provides energy. The HAMR write apparatus includes a waveguide, a near-field transducer (NFT), a pole and coil(s) for energizing the pole. The waveguide is optically coupled with the laser and directs a first portion of the energy toward the MFS. The NFT is optically coupled with the waveguide. The pole writes to a region of the media and includes a pole tip. A first portion of the pole tip is at the MFS and is separated from the NFT in a down track direction. A second portion of the pole tip is recessed from the MFS and between the first portion and the NFT.
US09747925B2
Speaker content generated in an audio conference is selectively visually represented. A profile for each audience member who participates in the audio conference is obtained. Speaker content spoken during the audio conference is monitored. Words of the speaker content are classified to have different weights according to a parameter of the profile for each of the audience members. A relation between the speaker content to the profile for each of the audience members is determined. Different visual representations of the speaker content are presented to different ones of the audience members based on the determined relation.
US09747909B2
Embodiments are directed to a method for processing an input audio signal, comprising: splitting the input audio signal into at least two components, in which the first component is characterized by fast fluctuations in the input signal envelope, and a second component that is relatively stationary over time; processing the second, stationary component by a decorrelation circuit; and constructing an output signal by combining the output of the decorrelator circuit with the input signal and/or the first component signal.
US09747898B2
Various exemplary embodiments relate to a command interpreter for use in a vehicle control system in a vehicle for interpreting user commands, a vehicle interaction system including such a command interpreter, a vehicle including such a vehicle interaction system, and related method and non-transitory machine-readable storage medium, including: a memory and a processor, the processor being configured to: receive, from at least one human via a first input device, a first input having a first type; receive a second input having a second type via a second input device, wherein the second type comprises at least one of sensed information describing a surrounding environment of the vehicle and input received from at least one human; interpret both the first input and the second input to generate a system instruction; and transmit the system instruction to a different system of the vehicle.
US09747895B1
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for building language models. One of the methods includes identifying a first group of one or more users associated with a user in a social network. The method includes identifying first linguistic information associated with the first group. The method includes generating a first language model based on the first linguistic information. The method includes identifying a second group of one or more users associated with the user. The method includes identifying second linguistic information associated with the second group. The method includes generating a second language model based on the second linguistic information. The method includes associating the first language model and the second language model with the user.
US09747884B2
The subject matter herein field is for multiple and complimentary systems in the structure of a cellular device case so as to provide sound jamming and/or sound insulation, and/or powered noise cancellation as means of restriction the entry of useful sound into the microphone(s) of cellular smartphone devices, as a means of citizen counter-action of the “constant surveillance” characteristics inherent in the “always on,” microphone systems as described under Background of the Subject matter, above.
US09747883B2
The disclosed acoustic insulator mat includes a first absorber layer made of a non-woven fibrous material. The non-woven fibrous material comprises a mesh of intertwined fibers that defines a plurality of cavities. The first absorber layer has a first side and a second side. Peripheral cavities are arranged along the second side of the first absorber layer between peripheral fibers. A coating is disposed on the second side of the first absorber layer. The coating is adhered to the peripheral fibers and thus includes a plurality of discontinuities at the peripheral cavities such that the coating provides a partial barrier to noise at the second side of the first absorber layer. The acoustic insulator mat may optionally include a second absorber layer that is retained on the first absorber layer by the coating. A method of manufacturing the acoustic insulator mat is also disclosed.
US09747875B2
An accordion includes a right hand play side, a left hand play side, a bellow, four rows of buttons, and two rows of buttons. The four rows of buttons include a first column to which first continuous four pitches are assigned, a second column to which second continuous four pitches are assigned, and a third column to which third continuous four pitches are assigned. The two rows of buttons include a first column to which first continuous two pitches are assigned, the first continuous two pitches being continuous from or to the first continuous four pitches, a second column to which second continuous two pitches are assigned, the second continuous two pitches being continuous from or to the second continuous four pitches, and a third column to which third continuous two pitches are assigned, the third continuous two pitches being continuous from or to the third continuous four pitches.
US09747873B2
The present invention relates to a tone-controlled functional acoustic guitar that prevents a body from being deformed to avoid the changes in sound, increases sound transmission, finely adjusts tone fields in accordance with a player or user's selection, and has a specific structure on a head thereof to suppress bending on a neck caused by the tension of strings. According to the present invention, the tone-controlled functional acoustic guitar includes: a body having a top plate, a bottom plate and a side plate connecting the top plate and the bottom plate with each other; a neck fixed to one side of the body; a head disposed at the end portion of the neck; and a tone control member detachably mounted at the inside of the body in such a manner as to be controlled in length to support a space between the top plate and the bottom plate of the body, wherein the tone control member includes: a contacting and moving member; and height control means expandably and contractably moving the contacting and moving member.
US09747866B2
Techniques for optimizing light output profiles in display systems are described. A light output profile is defined in relation to a plurality of sample locations on an illuminated surface. Point spread functions that satisfy illumination performance values specified in the light output profile in aggregate are computed or derived. A design process that adds or removes optical components to a display light assembly derives an optimal design of a light illumination layer for display systems. Relationships and parameter values determined in the design process may be configured into display systems along with the optical components for the purpose of generating optimized light output profiles in the display systems.
US09747863B2
A source image is transformed into a destination image having a target aspect ratio. A reference region in the source image is defined. An extended region of interest of the source image having the target aspect ratio and containing the reference region is defined. A set of candidate image regions of increasing resolutions from the extended region of interest is determined, each having the target aspect ratio and containing the reference region. Candidate image regions are scaled to form a candidate target images. A quality metric is used to select a target image providing the best quality metric value.
US09747862B2
A method, apparatus, and system is presented by which images of virtual objects displayed in augmented reality systems, virtual reality systems, or immersive display systems for realistic rendering of wide field of view, may be corrected to provide for reduction of registration errors regarding real objects or locations.
US09747855B2
A semiconductor device includes a plurality of sets of external drive terminals in a marginal region along one long side of a rectangular semiconductor substrate, a plurality of sets of ESD protection circuits arranged in the marginal region and coupled to corresponding sets of the drive terminals, and a plurality of output circuits coupled to corresponding sets of the drive terminals. Each set of drive terminals in a plurality of n columns along a Y direction is laid out in a staggered arrangement with drive terminals in adjacent columns shifted relative to each other. Each output circuit includes n output units associated with n drive terminals of each set and arranged in one column in an X direction. By the arrangement, the drive terminals can be arranged at a narrower pitch, and the total width for n output units can be compacted into that of one output circuit.
US09747849B2
According to an aspect, an image display panel includes: a first pixel including (d−1) sub pixels, which are first to (d−2)-th sub pixels and a (d−1)-th sub pixel, and a second pixel that is adjacent to the first pixels and includes (d−1) sub pixels, which are first to (d−2)-th sub pixels and a d-th sub pixel. A region of the image display panel includes a first pixel display region and a second pixel display region. The first to (d−2)-th sub pixels of the first pixel, one part of the (d−1)-th sub pixel, and one part of the d-th sub pixel are arranged in the first pixel display region. The first to (d−2)-th sub pixels of the second pixel, the other part of the (d−1)-th sub pixel, and the other part of the d-th sub pixel are arranged in the second pixel display region.
US09747836B2
A signal processing method includes inputting a first gradation signal and a second gradation signal, the first gradation signal representing a gradation of a predetermined pixel in a first frame, the second gradation signal representing a gradation of the predetermined pixel in a second frame that follows the first frame; determining whether or not the gradation of the predetermined pixel in the first frame is a low gradation based on the input first gradation signal; and adjusting one of a first signal voltage and a second signal voltage in a case where the determination result is positive, the first signal voltage defining a light-emitting brightness of a light-emitting pixel corresponding to the predetermined pixel in the first frame, the second signal voltage defining a light-emitting brightness of the light-emitting pixel in the second frame.
US09747833B2
An electro-optical device includes a first storage capacitor that has a first electrode and a second electrode, and a second storage capacitor that has a third electrode and a fourth electrode, and a first pixel circuit. The first pixel circuit includes a first transistor having a first gate, a first drain, and a first source, an electro-optical element, a second transistor through which a first data line is electrically connected to the first gate during the second transistor is in an on-state, and a third transistor through which the first gate is electrically connected to the first drain or the first source. The second electrode and the third electrode are electrically connected to the first data line.
US09747827B2
A driving circuit of a display device and a method for driving the same are disclosed. The driving circuit includes a timing controller configured to receive external image data and to output corrected image data by subtracting predetermined compensation data from the received image data, and a data driver configured to generate a data voltage for the image data based on the corrected image data received from the timing controller.
US09747826B2
A method of operating a display device includes operating a timing controller in a normal mode. The timing controller generates a driving signal of a display panel in response to input data signal in the normal mode. The method includes operating the timing controller in a panel self-refresh mode. The timing controller generates the driving signal based on stop image data stored in a frame buffer in response to a first panel self-refresh start command in the panel self-refresh mode. The method includes inputting a second panel self-refresh start command to the timing controller during a synchronization procedure. The timing controller changes an operation mode from the panel self-refresh mode to the normal mode in response to a panel self-refresh end command in the synchronization procedure. The method includes controlling luminance of the display panel, by the timing controller, based on a length of a first vertical blank period.
US09747823B2
Portable display boards of the type commonly used for business and educational presentations in conferences, trade shows and fairs, for example, that can be made from a variety of materials including foam board and rigid paper pulp are provided with multimedia device mounts for attaching a multimedia device to the front face of a display board, base stands, and protective corners.
US09747812B2
In one or more embodiments, driver awareness may be calculated, inferred, or estimated utilizing a saliency model, a predictive model, or an operating environment model. An awareness model including one or more awareness scores for one or more objects may be constructed based on the saliency model or one or more saliency parameters associated therewith. A variety of sensors or components may detect one or more object attributes, saliency, operator attributes, operator behavior, operator responses, etc. and construct one or more models accordingly. Examples of object attributes associated with saliency or saliency parameters may include visual characteristics, visual stimuli, optical flow, velocity, movement, color, color differences, contrast, contrast differences, color saturation, brightness, edge strength, luminance, a quick transient (e.g., a flashing light, an abrupt onset of a change in intensity, brightness, etc.).
US09747780B2
Techniques for automatically sending an emergency signal by means of a system of a vehicle are provided. According to one technique, an emergency situation is detected by evaluating signals of a number of sensors. A current position of the vehicle then determined, and a plurality of entries of emergency response services are received. A minimum cost is determined from the costs associated with respective entries of the plurality of entries to the current position of the vehicle, and a first-priority entry is determined from the minimum cost. An address for sending the emergency call signal is received, where the address is included in the first-priority entry. The retrieved address is used to start a setup of a connection to a device of the emergency response service.
US09747776B2
An electrical sensor is described. The electrical sensor including an electrical signal input configured to receive an electrical signal, an alarm, one or more inputs configured to set a configuration value and at least one display configured to display said configuration value. The monitor is coupled with the electrical signal input, the alarm, the display, and the one or more inputs. Further, the monitor is configured to determine a characteristic of the electrical signal received on the electrical signal input. The monitor is configured to activate the alarm based on the configuration value set by the one or more inputs and the characteristic of the electrical signal. And, the monitor configured to generate at least one display signal based on the configuration value to be used by the at least one display to display the configuration value.
US09747773B2
Embodiments include method, systems and computer program products for suggesting adjustments to an adjustable helmet based on analysis of play. Aspects include monitoring a plurality of sensors in the adjustable helmet and performing an analysis of play for a user of the adjustable helmet based on data received from the plurality of sensors. Aspects also include determining if an adjustment to the adjustable helmet should be made based on the analysis of play and creating an alert indicating that an adjustment to the helmet is needed.
US09747760B2
Verifying a set of safety equipment criteria may include receiving a first unit of data at a first computing device. The first unit of data may be received via a wireless signal between the first computing device and a set of sensing devices. A set of safety equipment that includes the set of sensing devices may be identified as the first unit of data. The set of sensing devices may be configured to transmit the first unit of data. The wireless signal between the first computing device and the set of sensing devices may be monitored and the signal strength for the wireless signal may be determined to be below a threshold value. A second computing device may be notified in response to the determining that the signal strength for the wireless signal is below the threshold value.
US09747758B1
A cash handling device having at least one processor, a communication interface, an item accepting device, an item dispensing device, an internal currency scanning system, an internal currency transport system, one or more currency storage cartridges, and a memory may receive, from a user, a request to perform a deposit transaction. Based on receiving the request to perform the deposit transaction, the cash handling device may receive at least one deposit item for deposit. Subsequently, the cash handling device may validate the at least one deposit item received for deposit. Based on validating the at least one deposit item received for deposit, the cash handling device may generate a deposit transaction record that includes information directing a banking server to apply a provisional credit to a treasury account associated with the user. Subsequently, the cash handling device may send the deposit transaction record to the banking server.
US09747755B2
A gaming system comprises at least one display for displaying a main window and a plurality of activatable additional windows and a game controller. The game controller is arranged to activate one or more of the activatable additional windows in response to one or more activation conditions being met and conduct at least one game round. In each game round game outcomes are independently generated by the game controller for each of the main window and each active additional window, wherein for each window generation of a game outcome comprises selection of a plurality of symbols from a symbol set associated with the respective window for display at respective ones of a plurality of symbol display positions within the respective window, and upon a contributing symbol occurring in at least one active additional window, the game controller applies the contributing symbol to the game outcome displayed in the main window to form a modified game outcome and evaluates the modified game outcome to determine whether to make an award.
US09747752B2
A device for generating true random numbers by way of a quantum optic process, the device having a light source for generating at least one single-photon within a light beam; and at least two detectors each for detecting single-photons within the beam thereby providing detector signals; and control means provided and adapted to control generation of a series of single photons and to register the detector signals for generating the true random number values; wherein the detectors for detecting single-photons each including at least one quantum dot; and wherein the detectors are positioned at substantially equivalent spatial position of detection probability of single-photons in the beam.
US09747747B2
Systems for an alternative application resource interleaved wagering system are disclosed, the system including a wager controller constructed to: receive application telemetry; determine a wager request; determine a wager outcome based on the wager request; communicate wager outcome data; an application server controller constructed to: receive wager outcome instructions; determine application resources to award the application client controller; and communicate application resource data to the application client controller; and the application client controller operatively connecting the application server controller and the wager controller, the application client controller constructed to: communicate the application telemetry; receive the wager outcome data; scan the wager outcome data to determine the wager outcome; instruct the application server controller by communicating the wager outcome instructions; receive the application resource data; scan the application resource data to determine the application resources awarded based on the wager outcome; and display the wager outcome and the application resources awarded.
US09747746B2
A gaming system that is arranged to facilitate selection of one or more win lines by a player is described. The gaming system comprises a weight allocator for allocating a weight to a wager, the allocated weight being dependent on a number of win lines selected by the player. The gaming system further comprises a prize allocator, and a trigger determiner arranged to determine a trigger condition, the trigger condition being dependent at least in part on the allocated weight. The gaming system is arranged to allocate a prize to a player in response to determination of the trigger condition.
US09747744B2
A gaming device displays a symbol matrix including a plurality of symbol positions and at least two symbol staging areas, each symbol staging area including at least one supplemental symbol potentially shiftable into the symbol matrix. The gaming device displays a symbol staging area indicator. For a play of a game, the gaming device generates a symbol in each symbol position of the symbol matrix. Upon an occurrence of a triggering condition, the gaming device indicates one of the symbol staging areas using the symbol staging area indicator and removes at least one symbol from at least one symbol position of the symbol matrix. The gaming device re-populates the empty symbol positions by shifting any appropriate symbols of the symbol matrix any appropriate empty symbol positions, and thereafter shifting at least one supplemental symbol from the indicated symbol staging area into at least one remaining empty symbol position.
US09747743B2
A medication dispensing system is described. In some embodiments, the system includes a medication station and a controller responsive to patient admittance status information. The medication station includes at least one securable compartment configured to hold medication. The controller is configured to assign a patient to the at least one securable compartment such that medications for the patient are able to be placed into the at least one securable compartment. The controller is also configured to selectively permit access to the medications for the patient in the at least one securable compartment when the patient admittance status information indicates the patient is currently admitted, and restrict access to retrieval of the medications for the patient in the at least one securable compartment when the patient admittance status information indicates the patient is not currently admitted.
US09747731B2
An apparatus comprising means for collecting data measured from operation and/or a state of a forestry machine and/or describing an environment thereof, which date may consist of one or more parameters, means for processing the collected data, and means for influencing, on the basis of the processed data, one or more parameters controlling the operation of the forestry machine or for conveying feedback or an instruction or a prompt to a driver to change his or her control.
US09747727B2
A real-time video exploration (RVE) system that allows users to pause, step into, move through, and explore 2D or 3D modeled worlds of scenes in a video. The RVE system may allow users to select and manipulate objects within a scene, and to modify an object by adding or removing accessories from the object or otherwise customizing the object according to the user's preferences or desires. The RVE system may also provide an interface or interfaces via which the user can obtain additional information for the object, customize the object, be given a price or price(s) for the object as customized, and purchase the object as specified if desired.
US09747726B2
Methods for generating and displaying images associated with one or more virtual objects within an augmented reality environment at a frame rate that is greater than a rendering frame rate are described. The rendering frame rate may correspond with the minimum time to render images associated with a pose of a head-mounted display device (HMD). In some embodiments, the HMD may determine a predicted pose associated with a future position and orientation of the HMD, generate a pre-rendered image based on the predicted pose, determine an updated pose associated with the HMD subsequent to generating the pre-rendered image, generate an updated image based on the updated pose and the pre-rendered image, and display the updated image on the HMD. The updated image may be generated via a homographic transformation and/or a pixel offset adjustment of the pre-rendered image.
US09747718B2
A system, method, and computer program product are provided for performing object-space shading. A primitive defined by vertices in three-dimensional (3D) space that is specific to an object defined by at least the primitive is received and a shading sample rate is computed for the primitive based on a screen-space derivative of coordinates of a pixel fragment transformed into the 3D space. A shader program is executed by a processing pipeline to compute shaded attributes for the primitive according to the computed shading sample rate.
US09747717B2
Techniques related to non-rigid transformations for articulated bodies are discussed. Such techniques may include repeatedly selecting target positions for matching a kinematic model of an articulated body, generating virtual end-effectors for the kinematic model and corresponding to the target positions, generating an inverse kinematics problem including a Jacobian matrix, and determining a change in kinematic model parameters based on the inverse kinematics problem until a convergence is attained.
US09747716B1
A system includes a computing device that includes a memory configured to store instructions. The system also includes a processor configured to execute the instructions to perform a method that includes receiving multiple representations of an object. Each of the representations includes position information of the object and corresponds to an instance in time. For at least one of the representations, the method includes defining a contour that represents a movable silhouette of a surface feature of the object. The method also includes producing a deformable model of the surface of the object from the defined contour and from the at least one representation of the object.
US09747705B2
The present invention is an X-ray system having a source-detector module, which includes X-ray sources and detectors, for scanning an object being inspected, a scan engine coupled to the source-detector module for collecting scan data from the source detector module, an image reconstruction engine coupled to the scan engine for converting the collected scan data into one or more X-ray images, and a scan controller coupled with at least one of the source detector module, the scan engine, and the image reconstruction engine optimize operations of the X-ray system.
US09747702B2
In a method and magnetic resonance apparatus for acquiring a high-resolution magnetic resonance image dataset of at least one limited body region having at least one anatomical structure of a patient, an overview image dataset is first acquired, using which an item of position information of the at least one anatomical structure is ascertained, the item of position information designating an exact position of the at least one anatomical structure and/or a relative position of the at least one anatomical structure relative to the reference body region. A high-resolution magnetic resonance image dataset of the anatomical structure is then created using the position information and the high-resolution magnetic resonance image dataset is evaluated. The evaluated high-resolution image data is then made available in electronic form.
US09747701B2
A method includes acquiring scan data for an object to be imaged using an imaging scanner. The method also includes reconstructing a display image using the scan data. Further, the method includes determining one or more aspects of a quantitation imaging algorithm for generating a quantitation image, wherein the one or more aspects of the quantitation imaging algorithm are selected to optimize a quantitation figure of merit for lesion quantitation. The method also includes reconstructing a quantitation image using the scan data and the quantitation imaging algorithm; displaying, on a display device, the display image; determining a region of interest in the display image; determining, for the region of interest, a lesion quantitation value using a corresponding region of interest of the quantitation image; and displaying, on the display device, the lesion quantitation value.
US09747697B2
Systems and methods are provided for generating calibration information for a media projector. The method includes tracking at least position of a tracking apparatus that can be positioned on a surface. The media projector shines a test spot on the surface, and the test spot corresponds to a known pixel coordinate of the media projector. The system includes a computing device in communication with at least two cameras, wherein each of the cameras are able to capture images of one or more light sources attached to an object. The computing device determines the object's position by comparing images of the light sources and generates an output comprising the real-world position of the object. This real-world position is mapped to the known pixel coordinate of the media projector.
US09747694B2
Method and apparatus for optimizing depth information are provided. One of a left image and a right image is divided into a plurality of segmentations for obtaining a plurality of segmentation maps. A necessary repair depth map is obtained, and the necessary repair depth map is partitioned into a plurality of depth planes according to a plurality of primary depth values and a camera parameter. The primary depth values are recorded in the necessary repair depth map having a plurality of holes. A plurality of optimized depth values are respectively generated for the holes in each of the depth planes by using the segmentation maps, and the optimized depth values are filled into the depth planes to obtain an optimized depth map.
US09747692B2
Provided are a rendering method and a rendering apparatus performing the rendering method. The rendering method includes receiving a request to output a hierarchical depth value stored in a hierarchical depth buffer, outputting the hierarchical depth value from the hierarchical depth buffer, storing the hierarchical depth value, in response to the request, and performing rendering using the stored hierarchical depth value.
US09747690B2
There is provided an image processing device including a matching degree calculation unit configured to calculate a matching degree between a pixel value of a target pixel in a standard image of a current frame and a pixel value of a corresponding pixel in a reference image of the current frame, and an estimation unit configured to estimate a disparity between the standard image and the reference image based on a result obtained by calculating the matching degree. The matching degree calculation unit calculates the matching degree using a disparity estimated for the standard image and the reference image of a previous frame.
US09747687B2
A system and method for automated polyp detection in optical colonoscopy images is provided. In one embodiment, the system and method for polyp detection is based on an observation that image appearance around polyp boundaries differs from that of other boundaries in colonoscopy images. To reduce vulnerability against misleading objects, the image processing method localizes polyps by detecting polyp boundaries, while filtering out irrelevant boundaries, with a generative-discriminative model. To filter out irrelevant boundaries, a boundary removal mechanism is provided that captures changes in image appearance across polyp boundaries. Thus, in this embodiment the boundary removal mechanism is minimally affected by texture visibility limitations. In addition, a vote accumulation scheme is applied that enables polyp localization from fragmented edge segmentation maps without identification of whole polyp boundaries.
US09747682B2
A method for measuring overlay includes receiving a first image of a first overlay mark captured using light having a first wavelength. The method includes receiving a second image of a second overlay mark captured using light having a second wavelength different from the first wavelength. The method includes measuring a displacement between a central portion of the first image and a central portion of the second image, wherein the first and second overlay marks are disposed on different levels.
US09747681B2
A measurement apparatus for measuring values for color adjustments in a print technique includes a measurement instrument including a measurement value detecting device at an arbitrary measurement point, a movement device, a reference coordinate calculation device, a measurement coordinate calculation device, and a computation device. The reference coordinate calculation device calculates a measurement point reference coordinate value. The measurement coordinate calculation device compares both origins to calculate a corrected value relative to the coordinate system of the reference-image, and corrects the position of the measurement origin based on the corrected value to correct the reference coordinate value and calculates a measurement coordinate value in the coordinate system of the measurement-image corresponding to the measurement point of the reference-image. The computation device calculates information for comparing and evaluating the measurement value acquired at the measurement point of the reference-image and the measurement value acquired at the measurement point of the measurement-image.
US09747672B2
An image processor includes a correction signal generator configured to generate a correction signal by calculating a difference between an image and an image obtained by applying an unsharp mask generated based on a PSF corresponding to an image-pickup conditions of an image-pickup optical system to the image, and a correction signal applier configured to sharpen the image by multiplying the correction signal generated by the generator by a constant and by adding a multiplied correction signal to the image.
US09747671B2
A non-local means method is insufficient in its noise reduction effect or edge retainability due to a perfect match between blocks in a case where a reference pixel matches a target pixel. Therefore, information on a target region and plural reference regions is obtained for the target pixel. Whether the target region matches any one of the reference regions is determined from the obtained information. Switching between weight derivation methods based on similarity between the target region and the reference region is performed according to a determined result.
US09747668B2
Systems and method for the reconstruction of an articulated object are disclosed herein, The articulated object can be reconstructed from image data collected by a moving camera over a period of time. A plurality of 2D feature points can be identified within the image data. These 2D feature points can be converted into three-dimensional space, which converted points are identified as 3D feature points. These 3D feature points can be used to identify one or several rigidity constrains and/or kinematic constraints. These rigidity and/or kinematic constraints can be applied to a model of the reconstructed articulated object.
US09747665B2
A display panel driver includes first and second scaler circuits and a pixel data feeding section which feeds to the first scaler circuit first divisional image pixel data corresponding to a first divisional image and feeds to the second scaler circuit second divisional image pixel data corresponding to a second divisional image. The pixel data feeding section also feeds to the first scaler circuit first boundary pixel data corresponding to pixels in a portion of the second divisional image, adjacent to the first divisional image and feeds to the second scaler circuit second boundary pixel data corresponding to pixels in a portion of the first divisional image, adjacent to the second divisional image. The first scaler circuit performs image scaling on the basis of the first divisional image pixel data and the first boundary pixel data and the second scaler circuit performs image scaling on the basis of the second divisional pixel image data and the second boundary pixel data.
US09747660B2
A graphics processing system has a rendering space which comprises one or more tiles. The system comprises a processing module configured to perform hidden surface removal for primitives of a tile to determine primitive identifiers identifying the primitives which are visible at each of a plurality of sample positions in the tile. A set of two or more tag buffers store the primitive identifiers determined for each of the sample positions in a tile, thereby representing overlapping layers of primitives. A tag control module controls: (i) selection of a tag buffer for the storage of each of the primitive identifiers according to the layering of the primitive identifiers stored in the tag buffers, and (ii) flushing of primitive identifiers from the tag buffers. A texturing engine applies texturing to the primitives identified by the flushed primitive identifiers.
US09747659B2
Embodiments are directed toward systems and methods for scheduling resources of a graphics processing unit that determine, for a number of applications having commands to be issued to the GPU, a static priority level and a dynamic priority level of each application, work iteratively across static priority levels until a resource budget of the GPU is consumed, and starting with a highest static priority identify the applications in a present static priority level, assign a processing budget of the GPU to each of the applications in the present static priority level according to their dynamic priority levels, and admit to a queue commands from the applications in the present static priority level according to their processing budgets, and release the queue to the GPU.
US09747657B2
Various embodiments are presented herein that may reduce the workload of a system tasked with delivering frames of video data to a display generated by applications executing within the system. Applications executing within the system may generate new frames of video content at a specified frame rate known as frames per second (FPS). The CPU and/or GPU may be responsible for actually generating the frames at the specified FPS. These frames are then delivered to a display communicatively coupled with the system for rendering. Reducing the frame rate (FPS) may reduce the work being performed by the system because fewer frames may be generated within a given time period. This may be especially advantageous when the system is operating on battery power because it can extend the life of the battery.
US09747652B2
Methods, systems and related computer products for providing entitlement controlled levels of collaborative exchange of data using a computer network of Subscribers and Publishers, are configured to: (a) define a set of different privacy levels, each privacy level having associated data sharing parameters that control a participating Publisher's ability to send and a participating Subscriber's ability to receive content specific data; and (b) provide an electronic privacy level register that defines the different data sharing parameters for each of the different privacy levels and identifies an associated at least one privacy level for each participating Subscriber and Publisher.
US09747644B2
Transaction data is gathered for a plurality of successful payment device transactions in a first environment. The transaction data is filtered to identify successful payment device transactions associated with payment devices for which offline authentication is not supported, to obtain a whitelist. The whitelist is made available to at least one of (1) a merchant in a second, different environment, and (2) a third party acting on behalf of such a merchant.
US09747636B2
Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for enhancing information security using an information passport dashboard are presented. In one or more embodiments, a computing platform may receive, from a user computing device, a request for an information passport dashboard. Subsequently, the computing platform may load a listing of available dashboard content items from an information passport database. Then, the computing platform may select content items from the listing of available dashboard content items to promote one or more content items to the user of the user computing device based on user preferences information and further based on aggregate usage information. Thereafter, the computing platform may generate an information passport dashboard interface that includes information identifying the content items selected from the listing of available dashboard content items for the user of the user computing device. The computing platform then may send, to the user computing device, the information passport dashboard interface.
US09747633B2
A method and related computer program product for customizing price-related options for printing a compilation of works, including the steps of: compiling the compilation of works; setting different options for customers to print the compilation of works with different prices; and allowing a customer to change one or more of the options to print the compilation of works with a price based on the customer's needs and budget.
US09747623B2
A system may comprise: a web server for posting matters of clients for bidding by contingency professionals; a client matter engine for enabling a particular client to post a particular group of related matters and to select a particular contingency professional bidding on the particular group of matters to handle the particular group of matters; a professional bidding engine for enabling the particular contingency professional to review at least a portion of the posted matters and to bid on the particular group of matters; and a bidding exchange engine for enabling the particular client and the particular contingency professional to communicate without exchanging direct contact information.
US09747609B2
A system for brand management using social networks comprising an application server, social network crawler software modules, third party service integration software modules, an analytics server, a report generator, a search engine, a behavioral analysis engine, a recommendation engine, and a database. A user registers and provides data pertaining to a brand. Upon retrieving content from a plurality of social networks pertaining to the brand, the analytics server module analyzes the content to a content value specific to the brand among members of the social networks. The behavioral analysis engine obtains content elements generated by a first member a social network and analyzes the first member's behavior to compute an audience value of the first member. The report generator prepares reports specific to the brand, the reports comprising at least indicia of content value, indicia of audience value, and recommendations for improving member engagement with the brand.
US09747608B2
Methods and systems for processing negotiable economic credits through, or at the request of, a hand held device in association with a third-party provider communicative with the hand held device and/or a point of sale. At least one negotiable economic credit can be transferred from a third-party provider communicative with the hand held device to the hand held device and/or point of sale. The negotiable economic credit can be stored within a memory of the hand held device and/or point of sale for retrieval and processing at a point of sale associated with a retail establishment and/or by a hand held device. The negotiable economic credit can be associated with a security module for protecting the privacy of the negotiable economic credit. A user profile can be compiled for utilization during the retrieval of the negotiable economic credit.
US09747603B2
A system for tethering a plurality of avatars to a user on a social networking website having a first avatar association to the user accessing the social networking site which is held in a database, and a second avatar association to the same user. The first avatar association connects the user to an avatar image that the user wishes to project, and the second avatar association connects the user to a third party advertiser that has its own avatar. Optionally, the user has a third avatar association connecting the user to the avatar of the website sponsor. A webserver generates web pages for the social networking website in response to a remote PC's request and, relying upon the stated avatar associations, delivers a webpage having the two or three avatars adjacent to a one another and adjacent to a communicative activity of the first user on the social network website.
US09747590B2
In an example embodiment, an automated banking machine that is operable to detect signals corresponding to a plurality of service activities carried out on a transaction function device. Data representative of the plurality of service activities is stored in the transaction function device's data store.
US09747584B2
A method for enhancing a pre-existing calendar on an electronic device includes parsing an event of the pre-existing calendar for an item of information associated with the event. The method further includes searching at least one source for a visual representation indicative of the information associated with the event using the item of information as a search term. The method further includes forming a visual enhancement layer including the visual representation and generating a visually enhanced calendar based on the visual enhancement layer and the pre-existing calendar for display on the electronic device in lieu of the pre-existing calendar.
US09747583B2
Entity profile information is presented to a user of a computing device. In one embodiment, a method includes: receiving a communication associated with a first entity; in response to receiving the communication, creating or updating, by at least one processor, a first entity profile, wherein the first entity profile is for display to the user on the computing device; and storing a plurality of entity profiles for entities, the entity profiles including the first entity profile.
US09747582B2
Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media for ordering editing operations in collaborative editing of shared content items. The content management system can receive an edit operation from a first client for a content item that is shared for collaborative editing between the first client and a second client. In response to receiving the operation, the system can send an update to the first client including a previous operation received from the second client prior to receiving the operation from the first client, wherein the update can instruct the first client to perform a transform operation to transform a parameter of the operation according to an effect of the previous operation received from the second client. The system can then receive a result of the transform operation from the first client and update the shared content item based on the previous operation and the result of the transform operation.
US09747579B2
Methods, devices, and systems that provide enhanced user assistance. A method includes receiving a query related to an electronic device through a first interface associated with the electronic device, and providing an assistance corresponding to the query through a second interface associated with the electronic device. A system includes an electronic device including a first interface and a second interface. The system further includes instructions which when implemented in the electronic device cause the electronic device to receive a query related to the electronic device through a first interface associated with the electronic device, and provide an assistance corresponding to the query through a second interface associated with the electronic device.
US09747575B2
A system and method optimizes throughput of tracked assets as work-in-progress (WIP) within a monitored environment such as a manufacturing establishment with off-line processing areas. A plurality of assets such as vehicles have a tag transmitter associated therewith and operative for transmitting a wireless RF signal that includes data relating to the identification of the asset to which the tag transmitter is associated. A real-time location system (RTLS) infrastructure tracks the location of the plurality of assets to various containment, staging, and processing task areas within the monitored environment as WIP. A processor is operative with the RTLS infrastructure for determining an asset input rate into WIP at an origin to the WIP for optimizing asset flow rate as WIP through different containment, staging, and processing areas within the monitored environment.
US09747569B2
Fluid tanks in a hospital or similar environment include sensors to detect, e.g., state and location, which can be communicated to a central station where this data can be processed to permit predictions of resource usage and enable automated management of the fluid tanks.
US09747567B2
A method for planning a transportation service includes sending transportation proposal to a plurality of organizations. The proposal includes one or more initial options, each including a set of variable parameters. Each organization can generate a modified option and make a commitment conditional on selected ones of the parameters. Each organization sends respective modified options to commuters of that organization who may specify their own pledges for at least one of the modified options, conditional on the organization-selected values for the variable parameters and optionally on commuter-selected values for the variable parameters. A cost-benefit function is computed for each of a set of revised options for the transportation service, each of the revised options being based on a combination of the variable parameters for which pledges which cover the combination have been received and one or more of the revised options is identified, based on the computed cost-benefit function.
US09747566B2
Disclosed is a system and method for managing a queue of one or more service requests. In accordance with the system and the method, a queue of one or more service requests pertaining to one or more services delivered through a service location is created. Further, a queue registration request is received from a user device in order to register a service request associated with a user in the queue. Further, the queue registration request is processed to register the service request in the queue thereby recording a position of the service request in the queue. Further, the status of the queue is monitored in order to track change in the position of the service request of the user in the queue. Furthermore, the status of the queue is updated to the user on the user device thereby indicating the change in position of the service request to the user.
US09747559B2
Features are disclosed relating to a collaborative ticketing system that manages various aspects of ticketing for events (e.g., movies, concerts, sporting events, and the like) using knowledge about the contacts, friends, and other social connections of system users. The collaborative ticketing system may generate dynamic ticket offers that are based on the number of friends, invited by users, ultimately obtaining tickets. The collaborative ticketing system can also streamline the procurement of concessions and other event-related items by allowing users to pre-purchase such items (e.g., in connection with ticket offers), and then pick up the items at the event venue with little or no wait. In addition, users can preview event-related content (e.g., movie trailers) for event providers (e.g., movie studios), and answer questions or otherwise provide feedback about the event-related content in return for special offers, rewards, and other considerations.
US09747556B2
An automated Web portal template generation method includes parsing, via a parser subsystem, a number of Webpages of a first Website from which a Web portal template to be customized is to be accessed. The method further includes producing an entity feature set for the first Website based on a result of the parsing and processing the entity feature set for the first Website via a classifier subsystem to produce a set of data that represents, for each of a plurality of entities, a respective probability of the entity belonging to a respective one of a plurality of classes. The method additionally includes performing, by a color matching subsystem, color matching on the set of data produced by the classifier subsystem to generate a number of proposed color combinations for a proposed customization of the Web portal template.
US09747554B2
An embodiment method for continuous configuration of learning devices includes operations for storing, by a learning device within a decentralized system of a plurality of learning devices, events obtained while in a monitoring mode, activating a triggered mode for a reflex when at least one of the stored events corresponds to a trigger pattern, determining whether the reflex has a trigger weight exceeding a trigger weight threshold, conducting the predetermined action associated with the reflex when the trigger weight exceeds the trigger weight threshold, obtaining at least one additional event while in the triggered mode, adjusting the trigger weight of the reflex when the at least one additional event corresponds to a correction pattern or a reward pattern occurring in response to conducting the predetermined action, and creating a second reflex when the at least one additional event does not correspond to a known pattern.
US09747550B2
A mechanism is provided for identifying a set of top-in clusters from a set of top-k plans. A planning problem and an integer value k indicating a number of top plans to be identified are received. A set of top-k plans are generated with at most size k, where the set of top-k plans is with respect to a given measure of plan quality. Each plan in the set of top-k plans is clustered based on a similarity between plans such that each cluster contains similar plans and each plan is grouped only into one cluster thereby forming the set of top-m clusters. A representative plan from each top-m cluster is presented to the user.
US09747539B1
Aspects of the invention relate to a smart check that includes an OLED display. The smart check may store data associated with multiple purchasing instruments and utilize the OLED display to present sensitive data associated with a user selected purchasing instrument. In response to the selection, the smart check may transmit sensitive data associated with the selected purchasing instrument. The smart check may receive power when it is inserted into a card reader. Inserting the smart check into the card reader may launch an application stored on the smart check. The smart check may store a value. The value may be converted into a currency associated with a location of the smart check.
US09747536B2
An image processing apparatus includes multiple image processing units, a detector, and a distribution unit. The multiple image processing units perform image processing to convert image data distributed on a page-by-page basis into raster-format color print data. The detector detects a processing-load cycle of a case where image data is converted into print data on a page-by-page basis. The distribution unit distributes on a page-by-page basis to the multiple image processing units image data included in a received print command and, in a case where it is determined in accordance with the processing-load cycle and the number of the multiple image processing units that pages involving heavy processing loads may be distributed to a specific image processing unit in a non-uniform manner, changes, from a preset distribution order, a distribution order of the multiple image processing units.
US09747534B2
Provided is a printing device including a print data receiving unit, a page calculation unit that calculates a number of pages before stopping with using a page length of received print data and a distance from a printing mechanism unit to a visual recognition unit, a print instruction unit that changes the number of pages before stopping or a number of printed pages and performs print processing when the received print data corresponds to a control page for controlling printing, and a print stop unit that stops printing when the number of printed pages coincides with the number of pages before stopping.
US09747532B1
An application of clear protectant to a printable medium is described that allows for different amounts of protectant to be applied to the medium based on the amounts of colorant that is applied to the medium. Colorant bitmaps are analyzed to calculate an amount of colorant coverage for a medium. Printable features in the colorant bitmaps are replicated into different intermediate protectant bitmaps based on the colorant coverage for the printable features, where the intermediate protectant bitmaps specify different amounts of protectant to apply. Features in the intermediate bitmaps are expanded and replicated into a final protectant bitmap. A determination is made for the amount of protectant to apply to the medium that is based on the different amounts specified by the intermediate bitmaps.
US09747515B2
Systems and methods are provided for selecting feature points within an image. A plurality of candidate feature points are identified in the image. A plurality of feature points are selected for each of the plurality of candidate feature points, a plurality of sets of representative pixels. For each set of representative pixels, a representative value is determined as one of a maximum chromaticity value and a minimum chromaticity value from the set of representative pixels. A score is determined for each candidate feature point from the representative values for the plurality of sets of representative pixels associated with the candidate feature point. The feature points are selected according to the determined scores for the plurality of candidate feature points.
US09747508B2
A surrounding environment recognition device includes an image capturing unit that captures a peripheral image, and a traffic signal detecting unit, which sets a search region with respect to the peripheral image, and detects a traffic signal inside of the search region. The search region becomes smaller as the distance from the image capturing unit is farther away.
US09747506B2
Systems, methods, and devices for estimating a speed limit are disclosed herein. A system for estimating a speed limit includes one or more perception sensors, an attribute component, an estimator component, and a notification component. The one or more perception sensors are configured to generate perception data about a region near a vehicle. The attribute component is configured to detect one or more environmental attributes based on the perception data. The estimator component is configured to determine an estimated speed limit based on the environmental attributes. The notification component is configured to provide the estimated speed limit to an automated driving system or driver assistance system of the vehicle.
US09747504B2
Techniques for capturing long document images and generating composite images therefrom include: detecting a document depicted in image data; tracking a position of the detected document within the image data; selecting a plurality of images, wherein the selection is based at least in part on the tracked position of the detected document; and generating a composite image based on at least one of the selected plurality of images. The tracking and selection are optionally but preferably based in whole or in part on motion vectors estimated at least partially based on analyzing image data such as test and reference frames within the captured video data/images. Corresponding systems and computer program products are also disclosed.
US09747502B2
Systems and methods for cloud-based surveillance for a target surveillance area are disclosed. At least two mobile input capture devices (ICDs) are communicatively connected to a cloud-based analytics platform via a data communication device. At least one user device can access to the cloud-based analytics platform. The cloud-based analytics platform automatically analyzes received 2-Dimensional (2D) video and/or image inputs for generating 3-Dimensional (3D) surveillance data and providing 3D display for a target surveillance area. In one embodiment, the at least two mobile ICDs are Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).
US09747501B2
A fire detection method and apparatus accurately detects a fire. The fire detection method includes obtaining RGB data from an image; calculating at least one index related to the attributes of fire using the obtained RGB data; and determining the occurrence of a fire using the index.
US09747495B2
Systems and methods in accordance with embodiments of the invention enable collaborative creation, transmission, sharing, non-linear exploration, and modification of animated video messages. One embodiment includes a video camera, a processor, a network interface, and storage containing an animated message application, and a 3D character model. In addition, the animated message application configures the processor to: capture a video sequence using the video camera; detect a human face within a sequence of video frames; track changes in human facial expression of a human face detected within a sequence of video frames; map tracked changes in human facial expression to motion data, where the motion data is generated to animate the 3D character model; apply motion data to animate the 3D character model; render an animation of the 3D character model into a file as encoded video; and transmit the encoded video to a remote device via the network interface.
US09747481B1
A system controlled responsive at least in part to data read from data bearing records is operative to cause vehicle repair parts to be determined and furnished. Data read by a reader from a tag associated with a damaged vehicle is used to determine vehicle identifying data. A repair estimate calculation circuit (RECC) operates responsive to the read data to produce a needed parts record (NPR). The records produced by the RECC are operative to cause a vehicle repair entity (VRE) to be furnished the vehicle repair parts.
US09747478B2
Techniques for radio-frequency identification systems include sensor systems having a sensor unit and one or more sensors and a server. The sensor system includes one or more antennas at a location configured to receive signals from a tag proximate to an antenna and a processor configured to process tag detection signals based on the received signals. The processing may include selectively storing tag detection signals received from one or more antennas and identify an event related to the presence of a tag proximate to an antenna at the location. Sensor system may include a transmitter configured to transmit a message indicating the event over a network to a server. The server may be configured to process the message by analyzing a feature of the signals related to the event. The analysis may evaluate an adjustment of a configuration parameter used to operate an antenna. The configuration parameter may be updated by the server, and the server may transmit a message indicating the configuration parameter to the sensor system.
US09747477B2
In one embodiment a UHF RFID reader is adapted to operate in either a reader mode or in a tag emulation mode, wherein in the reader mode the UHF RFID reader communicates with at least one RFID tag to access the at least one tag's memory contents and in the tag emulation mode the UHF RFID reader communicates with at least one other UHF RFID reader to share memory content with the at least one other UHF RFID reader. Furthermore, an RFID network and a method for communication in an RFID network are described.
US09747474B2
In one embodiment, a card reader device includes: a read head configured to generate a signal indicative of data stored on a magnetic stripe of a card, an output plug, adapted to be inserted into a headset jack of a mobile host device, configured to communicate an output signal indicative of data stored on the magnetic stripe to a microphone input of the headset jack of the mobile host device; and circuitry configured to set the amplitude, which includes attenuation by at least a resistor, of a signal communicating said data included in the signal indicative of data stored on the magnetic stripe generated by the read head resulting in the output signal indicative of data stored on the magnetic stripe. In one embodiment, the circuitry includes decoding circuitry configured to decode the signal indicative of the data stored on the magnetic stripe.
US09747470B2
The invention relates to a processing method, including the calculation of one function between a datum to be compared and a reference datum. The function can be written in the form of a sum of: a term that depends on the datum to be compared, a term that depends on the reference datum, and a polynomial, such that all the monomials of the polynomial include at least one coordinate of each datum. The method includes an initialization step including: generating masking data; scrambling reference data by means of a server unit on the basis of said masking data; and calculating, by means of a client unit, the term of the function that depends on the datum to be compared. The method also includes steps for executing the calculation of the function between the datum to be compared and the reference datum, indexed by an index c, during which: the client unit sends the coordinates of the datum to be compared to a secure component, which returns said datum, in a masked form, to said component; the client unit retrieves, from the server unit, the reference datum, indexed by the index c and scrambled by the masking data; and on the basis of the data obtained from the secure component and the server unit, the client unit calculates the sum of the term of the function that depends solely on the reference datum and the polynomial term and adds, to said sum, the term that depends on the datum to be compared, such as to obtain the result of the function.
US09747461B2
Systems and methods for detecting potential steganography use to hide content in computer files transmitted via electronic communications are provided. An electronic communication associated with a computer file may be identified. The communication and the computer file may be analyzed to determine whether the computer file potentially includes hidden content. To determine whether the computer file potentially includes hidden content, a set of steganographic criteria may be analyzed. If at least a portion of the steganographic criteria are satisfied, then it may be determined that the computer file potentially includes hidden content. If at least a portion of the steganographic criteria are not satisfied, then it may be determined that the computer file does not potentially include hidden content. If the computer file is determined to potentially include hidden content, an individual may be notified of the communication associated with the computer file.
US09747459B2
A method for requesting access rights for an object of a computerized system comprising installing in the computerized system a code that associates an object with an owner of the object, thereby enabling to automatically request access rights for the object from an owner of the object, and an apparatus for performing the same.
US09747454B2
A system includes an imaging part that captures an image, a sound collection part that collects sounds, a display part that displays image data captured by the imaging part, a directive direction calculation part that calculates a directive direction which directs toward a sound position corresponding to a designated position of the image data from the sound collection part when any position of the displayed image data is designated, and a control part that forms a directivity in the sounds in the calculated directive direction. The control part controls output of the sounds collected by the sound collection part or output of the sounds which are collected by the sound collection part and of which the directivity is formed, or suspends collection of sounds in the sound collection part, when it is determined that the sound position is included in a preset protection region.
US09747451B2
A system and method for message analysis, including: receiving, by a control service, a first modification request to modify a file system of a computing device, wherein the computing device is operating in a read-only state; identifying, by the control service, a request parameter associated with the first modification request; determining, by the control service, that the request parameter satisfies a permission criteria to perform the first modification request; provisioning, by the control service, the computing device to operate in a read/write state in response to determining that the permission criteria has been satisfied, wherein the first modification request is executed to modify the file system while the computing device is operating in the read/write state; and, upon a determination that the first modification request has successfully completed, provisioning, by the control service, the computing device to operate in the read-only state.
US09747445B2
Techniques are provided for the detection of malicious software (malware) on a general purpose computing device. A challenge in detecting malicious software is that files are typically scanned for the presence of malicious intent only once (and subsequent rescanning is typically performed in a simplistic manner). Existing methods in the art do not address how to most effectively rescan collections of files in a way that tries to optimize performance and efficacy. These methods may also be useful if additional information is now available regarding a file that might be useful to an end-user or an administrator, even though the file's core disposition might not have changed. More specifically, we describe methods, components, and systems that perform data analytics to intelligently rescan file collections for the purpose of retroactively identifying malware and retroactively identifying clean files.
US09747442B2
Systems and techniques for preventing malicious instruction execution are described herein. A first instance of an instruction for a graphics processing unit (GPU) may be received. The instruction may be placed in a target list. A notification that the instruction caused a problem with the GPU may be received. The instruction may be moved from the target list to a black list in response to the notification. A second instance of the instruction may be received. The second instance of the instruction may be prevented from executing on the GPU in response to the instruction being on the black list.
US09747439B2
A dynamic network tuner establishes fluid, continuous, and automatic correlation between the extent and/or degree of a networking device's functionality, on the one hand, and the network-related performance (i.e., network data traffic and/or network application performance), on the other. The dynamic network tuner can be embodied as a discrete device ready for installation into a host network. Preferably, such (and like) tuner embodiments are integrated into a network to automatically correlate, according to user-predefined parameters, the network's performance with the operation within the network of specifically-targeted, performance-altering networking devices, such as network security devices, or more preferably and particularly, intrusion prevention devices.
US09747425B2
Methods and systems for restricting the launch of virtual application files. In one embodiment, a launching application is signed with a digital signature. When the launching application launches a runtime engine and instructs it to execute an application file, the runtime engine determines whether an entity identifier associated with the launching application identifies an authorized entity. If the entity identifier identifies an authorized entity and the digital signature is valid, the runtime engine executes the application file. In another embodiment, a ticket is transmitted to the launching application along with an instruction to launch the application file. The ticket includes a digital signature and an expiration date. The launching application communicates the ticket to the runtime engine, which will execute the application file only if the digital signature is valid and a current date is not later than the expiration date.
US09747424B2
Systems and methods are provided for drug development under a fully transparent development model. The model is configured to provide transparency to the patients, the researchers, clinicians, physicians, and any other registered users of the system who wish to contribute. According to various embodiments, the system and model enable drug development that leverage the combined wisdom and insight of the user population eliminating many of the drawbacks of conventional development approaches. In one embodiment, the system includes drug development engine configured to manage execution of parameters of a clinical trial, including collection of health and treatment information from a patient population. The development engine can publish collected execution data for review and analysis.
US09747423B2
A video game in possession of and/or in the proximity of a patient. The patient computing system receives an indication that it is to begin a game, and executes the game using identified game parameters that are associated with the patient by a clinician as part of a disease therapy program. As the game executes, game state progresses in response to physical activity of the patient, causing the patient to exercise. The physical activity is received as input into the patient computing system. Such input causes game state to be progressed dependent on the identified game parameters that are associated with the game. Thus, the game is tailored for the patient by a clinician in order to motivate physical activity that is medically beneficial to the patient in order to advance through the disease therapy program.
US09747419B2
Health-related data is accessed; as is a database of payment card transaction data. At least a portion of the health-related data is linked to at least a portion of the payment card transaction data to obtain linked data. Statistical analysis is carried out on the linked data, and the results of the statistical analysis are made available to at least one appropriate party. Privacy is protected, for example, via an opt-in approach or through data aggregation.
US09747418B2
A portable monitoring device operates to remotely monitor a medical device for use in hospitals and the like. The portable monitoring device includes a signal receiver for receiving a first wireless signal. The medical device can be a portable drip infusion set of the type having a liquid supply, a drip chamber downstream of the liquid supply for forming liquid drops, a flexible tube connecting the drip chamber with an injection needle and a signal emitter for emitting the first wireless signal. The infusion set and the monitoring device each can include printed circuit boards (PCBs) and mutually interconnectible electric contacts. The infusion set includes an electronic circuitry that blocks programming of the infusion set when the monitoring device is not electrically connected to the infusion set.
US09747415B2
An example integrated clinical information system includes a single schema, a database, and a user interface. The example single schema is to be used to represent clinical data related to a patient. The single schema is to provide a definition of an object in the system. The single schema is to define both objects of domain and objects of design, the definition to include attribute and relationship information. The single schema is to allow multiple applications forming the integrated clinical information system to process the object according to their respective data sets using a common interpretation according to the single schema. The single schema is configured to represent both patient image and order information and to provide a database agnostic data model for application development. The example user interface is to unify multiple applications according to the single schema and database.
US09747412B2
The present invention provides a method for identifying differential activation of a bisubstrate protein modifying enzyme between samples, comprising: (i) incubating a first sample with x different concentrations of the non-protein substrate of said enzyme, wherein x is 2 or greater than 2; (ii) quantifying modification of a polypeptide in said sample at each of the x different concentrations of the non-protein substrate; (iii) determining the affinity of said enzyme for said non-protein substrate; (iv) repeating steps (i) to (iii) for a second or subsequent sample; and (v) comparing the affinity of said enzyme for said non-protein substrate between said samples; wherein a difference in affinity of said enzyme for said non-protein substrate between samples is indicative of differential activation of said enzyme between samples. The present invention also provides a method for identifying an in vivo substrate of a bisubstrate protein modifying enzyme.
US09747405B2
Systems and techniques for alleviating congestion are described. A set of buffer chains that pass through a congested region of the circuit design can be identified. Next, the set of the buffer chains can be removed from the circuit design. A placement blockage in the circuit design can then be created that covers at least a portion of the congested region. Next, the buffer chains that were removed can be reconstructed in the circuit design in the presence of the placement blockage, thereby alleviating congestion. Once the buffer chains have been reconstructed, the placement blockage can be removed from the circuit design. In some embodiments, congestion can be alleviated by spreading out buffer chains based on spreading out center of mass lines corresponding to the buffer chains.
US09747402B2
A semiconductor chip includes a row of cells, with each of the cells including a VDD line and a VSS line. All VDD lines of the cells are connected as a single VDD line, and all VSS lines of the cells are connected as a single VSS line. No double-patterning full trace having an even number of G0 paths exists in the row of cells, or no double-patterning full trace having an odd number of G0 paths exists in the row of cells.
US09747397B2
In one embodiment, a method for building a clock tree for an integrated circuit design is provided. The clock tree may include a clock tree root node and a plurality of clock tree nodes that couple to sink pins for circuit elements of the integrated circuit design. The clock tree nodes may be arranged to distribute the clock signal to the sink pins. In synthesizing the clock tree, the sink pins may be clustered into one or more clusters. Clock tree nodes may be placed for the clock tree to distribute the clock signal to the one or more clusters. Timing information is determined to measure the clock signal delay from the root to the sink pins in the one or more clusters based on the placed one or more clock tree nodes. Different sets of timing information may be determined based on different sets of clock tree timing variation parameters. For example, the clock tree timing variation parameters includes timing information for multiple process corners and/or multiple modes of operation.
US09747395B2
The present invention discloses a simulated loading method and an apparatus for moving load of a wheel axle in rail transportation. Multiple actuators are arranged right above rail sleepers along rail direction. The two continuous rails are connected to the rail sleepers via fastening systems and are cut into discrete independent rail segments right above the rail sleeper. The anti-drop member satisfies the applications of compression and uplift force of the actuator. The input load of each actuator is obtained from the load-time history of a single fastening system under moving load of a wheel axle according to a train-rail-subgrade theory model, and adjacent actuators perform dynamic excitation in turn with a same time interval to achieve simulation of moving load of a wheel axle under different speed. This invention provides a reliable and convenient loading platform for experimental study of the rail transportation.
US09747390B2
A system, method, and computer readable medium for applying one or more information retrieval technologies is disclosed for resolving a query. In one embodiment, an exemplary system generates a response using a language analysis module configured to parse a query into elements. This system can also include a rules engine configured to compare a condition of a rule against the elements, where the rule is configured to perform an action to retrieve information. Further, a response generator coupled to said rules engine receives the rule and retrieves the information for presentation to a querier in a portion of a display that adjusts proportionately to the degree of importance of said information.
US09747383B2
A system for user activity and data aggregation and visualization, comprising a data aggregation server that receives data via a network, a prioritization server that ranks data, and a visualization engine that generates a visualization of ranked data using a planetary model, and a method for visualizing data using a planetary model.
US09747379B1
Systems and methods are provided for promoting securities information. The method includes: storing, in a memory, a database of securities information; indexing, using a processor, the database of securities information to enable a first user to search through the database of securities information; displaying, using a graphical user interface, a digital searching tool, wherein the first user is able to search through the indexed database on the graphical user interface using the digital searching tool; receiving, from the first user, using the graphical user interface, one or more filings selected from the indexed database; and transforming at least one of the selected filings into a shareable digital widget, wherein the widget, when shared, is configured to display a description of each of the at least one of the selected filings to one or more second users.
US09747375B2
An approach is provided in which a knowledge manager receives a review request from a user to review an item. The knowledge manager identifies importance factors corresponding to the user and locates reviews of the item that include opinion phrases corresponding to the user's importance factors. In turn, the knowledge manager displays the set of located reviews on a display.
US09747374B2
A system for recommending feeds for a user comprises a client with a web browser, an application server, and a content server. The browser tracks the user's browsing activity and transmits user data related to the user's browsing activity to the application server. The application server searches the content server to determine feeds that may be relevant to the user's browsing activity and then communicates those feeds to the browser. The browser displays the received feeds to the user as feed recommendations, prompting the user to select from among the recommended feeds. Once the user has selected one or more feeds, the browser transmits the user's selection to the application server, which enables the feeds to be presented subsequently to the user. In this way, the system uses the user's browsing activity to obtain automatically for a user feeds that are likely to be relevant to the user.
US09747371B2
There is provided a method for producing a customized content, comprising identifying a customizable content from which to produce the customized content, identifying a base content in the customizable content, and receiving at least one customizing criterion as input. The method further comprises determining a plurality of content modifiers for harmonizing the base content and the customizing criterion, extracting the plurality of content modifiers from a modification library, and integrating the plurality of content modifiers with the base content to produce the customized content. In one embodiment, the method is embodied as instructions stored on a computer-readable medium. A system for producing customized content comprises a content host hosting a customizable content including a base content, a modification library, and a content customizing application.
US09747369B2
A system and method is provided for providing searchable customer call indexes. Consistent with disclosed embodiments, a system may receive call information associated with telephone conversations between callers and a vendor, the call information including an audio recording or transcript for each telephone conversation. The system may also identify one or more keywords from the audio recordings or transcripts and index the call information into one or more indexes based on the identified keywords. Finally, the system may determine search results responsive to a search query based on the indexing. In some embodiments, changes to customer service may be identified based on the search results.
US09747368B1
A system and method for reducing duplication of music tracks associated with a user account of an online music provider, includes selecting multiple music collections. Selecting at least one of the tracks in the selected music collections, identifying multiple duplicate metadata candidate tracks and multiple duplicate audio candidate tracks. The duplicate metadata candidate tracks are compared to the duplicate audio candidate tracks to identify common duplicate tracks. An audio hash is calculated for each audio file for the common duplicate tracks. An audio hash of one of the common duplicate tracks is selected and compared to the remaining audio hashes of the common duplicate tracks to identify matching tracks. All instances of the matching track in the selected music collections can be replaced with the selected track.
US09747366B2
A program stored in a computer-readable medium causes a computer to execute a process including acquiring configuration information and first log with respect to a first device and configuration information and second log with respect to a second device, classifying messages included in the first and second log in accordance with a similarity between the messages to generate a message pattern including a variable portion that is different between the classified messages, and storing the message pattern in association with the configuration information when match or mismatch between a value of the configuration information of the first device and a corresponding value of the configuration information of the second device is consistent with match or mismatch between a value corresponding to the variable portion of the message pattern in the first log and a value corresponding to the variable portion of the message pattern in the second log.
US09747365B2
A method for performing a search includes receiving a search query having one or more query terms from a remote device and generating a collection of one or more analyzed tokens based on the search query. The analyzed token collection is indicative of at least a subset of the query term(s). The method includes inputting the analyzed token collection into different parsers that each parse the analyzed token collection and/or the search query according to a parsing operation specific to the parser and output a parsed query including a list of one or more parsed tokens. Each parsed token includes a string, and at least one parsed token of at least one of the parsed queries includes one or more properties of the string. The method further includes generating a retrieval query based on the parsed queries outputted by the parsers and generating search results based on the retrieval query.
US09747364B2
In one embodiment, the method includes a computing device receiving one or more characters as a user enters the characters into a graphical user interface (GUI) of the computing device. The method also includes the computing device determining one or more auto-suggestions, where each of the auto-suggestions presents a character string determined based at least in part on the entered characters. The method also includes the computing device determining a degree of difficulty of the user completing the respective character string for each of the auto-suggestions. The method further includes, for each of the auto-suggestions, if the degree of difficulty is at least approximately equal to or exceeds a pre-determined threshold, the computing device providing to the user the auto-suggestion for completing the character string.
US09747341B2
Described herein is a system and method for providing a shareable global cache for use with a database environment. In accordance with an embodiment, a shareable global cache is used for caching connections to database instances. When a request is received for a particular service, the system looks for an idle connection to that service, and, if none is available, locates an existing connection to a database instance serving that service and switches a service on the existing connection to that service.
US09747335B2
In accordance with aspects of the disclosure, systems and methods are provided for query optimization including generating a knowledge based container for one or more new operators, building a generic operator structure for the knowledge based container generated for each new operator, and applying optimization rules to each new operator based on the generic operator structure built for each new operator to thereby increase extensibility of the query optimizer using a structured query language (SQL).
US09747331B2
Data within a database object are accessed based on a query with a predicate including a plurality of conditional expressions. Elements of the database object are stored among a plurality of different storage regions along with range values for element values within each storage region. Each conditional expression of the query predicate is applied to the range values for each storage region to produce evaluation results of that conditional expression for each storage region. The evaluation result of each conditional expression for a corresponding storage region is combined to produce aggregated results for each of the storage regions, where the aggregated result for a corresponding storage region indicates results of a tri-state evaluation (e.g., true/false or unknown) of the conditional expressions for that storage region. One or more corresponding individual storage regions are scanned based on the aggregated results for those storage regions when the tri-state evaluation is unknown.
US09747330B2
A system, method and apparatus are disclosed which may be used to provide demographic and behavior data of a user of a video service provider. The user demographic information may be obtained by obtaining an image of the user, analyzing the image data, and providing the information about the determined demographic data. Behavior data may be obtained from at least one sensor monitoring user actions and correlating the user actions with video content being provided to the user.
US09747321B2
A content preview of a content item stored in an online storage system can be viewed on a client device without the content item itself being downloaded to the client device and without the use of software associated with the content item being installed on the client device. Furthermore, data storage and processing requirements can be minimized by creating and storing only one content preview for each unique content item. The content item can be identified by using the content item as a hash key in a hashing algorithm. The resulting unique identifier can be used to search a preview index that lists all created content previews and their location. A content preview is only created if one does not exist. The unique identifier can be used to locate the content preview and return it in response to a preview request by a client device.
US09747315B2
The present disclosure involves systems, software, and computer implemented methods for providing a bucket skiplist. In one example, a method comprises identifying a value to be searched for within a skiplist comprising a data structure for referencing a plurality of ordered nodes, the data structure having a plurality of linked lists, each node representing at least one memory block, wherein each node is associated with a bucket including a set of ordered values, where the first value in each bucket of each node is the relatively lowest value in the bucket, comparing the value to the first values in each bucket to identify a particular node in which the first value may be located, and, in response to determining that the first value of the particular node is not the same as the value to be searched, comparing the value to be searched with the ordered values in the bucket.
US09747304B2
Systems and methods for approximating a user location are provided. For instance, historical location data and internet protocol address data can be analyzed to identify a plurality of locations. A confidence score for each of the plurality of locations can be determined. Two or more locations of the plurality of locations that form a cluster can be identified and the confidence scores for each of the two or more locations that form a cluster can be modified by adjusting each confidence score by a weight associated with the cluster.
US09747301B2
A cluster of nodes in a distributed file system may include; at least two namenodes, each coupled to a plurality of data nodes and each configured to store a state of a namespace of the cluster and each being configured to respond to a request from a client while other(s) of the namenodes are responding to other requests from other clients; and a coordination engine coupled to each of the namenodes. The coordination engine may be configured to receive proposals from the namenodes to change the state of the namespace by replicating, deleting and/or adding data blocks stored in the data nodes and to generate, in response, an ordered set of agreements that specifies an order in which the namenodes are to change the state of the namespace. The namenodes are configured to delay making changes thereto until after the ordered set of agreements is received from the coordination engine.
US09747298B2
Exemplary methods, apparatuses, and systems receive a command to overwrite or delete data stored within an allocated portion of a file system. In response to the command, an entry is added to a first data structure. A write command is received. The portion of the file system added to the first data structure is formatted for reallocation. In performance of the write command, the portion of the file system is reallocated. Portions of the file system are allocated from a second data structure when the second data structure includes a sufficient amount of space to satisfy the write command and from the first data structure when the second data structure does not include a sufficient amount of space. The second data structure includes free portions of the file system that have been formatted for allocation. The first data structure includes free portions that have yet to be formatted.
US09747289B2
Systems and methods for generating and outputting personalized content recommendations are provided. When it is determined that two or more users are in close proximity to each other, the two or more users' respective media content libraries may be compared. Commonalities or related aspects of the two or more users' respective media content libraries can be determined and leveraged to generated personalized content recommendations.
US09747282B1
A first utterance is received. A first language associated with the first utterance is identified. The first utterance is translated into a second language and outputted at a pair of earphones that occludes a direct sound path associated with utterances.
US09747278B2
A system and method for mapping text phrases to geographical locations is provided. Entities, each comprising one of a location, person, and place, are identified in one or more documents. Possible candidate locations associated with each entity are determined. An initial score is assigned to each location. The initial scores are adjusted and the candidate location with the highest adjusted score is selected for each entity. The selected candidate location is applied to all occurrences of the entity in the documents.
US09747277B2
Embodiments relate to determining a crowd behavior. A method of determining a crowd behavior is provided. The method collects, at one or more recording points in a crowd of individuals, audible expressions that the individuals of the crowd make. The method generates a graph of the audible expressions as the audible expressions are collected from the individuals. The method determines a crowd behavior by performing a graphical text analysis on the graph. The method outputs an indication of the crowd behavior to trigger a crowd control measure.
US09747268B2
Document changes are sent within a body of an electronic message to reviewers that are collaborating on the document. The document may be any type of document to which changes/comments are made, such as word processing documents, spreadsheets, slides, and the like. A reviewer receiving the electronic message may accept/reject changes and/or make comments/modifications to the document changes that are contained within the electronic message. For example, a reviewer may edit the document changes that are included within the body of the electronic message to add a comment and/or make changes to the change. A reviewer may also have the option to accept/reject changes directly from within the electronic message. After making any changes, the reviewer replies to the electronic message and the changes that are included within the electronic message are applied to the document.
US09747266B2
Systems, methods, data structures and/or the like are provided for placing copy data, supplemental, and/or additional data on a clipboard, for example. The copy data may comprise a reference to supplemental data, such as HTML data (e.g., a social media data from an HTML social media webpage). The supplemental data may be retrieved using the reference, and placed within the clipboard. In this way, the copy data and the supplemental data may be available within the clipboard.
US09747257B2
When a multi-page document is embedded in a notebook system, a preview object is generated for pages of the embedded document. The preview objects are displayed in the notebook, and when a user modifies the document underlying the preview objects, to change a relationship between the preview objects, the preview objects are synchronized with the underlying document to reflect those modifications.
US09747255B2
A method for decoding an encoded video bit stream in a video decoder is provided that includes determining a scan pattern type for a transform block to be decoded, decoding a column position X and a row position Y of a last non-zero coefficient in the transform block from the encoded video bit stream, selecting a column-row inverse transform order when the scan pattern type is a first type, selecting a row-column inverse transform order when the scan pattern type is a second type, and performing one dimensional (1D) inverse discrete cosine transformation (IDCT) computations according to the selected transform order to inversely transform the transform block to generate a residual block.
US09747246B2
An electronic device may include system and serial peripheral interface (SPI) clocks, and a host interface each switchable between active and inactive states, a serial controller coupled to the system clock, and a memory. A slave controller may generate a request active signal based upon a transaction request from a host and causing each of the system clock, SPI clock, and host interface into the active state, store request data in the memory, and switch the host interface to the inactive state based upon the request data being stored. The serial controller may process the request based upon the request active signal, and generate a request complete signal based upon the request being processed. The slave controller may switch the system clock to the inactive state based upon the request complete signal. The SPI clock may be switched to the inactive state based upon the request complete signal.
US09747242B2
An apparatus can include a first state machine engine configured to receive a first portion of a data stream from a processor and a second state machine engine configured to receive a second portion of the data stream from the processor. The apparatus includes a buffer interface configured to enable data transfer between the first and second state machine engines. The buffer interface includes an interface data bus coupled to the first and second state machine engines. The buffer interface is configured to provide data between the first and second state machine engines.
US09747240B2
Systems and methods for connecting a device to one of a plurality of processing hosts. A virtual interface card (VIC) adapter learns the number and location of the hosts and an identification of the device; receives a mapping of the device to a selected host where in the host is selected from the plurality of hosts; and dynamically builds an interface that connects the device to the selected host.
US09747234B2
A solid state drive (SSD) controlling circuit and related SSD device and SSD access system are disclosed. The SSD controlling circuit includes: an AHCI (advance host controller interface) controlling circuit for coupling with a PCIe (peripheral component interconnect express) interface; and a flash memory controlling circuit coupled with the AHCI controlling circuit and configured to operably control accessing operations of one or multiple flash memory arrays of a solid state drive. The AHCI controlling circuit transmits an indication message to a host device through the PCIe interface. The indication message is configured to declare that the AHCI controlling circuit is currently coupled with M solid state drives, wherein M is an integer greater than 1 and less than 32.
US09747229B1
A method of applying a data format in a direct memory access transfer is provided. The method includes distributing user data throughout a plurality of storage nodes through erasure coding, wherein the plurality of storage nodes are housed within a single chassis that couples the storage nodes as a cluster, each of the plurality of storage nodes having nonvolatile solid-state memory for user data storage. The method includes reading a self-describing data portion from a first memory of the nonvolatile solid-state memory and extracting a destination from the self-describing data portion. The method includes writing data, from the self-describing data portion, to a second memory of the nonvolatile solid-state memory according to the destination.
US09747223B2
Provided is a data storage drive for encrypting data, comprising a microprocessor and circuitry coupled to the microprocessor and adapted to receive a session encrypted data key and to decrypt the session encrypted data key using a session key, wherein a result is a data key that is capable of being used to encrypt clear text and to decrypt cipher text written to a storage medium. Also provided is a system, comprising a microprocessor and circuitry coupled to the microprocessor and adapted to receive a session encrypted data key and to decrypt the session encrypted data key using a private key, wherein a result is a secret key that is capable of being used to encrypt clear text and to decrypt cipher text written to a storage medium.
US09747222B1
A technique for controlling acceptance of host application data into a data log in a data storage system includes selectively accepting or refusing newly arriving host data into the data log based on a comparison between an oldest entry in the data log and an age threshold. The age threshold is dynamically updated based on system heuristics. As long as the oldest log entry is younger than the age threshold, the data log continues to accept newly arriving host application data, acknowledging IO requests to host applications as the data specified in those requests is entered into the log. However, when the oldest log entry is older than the age threshold, new log entries are temporarily refused entry into the data log. Instead, newly arriving data are placed in a pending list, where they are kept until the data log is again accepting new log entries.
US09747214B2
A system and method for prefetching data. Address logs are separated into streams and a model associated with each stream. Each stream address is forecasted according to its respective model and pages corresponding to one or more forecasted stream addresses are retrieved from memory based on their respective models.
US09747213B2
Providing memory management unit (MMU) partitioned translation caches, and related apparatuses, methods, and computer-readable media. In this regard, an apparatus comprising an MMU is provided. The MMU comprises a translation cache providing a plurality of translation cache entries defining address translation mappings. The MMU further comprises a partition descriptor table providing a plurality of partition descriptors defining a corresponding plurality of partitions each comprising one or more translation cache entries of the plurality of translation cache entries. The MMU also comprises a partition translation circuit configured to receive a memory access request from a requestor. The partition translation circuit is further configured to determine a translation cache partition identifier (TCPID) of the memory access request, identify one or more partitions of the plurality of partitions based on the TCPID, and perform the memory access request on a translation cache entry of the one or more partitions.
US09747210B2
Provided are a computer program product, system, and method for managing a lock to a resource shared among a plurality of processors. Slots in a memory implement the lock on the shared resource. The slots correspond to counter values that are consecutively numbered and indicate one of busy and free. A requesting processor fetches a counter value comprising a fetched counter value. A determination is made as to whether the slot corresponding to the fetched counter value indicates free. A processor identifier of the requesting processor is inserted into the slot corresponding to the fetched counter value in response to determining that the slot corresponding to the fetched counter value indicates not free. The requesting processor accesses the shared resource in response to determining that the slot corresponding to the fetched counter value indicates free.
US09747209B1
Various embodiments of methods and systems for cache-level memory management in a system on a chip (“SoC”) are disclosed. Memory utilization is optimized in certain embodiments through application of customized hashing algorithms at the lower level cache of individual application clients. Advantageously, for those application clients that do not require or benefit from hashing transaction traffic their transactions are not subjected to hashing. For those application clients that do benefit from hashing transaction traffic in order to minimize page conflicts at a double data rate (“DDR”) memory device, each client further benefits from a customized, and thus optimized, hashing algorithm. Because transaction streams arrive at the memory controller already hashed, or purposefully unhashed, the need for validating clients during a development phase is minimized.
US09747204B2
A system includes memory and a hardware processor. The memory includes a load-monitored region register (LMRR) and a sampled data address register (SDAR). The hardware processor is configured to perform a garbage collection process that reclaims unused objects of the memory. The hardware processor further executes a performance monitoring process that provides information indicating a utilization of an instruction performed by the hardware processor. The SDAR is configured to store first data generated according to the garbage process and second data generated according to the performance monitoring process.
US09747198B2
Provided are a computer program product, system, and method for processing a copy command indicating a source set comprising a subset of source logical addresses to copy to an indicated target set comprising a subset of target logical addresses. Complete is expected to be returned to the copy command in response to completing the copying of the source set to the target set. A point-in-time (PiT) copy establish command is generated in response to receiving the copy command, indicating the source and target sets in the copy command, The generated PiT copy command is executed to generate copy information indicating the source and target sets of source logical addresses and whether they have been copied to the target set. Complete is returned to the copy command after generating the copy information and before copying all the source logical addresses to the target logical addresses.
US09747197B2
A method for using an access triggered architecture for a computer implemented application is provided. The method receives a set of data at a designated functional block associated with a system memory location; performs an operation at the designated functional block, using the set of data, to generate a result, wherein the operation is performed each time information is received at the designated functional block; and returns the generated result to the system memory location.
US09747190B2
According to an embodiment, a system includes an analysis generator, a trace difference generator, a program difference generator, and an analyzer. The analysis generator is configured to generate program information required in executing a program, generate trace information providing a description of an execution at particular timing, based on the program information, and generate a trace correspondence between the trace and program information. The trace difference generator is configured to generate a trace difference between first and second trace information. The program difference generator is configured to generate a program difference between first and second program information. The analyzer is configured to analyze a correspondence relation between the differences and the program information based on the trace correspondence.
US09747189B2
A stream of tuples is received to be processed by processing elements operating on one or more computer processors with each processing element having one or more stream operators. A breakpoint is identified for a stream operator that is configured to be triggered when time for processing of a tuple by the first stream operator is predicted to exceed a threshold time. A tuple is received at the stream operator having a set of attributes. A predicted time to process the tuple is determined based on the set of attributes. It is determined that the predicted time exceeds the threshold time. The breakpoint is triggered, in response to determining that the predicted time exceeds the threshold time, to pause processing of the tuple by the first stream operator.
US09747183B2
A method for distributed health monitoring and fault repairing in a switching system. The switching system having one or more supervisory cards, one or more line cards, and one or more switch fabric cards. The method includes transmitting a health status poll request message to the one or more line cards and the one or more switch fabric cards. Thereafter, the method includes receiving health status poll response messages from each of the one or more line cards and the one or more switch fabric cards. Each health status poll response message includes health status summary of the corresponding card. Further, the method involves detecting one or more faults in the switching system based on the health poll response messages. Finally, the method includes triggering at least one action on the detection of the faults in the switching system. These actions are triggered based on a set of predefined rules.
US09747181B2
A system and method for inspecting system state during testing includes determining one or more inspection modules for examining respective portions of a state of the system using a test inspector, initializing each of the inspection modules, saving the respective portions of the state of the system using the inspection modules, executing a test of the system, checking the respective portions of the state of the system using the inspection modules, and repeating the saving, executing, and checking for each additional test of the system. The test inspector is executed by one or more processors of the system. In some examples, saving a first one of the respective portions of the state of the system includes determining state variables and corresponding values associated with the first respective portion of the state of the system and saving the state variables and corresponding values in a state repository.
US09747180B1
Embodiments are described for systems and methods that facilitate control of virtual endpoint failover/failback during an administrative SCSI target port disable or enable operation. In this case, SCSI target virtual endpoints may failover to a secondary SCSI target port when the primary port fails. When the primary port is corrected and enabled by the administrator the failover method pulls virtual endpoints on secondary ports back to the primary port under administrator control; and if an administrator wishes to manually disable a SCSI target port the failover operation pushes (failover) all virtual endpoints currently using the port as a primary to a secondary port.
US09747171B2
Managing storage volumes in a point-in-time copy cascade. The cascade includes a first source volume, a first target volume and a second target volume. The method detects a corruption of the first source volume and, if a first restoration of the first source volume from the first target volume is in progress, creates a third target volume from the second target volume and directs I/O operations for the first source volume to the third target volume. The first restoration is stopped. The first source volume is restored from the third target volume, and the third target volume is deleted.
US09747169B2
A data storage system can scan one or more information stores of primary storage and analyze the metadata of files stored in the one or more information stores of primary storage to identify multiple, possibly relevant, secondary copy operations that can be performed on the files. The storage system can also identify primary storage usage information of each file during the scan and use that information to generate reports regarding the usage of the primary storage.
US09747159B2
Some embodiments relate to a system that includes write circuitry, read circuitry, and comparison circuitry. The write circuitry is configured to attempt to write an expected multi-bit word to a memory location in a memory device. The read circuitry is configured to read an actual multi-bit word from the memory location. The comparison circuitry is configured to compare the actual multi-bit word read from the memory location with the expected multi-bit word which was previously written to the memory location to distinguish between a number of erroneous bits in the actual multi-bit word and a number of correct bits in the actual multi-bit word. The write circuitry is further configured to re-write the number of erroneous bits to the memory location without attempting to re-write the number of correct bits to the memory location.
US09747154B2
Various embodiments for method for detecting network and hardware failures in a computing environment, by a processor device, are provided. In one embodiment, a method comprises isolating component failures by deploying a diagnostic code within an Operating System (OS) of both a first node and a connected appliance, and executing a set of diagnostic tests using the diagnostic code to determine if the source of the failure is within the first node or the connected appliance.
US09747153B2
Systems and methods disclosed herein are directed to creating a service directory of dependencies for services running on a system, wherein instances of a first service are dependent upon instances of a second service. The directory of dependencies comprises metadata associated with connections between the services. The system injects faults targeting all levels of the dependencies. The system is monitored to detect failures created by the faults. The injected faults are selected from transport layer faults, memory pressure, processor pressure, storage pressure, virtual machine restart, and virtual machine shut down. A domain name service is monitored to identify names that are resolved for the services. The service directory is then updated continuously with additional dependencies using information about the resolved names. The faults may be injected in a guided manner, wherein the scope of the faults is increased in steps over time to identify a failure point in the system.
US09747151B2
Method, system and computer program for estimating risk of a future disaster of an infrastructure. Times of previous, respective disasters of the infrastructure are identified. Respective severities of the previous disasters are determined. Risk of a future disaster of the infrastructure is estimated by determining a relationship between the previous disasters, their respective severities and their respective times of occurrence. The risk can be estimated by generating a polynomial linking severity and time of occurrence of each of the previous disasters. The polynomial can be generated by approximating a Tchebychev polynomial.
US09747148B2
Embodiments of the present disclosure provide an approach for monitoring the health and predicting the failure of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) devices with embedded error-correcting code (ECC). Additional registers are embedded on the DRAM device to store information about the DRAM, such as the number and location of soft errors detected by the device. When the DRAM device detects a soft error, it will update the information stored in the additional registers. A controller compares the information stored in the additional registers to associated thresholds. In some embodiments, after comparing the information to the associated thresholds, the controller may determine whether to schedule a repair action. In other embodiments, the controller may determine whether to alert the memory controller that the DRAM may be failing.
US09747147B2
In an approach to identifying a source of a time-of-day network error, one or more computers increment a first counter and a second counter on each of one or more computer processors simultaneously. The one or more computers determine whether an error is detected in the one or more computer processors. In response to determining the error is detected, the one or more computers freeze the second counter on the one or more computer processors associated with the detected error. The one or more computers determine on which of the one or more computer processors the second counter is frozen. The one or more computers report a time-of-day network error, where reporting a time-of-day network error includes assigning a priority to one or more sources of the time-of-day network error.
US09747145B2
An OS API mapping computer operates to identify a set of OS APIs of a first OS version not present in a second OS version. OS APIs of the second OS version are identified that satisfy a defined rule for compatibility with the set of OS APIs of the first OS version not present in the second OS version. An OS APIs replacement list is generated that maps individual ones of the set of OS APIs of the first OS version, to corresponding ones of the OS APIs of the second OS version that satisfy the defined rule. A set is identified of OS APIs of an application that are in the OS APIs replacement list among the set of OS APIs of the first OS version. A plugin is generated based on the OS APIs of the second OS version mapped to the set of application OS APIs.
US09747139B1
In one embodiment, performance-based multi-mode task dispatching for high temperature avoidance in accordance with the present description, includes selecting processor cores as available to receive a dispatched task. Tasks are dispatched to a set of available processor cores for processing in a performance-based dispatching mode. If monitored temperature rises above a threshold temperature value, task dispatching logic switches to a thermal-based dispatching mode. If a monitored temperature falls below another threshold temperature value, dispatching logic switches back to the performance-based dispatching mode. If a monitored temperature of an individual processor core rises above a threshold temperature value, the processor core is redesignated as unavailable to receive a dispatched task. If the temperature of an individual processor core falls below another threshold temperature value, the processor core is redesignated as available to receive a dispatched task. Other features and aspects may be realized, depending upon the particular application.
US09747131B1
A method and a system for variable aggregation among large-scale data processing workers is discussed. Workers join groups and add variables to the groups. One worker is elected as the group leader. Workers post values to group variables, which are aggregated by the leader. The leader also announces the aggregated values. This variable aggregation allows for asynchronous communication among data processing workers.
US09747129B2
Graph data of a DAG is received. The data describes a module to be started by way of nodes connected by edges, wherein some nodes are submodule nodes that correspond to submodules of said module. Submodule nodes are connected via edge(s) that reflect a data dependency between the corresponding submodules. Each of said submodules is a hardware module or a software submodule, capable of producing and/or consuming data that can be consumed and/or produced, by other submodule(s) of said module, based on the DAG. Asynchronous execution is started of two of said submodules, respectively corresponding to two submodule nodes located in independent branches of the DAG. A third submodule node(s) is determined that is a descendant of each of said two submodule nodes, according to an outcome of the execution of the corresponding two submodules. Execution is started of a third submodule that corresponds to the determined third submodule node.
US09747128B1
Example embodiments of the present invention relate to a method, an apparatus, and a computer program product for providing a worldwide distributed file system model. The method includes providing a layer across at least one file system for presentation as a worldwide distributed file system and presenting the layer across the at least one file system as the worldwide distributed file system.
US09747116B2
Examples disclosed herein relate to identifying memory of a blade device for use by an operating system (OS) of a partition including the blade device. Examples include identifying memory of a first blade device associated with a first logical processor of the first blade device for use by an OS of a partition including the first blade device and a second blade device, wherein the OS is executed by at least a second logical processor of the second blade device.
US09747108B2
A processor of an aspect includes a plurality of processor elements, and a first processor element. The first processor element may perform a user-level fork instruction of a software thread. The first processor element may include a decoder to decode the user-level fork instruction. The user-level fork instruction is to indicate at least one instruction address. The first processor element may also include a user-level thread fork module. The user-level fork module, in response to the user-level fork instruction being decoded, may configure each of the plurality of processor elements to perform instructions in parallel. Other processors, methods, systems, and instructions are disclosed.
US09747107B2
A system and method for compiling or runtime executing a fork-join data parallel program with function calls. In one embodiment, the system includes: (1) a partitioner operable to partition groups into a master group and at least one worker group and (2) a thread designator associated with the partitioner and operable to designate only one thread from the master group for execution and all threads in the at least one worker group for execution.
US09747099B2
A computation system for computing interactions in a multiple-body simulation includes an array of processing modules arranged into one or more serially interconnected processing groups of the processing modules. Each of the processing modules includes storage for data elements and includes circuitry for performing pairwise computations between data elements each associated with a spatial location. Each of the pairwise computations makes use of a data element from the storage of the processing module and a data element passing through the serially interconnected processing modules. Each of the processing modules includes circuitry for selecting the pairs of data elements according to separations between spatial locations associated with the data elements.
US09747082B2
The present disclosure relates to maintaining assertions in source code components of a development project by an integrated development environment (IDE) tool. According to one embodiment, a request is received to build a software application generated from the development project. Based on prior executions of the software application, resource requirements for each of one or more assertions included in the prior executions of the software application are identified. One or more of the assertions based on the identified resource requirements are selectively inserted in the source code components. The source code components of the development project are compiled to build the software application.
US09747078B2
A device for true random number generation is disclosed. The device comprises an antenna and an analog processing unit for analog processing of a signal received from the antenna. An analog to digital (AD) converter is used for converting an analog signal generated by the analog processing unit into a digital signal. An isolation means is applied for temporarily isolating the antenna from the analog processing unit and the AD converter to generate a noise signal. A sampling means is used for sampling output values generated by the AD converter when the antenna is isolated from the analog processing unit and the AD converter. A digital processing unit is used for processing the sampled output values generated by the AD converter. The digital processing unit is configured to generate a random number based on one or more of the output values generated by the AD converter.
US09747066B2
Systems and methods are provided for managing individual documents of a print job based on recipient preferences. One system is a workflow server that includes an interface able to receive print data defining a print job that includes documents that each indicate an intended recipient for delivery. The workflow server also includes a controller able to direct devices of a print shop in accordance with a workflow that comprises an ordered set of activities to perform upon the documents. The controller is further able to acquire preferences for the intended recipients, to correlate documents in the print job with the acquired preferences, and to alter processing of the correlated documents in the workflow, based on the preferences of the intended recipients.
US09747060B2
An information processing apparatus includes a storage unit, a display controller, an input receiver, a job management unit, and a sorting unit. The display controller performs control to display, on a display unit, a job list that is a list of one or more jobs and contains one or more setting items for each job. The input receiver receives selection of a setting item from the list. The job management unit stores, in the storage unit, arrangement orders of setting values of the setting items on the list when selection of the setting item is received. The sorting unit rearranges the jobs such that the setting values of the selected setting item are arranged in a predetermined order while keeping arrangement orders of the setting values of the setting items other than the selected setting item among the jobs in ascending or descending order as stored in the storage unit.
US09747059B2
An apparatus includes an operating unit. The operating unit includes one or more processors each configured to transmit an execution request for executing a process based on a user's operation, and a delivery unit configured to receive event information indicating an event generated in the apparatus, and to deliver the received event information to the processors. A connection is established for performing communications between the apparatus and the operating unit every time each of the processors transmits the execution request, and a permanent connection for performing communications between the apparatus and the operating unit that is permanently established is used when the delivery unit receives the event information.
US09747055B2
Exemplary method, system, and computer program product embodiments for scalable data deduplication working with small data chunk in a computing environment are provided. In one embodiment, by way of example only, for each small data chunk, a signature is generated based on a combination of a representation of characters used in selecting data to be deduplicated. A c-spectrum of the small data chunk being a sequence of representations of different characters ordered by a frequency of occurrence in the small data chunk, and an f-spectrum of the small data chunk being a corresponding sequence of frequencies of the different characters in the small data chunk.
US09747053B1
A memory device of the non-volatile electrically-erasable and programmable memory type is provided. The memory device includes a matrix memory plane of memory cells connected to bit lines. Programming circuitry is configured to select a memory cell and to apply a programming pulse to the corresponding bit line. The memory plane is disposed in a local well at a floating potential and the programming circuitry is configured to increase the potential of the local well simultaneously with the application of the programming pulse to the bit line of a selected memory cell.
US09747049B2
The computer can include a memory system having a plurality of memory cells readable and writable by the processing unit and including a least a first group of memory cells of a same speed grade. A plurality of copy regions each having a corresponding portion of the memory cells of the first group, and a distinct combination of copy unit and copy factor, the copy unit corresponding to a given amount of memory cells. The processing unit can be configured to obtain an indication to copy a data structure stored in the memory system; associate the data structure to one of the copy regions based on the corresponding combination of copy unit and copy factor; copy the data structure to the associated copy region in a number of copies equal to the corresponding copy factor; and successively access different ones of the copies of the data structure.
US09747046B2
Dynamically allocates a new Flashcopy backup target volume within the single repository for executing a new Flashcopy backup to avoid a collision with one of a mount operation, a restore operation, and a clone operation when dynamically allocating the new Flashcopy target volume for the new Flashcopy backup.
US09747043B2
A hybrid drive and associated methods increase the rate at which data are transferred to a nonvolatile storage medium in the hybrid drive. By using a large nonvolatile solid state memory device as cache memory for a magnetic disk drive, a very large number of write commands can be cached and subsequently reordered and executed in an efficient manner. In addition, strategic selection and reordering of only a portion of the write commands stored in the nonvolatile solid state memory device increases efficiency of the reordering process.
US09747041B2
Provided are an apparatus and method for a non-power-of-2 size cache in a first level memory device to cache data present in a second level memory device having a 2n cache size. A request is to a target address having n bits directed to the second level memory device. A determination is made whether a target index, comprising m bits of the n bits of the target address, is within an index set of the first level memory device. A determination is made of a modified target index in the index set of the first level memory device having at least one index bit that differs from a corresponding at least one index bit in the target index. The request is processed with respect to data in a cache line at the modified target index in the first level memory device.
US09747040B1
Example embodiments of the present invention relate to methods, systems, and computer program products for reducing I/O latency in a storage system. The method include polling a storage system for values related to caching of I/Os in global memory for subsequent destaging to disk. The host then may determine respective write delay values for I/Os to be sent from a host communicatively coupled with the storage system according to the values related to caching of I/Os. The write delay values then may be applied to the I/Os at the host to delay sending of the I/Os by respective delay times from the host to the storage system.
US09747032B2
A system and method for uniquely identifying a storage device among an array of storage devices of a storage system is provided. In some embodiments, a storage device of the storage system is identified. The storage device may currently lack a name or may have an invalid name. A shelf identifier of a storage device shelf in which the storage device is installed is determined. A stack identifier associated with a connection of the storage device is also determined. The storage system constructs a device name for the storage device based on the shelf identifier and the stack identifier. In some such embodiments, a bay in which the storage device is installed is determined, and the device name is further based on an identifier of the bay. The device name may include the stack identifier, the shelf identifier, and/or the identifier of the bay.
US09747025B2
An approach for modifying a size of a key on a keyboard displayed on a touch screen is presented. A fingertip of a user is determined to be aligned with the key or touch screen, and in response, the size of the key is enlarged by a first enlargement amount. Responsive to the fingertip moving closer to the key, a second, closer proximity of the fingertip to the key or touch screen is determined. The size of the key is further enlarged by a second enlargement amount to assist the user in touching the key and avoiding touching another, adjacent key on the keyboard.
US09747021B2
Embodiments of the present invention relate to dividing and merging documents on a touch panel. A method includes dividing a document displayed on a touch panel having a display function using an information processing device connected to the touch panel. Positions of two different points on the touch panel are identified in response to a user indicating the two different points in the document. The document is divided, by a computer processor, based on a line segment extending from a starting point to an end point of a traced line traced by the user. The line segment is used as a dividing line in response to the user tracing the traced line on the touch panel so as to traverse the two different points.
US09747020B2
An information transmitting method is applied to a first electronic device, and the first electronic device stores at least one piece of contact information in a contact information set. The method includes: determining a first object and a second object, wherein the first object is determined after a display unit displays the first object, the second object is determined after the display unit displays at least a first part of the contact information set, the first object corresponds to first information, the second object corresponds to second information, and the second information is second contact information; determining transmission information in accordance with the first information corresponding to the first object; determining a transmission parameter in accordance with the second contact information corresponding to the second object; and transmitting the transmission information to a second electronic device by utilizing the determined transmission parameter.
US09747017B2
Apparatus, systems, and methods may operate to receive a first command to display a selected portion of an electronic document, wherein the selected portion is indicated by a visible indicator in a selected segment of a segmented scroll bar having a dynamically compressible trough. Further activities may include sending a second command to display a document page having a page number corresponding to the visible indicator, wherein the trough comprises segments corresponding to the pages of the document. Additional apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed.
US09747007B2
Systems, methods, apparatuses, and computer program products for resizing content to be rendered to a display are described. In accordance with embodiments, content items such as text items and images are enlarged based on an original size associated therewith and a scale factor. The enlargement is carried out in a manner such that smaller content items are enlarged as the scale factor increases at a faster rate than a rate at which relatively larger content items are enlarged as the scale factor increases. In a further embodiment, the enlargement is performed in such a manner that the size of smaller content items after enlargement will never equal or exceed the size of relatively larger content items after enlargement.
US09747002B2
A display apparatus includes a display unit which displays a content on a screen, a recognition unit which, when a user touch is input on the screen, recognizes an object corresponding to a touch trajectory, and a controller which controls the display unit to change a page of the content displayed on the screen according to the object. Accordingly, it is possible to change the page of the electronic content swiftly and manipulate the electronic apparatus easily, and user convenience is improved by providing an intuitive user experience of an interface.
US09747001B2
An apparatus, that can be in the form of a wearable device, comprising a display, a memory, and a processor coupled to the display and memory. The processor retrieves a first set of points describing a first vector for a first display element; retrieves a second set of points describing a second vector for a second display element; modifies the first set of points by modifying one or more points in the first set of points to form a modification of the first vector; modifies the second set of points by modifying one or more points in the second set of points to form a modification of the second vector; and sequentially renders in the display the first vector, the modification to the first vector, the second vector with the modification to the second vector, and the second vector without the modification to the second vector.
US09746997B2
Sharing a timeline of a calendar is provided. An application such as a calendar application detects an activation of a share operations control on a timeline of a calendar. A context menu is displayed on the timeline, where the context menu includes a share control and a print control. An activation of the share control is detected. A communication component is initiated to share the timeline.
US09746984B2
Systems and methods for providing feedback to a user are described. One of the methods includes sending interactive data for rendering on a head mounted display (HMD). The HMD is configured for attachment to a head of a user for playing a game. The method further includes receiving image data associated with a body part of the user while the HMD is worn by the user and the HMD renders interactive content. The method includes tracking a spatial position associated with the body part of the user from the image data of the user. In the method, physical placement of a remote-controlled device at the spatial position associated with the body part of the user is rendered in the HMD as virtual contact with an object in the interactive content.
US09746980B2
A capacitive finger navigation module including a pressure detection mode and a finger movement detection mode is provided. In the pressure detection mode, a finger press is detected to generate a continuous cursor movement signal. In the finger movement detection mode, a finger movement is detected to generate a single cursor movement signal.
US09746976B2
A touch control device includes at least one sensing unit that includes an electrically insulating and light transmissive substrate, multiple mutually electrically insulating touch control electrode structures spacedly disposed on a same side of the substrate, and at least one dummy electrode set disposed on the substrate and located between adjacent ones of the touch control electrode structures. The dummy electrode set forms a groove that extends from a top side thereof through to the substrate and including a plurality of dummy electrode structures that are dividedly defined by said groove. The groove extends between the adjacent ones of the touch control electrode structures and forms at least one bent.
US09746972B2
A display device includes a panel comprising a plurality of driving electrodes and a plurality of receiving electrodes; a panel driver sequentially supplying a scan pulse to a plurality of gate lines corresponding to a first driving electrode of the plurality of driving electrodes, and after a touch sensing period, sequentially supplying a scan pulse to a plurality of gate lines corresponding to a second driving electrode of the plurality of driving electrodes, wherein the panel driver repeatedly performs the sequentially supplying of the scan pulse; and a touch sensing unit sequentially supplying a driving voltage to at least two or more of the plurality of driving electrodes to determine whether there is a touch during the touch sensing period.
US09746965B2
A light source device including a light source module and an adjusting mechanism is provided. The light source module includes a base, a first light source and at least two second light sources. The first light source is disposed on the base and adapted to emit an invisible light curtain, wherein the invisible light curtain ranges over a display plane. The second light sources are disposed on the base and adapted to emit a first visible light beam and a second visible light beam respectively, wherein the first visible light beam is parallel to the invisible light curtain and the second visible light beam is parallel to the invisible light curtain. The adjusting mechanism is disposed on the base and used to adjust relative positions of the base and the display plane. In addition, an adjusting method of the light source device is also provided.
US09746958B2
A display device with a touch sensor having a display function and a touch sensor function is provided. The display device includes a first substrate including a pixel electrode; a first electrode along a first direction; and a second substrate including a second electrode that includes patterns of electrodes along a second direction crossing the first direction and that faces the first electrode and the pixel electrode, wherein upon the display function being activated, the pixel electrode is supplied with a pixel signal, and the second electrode is supplied with common voltage, and upon the touch sensor function being activated, the first electrode is applied with a first signal and the second electrode is configured to receive the first signal to be a second signal as a touch detecting signal.
US09746956B2
A touch detector capable of achieving high position resolution while improving detection sensitivity to a touch is provided. The touch detector includes: a plurality of drive electrodes arranged side by side to extend in one direction; a detection electrode extending in a direction orthogonal to a direction where the drive electrodes extend, and arranged to form a capacitance at each of intersections with the drive electrodes; and a scanning drive section sequentially selecting a predetermined plural number of target electrodes from the plurality of drive electrodes in a time-divisional manner, and applying a touch detection drive signal with a plurality of pulse waveforms for detecting an external adjacent object to the selected target electrodes to perform a scanning drive. A scanning pitch in the scanning drive is smaller than the total width of the plural number of selected target electrodes.
US09746954B2
A touch-screen input/output device including a touch sensor, a display, a display control module, a touch sensor control module and a synchronizer module. The touch sensor is overlaid on a display. The display control module is communicatively coupled to the display and converts video data into a serial bit stream video display signal include one or more blanking intervals. The touch sensor control module is communicatively coupled to the touch sensor and determines touch events and location of the touch event on the touch sensor during one or more touch sensor scan cycles. The synchronizer module is communicatively coupled between the display control module and the touch sensor control module, and interleaves the one or more touch sensor scan cycles with the one or more blanking intervals of the video display signal.
US09746952B2
An input device includes a first substrate including a force sensor electrode and several proximity sensor electrodes, which are configured to detect one or more input objects in a sensing region. The input device also includes a second substrate mechanically coupled to the first substrate, the second substrate including a first conductive portion. The force sensor electrode and the first conductive portion are configured to form a first variable capacitance for a determination of a first force applied by the one or more input objects to an input surface of the input device. The input device also includes a compensation sensor including a compensation sensor electrode disposed on the first substrate, a second conductive portion of the second substrate, and a compensation spring feature formed on the second substrate. The compensation spring feature is configured to facilitate a deflection of the second conductive portion relative to the compensation sensor electrode.
US09746948B2
A mobile terminal may include a display unit to display a sharing history list while the mobile terminal is executing a management application for managing contents sharing between the mobile terminal and at least one of a plurality of external devices, the displayed sharing history list including a plurality of sharing history items. The mobile terminal may also include a controller to determine, in response to a user input with respect to the sharing history items, connection environment information, a target device, and shared contents each corresponding to the sharing history items on the sharing history list, the controller to connect the mobile terminal to the target device based on the connection environment information, and the controller to play the shared contents such that the shared contents is output by at least one of the target device or the display unit of the mobile terminal.
US09746946B2
In a method for displaying information with the aid of a display mounted in a motor vehicle, graphic data which actuate at least a subregion of the display are generated by a user interface device, such that in an operating state, information that is assigned to at least one operator step able to be executed by an input device are generated and in a display state, information which is not assigned to any operator steps is displayed, and it is detected when an object enters an operator control zone assigned to the input device, and when it leaves the operator control zone. The method is characterized in that the user interface device switches from the operating state to the display state when the object leaves the operator control zone and the object does not reenter the operator control zone within a defined time interval. Furthermore, a display device is adapted for executing this method.
US09746943B1
A stylus may comprise a configurable profile to control one or more local and remote operational features. The stylus may comprise a main body configured to receive a nib having an identifier and a sensor configured to detect the identifier of the nib, wherein the identifier is associated with a configurable profile including information for controlling at least one operational feature of the stylus. A sensory feedback element may be configured to provide one or more of a tactile, audible, and visual feedback based at least in part on the configurable profile.
US09746939B2
A mobile terminal including a projector configured to project image information; a capturing unit configured to recognize a writing motion on a paper medium and a writing of a specific symbol in an area selected by the writing motion; and a controller configured to execute a control command for the specific symbol in the selected area if the specific symbol matches a preset symbol, and control the projector to project image information corresponding to a result of the execution of the control command on the area with the written specific symbol.
US09746936B2
A controller includes a substrate is fixed relative to a movable plate. When a movement or an input operation on the movable plate or surface is detected, a drive signal is directed to drive electrodes or elements related to the substrate. The drive signal is modulated with signals dependent on the location of the movable plate. The movable plate is part of a including a plate being flat plate-like in shape. A movable plate support section supports the movable plate on a support structure so as to permit the movable plate to be moved along a plane lateral and parallel to the plate surface of the movable plate. An actuator is configured to respond to the movable plate; an actuator drive control section for outputting an actuator drive signal to drivingly control a sensor as signaled by the actuator drive control section.
US09746930B2
A system and method for improved detection and usability of personal electronic devices for field engineers is disclosed. A personal electronic device stores a list of commands in memory. The personal electronic device presents a user interface in a relative motion input mode, wherein the user interface in the relative motion mode is divided into a plurality of user interface zones. The personal electronic device receives relative motion input, wherein the relative motion input is received through one or more relative motion sensors of the personal electronic device. The personal electronic device determines whether the received relative motion input matches input associated with a respective command in a list of reference commands. In accordance with a determination that the received relative motion input matches input is associated with a respective command in the list of reference commands, the personal electronic device executes the respective command.
US09746922B2
A control system includes an RFID device and an RFID reader antenna configured to receive a signal from the RFID device. The signal is associated with a command. A transmitter transmits the command to an electronic device to operate the electronic device.
US09746908B2
A processor prunes state information based on information provided by software, thereby reducing the amount of state information to be stored prior to the processor entering a low-power state. The software, such as an operating system or application program executing at the processor, indicates one or more registers of the processor as storing data that is no longer useful. When preparing to enter the low-power state, the processor omits the indicated registers from the state information stored to memory.
US09746907B2
A system and method are disclosed for securely waking a computer system over a network. A registration message may be received over a network by a server from a network interface controller (NIC) in a first computer system which is in a sleep mode. The first computer system may be registered by the server by storing identification information for the first computer system may be stored in a memory. A wakeup message may be received from a second computer system over the network, the wakeup message including information identifying the first computer system and authentication information. The wakeup message may be sent to the first computer system over the network, the wakeup message indicating to the NIC to wake up the first computer system.
US09746896B1
A computing device is described that includes a display unit. The display unit includes an array of pixels defined by N rows and M columns and at least one row select unit configured to select one or more of the N rows. The display unit further includes a first column control unit configured to drive a first contiguous group of pixels from the array of pixels, and a second column control unit configured to drive a second contiguous group of pixels from the array of pixels.
US09746893B1
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for identifying, for each of multiple circuits of an electrical device, a discharge time that indicates an amount of time previously taken for a voltage level of the circuit to decrease from a normal operating voltage to a specified voltage level after power was removed from the circuit. A delay time period is determined for the electrical device based on each discharge time. A command is received to cycle power to one or more components of the electrical device. In response to receiving the command, power is removed from the circuits for an amount of time that corresponds to the delay time period and power is restored to the circuits in response to the amount of time lapsing.
US09746891B2
A computer is used in a computer. The computer includes a resistor coupled to a motherboard of the computer, a control module, and an output module. The output module is coupled between the resistor and the control module. The control module is configured to control the output module to make a first response when the computer is in a S3/S4 state and control the output module to make a second response when the computer is working at a full speed. The motherboard is configured to output a first voltage to the output module when making the first response and output a second voltage to the output module when making the second response. The first voltage is configured to supply the addition card via the control circuit and the second voltage is configured to supply the addition card via the control circuit.
US09746890B2
A method for generating a reference voltage is provided. The method for generating a reference voltage includes the following steps: providing a voltage identification signal corresponding to an operating frequency of a processor; receiving the voltage identification signal and providing a reference voltage according to the operating frequency; determining whether the reference voltage is greater than a first threshold voltage or less than a second threshold voltage; regulating the reference voltage corresponding to the voltage identification signal by adding a first offset voltage when the reference voltage is greater than the first threshold voltage; and regulating the reference voltage corresponding to the voltage identification signal by subtracting a second offset voltage when the reference voltage is less than the second threshold voltage. In addition, an electronic device using the method for generating a reference voltage is also provided.
US09746880B2
A touch panel of the embodiment includes a substrate including an active area and an unactive area; a sensing electrode on the substrate; a wire electrically connected with the sensing electrode; a ground electrode on the substrate; a sub-ground electrode protruding toward an end of the substrate; and a first area defined by the sub-ground electrode, wherein the first area has a width larger than a line width of the sub-ground electrode. A touch device of the embodiment includes a display panel; and a touch panel on the display panel, wherein the touch panel includes a substrate; a sensing electrode on the substrate; a wire electrically connected with the sensing electrode; a ground electrode on the substrate; a sub-ground electrode protruding toward an end of the substrate; and a first area defined by the sub-ground electrode.
US09746879B2
An electrical interconnection system comprises a bifurcated, multilayer flex circuit having electrode pads on the inner surfaces of the bifurcation. Electronic components are mounted on one or both sides of the flex circuit by conventional means. When the bifurcation is spread apart, the electrode pads are alignable with respective contacts on a printed circuit board. After bonding the pads to the contacts by soldering, conductive adhesive, or other means, a secure electrical connection is maintained while still allowing the flex circuit to bend somewhat from side to side, creating additional design options not available with rigidly mounted components and modules.
US09746875B2
A ticket production device that cuts continuous recording paper printed with information and produces a ticket includes a paper conveyance means that conveys the recording paper through a paper conveyance path; a printing means that prints information on the recording paper conveyed by the paper conveyance means; a paper cutting means that cuts the recording paper on which information was printed into a ticket of a specific length; a paper position detection means that detects the position of the recording paper waiting at a paper exit; and a control means that integrally controls these other means. When the paper position detection means detects the position of the recording paper changed, the control means operates the paper cutting means and produces a ticket based on the detection result from the paper position detection means.
US09746872B2
An accelerator for small motor-vehicles allows an operator to control vehicle power output by flexing his or her index finger. The accelerator is designed for mounting on a handlebar but does not require a rotatable grip for operation. A lever is provided that rotates with applied force from the index finger, the lever rotating about an axis that is parallel or nearly parallel with the part of the handlebar that the hand rests on. A brake lever is also described that may be operated by the same hand that operates the accelerator.
US09746867B2
A process for automated contact wetting in a sensor circuit includes generating a first current through a contact by sequencing a first circuit on, the first current exceeding a wetting threshold of the contact, and reducing current through the contact to a second current by sequencing a second circuit on, the second current being below the wetting threshold.
US09746865B2
Provided is a current-to-voltage conversion circuit, including: an input/output node configured to input a current signal including a direct current component and an alternating current component, and to output a voltage based on the current signal; an amplification unit configured to input the voltage of the input/output node; an extraction unit configured to output a voltage based on a direct current component of a voltage output from the amplification unit; a first current supply unit configured to supply a current based on the voltage output from the extraction unit to the input/output node; and a second current supply unit configured to supply a current based on the alternating current component of the current signal to the input/output node. The current supplied by the second current supply unit corresponds to a difference between a current of the current signal and the current supplied by the first current supply unit.
US09746861B2
A stand-alone DC power network is provided with a DC to DC power converter only, and does not have a converter that will convert AC to DC. In addition, each of the different terminals that provides the DC voltage at different levels will be ranked according to priority as to which ones are the most important to supply the full voltage to, and which ones are of secondary importance in the event there is insufficient power in the system to provide full voltage at the specified current for the different loads. A processor monitors the voltage and current at each of the terminals, and in the event a current is attempted to be drawn from the system which would cause a first priority terminal to be reduced in voltage, the processor will instead reduce the power provided to the second priority terminal and ensure that the first priority terminal does not have a significant reduction in the specified voltage or the amount of current supplied to that terminal at the specified voltage.
US09746853B2
A method and apparatus for traffic signal timing estimation are disclosed. Traffic signal timing estimation may include a vehicle identifying transportation network information representing a vehicle transportation network including an intersection. The transportation network information may include expected traffic control device state information corresponding to the intersection, such as a support vector regression based machine learning model trained for the intersection. The vehicle may identify a route through the vehicle transportation network that includes the intersection based on the expected traffic control device state information and may control the traversal of the vehicle transportation network by the vehicle based on the expected traffic control device state information to minimize one or more operational cost metrics. Training the model may include identifying training data from input data previously generated and stored by a traffic control device controller of the intersection.
US09746850B2
A method and system for creating a design plan to test a product characteristic are described. One or more factors, level corresponding to the factors, and partitions for testing the product characteristic are determined. For each partition, an active matrix is generated. The product characteristic can be tested at each partition using the levels for the factors specified by the corresponding active matrix.
US09746847B2
An operator control device includes an operator control element configured to provide haptic feedback to an operator. The operator control element is activatable by an input member of the operator and has: a first planar component; and a second planar component oriented in parallel with the first planar component, the first and second planar components being movable relative to one another. The first and second planar components are guidable between a position of rest and an activation position while maintaining their parallel orientation with respect to one another. In the activation position the distance between the first and second planar components is smaller than in the position of rest. The first and second planar components are spring loaded in the position of rest.
US09746845B2
Provided is a support device that supports easier data exchange between PLCs without relying on a type of a PLC of the other communication party. The support device includes: a first input unit for receiving information defining, on a data-by-data basis, variables for data handled by the first programmable logic controller; a second input unit for receiving a source program expressing processing executed on the first programmable logic controller using the defined variables; a third input unit for receiving information that identifies a type of a second programmable logic controller in association with a first variable; and a generation unit that generates the executable program using the information defining the variables and the source program. The generation unit adapts a data structure of first data secured in the memory in correspondence with the first variable in accordance with the type of the second programmable logic controller.
US09746842B2
One or more commercial appliances for handling food and/or one of more subsystems of commercial appliances for handling food are linked to a master controller for controlling the operation of the commercial appliance(s) and/or its subsystem(s) via one or more CAN modules and a CAN bus.
US09746838B2
A method and apparatus for content management are provided. The method and apparatus efficiently manage content so as to provide a convenient user interface in an electronic device supporting content playback, browsing and storage. The method includes obtaining attribute information of a content item from a storage device, registering the attribute information in a content database, determining content items to be played back by a content player using the attribute information registered in the content database, creating a content list on the basis of the determined content items, displaying the content list, and playing back a content item selected by a user from the content list.
US09746835B2
A radio-controlled timepiece includes: a radio wave reception unit that receives satellite waves and extracts an incoming code sequence encoded in the received satellite waves; a counter unit that counts a date/time of the radio-controlled timepiece; and a processor that: generates an expected code sequence containing at least a portion of a preamble code and a code generated on the basis of the date/time counted by the counter unit that are expected to be part of the incoming code sequence that is extracted, detects a match between the expected code sequence that has been generated and the incoming code sequence by sequentially comparing the expected code sequence with the incoming code sequence, and acquires a present date/time, as indicated by the satellite waves, in accordance with a detection timing of the match, as measured by the data/time counted by the counter unit.
US09746830B2
A centralized control unit for controlling an arm moving in a clockwise direction and in a counter-clockwise direction includes an arbor about which the centralized control unit pivots. The arm is integrally mounted on a toothed actuating wheel as an assembly, and the assembly is mounted to freely rotate about the arbor. The centralized control unit also includes a wheel to control the arm in the clockwise direction, a wheel to control the arm in the counter-clockwise direction, and a power wheel kinematically connected to an independent barrel to drive the arm.
US09746824B2
An image forming apparatus includes a developing unit configured to develop using toner an electrostatic latent image formed on a photosensitive member, a mounting unit to which a container is mounted, the container including a containing unit configured to contain toner and a pump unit, and performing a supplying operation for supplying toner by expansion and contraction of the pump unit, a driving unit configured to rotationally drive the container to cause the container to perform the supplying operation, and a controller configured to control a rotational speed of the container based on a time for which the supplying operation has been performed.
US09746819B2
A collection container is divided by a divider plate into waste developer collection chambers in communication with waste developer reception ports for each color developer and a single waste toner collection chamber in communication with waste toner reception ports for each color toner. Further, the divider plate is a part of the inner wall of the collection container and the part is installed extending in the vertical direction to define a clearance between the divider plate and the bottom plate of the collection container. This makes it possible to collect color waste toner and color waste developer with a simple configuration.
US09746815B2
A replaceable unit for an electrophotographic image forming device according to one example includes a housing having a toner reservoir. An electrical connector mounted on the housing is movable between a retracted position and an operative position. The electrical connector includes an electrical contact for contacting a corresponding electrical contact in the image forming device. The electrical contact is electrically connected to processing circuitry on the housing. In the retracted position, the electrical connector is tucked into a portion of the housing. In the operative position, the electrical connector is exposed to permit the electrical contact to contact the corresponding electrical contact in the image forming device. A linkage is operatively connected to the electrical connector and includes an engagement surface accessible on an exterior of the housing to receive an actuation force. Movement of the linkage moves the electrical connector between the retracted position and the operative position.
US09746801B2
A cartridge attachable to and detachable from a body of an image forming apparatus includes a toner container containing a toner and including a stirring member configured to stir the toner, and a developing section connected to the toner container through a supply port and including a developing section stirring member configured to stir the toner, a supply roller configured to receive the toner supplied from the developing section stirring member, and a developing roller configured to receive the toner supplied from the supply roller. A rotation ratio of the stirring member to the supply roller is 5% to 25%.
US09746800B2
Provided is a liquid storing body for preventing a liquid containing a sedimentous component with a predetermined concentration or more from being supplied to a liquid jetting apparatus. An ink tank is provided with an ink storing part in which an opening provided on a side surface of a case is sealed with a film. An ink injection port is formed in an upper portion wall of the case. A plug member is provided with a sealing part that can seal the ink injection port, an operation part that is inserted in an ink reservoir chamber via the ink injection port, and a stirring portion provided at the lower end of the operation part. Ink in the ink storing part can be stirred by a user moving the plug member up and down with their hand.
US09746799B2
In one example, an article for an imaging supply for a printer that includes a first memory and a second memory in which the first memory stores an indication that unsigned data or signed data is stored on the second memory and the second memory stores consumables management data to cause the printer to define at least one of a yield, a low point, and an out point of the imaging supply.
US09746797B2
An image forming apparatus includes a body, a photoreceptor unit, and a developing unit. The developing unit includes a first attaching/detaching lever that moves a developing sleeve from a first position to a second position by lifting the first attaching/detaching lever. The photoreceptor unit includes a second attaching/detaching lever that moves the developing sleeve from the first position to the second position by lifting the second attaching/detaching lever. The photoreceptor unit and the developing unit move the developing sleeve to the second position by lifting the first or second attaching/detaching lever so that the photoreceptor unit and the developing unit are individually detached from the body.
US09746794B1
An optical scanning device is provided with a housing, a plurality of laser light sources, and a substrate. The laser light sources are attached to a side wall of the housing in a state wherein three terminals are protruding outward. The substrate is disposed to face an outer surface of the side wall of the housing. The laser light sources include: a first laser light source having a predetermined angle with respect to the substrate; and a second laser light source having a symmetrical angle to the angle of the first laser light source with respect to the substrate. In the first laser light source, only one of the three terminals is bent in the direction to be separated from other two terminals, and the second laser light source is disposed by inverting 180° a laser light source having a configuration same as that of the first laser light source.
US09746792B1
A charging member includes a support member, a conductive elastic layer disposed on the support member, and a front surface layer disposed on the conductive elastic layer. Irregularities with a cycle of shorter than 0.1 mm and irregularities with a cycle of 0.1 mm or longer are distributed on an entirety of an outer circumferential surface of the charging member, and satisfy the following conditions of (1) and (2):(1) The irregularities with the cycle of shorter than 0.1 mm have an average height of 5 μm to 8 μm; and(2) The irregularities with the cycle of 0.1 mm or longer have an average height of 6 μm to 30 μm.A half-value width of a maximum frequency value of a height distribution on the outer circumferential surface is 1 μm to 3 μm.
US09746787B2
A holding apparatus includes a holding portion that includes a first member which contacts a portion of an object, a second member which at least a portion thereof is fixed to a base, and a connection member which is configured to connect the first and second members, and a driving unit which drives the holding portion to change at least a posture of the first member, wherein a relative positional relationship between the first member and the second member is changed via the connection member.
US09746779B2
An illumination optical unit for projection lithography serves for illuminating an object field, in which an object to be imaged can be arranged, with illumination light. The illumination optical unit has a field facet mirror having a plurality of field facets. Furthermore, the illumination optical unit has a pupil facet mirror having a plurality of pupil facets. The field facets are imaged into the object field by a transfer optical unit. The illumination optical unit additionally has a deflection facet mirror having a plurality of deflection facets, which is arranged in the illumination beam path between the field facet mirror and the pupil facet mirror. This results in an illumination optical unit in which the illumination of the object to be imaged can be configured flexibly and can be adapted well to predefined values.
US09746774B2
A method for mitigating shot noise in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography and patterning of photo-sensitized chemically-amplified resist (PS-CAR) is described. The method includes a first EUV patterned exposure to generate a photosensitizer and a second flood exposure at a wavelength different than the wavelength of the first EUV patterned exposure, to generate acid in regions exposed during the first EUV patterned exposure, wherein the photosensitizer acts to amplify acid generation and improve contrast. The resist may be exposed to heat, liquid solvent, solvent atmosphere, or a vacuum to mitigate the effects of EUV shot noise on photosensitizer concentration which may accrue during the first EUV patterned exposure.
US09746773B2
Methods for selecting titania-doped quartz glass which experiences a reduction in OH group concentration of less than or equal to 100 ppm upon heat treatment at 900° C. for 100 hours as suitable material for the EUV lithography member.
US09746770B2
A thermally developable material comprising a support and having thereon at least one non-photosensitive carrier layer comprising: a binder comprising vinyl butyral repeat units and alcohol repeat units, an adhesion promoting compound comprising ester repeat units, and a crosslinker comprising isocyanate repeat units; and at least one thermally developable imaging layer comprising organic silver salt grains, light-sensitive silver halide grains, a reducing agent, a binder comprising hydroxyl and butryal repeat units, and a crosslinker comprising at least one isocyanate group.
US09746762B2
Provided is a conductive film coated substrate, including a conductive film formed thereon. In a relationship between a bearing area (%) and a bearing depth (nm) that are obtained by measuring, with an atomic force microscope, a region of 1 μm×1 μm of a surface of the conductive film, the surface of the conductive film satisfies a relationship that (BA70−BA30)/(BD70−BD30) is 15 or more and 260 or less (%/nm), and a maximum height (Rmax) is 1.3 nm or more and 15 nm or less.
US09746755B2
A light source device includes a light source section that emits laser light, a reflection and diffusion member that diffuses and reflects the laser light emitted from the light source section, and a cooler that cools the reflection and diffusion member. The cooler includes at least one of an axial fan, an electronic cooling element, and a heat pipe.
US09746748B2
A method and apparatus is disclosed for generating tunable attosecond-scale radiation pulses, with a frequency in range of mid-infrared to ultra-violet, from a silicon medium. The invention utilizes an intense laser pulse to drive a high harmonic generation (HHG) process in a silicon medium and a weak secondary field to control the HHG process. The weak secondary field has a frequency equal to the second harmonic of the intense laser pulse. The spatial, temporal and spectral properties of the HHG process and the emitted harmonic beam are tuned by adjusting the relative delay between the two fields and the intensity of the weak secondary field.
US09746740B2
The brightness of a TIR-based display is enhanced with a registered reflective element by recycling and reflecting light that passes through the dark pupil region of each hemi-spherical protrusion in the hemi-spherical surface back to the viewer. A method to fabricate a brightness enhanced TIR display comprising an apertured membrane with a thin conductive reflective metal layer facing and registered with the pupils of the hemi-spherical surface.
US09746725B2
A liquid crystal display, includes: a substrate; a gate line including a gate pad and a data line including a data pad, the gate and data lines being disposed on the substrate; a thin film transistor connected to the gate line and the data line; an organic layer disposed on the thin film transistor; a pixel electrode disposed on the organic layer; a first contact assistant disposed on the gate pad; a second contact assistant disposed on the data pad; a first insulating layer disposed on the pixel electrode; and a common electrode disposed on the first insulating layer, the common electrode overlapping with the pixel electrode. The common electrode includes first cutouts, the first insulating layer includes second cutouts, the plane shapes of the first and second cutouts are substantially the same, and the pixel electrode includes a polycrystalline transparent conductive material.
US09746721B2
A display panel including a plurality of pixel units is provided. Each pixel unit includes a first substrate, a second substrate and a display media therebetween. The first substrate includes a first sub-pixel and a second sub-pixel adjacent to the first sub-pixel. The first sub-pixel includes a first active device and a first pixel electrode electrically connected to the first active device, wherein the first pixel electrode has a first main slit and a plurality of first branch slits connected thereto. The second sub-pixel includes a second active device and a second pixel electrode electrically connected to the second active device, wherein the second pixel electrode has a second main slit and a plurality of second branch slits connected thereto. The second substrate includes a first electrode pattern and a second electrode pattern respectively corresponding to the first pixel electrode and the second pixel electrode, and a connecting portion therebetween.
US09746718B2
A liquid crystal display device includes: a TFT substrate having gate lines and data lines arranged thereon, the gate lines extending in a first direction and arranged in a second direction, the data lines extending in the second direction and arranged in the first direction; a counter substrate having a black matrix and a color filter; and liquid crystals put between the TFT substrate and the counter substrate. Columnar spacers are formed on the counter substrate. Pedestals are formed on portions of the TFT substrate, the portions corresponding to the columnar spacers. A convex portion and a concave portion are present at the top end of the columnar spacer. The pedestal is formed corresponding to the concave portion. The concave portion is opened at the ends thereof and connected to the lateral side of the columnar spacer.
US09746714B2
A display device includes a substrate, a thin film transistor positioned on the substrate, a pixel electrode connected to the thin film transistor, an alignment layer positioned on the pixel electrode, a liquid crystal layer including liquid crystal molecules formed on the alignment layer and positioned in a plurality of microcavities, a roof layer positioned such that the roof layer is spaced apart from the pixel electrode with a microcavity interposed therebetween, and an overcoat positioned on the roof layer and covering a trench positioned between the plurality of microcavities, in which in the liquid crystal layer, a pre-tilt angle manifestation group positioned to be adjacent to the alignment layer is formed, and the pre-tilt angle manifestation group includes a polymer of a compound represented by Chemical Formula 1.
US09746701B2
A display device is provided. The display device may include a display panel for displaying an image and a back cover provided behind the display panel and coupled to the display panel. A bending assembly may be coupled to the back cover to bend the display panel. A controller may be provided that is configured to control the bending assembly to apply a physical force to the back cover to bend the display panel a prescribed amount.
US09746699B2
An optical frequency shifter includes a splitter that branch a first optical signal having a first frequency component, a first mutual phase modulator that generate a second optical signal having a second frequency component and a third optical signal having a third frequency component with mutual phase modulation of the first optical signal and a first optical beat signal, a phase converter that change a phase of an output of the first mutual phase modulator, a second mutual phase modulator that generate the second optical signal and the third optical signal with mutual phase modulation of the first phase converter of output signal and a second optical beat signal, and a combiner that interfere between an output of the second mutual phase modulator and another optical signal obtained by branching of the splitter.
US09746696B2
An optical filter for eye glasses, in particular suitable for spectacle lenses or ski goggles, has a spectral power transmission curve of optical radiations. The spectral power transmission curve exhibits a local maximum spectral transmission (Tmax) of radiations in a first wavelength range (Δλmax). The first wavelength range (Δλmax) is between 380 nm and 420 nm. The spectral power transmission curve exhibits spectral transmissions (T) of radiation in a second wavelength range (Δλth) which are lower than an upper threshold spectral transmission (Tth,u). The second wavelength range (Δλth) is between 420 nm and 500 nm and the upper threshold spectral transmission (Tth,u) is smaller than the maximum spectral transmission (Tmax). The maximum spectral transmission (Tmax) is larger than 21%.
US09746693B2
A system includes a simultaneously bifocal diffractive lens component having a first focal point, a second focal point and a plurality of diffractive zones including a central zone and a plurality of annular concentric zones surrounding the central zone, the lens component having a first optical power and a second optical power associated with the first and second focal points respectively, the first and second focal points respectively corresponding to points of convergence of the most luminous orders of diffraction generated by the lens component for a nominal wavelength, the first system focal point and the second system focal point having a position dependent upon the value of the first optical power and the second optical power of the lens respectively, the central zone having a surface area value determined as a function of the pupil of the optical system, of the first optical power and the second optical power.
US09746690B2
This actuator carries out shake correction by inclining a driven unit using the driving force of a voice coil motor having a coil portion and a magnet portion. The actuator is provided with: a movable portion that has a flat frame-like holding member to which the driven unit is adhered, wherein one of either the coil portion or the magnet portion is disposed in the holding member; a fixed portion that has a base member and a frame-like cover member that is fixed to the peripheral edge of the base member, wherein the other of either the coil portion or the magnet portion is disposed in the base member; and a support portion that is disposed in the base member and supports the movable portion so as to be inclinable relative to the fixed portion. The movable portion is sandwiched between the base member and the cover member.
US09746689B2
Techniques related to a method, apparatus, and systems for magnetic fluid shutter operation are described herein. For example, an apparatus may include a magnet, a ferrofluid and a coil. The ferrofluid may surround the magnet. Additionally, the coil may be disposed near the ferrofluid, wherein in response to a current through coil, the magnet is to shift a lens.
US09746684B2
For comfortable viewing of a 3-D scene at various viewing angles, a display having a large tracking range for a variable viewer distance is required. A controllable light-influencing element deflects light in coarse steps in a viewer range. Within said steps, the light is deflected by a further controllable light-influencing element continuously or with fine gradation. The light modulation device is suitable in holographic or autostereoscopic displays for guiding the visibility ranges of the image information to be displayed so as to follow the eyes of the viewers.
US09746681B2
A laser beam combining device includes: a plurality of shaping optical units which emit circular laser beams which are different from each other in a change amount of an outer diameter per unit travel distance, wherein the plurality of shaping optical units are placed in such a manner that the circular laser beams emitted from the shaping optical units have a concentric shape.
US09746679B2
In various embodiments, a wavelength beam combining laser system includes a fast-axis collimation lens that is rotated with respect to a plurality of emitters in order to converge the emitted beams onto a dispersive element and/or reduce the size of the multi-wavelength output beam of the system.
US09746677B2
The invention relates to a device for applying laser radiation (13) to the outside of a rotationally symmetric component (11), comprising a plurality of lenses (10), which are designed and/or arranged in such a way that the axis of symmetry (12) of the component (11) lies at the focal point of each of the lenses (10).
US09746674B2
According to a light guide device that is an optical member, since a protruding rib extending along a sideways end portion is provided, first and second surfaces including a first surface and other free-form surfaces can be aligned with another member that forms, for example, a virtual image display apparatus with high precision when the light guide device is assembled to the other member by using part of the protruding rib, which is provided separately from the first and second surfaces, as a reference, whereby an optical function of the light guide device in the virtual image display apparatus or any other apparatus can be ensured. Further, an optical main body provided with the first and second surfaces has a shape similar to that of glasses and hence has a good external appearance.
US09746672B2
There is provided an image processing apparatus including: an input image acquisition unit for obtaining an input image generated by taking an image of a real space; an image recognition unit for recognizing, when a first user-input representing a start of manipulation is detected, a manipulator used for manipulating a virtual object, wherein the manipulator appears in the input image; a calculation unit for calculating, according to a result of the recognition of the manipulator provided by the image recognition unit, a position on a screen of a display device at which the virtual object is to be displayed; a display control unit for displaying the virtual object at the position of the screen of the display device calculated by the calculation unit; and a communication unit for transmitting, when the first user-input is detected, a first notification signal for notifying the start of manipulation to another apparatus displaying the same virtual object.
US09746670B2
The invention relates to a device for presenting information near the eyes, comprising a support (12) that can be carried on the head (10) of a user and comprising a monocular display unit (16) which is disposed on the support (12) and is positioned in a peripheral region of the field of vision of a first eye (14) of the user during use. According to a first aspect of the invention, a light-collecting unit (18, 20) on which ambient light can impinge is disposed on the support (12), and the light-collecting unit (18, 20) is coupled to the display unit (16) in order to illuminate same.
US09746668B2
A head-up display (HUD) device configured to project at least one of an image or a text on a windshield includes a display panel, a backlight module configured to emit light to the display panel, and an optical guide module configured to guide the at least one of the image or the text displayed on the display panel to the windshield. The backlight module includes a plurality of light sources configured to emit light to the display panel in different directions from one another such that the at least one of the image or text is independently projected on different regions of the windshield.
US09746663B2
An electrowetting pixel, comprising a first electrowetting element with a first subpixel and a second subpixel, and a second electrowetting element adjoining the first electrowetting element and with a third subpixel and a fourth subpixel.
US09746653B2
An imaging lens is constituted by, in order from the object side to the image side: a first lens group having a negative refractive power; a second lens group having a positive refractive power; a stop; and a third lens group having a positive refractive power or a negative refractive power. The first lens group has at least two positive lenses, a first positive lens from among the at least two positive lenses being positioned most toward the object side, and three negative lenses being consecutively provided adjacent to the first positive lens at the image side thereof. The first lens group is fixed with respect to an imaging surface, and focusing operations are performed by moving the second lens group and the third lens group.
US09746643B2
An optical image capturing system includes, along the optical axis in order from an object side to an image side, a first lens, a second lens, a third lens, a fourth lens, and a fifth lens. At least one lens among the first to the fifth lenses has positive refractive force, wherein the fifth lens can have negative refractive force, wherein both surfaces thereof are aspheric, and at least one surface thereof has an inflection point and wherein the first to the fifth lenses in the optical image capturing system have refractive power whereby the optical image capturing system can increase aperture value and improve the imaging quality for use in compact cameras.
US09746636B2
An electronic device includes an electronic circuit board containing a processing element and a vision sensor. A carrier frame is used to support the electronic circuit board. An optical element is positioned over the sensor and supported by the carrier frame. The electronic circuit board is bent to reduce the length, thickness and/or width of the electronic device, without increasing the others of the length, thickness and/or width of the electronic device.
US09746633B2
Clamp and Bending Strain Relief (BSR) system and method are disclosed. One example of a system can include a clamp coupled to a cable. The clamp is configured to couple an apparatus to the cable while allowing the cable to pass continuously through the clamp. A BSR apparatus is coupled to the clamp and the cable by a housing.
US09746628B2
A plug connector for connecting optical fibers to an electrical receptacle connector includes a housing defining a cavity therein. At least one printed circuit board (PCB) is disposed in the housing cavity. The PCB includes one or more optoelectronic components disposed on its top surface and electrical contacts disposed proximate a mating edge of the PCB for mating with the receptacle connector. The electrical contacts are electrically connected to the one or more optoelectronic components. One or more optical fibers enter the housing cavity through a housing opening and are optically coupled to the optoelectronic components. A structure comprising a top surface is disposed within the housing cavity between the housing opening and the PCB. The plurality of the optical fibers extends over the top surface of the structure and over at least a portion of the top surface of the PCB. The plurality of the optical fibers is separated from the top surface of the PCB by a first minimum distance and from the top surface of the platform by a second minimum distance less than the first minimum distance.
US09746624B2
An optical connector for an endoscope has a first holding member which holds a first waveguide therein, a second holding member which holds a second waveguide therein and replaceable replacement members which intervenes between the first holding member and the second holding member so that replacement waveguides intervenes between the waveguides and is optically coupled to the waveguides. The optical connector has attachment members and a positioning mechanism which positions the holding members and the replacement members relative to one another.
US09746623B2
Light is excited by a light source in a first waveguide mode. The light is converted to a second waveguide mode via a channel waveguide having a cross-sectional geometry normal to a direction of propagation of the light that rotates a polarity of the first waveguide mode to a second waveguide mode. The light in the second waveguide mode is delivered to a near-field transducer that provides electromagnetic heating for a heat assisted magnetic recording write head.
US09746618B2
In an L-angle type optical connector for bending an optical fiber in a right angle direction in wiring, an L-angle member which accommodates a bent portion, which is bent in a right angle direction, of the optical fiber has a cut-out spanning the entire length of the L-angle member along the inside of the bent portion, and a protrusion is formed on inner side surfaces, which sandwich the cut-out, of the L-angle member in a protruded manner. The member which accommodates the bent portion, which is bent in a right angle direction, of the optical fiber is constituted of one component.
US09746614B2
Optical coupling designs are disclosed to provide a photonic device, for example, that includes a substrate; an optical waveguide formed on the substrate and configured as a multimode waveguide to support light in different optical waveguide modes; and an optical fiber structured as a multimode fiber to support light in different optical fiber modes, the optical fiber located above the optical waveguide and optically coupled to the optical waveguide via evanescent coupling to allow light to be coupled between the optical fiber and the optical waveguide.
US09746604B2
A light guide apparatus that can redirect light impinging on the apparatus over a wide range of incident angles and can concentrate light without using a tracking system and methods for fabrication. This apparatus uses conditions of total internal reflection and refraction near the critical angle for total internal reflection (near TIR) in order to trap light within the apparatus.
US09746601B2
A light guide plate includes a light incident section and a light guiding section. The light incident section includes a light incident surface configured to receive light beams emitted from a light source, a top surface adjacent to the light incident surface, a first bottom surface oppose to the top surface. The light guiding section includes a main light emitting surface, a connecting surface connecting the main light emitting surface with the top surface, a second bottom surface opposite to the main light emitting surface and connecting with the first bottom surface, and a contacting surface connecting with the main light emitting surface and the second bottom surface. A step is formed at a junction of the light incident section and the light guiding section, and the connecting surface and the top surface define an accommodating space.
US09746592B2
The relates to multi-layer sealing films for microstructured articles. The multi-layer sealing film may include two or more layers. The multi-layer sealing film has an elastic modulus of at least 3.5×105 kPa and the flexural rigidity of the microstructured article is less than about 4.0×10−8 N·m2.
US09746583B2
A well integrity inspection system configured to inspect a well structure including multiple concentric layers. The well integrity inspection system includes an inspection probe positioned in the well structure. The inspection probe includes a plurality of excitation assemblies for transmitting a plurality of radiation emissions into the well structure. The plurality of excitation assemblies includes at least a neutron excitation assembly and an X-ray excitation assembly. The inspection probe also includes a plurality of detection assemblies configured to receive a plurality of backscatter radiation returns from the well structure. The plurality of detection assemblies includes at least a neutron detection assembly and an X-ray detection assembly. The well integrity inspection system further including a processor operatively coupled to the inspection probe. The processor is configured to determine a well integrity parameter of the well structure based on at least one of the plurality of backscatter radiation returns.
US09746577B2
Method for estimating uncertainty in a physical property model generated by inverting measured geophysical data, for example, a resistivity model inferred from electromagnetic field data. The method involves as few as one data inversion coupled with a number of forward simulation. Alternative solutions (models) are generated by probing a perturbation space defined from a reduced model space, resulting from a principal component decomposition of the inverted model, and selecting some of the larger components. Statistical analysis techniques may be applied (to those alternative solutions remaining after thresholding) to generate quantitative uncertainty estimates applicable to the inverted model.
US09746576B2
A method of estimating a wettability characteristic of a formation includes: disposing a magnetic resonance (MR) measurement apparatus in a borehole; generating a low gradient static magnetic field and an oscillating magnetic field in a region of the formation; detecting a MR signal generated in the region; calculating relaxation parameters for at least one fluid in the region; and estimating the wettability characteristic of the region based on the relaxation parameters.
US09746558B2
A proximity sensing apparatus includes a device housing, a plurality of energy emitters, an energy detector, a reflective member, and a controller system. The proximity sensing apparatus channels reflected energy to the energy detector and determines the location of the source of reflection. The channeling of energy to the energy detector may reduce manufacturing costs by utilizing less hardware while maintaining a high level of reliability.
US09746556B2
A signal processing device is provided. The signal processing device processes reception signals received by an object detector that detects existence of objects. The signal processing device includes a coordinate detecting module configured to detect a plurality of sets of representative coordinates of each of two echo images at two or more timings, the two echo images obtained from the reception signals and caused by two target objects. The signal processing device also includes a determining module configured to determine, based on the plurality of sets of representative coordinates at the two or more timings, whether the two echo images are obtained from towing object signals caused by a pair of a towing object and a towed object.
US09746540B2
A device and a method for calibrating the coordinate system of imaging systems having a tracking system prior or during image data acquisition, e.g. by way of magnetic resonance tomography.
US09746536B2
A magnetic resonance system (10), and corresponding method, image a subject using a conversion-free interleaved black and bright blood imaging (cfIBBI) sequence. A MR scanner (12) is controlled to perform a plurality of repetitions of a black blood imaging sequence (52). The black blood imaging sequence (52) includes a tissue nulling sub-sequence followed by a black blood acquisition sub-sequence (56) performed a time interval (TI) after the tissue nulling sub-sequence. The MR scanner (12) is further controlled to, between successive repetitions of the black blood imaging sequence (52), perform a bright blood imaging sequence (54) including the tissue nulling sub-sequence followed by a bright blood acquisition sub-sequence (58) performed the time interval (TI) after the tissue nulling sub-sequence. The time intervals (TI) of the black blood imaging sequence (52) and the bright blood imaging sequence (54) are of the same duration.
US09746527B2
There is provided an apparatus for battery life estimation comprising an energy harvester; an energy storage apparatus, connected to the energy harvester, the energy storage apparatus representative of a unit of measure; a battery for receiving energy from the storage apparatus; and a processor for monitoring the energy provided by the storage apparatus, monitoring energy provided to the battery by other charging apparatus and monitoring the energy being delivered by the battery; wherein the processor calculates the remaining life of the battery based on the number of energy storage apparatus units that are provided to and delivered from the battery.
US09746516B2
A failing latch is identified on a chip including a plurality of latches with the failing latch receiving data propagated from a first set of test input latches. A diagnostic set of latches is determined which includes the failing latch and a set of related latches. The set of related latches each receives data propagated from at least one test input latch from the first set of test input latches. The set of related latches is identified from a related latches table. One or more tests are performed on the chip and test output data is collected from the diagnostic set of latches. The related latches table is created by tracing from a target latch.
US09746514B2
Methods and apparatus for providing measurements in p-n junctions and taking into account the lateral current for improved accuracy are disclosed. The lateral current may be controlled, allowing the spreading of the current to be reduced or substantially eliminated. Alternatively or additionally, the lateral current may be measured, allowing a more accurate normal current to be calculated by compensating for the measured spreading. In addition, the techniques utilized for controlling the lateral current and the techniques utilized for measuring the lateral current may also be implemented jointly.
US09746510B2
An apparatus for detecting ground faults in a multifurnace installation with at least two induction furnaces and a multifurnace installation are described. A ground-fault sensor is associated with each induction furnace and is connected to the electrical supply line to the induction furnace coil. Furthermore, the apparatus has a ground-leak sensor. Moreover, the apparatus includes an additional ground-fault sensor that measures at the same location as the ground-leak sensor. In this manner an improvement of security during the operation of the system is obtained.
US09746508B2
A method may include injecting at an instant a reference signal at an injection point of the assembly, the reference signal having been obtained beforehand by injecting an initial signal at the injection point at an instant, by a measurement of the reflected signal resulting from this injection, and by the time reversal of the measured signal. The method may also include measuring a reflected signal resulting from the propagation of the signal in the assembly of at least one cable. The method may further include determining the aging of the assembly of at least one cable between the instant and the instant, the aging being deduced from the measurement of the reflected signal.
US09746507B1
Apparatuses and methods of distinguishing between a finger and a stylus proximate to a touch surface are described. One apparatus includes a first circuit to obtain capacitance measurements of sense elements when a conductive object is proximate to a touch surface. The apparatus also includes a second circuit coupled to the first circuit. The second circuit is operable to detect whether the conductive object activates the first sense element, second sense element, or both, in view of the capacitance measurements. To distinguish between a stylus and a finger as the conductive object, the second circuit determines the conductive object as being the stylus when the second sense element is activated and the first sense element is not activated and determines the conductive object as being the finger when the first sense element and the second sense element are activated.
US09746503B2
A method for adjusting a current sensor with a measuring element having a broken rational current-voltage characteristic curve, including:—changing the broken rational profile of the broken rational current-voltage characteristic curve of the measuring element on the basis of at least one predetermined condition.
US09746500B2
A current sensing apparatus is disclosed that provides improved immunity to external magnetic fields, enhanced resolution, and a wide sensing range. The current sensing apparatus includes a conductor having a plurality of current path regions formed therein, which are separated by a pair of slots formed through the conductor. A pair of magnetic field sensors is positioned relative to the pair of slots to sense a magnetic field produced by a current flow through one of the current path regions.
US09746496B2
The present invention relates to a signal measurement system (100, 200, 300) for measuring a signal, the system comprising a signal detection unit (41) for detecting a raw signal, a signal processing unit (42) and a signal cable (10) electrically connecting the signal detection unit (41) with the signal processing unit (42). The signal cable (10) comprises a signal conductor (1, 2) for electrically conducting a first signal from the signal detection unit (41) to the signal processing unit (42), which first signal comprises at least the raw signal, a reference conductor (11, 12) for detecting and electrically conducting to the signal processing unit (42) only a noise signal induced by a movement of the signal cable (10) or by electromagnetic interference. In this way the effect of noise on the signal quality is reduced caused by movement of the signal cable (10) or other sources of noise that induce a noise signal in the signal cable (10), such as electromagnetic interference, while at the same time not increasing the power usage or power loss.
US09746492B2
In a method for checking the plausibility of sensor signals, a first sensor element detects at least one first physical quantity and outputs it as a first sensor signal, and a second sensor element detects a second physical quantity correlated with the first physical quantity and outputs it as a second sensor signal. The first sensor element has a first reliability range having an upper limit and/or a lower limit, which range is related to the second physical quantity. The first physical quantity detected by the first sensor element is recognized as plausible if the second physical quantity detected by the second sensor element lies within the corresponding first reliability range of the first sensor element.
US09746485B2
An automatic blood coagulation analysis device including a computation processing unit which executes computation processing according to a pre-installed program, and a storage unit which stores data acquired from outside and data obtained through computation processing by the computation processing unit. The computation processing unit comprises an Fbg computation module, a correction coefficient computation module, a reference value setting module and a difference module. The storage unit comprises a standard sample measured value holding unit, base value holding unit, standard sample difference value holding unit, reference value holding unit, correction coefficient holding unit, specimen measured value holding unit and specimen difference value holding unit.
US09746478B2
Methods for diagnosing a systemic or autoimmune disorder and methods for treating the same by inducing the production of or otherwise providing an autoantibody that recognizes a skin basement membrane component.
US09746473B2
The present invention is directed to a method of detecting a DEK protein in a human urine sample using an ELISA assay. Methods and compositions for detection of DEK using mAb 260-6F9F6 (as detection antibody) and mAb 16-2C9C3 (as capture antibody) in human urine are provided herein. Specifically, the ELISA assay utilizes a capture mAb and a detection mAb to yield a high sensitivity of <50 ng/mL. The presence of DEK in urine is useful in predicting or diagnosing the occurrence of bladder cancer in humans.
US09746471B2
The present invention relates to the identification of p53 biomarker profiles that predict response in patients with hyperproliferative disease such as cancer to a therapy, and their use in methods of treating such patients with an anti-hyperproliferative disease gene therapy.
US09746469B2
Methods, devices, kits and compositions for detecting the presence or absence of one or more helminthic coproantigens in a sample are disclosed herein. The methods, devices, kits and compositions of the present invention may be used to confirm the presence or absence of roundworm, whipworm and/or hookworm in a fecal sample from a mammal and may also be able to distinguish between one or more helminth infections. Confirmation of the presence or absence of roundworm, whipworm and/or hookworm in the mammal may be made, for example, for the purpose of selecting an optimal course of treating the mammal and/or for the purpose of determining whether the mammal has been rid of the infection after treatment has been initiated.
US09746467B2
A microstructured chip (3; 33; 43; 53; 63) for surface plasmon resonance (SPR) analysis, taking the form of a solid formed by: a base (5; 77); an upper surface (4; 44), at least part of which is covered with a metal layer (2; 22; 42; 52; 62); and at least one side surface (55; 66). The chip is characterized in that the aforementioned upper surface is provided with micrometric zones intended to receive species to be analyzed and selected from among n protrusions and m cavities, and in that when n+m≧2 the zones are separated from one another by planar surfaces, with n varying between 1 and j, m varying between 0 and i, and j and i being integers.
US09746465B2
A magnetic bead-based digital microfluidic immunoanalysis device and a method thereof are provided, which includes a lower plate, an upper plate disposed above the lower plate, a separating structure therebetween and a magnet disposed on the upper plate or the lower plate. The lower plate includes a first electrode layer including a plurality of channel electrodes with different sizes. A droplet containing few magnetic beads is adapted to be disposed on the lower plate and corresponding to the channel electrodes. The magnet attracts the magnetic beads to approach to the smaller one of the channel electrodes though a magnetic force, and when a voltage is applied to the first electrode layer, the droplet is divided to a detection portion with the magnetic beads and a waste-liquid portion without the magnetic beads respectively corresponding to the smaller one and the larger one of the channel electrodes through a dual-direction electrowetting-on-dielectric force.
US09746464B2
The instant invention provides an economical flow-through method for determining amount of target proteins in a sample. An antibody preparation (whether polyclonal or monoclonal, or any equivalent specific binding agent) is used to capture and thus enrich a specific monitor peptide (a specific peptide fragment of a protein to be quantitated in a proteolytic digest of a complex protein sample) and an internal standard peptide (the same chemical structure but including stable isotope labels). Upon elution into a suitable mass spectrometer, the natural (sample derived) and internal standard (isotope labeled) peptides are quantitated, and their measured abundance ratio used to calculate the abundance of the monitor peptide, and its parent protein, in the initial sample.
US09746447B2
Described herein is an apparatus for inspecting a component includes a first feature inspector with at least one wave transducer configured to inspect a first feature of the component. The first feature inspector further includes at least one displacement sensor configured to detect a displacement of the at least one wave transducer of the first feature inspector relative to the first feature of the component. The apparatus further includes a second feature inspector with at least one wave transducer configured to inspect a second feature of the component. The second feature inspector further includes at least one displacement sensor configured to detect a displacement of the at least one wave transducer of the second feature inspector relative to the second feature of the component.
US09746444B2
The present invention discloses a device and system for magnetographic analysis of mechanical flaws and defects along structures located underwater for example, metallic pipelines, utilizing an autonomous magnetic tomography method (MTM) apparatus based on the inverse magnetostrictive effect for magnetographic identification, in the form of an array of flexible autonomous undersea vehicle (AUV) torpedo constructions of interconnected elements or pods. The array of AUV torpedo constructions are flexibly linked together so that the device can readily navigate within the contours of pipeline to be inspected using the flow media as propulsion means or alternatively by means of independent motive means without interfering with the system flow. The torpedo construction elements or pods each contain three MTM sensors situated 120 degrees apart on a non-perpendicular cross section arrangement, and perform a variety of independent functions. e.g., data storage data, sensor data memory unit, odometer distance measurements, GPS location, geomagnetic navigation capability.
US09746442B2
A sensing apparatus includes a device containing microwells and a switched capacitor circuit in which at least one of the sensing/storage capacitors is a capacitor that extends perpendicularly with respect to a semiconductor device layer containing field effect transistors. Capacitor structures extend into microwells or within a doped layer on a handle substrate. Ion generation within the microwells is sensed using the circuit.
US09746440B2
A sensor includes a sheath that is elongated along a longitudinal axis; a spacer positioned within the sheath and defining first and second channels having lengths that extend along the longitudinal axis; a first elongated member positioned within the first channel; and a second elongated member positioned within the second channel. The first elongated member includes an active surface forming a working electrode and the second elongated member including an active surface defining a counter electrode.
US09746435B2
A nondestructive inspection apparatus of a structure includes: an inspection apparatus body 1 provided with an infrared light irradiation unit irradiating a structure 3 to be inspected with heating infrared light, a temperature variation measuring unit measuring a variation in temperature of the structure due to the irradiation with infrared light from the infrared light irradiation unit, a drive-control-and-accumulation unit performing drive control of the infrared light irradiation unit and the temperature variation measuring unit and performing data accumulation; and a self-running mechanism unit 2 enabling the inspection apparatus body 1 to move along the structure 3. The structure 3 is inspected for an internal defect by irradiating the structure 3 with heating infrared light while the apparatus moves along the structure 3 through the use of the self-running mechanism unit 2 and measuring the variation in temperature of the structure 3 due to the irradiation with infrared light.
US09746424B2
A method of observing and analyzing optical singularities includes illuminating an outside of a container by using a light-emitting surface of axial symmetry around a vertical axis (Z) parallel to the axes of symmetry of the containers, with a property of the emission that is detectable by the acquisition system(s) varying along a generator line of the light-emitting surface. For containers of low transmittance, taking the view image of the container portion by the image acquisition device receiving light beams comes from a portion of the light-emitting surface situated on the same side of the container. For containers of high transmittance, taking the view of the container portion by the image acquisition device receiving light beams comes from a portion of the light-emitting surface that is diametrically opposite relative to the container.
US09746413B2
A cell capture system including an array, an inlet manifold, and an outlet manifold. The array includes a plurality of parallel pores, each pore including a chamber and a pore channel, an inlet channel fluidly connected to the chambers of the pores; an outlet channel fluidly connected to the pore channels of the pores. The inlet manifold is fluidly connected to the inlet channel, and the outlet channel is fluidly connected to the outlet channel. A cell removal tool is also disclosed, wherein the cell removal tool is configured to remove a captured cell from a pore chamber.
US09746412B2
The disclosed flow cytometer includes a wavelength division multiplexer (WDM). The WDM includes an extended light source providing light that forms an object, a collimating optical element that captures light from the extended light source and projects a magnified image of the object as a first light beam, and a first focusing optical element configured to focus the first light beam to a size smaller than the object of the extended light source to a first semiconductor detector. The disclosed flow cytometer further includes a composite microscope objective to direct light emitted by a particle in a flow channel in a viewing zone of the composite microscope to the extended light source, a fluidic system and a peristaltic pump configured to supply liquid sheath and liquid sample to the flow channel, and a laser diode system to illuminate the particle in the flow channel.
US09746407B2
The present invention relates to a method for detecting molecular interactions in a solution. In particular, the present invention relates to a method for detecting interactions between two substances that are likely to interact with one another. The present invention can be used in particular in the field of scientific research and in the field of medical analysis.
US09746406B2
A flow test machine 2 which, for example, is able to be used for viscosity tests on plastics, comprises a test piston 4, a test channel 38, at least one test weight 72 and a drive unit 92. The test piston 4 is able to move through the test channel 38 by means of a weight force 79 of the test weight 72. The test weight 72 is able to be loaded by an actuating additional force 108, 108′ by means of the drive unit 92 between a starting position 151 and an end position. The actuating additional force 108 enables a movement of the test piston 4 in the direction of the weight force 79, said movement being accelerated in comparison with an effect of the weight force 79. In a melt viscosity test, after a heating step, a thermoplastic plastic is pressed through a test channel 38 by a test piston 4. In a measurement preparation step and/or a cleaning step, the test mass is lowered along a weight force direction 79 under the influence of an actuating additional force 108, 108′. In a method for cleaning, a cleaning step is undertaken by means of an actuating additional force 108, 108′ from the drive unit 92, said drive unit 92 serving to drive a test piston movement during a melt viscosity test.
US09746405B2
A method and system are provided for elementally detecting variations in density. The method includes providing a computed tomography device, comprising a radiation source, a detector, and at least one grating between the radiation source and the detector, positioning the component between the radiation source and the detector, directing radiation from the radiation source to the detector to acquire information from the component, generating at least one phase contrast image and at least one dark field contrast image of the component corresponding to variations in density with the information from the component, correlating the variations in density to a foreign mass, and displaying foreign mass distribution within the component. The system includes a radiation source, a detector, a component, a first grating, a second grating, and an analysis device capable of determining total variation of density in response to radiation received by the detector, and correlating the variation of density to free element distribution in the component.
US09746401B2
A universal materials testing machine is disclosed. In one embodiment, the machine comprises a plurality of grips holding a circular material specimen sheet; the grips being capable of pulling the material specimen radially outward. Each grip is connected to a force measurement sensor such as a load cell. The grip and the load cell assembly is connected to a linear actuator assembly. The linear actuator assembly comprises a motor connected to an arm that can move along a straight line. The actuator pulls or pushes the load cell and grip assembly. A camera module captures images of the specimen while being stretched or released. A data processing system gathers camera module images along with force measurements from the load cells. An analysis module running on the data processing unit computes stress and strain measurements and fits them to user selectable material model.
US09746393B2
This application relates to methods and apparatus for fiber optic sensing which can provide information about the environment in which the fiber optic is deployed. In particular the application relates to fiber optic based sensing of the mechanical impedance of the environment. The method comprises using an interrogator (201) to interrogate an optical fiber (104) which is coupled to a first element (202; 802) which is responsive to electromagnetic fields. In use a varying electric current (I), which may be an alternating current, is applied so as to induce a varying force (F) on said first element. The optical radiation backscattered from within the optical fiber is analyzed to determine a measurement signal indicative of a variation in the backscattered radiation corresponding with said electric current applied. The first element may be a first conductor (202) and the varying current may be supplied to the first conductor, or to a second conductor (701). Alternatively the first element could be a magnetic element (802). By applying a variable force to the first element, and hence the optical fiber, the characteristics of the environment can be determined.
US09746390B2
Methods and apparatus for a microfused silicon strain gauge pressure sensor. A pressure sensor package includes a sense element configured to be exposed to a pressure environment, the sense element including at least one strain gauge, an electronics package disposed on a carrier and electrically coupled to the sense element, the carrier disposed on a port that includes the sense element, the port enabling a decoupling feature for sealing and parasitic sealing forces and a reduction of a port length, a housing disposed about the sense element and electronics package, and a connector joined to the housing and electrically connected to the electronics package, the connector including an external interface.
US09746377B2
Provided are methods and systems for concurrent imaging at multiple wavelengths. In one aspect, a hyperspectral/multispectral imaging device includes a lens configured to receive light backscattered by an object, a plurality of photo-sensors, a plurality of bandpass filters covering respective photo-sensors, where each bandpass filter is configured to allow a different respective spectral band to pass through the filter, and a plurality of beam splitters in optical communication with the lens and the photo-sensors, where each beam splitter splits the light received by the lens into a plurality of optical paths, each path configured to direct light to a corresponding photo-sensor through the bandpass filter corresponding to the respective photo-sensor.
US09746375B2
Aspects of the disclosure include suppression of optical interference fringes in optical spectra via a modification to the refractive index of media that forms or is contained in one or more components of equipment utilized for optical spectroscopy. Such a modification can yield changes in the optical path of light propagating through at least one of the media, with the ensuing changes in the spectral structure of interference between light propagating through different optical paths. In certain embodiments, the refractive index of the media that forms or is contained in one or more components can be modified via application of a time-dependent stimulus to at least one of the one or more components. The applied stimulus can include pressure, mechanical strain or stress, temperature, a combination thereof, or the like.
US09746372B2
A receiver of a pulsed light signal comprises a photodiode adapted to generate an electric current in response to this light signal, having a parasitic capacitance Cd as its characteristic; an electrical ground; and a transimpedance amplifier connected to the input of the photodiode by a linking capacitor Cliaison. It includes an attenuation pad located between the photodiode and the transimpedance amplifier, consisting of a capacitor Cp where Cp=Cd/(α−1), α being a predetermined attenuation, where α>1.
US09746357B2
A fluid flow sensor includes a hollow cylindrical casing containing a large number of solid spheres of identical diameter, packed tightly together. Fluid inflow and fluid outflow blocks are mounted to opposite ends of the casing, forming a fluid-tight seal. The fluid inflow and outflow blocks each enclose a generally conical fluid chamber tapering from where it meets an end of an interior of the casing to a respective inlet passage or outlet passage. Circular grilles divide the casing from each fluid chamber and retain the spheres in place. A pressure differential across the casing is measured via side passages extending laterally from each fluid chamber. For a given fluid, a given casing diameter and a given sphere diameter, this pressure differential can be converted to a fluid flow rate.
US09746356B2
According to embodiments of the present invention, a sensor for determining a flow parameter of a fluid is provided. The sensor includes a polymer membrane, an elongate microstructure extending from the polymer membrane, and a hydrogel coupled to at least a portion of the elongate microstructure, wherein the hydrogel and the elongate microstructure are arranged to cooperate to cause a displacement of the polymer membrane in response to a fluid flowing and interacting with the sensor, and wherein the sensor is configured to provide a measurement indicative of a flow parameter of the fluid based on the displacement of the polymer membrane. According to further embodiments of the present invention, a method for forming a sensor and a method of controlling a sensor are also provided.
US09746351B2
A light conductor device receives light from a light source. The light conductor includes a radial conductor including an annular body, a conductor base, and outer segments. The annular body extends in a circumferential direction. The conductor base extends from the annular body inward in a radial direction. The conductor base extends in the circumferential direction. Each of the outer segments extends from the annular body outward in the radial direction. The outer segments are arranged in the circumferential direction and distant from each other in the circumferential direction. The annular body is located between the conductor base and the outer segments in the radial direction to bridge the conductor base and the outer segments into a single piece.
US09746337B2
Systems and methods are provided for providing improved generation of textual directions based on positional information. In an implementation, textual directions for traversing a path are generated based on positional information associated with the path. According to a method, positional information that specifies a longitude and latitude at a plurality of times is received and processed to generate a routing graph. The generated routing graph includes nodes and route links that connect the plurality of nodes. Textual directions are generated for traversing a path associated with the positional data, based in part on link information associated with the links of the generated routing graph.
US09746326B2
A driver apparatus includes a vibrator and a drive circuit configured to input a drive signal to the vibrator to vibrate the vibrator. The drive circuit includes an output amplifier configured to output the drive signal to the vibrator based on a monitor signal, a power supply unit configured to supply a power supply voltage, and a power supply voltage controller configured to control the power supply voltage and to supply the controlled power supply voltage to the output amplifies. This driver apparatus can increase amplitude of the vibration of the vibrator, and can increase detection sensitivity to a physical quantity detection apparatus including the driver apparatus.
US09746306B2
Method for determining the contact angle (α) of a rolling element bearing (10) comprising an inner ring (12), an outer ring (14) and a plurality, P, of rolling elements (16) interposed between the inner ring (12) and the outer ring (14). The method comprises the step of determining the relative speed of P−1 or fewer of said plurality, P, of rolling elements (16) with respect to the inner ring (12) and/or the outer ring (14) and determining the contact angle (α) of said rolling element bearing (10) therefrom.
US09746304B2
A method and apparatus for correcting errors in a bearing cartridge used in a portable articulated arm coordinate measurement machine (AACMM) is provided. The method includes providing a cartridge having a first bearing and a second bearing arranged in a fixed relationship to define an axis, the cartridge further including an angle measurement device configured to measure a rotation of a portion of the cartridge about the axis. A plurality of angles is measured with the angle measurement device. A first plurality of displacements is determined at a first position along the axis, each of the first plurality of displacements being associated with one of the plurality of angles. Compensation values are determined based at least in part on the plurality of angles and the first plurality of displacements.
US09746292B2
Container (10) is generally cylindrical except for a longitudinal concave groove (11) extending along its entire length. Upon explosion, the contour of this groove (11) results in a focussing effect on the wall material due to the oblique angle at which the expanding cylindrical detonation wave front impacts upon its inner wall. This produces the forging of a rough rod-like projectile (111) which, being coherent, maintains its velocity and consequently travels much further than the randomly shaped projectiles (101).
US09746283B2
Cocking tab inserts and breechblock slides and firearms including the same are disclosed. An example apparatus includes a breechblock slide; a cocking tab insert removably coupled to the breechblock slide; and a sight removably coupled to the breechblock slide and overlaying the cocking tab insert to substantially prevent the cocking tab insert from being inadvertently removed from the breechblock slide.
US09746280B2
A pressure regulator for paint ball gun includes a first housing including a hollow projection on a first end surface, an axial channel through the projection, and a connector on a second end surface; an output pressure gauge on the first housing; a check valve on the first housing; a pressure regulation assembly including a sleeve fastened in the channel and having an axial tunnel, a biasing member in the tunnel, and a hub on the biasing member; a hollow second housing including an internal space with the projection disposed therein, and holes on an end, each hole having overlapping circular portions and of larger and smaller sizes; and fasteners through the overlapping circular portions of smaller size of the holes into the first housing. In an unfastened state of the second housing, the fasteners are through the overlapping circular portions of larger size of the holes.
US09746278B1
A crossbow includes a barrel, a wing supported on a front portion of the barrel, a string connected to the wing at two ends, a rear sight supported on a rear portion of the barrel, and a string-pulling unit movably supported on the barrel and adapted for pulling the string backward on the barrel. The string-pulling unit includes two parallel shanks, a handle and a crossbar. The shanks are movable along two parallel lateral faces of the barrel. The handle is connected to the shanks near a rear end of each of the shanks. The crossbar is connected to the shanks near a front end of each of the shanks and adapted for keeping the shanks in position relative to each other. Moreover, the crossbar extends over the barrel. A front sight is formed on the crossbar and adapted for cooperation with the rear sight during aiming.
US09746277B2
A clutch for use with an arrow rest is mounted intermediate the arrow rest and the bow. The clutch includes a body having a first end configured to operatively connect to the arrow rest cord and a second end that receives a moveable shaft. The moveable shaft has a first end received in the body and a second end configured to connect to a bow. A spring is received on the shaft and positioned between the shaft and the clutch body. The clutch is moveable between a first position in which the shaft first end is proximate the clutch body first end to facilitate the movement of an arrow rest launcher arm out of an arrow support position, and a second position in which the shaft first end is proximate the clutch body second end to facilitate movement of the arrow rest launcher arm into an arrow support position.
US09746276B2
A crossbow system is illustrated with a rail, a stock and a riser assembly. In certain embodiments, flexible limbs extend forward from riser assembly, in the direction of shooting, and include cams at the limb tips for the power cable arrangement at their ends. In certain embodiments, the riser assembly is made in a triangular arrangement with a crosspiece and a pair of struts extending rearward and are braced at an apex. Optionally, the crosspiece and struts can be formed separately and connected during assembly, facilitating manufacture and ease of assembly of the crossbow and allowing greater flexibility in the choice of manufacturing methods, materials and mounting arrangements.
US09746275B1
The split cam for a compound archery bow includes a pair of limbs, each limb having a respective loose end and at least two portions. End members are installed on the loose ends, and each end member has a pulley for a bowstring and two attachments for two cables. In between the loose ends, a first cable and a second cable are located on the same side of the bowstring. For each limb, at least one portion of the limb separates the respective pulley from at least one of the attachments for the first cable and the second cable. The portions may be of different resilience. The cam provides for convenient operation of a compound archery bow, increases initial speed of an arrow when shooting, and increases strength and reliability.
US09746269B2
One embodiment of a gun configured with the soft recoil system comprises a plurality of recoiling parts that initially moves in the direction of the projectile being fired before moving in a direction opposite to that of a projectile during the firing of the round. The soft recoil system throttles the movement of the recoiling parts such that the energy expended during the firing of the round is spread over a longer time period and a longer distance than would normally occur. The soft recoil system stores at least a portion of the energy transferred to the recoiling parts and the user may selectively release at least a part of that portion of energy to offset the energy imparted to the gun during the firing of the next round.
US09746268B2
A pole assembly includes a slide mounted reciprocally to a pole. The slide includes an upper extremity, a lower extremity, and a handle between the upper extremity and the lower extremity. First and second jaws are mounted reciprocally to the slide between gripping positions for gripping the pole therebetween and released positions for releasing the pole therebetween. The slide is disabled from moving reciprocally relative to the pole, in the gripping positions of the first and second jaws. The slide is enabled for moving reciprocally relative to the pole, in the released positions of the first and second jaws. Each of the first and second jaws reciprocates obliquely relative to the pole from the released position away from the pole and the upper extremity of the slide, and the gripping position toward the pole and the upper extremity of the slide.
US09746259B2
A heat conductor includes a first layer containing a first resin component and first flake graphite fillers each having a basal plane; and a second layer containing a second resin component and second flake graphite fillers each having a basal plane. The heat conductor is a laminate including the first layer and the second layer, an average of first angles in the first layer is 35 degrees or smaller, each of the first angles is an acute angle between the basal plane of a corresponding one of the first flake graphite fillers and a first laminated surface of the laminate, an average of second angles in the second layer ranges from 55 degrees to 90 degrees, and each of the second angles is an acute angle between the basal plane of a corresponding one of the second flake graphite fillers and a second laminated surface of the laminate.
US09746258B2
A contamination barrier for protecting heat exchanger units, for example, condensers of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. The contamination barrier includes a filtration media which allows particles small enough to pass through a condenser assembly to pass through the contamination barrier, while preventing larger particles from passing therethrough. The contamination barrier inhibits the buildup of debris and other contamination within the condenser assembly while reducing or eliminating the need to clean the barrier, and without significantly reducing airflow through the condenser assembly, thereby promoting the ability of the condenser assembly to maintain operational efficiency. The contamination barrier is adaptable to be applied to a variety of heat exchanger units.
US09746257B2
A method for making a heat exchanger assembly is described, involving generating a digital model of a heat exchanger assembly that comprises a heat exchanger core within a housing. The digital model is inputted into an additive manufacturing apparatus or system comprising an energy source. The additive manufacturing apparatus applies energy from the energy source to successively applied incremental quantities of a metal powder, which fuses the powder to form incremental portions of the heat exchanger core and housing according to the digital model. Unfused or partially fused metal powder is enclosed in a first region of the heat exchanger assembly between the heat exchanger core and the housing.
US09746253B2
A heat exchanger plate, where the plate is provided with a heat transfer surface having a corrugated pattern with a plurality of ridges and valleys, and where the heat exchanger plate is provided with a plurality of guiding sections, and where each guiding section has a first guiding surface and a second guiding surface, where the first and second guiding surfaces are perpendicular to each other. A heat exchanger having a plurality of heat exchanger plates is also disclosed. The advantage of this heat exchanger plate is that it allows for an improved alignment of the heat exchanger plates.
US09746251B2
A plate heat exchanger plate ports and, between the ports, a heat transfer area partly divided by a barrier. The heat exchanger plate comprises a first port, a second port, a third port and a fourth port. Further, the heat exchanger plate is provided with a first transition area between the first and second ports and the heat transfer area, and a second transition area between the third and fourth ports and the heat transfer area, the first and second transition areas being provided with transition ports. The first transition area is open towards the heat transfer area, and the second transition area is separated from the heat transfer area by a sealing.
US09746241B2
Methods and apparatuses for drying electronic devices are disclosed. Embodiments include methods and apparatuses that heat and decrease pressure within the electronic device. Some embodiments increase and decrease pressure while adding heat energy, such as by using a heated platen in contact with the electronic device or by supplying a gas (e.g., air), which may be heated, into the interior of the electronic device. Embodiments include heating the gas supplied into the interior of the electronic device with pump used to decrease pressure within the electronic device and/or a separate heater. Still other embodiments include controlling the temperature of the gas supplied into the electronic device. Still further embodiments automatically control, such as by using an electronic processor, some or all aspects of the drying of the electronic device.
US09746233B2
In a process for the separation of a gas rich in carbon dioxide and containing at least one component lighter than carbon dioxide, the feed gas rich in carbon dioxide is cooled in a first heat exchanger, partially condensed and separated to form a gaseous portion and a liquid, sending the liquid portion to the top of a distillation column, removing a liquid stream richer in carbon dioxide than the feed gas from the bottom of the distillation column, removing a gaseous stream less rich in carbon dioxide than the feed gas from the top of the distillation column and warming the gaseous stream in the first heat exchanger, sending the gaseous portion to a shell and tube heat exchanger having tubes in a bath of triple point carbon dioxide, in which it condenses at least partially to form a liquid fraction, sending the liquid fraction to the top of the distillation column, vaporizing a liquid stream from the bottom of the distillation column outside or within the distillation column to form a gas which is subsequently separated in the distillation column, expanding a liquid stream from the bottom of the distillation column, vaporizing at least part of the expanded liquid stream in the shell and tube heat exchanger to form a vapor and warming the vapor formed in the first heat exchanger.
US09746228B2
Methods and systems for controlling a chiller system to achieve control stability while maintaining optimum efficiency. Particularly, methods and systems for controlling a centrifugal compressor speed and an inlet guide vane position that establishes three distinct regions in the control path: (i) during initial unloading from full load, the inlet guide vane position is kept at a fully open position while the centrifugal compressor speed is changed to achieve the desired cooling capacity; (ii) between an inflection point and a transition point, keeping the centrifugal compressor speed constant while the inlet guide vane position is changed to achieve the desired cooling capacity; and (iii) between the transition point and zero cooling capacity, changing both the inlet guide vane position and the centrifugal compressor speed to achieve the desired cooling capacity.
US09746227B2
Process for regulating a compressor with motor for a refrigerating system, where the temperature of the cooling site is regulated through an on-off motor mode if the temperature in the compressor exceeds an upper temperature threshold. In addition, the temperature of the cooling site is regulated through a continuous on mode of the motor as soon as the motor has cooled to a lower temperature threshold. The controller converts a variable corresponding to the cooling requirement of the cooling site into a switch signal for a valve, which results in clocked opening and closing of the valve, or uses a frequency converter, which controls the cooling liquid flow through the compressor by regulating the voltage and the frequency of the motor in that the frequency converter converts a variable corresponding to the cooling requirement of a cooling site into a voltage and a frequency for the motor.
US09746220B2
A vaporizer has: an inlet (72); an oil outlet (90; 94); a vent (120); a hot gas inlet (132); and a cooled gas outlet (134). A gas flowpath (130) extends from the hot gas inlet to the cooled gas outlet. A vaporizer chamber (192) is downstream of the inlet along a primary flowpath. A gas conduit (220) is along the gas flowpath in heat exchange relation with the primary flowpath. A sump (194) is below the vaporizer chamber. A housing (180) encloses the sump and the vaporizer chamber. A passageway extends from the vaporizer chamber to the sump.
US09746201B2
The present application discloses a combustion apparatus including: an air supply/exhaust port formed such that an air supply passage surrounds the outside of an exhaust passage; and an air supply port in which an air supply passage is formed. This combustion apparatus is configured such that in a case where this apparatus is installed in the double-pipe system, the air supply passage of the air supply port is closed, whereas in a case where it is installed in the separate-pipe system, the air supply passage of the air supply/exhaust port is closed. The combustion apparatus includes: a supplied-air temperature sensor; and a guide member, which is located near the air supply passage of the air supply/exhaust port or the air supply passage of the air supply port, and by which air flowing into the space in the housing is guided to the supplied-air temperature sensor.
US09746200B2
A building ventilator to provide a supply of air into a building comprises an external inlet port and a separate external outlet port and an internal inlet port and a separate internal outlet port to allow respective airstreams to flow into and out of the ventilator respectively at an exterior and at an interior of the building; a heat exchanger mounted in the flow paths between the external and internal inlet and outlet ports. The ventilator is configured to drive an airflow from the external inlet port through the heat exchanger and out of the ventilator via the internal outlet port; and to drive an airflow from the internal inlet port through the heat exchanger and out of the ventilator via the external outlet port. The ventilator comprises a heating element mounted in the air flow path between the external inlet port and the heat exchanger.
US09746198B2
The current application is directed to intelligent controllers that continuously, periodically, or intermittently monitor progress towards one or more control goals under one or more constraints in order to achieve control that satisfies potentially conflicting goals. An intelligent controller may alter aspects of control, dynamically, while the control is being carried out, in order to ensure that goals are obtained and a balance is achieved between potentially conflicting goals. The intelligent controller uses various types of information to determine an initial control strategy as well as to dynamically adjust the control strategy as the control is being carried out.
US09746197B2
A bathroom air-conditioner includes a refrigerant circuit in which a compressor, a radiator, a decompressing mechanism and a heat absorber are connected with one another through a pipe, a circulating air-course, and a ventilating air-course. In the circulating air-course, the radiator and a circulating fan for circulating the air of the bathroom are placed. In the ventilating air-course, the heat absorber and a ventilating fan for discharging the air from the bathroom to the outside are placed. The heat absorber makes the refrigerant absorb heat from the air of the bathroom, and the radiator makes the refrigerant dissipate heat to the air of the bathroom for heating the bathroom. During the heating of the bathroom, when a temperature of the bathroom becomes higher than a given temperature, a controller reduces an air-blow amount from the ventilating fan.
US09746195B2
A ceiling mounted ventilation fan comprises a main housing including a first opening communicating with a duct and a second opening communicating with inside of a room, and a fan unit including a fan casing having an air inlet opened in the main housing, and the fan casing includes a first engagement part releasably engaged with the first opening of the main housing, and a second engagement part releasably engaged with an inner wall of the main housing, positioning of the fan casing in an installation position is achieved in a state that the first engagement part is engaged with the first opening and the second engagement part is engaged with the inner wall of the main housing, and a state of the engagement can visually be confirmed through the second opening in a state that the positioning is achieved.
US09746194B2
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for the generation of directed vapor from a liquid source. Vaporization takes place within a device capable of confining boiling to a geometrically small volume, and expelling it as heated vapor via capillary vaporization. The foregoing is accomplished through the use of a lightweight, compact and portable personal vaporization device that generates heated vapor by the flash boiling of small volumes of aqueous liquid in a safe and energy-efficient manner. Further, the production of vapor absent microbes in aqueous systems is accomplished through the combination of microporous componentry and flash vaporization. The apparatus and methods are directed toward personal humidification for comfort and therapeutic purposes in the case of aqueous liquids, but may also be used with other, non-aqueous liquids.
US09746193B2
An air-conditioning apparatus includes a refrigerant circuit in which a compressor, a heat-source-side heat exchanger, an expansion device, and a refrigerant flow path in at least one intermediate heat exchanger are connected by a refrigerant pipe, and a heat medium circuit in which a pump, a use-side heat exchanger, and a heat-medium flow path in the at least one intermediate heat exchanger are connected by a heat-medium conveying pipe, the heat medium circuit being configured to cause a heat medium to circulate therethrough. The at least one intermediate heat exchanger comprises a plurality of intermediate heat exchangers. The plurality of intermediate heat exchangers are operative in a heating only operation mode, a cooling only operation mode, and a cooling and heating mixed operation mode in which some of the intermediate heat exchangers serve as the condenser and others of the intermediate heat exchangers serve as the evaporator.
US09746187B2
An oven, which both satisfies heat insulating and cooling of a door by adjusting an air flow in channels formed in the door. The oven includes a plurality of channels provided in a door, into which external air flows, accompanied with air discharged by a discharge duct, such that the air flows in the plurality of the channels, and a flow conversion part formed above at least one of the plurality of the channels for stagnating the flow of air. Since the door insulates a cooking chamber from heat and is cooled using a difference of pressures between upper and lower portions of the door, the oven concurrently satisfies conflicting two requirements, such as heat insulating and cooling of the door.
US09746177B2
A lean burn combustion source includes a first side stream comprising an inlet and an outlet, both positioned downstream of a furnace and upstream of a particulate control device, and a second side stream comprising: an inlet positioned downstream of the particulate control device and upstream of the catalyst, a heat exchanger section passing through the first side stream, whereby heat from hot exhaust gas flowing through the first side stream is transferred to hot exhaust gas flowing through the second side stream, an injector positioned in the second side stream injecting aqueous based reagent into the hot exhaust gas flowing through the second side stream such that the aqueous based reagent decomposes to ammonia gas, and an outlet in fluid communication with a reagent distribution device positioned in the primary exhaust gas stream downstream of the particulate control device and upstream of the catalyst.
US09746165B2
The invention is illumination gear that has a strap pad slidably mounted on a strap. A battery-operated lamp is mounted on the strap pad. The strap pad with lamp may be adjusted anywhere along the strap, so as to adjust the position of the lamp to a desired height. The illumination gear may be constructed as a harness, as a vest, or as a set of suspenders. Anchor straps may be provided on the vest or the harness, to secure the straps to belt loops on a trouser waistband or to another garment, to prevent the illumination gear from riding up or shifting position.
US09746163B1
An apparatus for an easy and safe method for installing a hook system for suspending outdoor holiday light strands on the roof lines of homes and businesses having one-piece-mountable-hooks able to be placed on a roof line of a building. Various embodiments of the one-piece-mountable-hooks are described to fit different types of roof lines and a roof line having a rain gutter.
US09746160B2
A light emitting device includes a base having a supporting part and a frame part disposed on an upper surface of the supporting part; a light emitting element mounted on the upper surface of the supporting part at a location interior of the frame part; a cover body fixed to an upper surface of the frame part and defining an opening at a location interior of the frame part in a top view; and a light-transmissive body covering the at least one opening. The cover body includes: a first portion disposed on the upper surface of the frame part, a second portion extending inward from the first portion and then bending and extending upward or downward so as to be spaced from an inner lateral surface of the frame part or a plane that includes an inner lateral surface of the frame part, and a third portion connected to the second portion and defining the opening.
US09746156B2
[Problem] To provide an illumination system with which a visual effect is provided such that it is possible to give an appearance of expanding depth on the far side of a wall face, even if a person stands directly in front thereof.[Solution] An illumination system (100) comprises a light source (130), and a reflection board (120) that provides a reflection face that reflects illumination light from the light source (130). The reflection lace of the reflection board (120) is a processed reflection face in which are disposed a plurality of grooves which are very narrow parallel straight lines or parallel curved lines with respect to a flat plane. A support body (110) supports the light source (130) facing and in close proximity to the processed reflection board of the reflection board (120). Light points appear, arranged perpendicularly in the center of the reflection board (120) facing the light source. The formation locations of virtual images of each of the light points are formed further in the depth direction from the processed reflection board the further apart they are vertically, and thus a viewer has the sense of viewing a light beam track which is formed when a horizontal plane, which seemingly expands horizontally in the depth of the wall face, is illuminated, and has the sense of viewing an expanding space in the depth direction of the wall face.
US09746152B2
An internally illuminated transparent rail, such as a handrail, is disclosed. The rail is fabricated from polycarbonate or the like, and contains one or more series of lighting elements such as LEDs. The LEDs are connected to a programmable controller which stores preloaded programming control sequences and features, and which can also receive commands wirelessly from e.g. a hand held user interface such as a cellular telephone. The rail includes stanchions for mounting to an environmental object such as a transport vehicle or a static structure.
US09746145B2
A light-emitting device includes a board; and light-emitting element arrays connected in parallel and each including light-emitting elements mounted on the board and connected in series. The light-emitting elements in each of the light-emitting element arrays include one or more red LED chips and one or more blue LED chips. Each of the red LED chips on the board is disposed non-successively to any other one of the red LED chips along a Y direction and along an X direction. The Y direction is parallel to a direction along which the red LED chips included in one of the light emitting arrays including the red LED chip are arranged. The X direction is perpendicular to the Y direction.
US09746141B2
An arrangement (1) for generating white light (5), having at least two light-emitting diodes, wherein the first diode (2) is designed to generate blue light, wherein a conversion element (4) is associated with the first diode, wherein the conversion element is designed to convert a part of the blue light from the first diode into green light, and wherein the conversion element is designed to convert a part of the blue light from the first diode into red light, wherein the second diode (3) is provided to emit red light.
US09746137B2
A lamp includes a lamp housing which has a light exit opening. A light source of a first type is arranged in the lamp housing. A mounting is fastened to the lamp housing and at least one light source of a second type is fastened to the holder. The at least one light source of the second type includes an organic light-emitting diode and the at least one light source of the second type is arranged downstream of the light exit opening in an emission direction.
US09746132B2
Described herein are at least systems and methods for cryogenic fluid delivery which utilize pumpless delivery of cryogenic fluid. The systems and methods utilize hydraulic pressure, saturation pressure, or a combination of both hydraulic pressure and saturation pressure to deliver cryogen to a use device, such as an engine.
US09746129B2
A transport puck vertically aligns a caulking cartridge, nozzle-down. The puck includes (i) a substantially solid lower plug portion, having a lead face and a bottom face and an center passageway that is at least partially inverted frustum-shaped that forms a side contact face that tapers from a wider lead face opening to a narrower bottom face opening; and or to a tubular sleeve from the side contact face to the bottom face opening; (ii) an upper sleeve, shaped to receive the caulking cartridge in a desired vertical alignment to the lower plug portion; and (iii) at least one funnel-shaped bore into the bottom face with an inserted connector comprising a head and stem, the head spaced within the bore to define a spacing that has been determined to identify bottom face wear.
US09746128B2
An adjustable dual-screen monitor stand includes a base member having an upright post, an upper bushing and a lower bushing mounted on the upright post at different elevations, a first cantilever swivel screen mount including a first lower swivel arm, a first upper swivel arm and a first screen holder pivotally coupled to one another and pivotally supported on the upper bushing to hold a first flat display monitor and to allow adjustment of the angular position of the supported first flat display monitor, and a second cantilever swivel screen mount including a second lower swivel arm, a second upper swivel arm and a second screen holder pivotally coupled to one another and pivotally supported on the lower bushing to hold a second flat display monitor and to allow adjustment of the angular position of the supported second flat display monitor.
US09746123B2
A composite frequency-adjustable shock absorber is provided, comprising a motion main machine stand bar and a shock absorption device, which are arranged on a foundation carrier platform; the shock absorption device is divided into an upper shock absorption device and a lower shock absorption device, the shock absorption device is arranged on a base with an inner cavity, and the upper shock absorption device for suppressing the low-frequency vibration and the lower shock absorption device for absorbing additional high-frequency vibration are connected in series; the upper shock absorption device comprises an elastic component based on a flexible hinge group and a prestress adjusting device, the flexible hinge group is arranged in the inner cavity of the base, the prestress adjusting device for adjusting the inherent frequency of the flexible hinge group is connected with the flexible hinge group, and the motion main machine stand bar is fixed on a load bearing portion of the flexible hinge group. The inherent frequency of the whole flexible hinge group is changed, so the high frequency band and the low frequency band of vibration systems with different masses and different excitation frequencies are effectively isolated, the structure is simple, the adjustment is convenient, and the cost is not high.
US09746121B2
A spacer is inserted into a space between an existing pipe and a rehabilitating pipe to adjust a position of the rehabilitating pipe with respect to the existing pipe. The spacer has an elongated shape with both end portions in a longitudinal direction thereof cut off at an oblique angle and has a transverse width increasing gradually from an upper surface portion to a bottom surface portion. A space is formed in the bottom surface portion to correspond to a shape of the upper surface portion, thereby allowing a number of the spacers to be stacked on one another in a thickness direction thereof. The upper surface portion has a flat-plate shape with a flat rectangular surface region.
US09746118B2
A pipe joint structure has a joint body, a fixed ring and a union nut. A flared end of a tube has a conical surface and a tubular surface. The conical surface and tubular surface are connected to a tube connecting portion of the joint body. The union nut is fastened to a locking thread of the tube connecting portion. An interior recess portion of the union nut is coupled with a bulging surface of the fixed ring. The tube is compressed evenly and secured firmly on the joint body.
US09746117B2
A fuel line assembly for an aircraft comprises a ferrule assembly comprising a ferrule affixed to an isolation tube, which may be directly affixed to a fuel tube or affixed to an extension tube, which in turn, is affixed to the fuel tube. The ferrule assembly provides electrostatic discharge protection and lightning protection as the isolation tube maintains a separation distance from the ferrule and fuel tube, both of which are made from metal. The isolation tube is made from a dielectric material, but which may have conductive particles added to aid in the dissipation of an electrostatic charge. The electrical resistance through the isolation tube has a lower limit to arrest the flow of the induced lightning current through the assembly. The amount of lightning protection afforded can be configured. The ferrule assembly components may be affixed by using thermo-welding, adhesive, or mechanical pressure.
US09746116B2
A retainer is equipped with a regulation segment, which regulates the position of an O-ring placed in an insertion hole, and a prevention segment, which engages with a spool of a pipe and prevents the pipe from being removed from the insertion hole. Moreover, by moving the retainer toward the minus side in the Y direction and attaching it to an attachment segment, the retainer becomes sandwiched between an opposing wall portion and a tube segment in the X direction. Because of this, the number of parts can be reduced and the retainer that regulates the position of the O-ring can be prevented from being moved in the X direction by the pressure of fluid flowing inside the pipe connector in the X direction.
US09746111B2
A hydraulic tube for a vehicle may include a pipe having a pipe rib which may be formed integrally on and protrudes outward from a terminal end of the pipe, a connector fitted around the pipe such that the pipe extends through opposite ends of the connector, and a sealer fitted into a first end of the connector, a first end of the sealer being coupled with the terminal end of the pipe through coupling with the pipe rib, and a second end of the sealer being coupled with the first end of the connector.
US09746108B2
A composite pipe structure including a pair of structural polymer layers disposed on opposed sides of a central metal layer. In a preferred embodiment, the thickness of the composite structure is comprised of approximately 40%-60% of the metal layer, with the remaining balance comprised of the pair of polymer layers.
US09746101B2
A valve positioning system for controlling a valve and exchanging information related to the valve is provided. The valve positioning system includes a valve positioner in operative association with the valve such that the valve positioner receives status information related to the valve. The valve positioner includes a graphical display that displays a graphical representation based on the status information. By displaying the graphical representation, the valve positioner optically transmits the status information to a computing device that is in a line of sight with the graphical display of the valve positioner.
US09746099B2
There is provided a safety lock for a hose connector and valve on a flow line having an anchor that is in a fixed position relative to the valve, a movable body movably attached to the anchor, and a shroud and an actuator blocking member carried by the movable body. The shroud is sized and positioned on the movable body to limit access to the hose connector when the movable body is in a first position, and to permit access to the hose connector when the movable body is in a second position. The actuator blocking member is sized and positioned on the movable body to prevent the valve actuator from moving from a second to a first position when the movable body is in the second position, and to permit movement of the actuator when the movable body is in the first position.
US09746097B1
The present disclosure relates to a solenoid of an electromagnetic valve where the number of processes can be reduced and breaking of a conductive wire can be suppressed in a simple structure, and the solenoid of the electromagnetic valve according to the present disclosure comprises a conductive wire; a bobbin having a tubular winding portion where the conductive wire is wound around in a coil shape and a flange portion disposed on both end portions of the winding portion; a terminal portion which is disposed on the flange portion and protrudes in a planar shape in a direction perpendicular to the central axis of the bobbin on a radially outer side than the winding portion relative to the central axis, and in which two terminals are provided on a distal end portion side; and two wall portions which are disposed on both sides of the terminal portion in a width direction, stand upright in a central axis direction and face each other, wherein both end portions of the conductive wire are drawn out from the bobbin to the terminal portion, directed toward a radially outer side from a winding portion side of the two wall portions and electrically connected to the terminals.
US09746096B2
This invention relates to a four-state adjustable air path structure. An air source is connected to an air storage tank and a first two-position three-way solenoid valve via a check valve. The first two-position three-way solenoid valve is connected to a second two-position three-way solenoid valve and a vent hole. The second two-position three-way solenoid is connected to a third two-position three-way solenoid valve and a port of a throttle valve. Another port of the throttle valve is connected to the third two-position three-way solenoid valve. The third two-position three-way solenoid valve is connected to an air tank. The present four-state adjustable air path structure simplifies processing and maintenance of a mechanical structure. Intellectual control of an operating speed can also be achieved. The present invention has advantages such as structural simplicity, low manufacturing costs, safe and reliable operation, long service life, and suitability for long-distance transmission.
US09746094B2
A flow meter includes a first image sensor, a background pattern, and at least one processor. The first image sensor has a first field of view and is positioned to view a drip chamber within the first field of view. The background pattern is positioned within the field of view of the first image sensor, and the background pattern includes first and second portions. The processor is operatively coupled to the first image sensor and configured to: receive a first image from the first image sensor, and estimate at least one parameter of liquid within the drip chamber in accordance with a distortion of the background pattern caused by the liquid as indicated by the first image.
US09746091B2
An exercisable check valve having a fluid delivery test channel and piston closure is disclosed herein. A valve closure member stops flow through the valve in the presence of backwards pressure or when engaged by the piston. The valve may be tested by applying a pressure source to the fluid delivery test channel to cause the piston to engage the valve closure member and stop flow through the valve. A test rod may then be inserted into a test rod port to ensure the valve closure member is in the proper closed position. The check valve may also include a biasing element to bias the valve closure member to an open position and a drainage channel. The check valve may be used in any piping or valve system.
US09746087B2
A refrigerant valve device may include a base provided with an inlet port, an outlet port and a valve seat face; a cover to section a valve chamber between the valve seat face and the cover; a valve body turnably disposed at a position shifted to a side of one port inside the valve chamber, the valve body being provided with a contact face sliding on the valve seat face; and a valve body drive mechanism to turn the valve body. The valve body drive mechanism may turn the valve body and thereby a refrigerant flowing passage from the inlet port to the outlet port through the valve chamber is switched at least to a first refrigerant flowing passage and to a second refrigerant flowing passage. The refrigerant flowing amount in the first refrigerant flowing passage may be smaller than a refrigerant flowing amount in the second refrigerant flowing passage.
US09746084B2
An even number of magnets (5) are incorporated in a housing (3) while sandwiched by pole pieces (6). A rotating shaft (2) has a boundary which is provided in a hollow portion (3a) of the housing (3) and nearer to an airtight chamber (1) than a pole piece (6) nearest to the airtight chamber (1), and an area of the rotating shaft (2) which is nearer to the airtight chamber (1) than the boundary is formed of a non-magnetic material. In the housing (3), an area located near the airtight chamber (1) from a site which is in contact with a pole piece (6) nearest to the airtight chamber (1) is formed of a magnetic material.
US09746080B2
A high pressure seal assembly includes a seal element that moves in response to an increase in pressure.
US09746076B2
A speed change display control device includes a display screen generator generating a first display screen and a second display screen. The first display screen includes: an auxiliary speed change stage display area displaying auxiliary speed change stages; a main speed change stage display area displaying main speed change stages assigned to the auxiliary speed change stages; and an engaged speed change stage display area displaying engaged speed change stages. The second display screen includes: the auxiliary speed change stage display area; the main speed change stage display area; a lower limit selection area where the speed change stage defining a lower limit of a vehicle speed change ratio is selected; an upper limit selection area where the speed change stage defining an upper limit of the vehicle speed change ratio is selected; and a selected speed change stage display area displaying the currently selected upper limit and lower limit speed change stages.
US09746063B2
A differential, including: a gear housing; an epicyclic housing which is mounted in the gear housing in a manner allowing rotation about a gear axis; a planet carrier arranged in the epicyclic housing in a manner allowing rotation; a first output sun gear; a second output sun gear; a planetary arrangement, accommodated in the planet carrier, coupling the output sun gears in a manner allowing opposite rotation; a brake device generating a bridging torque which places a load on relative rotation of the first and second output sun gears, according to a magnitude of an axial force applied to the brake device; and an actuating mechanism for the purpose of generating said axial force applied to the brake device. The actuating mechanism is designed in such a manner that the first bridging torque generated by the brake device increases as a rotary drive torque applied to the epicyclic housing increases.
US09746060B2
The present invention provides an infinitely variable transmission for a powered vehicle which includes a power source. The transmission includes an input shaft and an output shaft, the output shaft being spaced from the input shaft. The transmission further includes a variator coupled between the input shaft and output shaft. In addition, at least two planetary gearsets are disposed adjacent to the variator and an input coupler is configured to selectively couple the variator to the power source.
US09746050B2
A spring function component for a hydroelastic bearing is provided. The component includes an inner mounting connection, an outer mounting connection that radially encircles the inner mounting connection, and a spring body that flexibly connects the inner mounting connection and the outer mounting connection. The outer mounting connection is configured to be installed in an outer sleeve. In an assembled state of the outer mounting connection, the spring body at least partly forms a boundary between two working chambers configured to hold of a damping fluid, at least one choke channel is formed that hydraulically connects the working chambers to each other, and in addition to the choke channel there is at least one pressure relief valve configured so that when a specific pressure differential between the working chambers is exceeded, the at least one pressure relief valve opens and hydraulically connects the working chambers.
US09746049B2
A modern suspension damper, for example, a shock absorber or a suspension fork, including an inertia valve and a pressure-relief feature is disclosed. The pressure-relief feature includes a rotatable adjustment knob that allows the pressure-relief threshold to be externally adjusted by the rider “on-the-fly” and without the use of tools.
US09746046B2
A leaf spring made of a fiber composite material having integrated bearing holes and a method for producing is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of cutting prepreg strips of a predetermined length from a prepreg strand, removing cut-outs from the particular prepreg strip in the axial ends where a bearing hole should be formed, laying a plurality of prepreg strips one over the other in a prepreg stack in alternation so that the surfaces of the prepreg strips are flush to form a raw leaf spring forming a bearing hole by deforming an axial end of the prepreg stack in a plane perpendicular to the longitudinal extension (L) and perpendicular to the transverse extension (B) of the prepreg stack, setting the raw sheet spring to form the finished leaf spring in a mold with a suitable setting pressure and a suitable setting temperature.
US09746044B1
A resettable sensor assembly includes an elongate valve body having a longitudinal axis and defining a cavity therein. A housing is at least partially disposed within a cooperates with the elongate valve body and includes at least one electrical contact. A support member disposed within the elongate valve body cavity cooperates with a plate to communicate with the at least one electrical contact. An actuator element configured for translating the plate along the axis between a first position in which the plate contacts the at least one electrical contact and a second position in which the plate is spaced apart from the at least one electrical contact. The element is formed from a shape memory alloy that is transitionable between an austenite crystallographic phase and a martensite crystallographic phase in response to a thermal activation signal to thereby translate the plate between the first position and the second position.
US09746038B2
A dual actuation synchronizing clutch assembly including an improved synchronization arrangement is provided. The dual actuation synchronizing clutch assembly has a plurality of operational phases, including initial, synchronization, positioning, engagement, and running phases that vary the torque flow path between the input shaft and output shaft. A synchronizing assembly is provided that includes a synchronizer ring having a first friction surface and synchronizer teeth. A connecting gear includes a lock-up assembly with retractable elements and connecting gear teeth. An output gear includes a second friction surface configured to frictionally engage the first friction surface of the synchronizer ring, and a contoured receiving path with positioning points configured to receive the retractable elements of the lock-up assembly.
US09746037B2
A link actuating device includes input side and output side link hubs, and two sets of link mechanisms. Each of the link mechanisms is a three-link-chain link mechanism including four revolute pairs, and includes input side and output side end links rotatably connected to the input side and output side link hubs and an intermediate links rotatably connected to input side and output side end links. The link mechanism have a positional relationship in which the revolute pair axes between the link hubs and the end links are located on the same plane and cross each other. At least one of the two sets of link mechanisms is provided with interlocking unit that interlocks the input side end link and the output side end link to each other so as to be rotationally displaced.
US09746036B2
A welding method for an outer joint member of a constant velocity universal joint includes constructing a cup section having track grooves, which engage with torque transmitting elements, formed along an inner periphery thereof and a shaft section that is formed on a bottom portion of the cup section by two or more separate members, joining a cup member forming the cup section and a shaft member forming the shaft section, and melt-welding end portions of the cup member and the shaft member. The cup member and the shaft member are shaped so that a sealed hollow cavity portion is formed when the end portions of the cup member and the shaft member are brought into abutment against each other, the melt-welding of the end portions being performed when the sealed hollow cavity portion is under atmospheric pressure or lower.
US09746035B2
A damper for a motor vehicle torque transmission device, in particular of the long travel damper type, having a torque input element (22), a torque output element (28), at least one group (26) of differing elastic members (26a, 26b) mounted between the torque input element and torque output element and acting oppositely to the rotation of the torque input element (22) and torque output element (28) with respect to one another, the elastic members (26a, 26b) of the group of elastic members being arranged in series by means of a phasing member (30) so that the elastic members (26a, 26b) of the group (26) of elastic members deform in phase with one another, the group (26) of elastic members (26a, 26b) being received in a receptacle (44) that is asymmetrical with respect to a median radial plane of the receptacle (44).
US09746026B2
A self adjusting instrumented rolling bearing having an outer ring and an inner ring delimiting a rolling chamber and at least one row of rolling elements disposed therein, and a detection device including a sensor integral with the outer ring and a target integral with the inner ring, configured to detect a relative rotation between the outer ring and the inner ring around a central axis. The outer ring has an inner surface in the form of a spherical portion centered about a tilting center of the bearing and forming a rolling surface for the rolling elements. The radius of the inner surface of the outer ring is greater than a distance defined between the tilting center of the bearing and a specific position of the target that is the farthest from the tilting center.
US09746020B1
Lock mechanism for preventing unwanted rotation of a jam nut on a threaded connection between a rod end and a connecting rod. The mechanism includes a lock collar which can be moved axially of the rod end and the connecting rod between a retracted position out of contact with the jam nut and a locking position in which the collar engages the jam nut and prevents the jam nut from turning, and a retainer for keeping the lock collar in the locking position.
US09746019B2
A securement device includes a pair of plungers movable within a housing. The plungers act as quick lock mechanism to engage and secure a threaded rod (or other object) that passes into a hole that runs through the housing. The plungers are spring-biased to position themselves toward so as to provide a radially inward force, for example to engage a threaded rod or device in the through hole in the housing. A spring within the housing presses the plunger pieces toward a portion of the housing where the outer surfaces engage other surfaces to push the plungers inward. The device includes a disengagement feature or mechanism that is used to push the plunger pieces out of engagement with the threaded rod. The disengagement feature may include a disengagement tool, and may include wings, such as on the plungers or on carriers for the plungers, that protrude out of the housing.
US09746007B2
A downforce controller for an agricultural implement having a double-acting hydraulic cylinder. The cylinder is configured to be coupled to an agricultural row unit and an agricultural toolbar for transmitting a net downforce between the agricultural toolbar and the agricultural row unit. A first pressure in a first chamber of the cylinder and a second pressure in a second chamber of the cylinder have counteracting effects on the net downforce. A manifold coupled to the cylinder is in fluid communication with the first chamber. A pressure control valve coupled to the manifold is in fluid communication with the manifold and the first chamber.
US09746002B2
There is provided a turbocharger which can reduce whirl vibration. The turbocharger includes a shaft connecting a turbine and a compressor, a bearing housing having a bearing portion turnably supporting the shaft, and a sliding bearing interposed between the shaft and the bearing portion. The bearing portion is formed of an aluminum-based material, the shaft is formed of a steel material, and the sliding bearing is formed of a copper-based material.
US09746000B2
An article of manufacture having a nominal airfoil profile substantially in accordance with Cartesian coordinate values of X, Y, and Z set forth in a scalable TABLE 1, wherein the Cartesian coordinate values of X, Y, and Z are non-dimensional values convertible to dimensional distances by multiplying the Cartesian coordinate values of X, Y, and Z by a number, and wherein X and Y are coordinates which, when connected by continuing arcs, define airfoil profile sections at each Z height, the airfoil profile sections at each Z height being joined with one another to form a complete airfoil shape.
US09745991B2
A submersible pump assembly includes a centrifugal pump driven by a motor. The pump has a number of stages, each of the stages having a diffuser and an impeller. An upthrust washer is located between a diffuser upthrust surface and an impeller upthrust surface. Balance holes extend from an inlet on an upper side of the impeller to an outlet within one of the impeller passages. The upthrust washer overlies the inlets while the impeller is in the upthrust position. Slots are located at an interface between the upthrust washer and the impeller upthrust surface. Each of the slots registers with the inlet of one of the balance holes to allow fluid flow into the inlets of the balance holes while the impeller is in the upthrust position.
US09745990B2
A fan frame includes a first frame and a second frame. The first frame includes at least a first sidewall and a first connecting element, wherein the first connecting element is disposed on the first sidewall. The second frame includes at least a second sidewall and a second connecting element, wherein the second connecting element is disposed on the second sidewall and at least partially overlapped with the first connecting element. The second connecting element includes a first end and a second end in a first direction, wherein the first end and the second end are bent toward the first connecting element, respectively, for grasping the first connecting element. As a result, the accuracy error and the precision error are avoided, the stresses are internally counterbalanced, and the deformation of the fan frame is avoided.
US09745988B2
A fan includes a casing having an air inlet and an air outlet, an impeller housing located within the casing, an impeller located within the impeller housing for generating an air flow along a path extending from the air inlet to the air outlet through the impeller housing, a motor housing connected to the impeller housing, and a motor located within the motor housing for driving the impeller. A bellows support is provided for mounting the impeller housing within the casing. The bellows support is disposed on a seat connected to the casing. The bellows support extends about the impeller housing and forms a seal between the impeller housing and the casing.
US09745985B2
A bushing structure cooperating with a shaft is disclosed. The bushing structure includes a cylindrical body and an extension portion. The cylindrical body has a shaft hole and the shaft is disposed in the shaft hole. The extension portion is disposed at one end of the cylindrical body and surrounds the cylindrical body. The cylindrical body and the extension portion are made of an iron-contained material.
US09745980B2
A compression mechanism portion housed in a closed case is provided with a partition plate located between a first cylinder and a second cylinder. The compression mechanism includes a first bearing discharge port formed to a first bearing and a first partition plate discharge port formed to the partition plate as discharge ports for discharging working fluid compressed in a first cylinder chamber, and also includes, as discharge port for discharging working fluid compressed in a second cylinder chamber, a second bearing discharge port formed to a second bearing and a second partition plate discharge port formed to the partition plate. A cross-sectional area of the first partition plate discharge port is formed to be smaller than a cross-sectional area of the first bearing discharge port, and a cross-sectional area of the second partition plate discharge port is formed to be smaller than a cross-sectional area of the second bearing discharge port.
US09745976B2
An insert of a cartridge for use with a liquid diffusing device is provided. The insert includes a body, an inlet provided in the body to receive diffused liquid generated within the cartridge during operation of the liquid diffusing device, an outlet zone defined at least in part by the body through which to discharge the diffused liquid toward an external environment, and a tortuous passage extending between the inlet and the outlet zone to aid in further reducing an average particle size of the diffused liquid as the diffused liquid moves through the tortuous passage. Removable cartridges for use with a diffusion device are also provided which include such an insert.
US09745973B2
A hermetic compressor includes a closed vessel for storing lubricating oil, an electric-driving element, and a compressing element driven by the electric-driving element. The compressing element includes a cylinder block forming a compression chamber, a piton that reciprocates inside the compression chamber, and an oiling device for supplying the lubricating oil to an outer circumference of the piston. A first oil groove is concavely formed on the outer circumference of the piston, and a second oil groove is concavely formed on a side opposite to the compression chamber relative to the first oil groove. The second oil groove has a spatial volume same or greater than that of the first oil groove. An expanded clearance portion is provided such that a clearance between the piston and the cylindrical hole portion broadens from a top dead point to a bottom dead point.
US09745972B2
A drive train (1) includes an internal combustion engine (2) and working hydraulics (4) having at least one hydraulic pump (7). When operated as a pump, the hydraulic pump (7) sucks hydraulic fluid from a tank (9) and delivers into a delivery line (10) that leads to the working hydraulics (4). When operated as a motor, the hydraulic pump (7) is supplied with hydraulic fluid from a hydraulic accumulator (25). The drive train (1) has a charge pump (20) to supply a charging circuit (23). The charge pump (20), when operated as a pump, sucks hydraulic fluid out of the tank (9) and delivers into a charge pressure line (22) that leads to a charging circuit (23), and the charge pump (20) when operated as a motor is supplied with hydraulic fluid from the hydraulic accumulator (25).
US09745969B2
The present invention involves a combination bucket lid and pump apparatus for pumping fluids out of a bucket having an open end, the pump mounted on the bucket lid, and the bucket lid extending over the open end of the bucket and having a circumferential clamp for clamping onto the bucket exterior and sealing the open end.
US09745968B2
In one aspect, a fluid end portion of a reciprocating pump assembly includes a fluid end block and an inlet manifold connected thereto. The manifold includes an opening formed therethrough and including a slot portion to facilitate the connection between the inlet manifold and the fluid end block. In another aspect, a method of connecting an inlet manifold to a fluid end block includes inserting fasteners into respective openings in the fluid end block, and effecting relative movement between the inlet manifold and the fluid end block so that the fasteners pass within respective slot portions formed through a mounting plate of the inlet manifold. In yet another aspect, a manifold is adapted to be connected to a fluid end block and includes an elongated member and a mounting plate connected thereto. The mounting plate includes openings formed therethrough, the openings including respective slot portions spaced in a parallel relation.
US09745967B2
A thermal energy harvesting device includes a rotatable shaft and a shape memory alloy element secured to rotatable shaft. The shape memory alloy element is adapted to undergo a shape memory effect upon reaching a transition temperature, which causes rotation of the rotatable shaft. The rotatable shaft may be operatively connected to a generator or tachometer to convert the rotation of the shaft into electrical energy, which may then be stored in a rechargeable battery. In certain embodiments a gear box may be provided to increase the speed of rotation, and thereby increase the amount of electrical energy created.
US09745965B2
Printed active origami combines printed electronics with nanomaterial coated polymer based actuators to create active printed structures. The fabrication processes include the step of applying carbon nanomaterial coatings to polymeric films. Products produced by the processes include actuating materials, such as solid state actuators that can be used as active element(s) in a printable active origami robot.
US09745952B2
The various embodiments disclosed herein provide a generalized system for extracting gravitational energy from the planet and provide for a general, pollution free, mass lifting and energy conversion system in which the laws of fluid flow, and in particular buoyancy and gravity are utilized to lift an arbitrary mass to a higher gravitational potential energy, where upon the increased potential energy can be converted to other forms of energy. Novel and non-obvious features of the fluid interface device, used to insert the buoyant object into the buoyant fluid, insure that the insertion energy is less than the potential energy gained by the object. The net increase in potential energy can be converted to other forms of energy such as electrical power or mechanical energy. It is shown in that energy gain is effectively extracted from the gravitational field of the planet without breaking the laws of conservation of energy.
US09745945B2
An engine system for a vessel propulsion device includes an engine including an intake amount adjusting unit and an ignition plug, and configured to generate a drive force for the vessel propulsion device. The engine system includes an ignition timing control unit, a knocking detecting unit, a knocking retard control unit that retards the ignition timing of the ignition plug by a unit retard amount when the knocking detecting unit detects knocking, an abnormality judging unit that, when a state where the knocking detecting unit detects knocking at intervals within a predetermined time continues, judges that an abnormality has occurred based on a continued state of knocking detection, and an intake amount limiting unit that limits the intake amount of the engine based on judgment of an abnormality made by the abnormality judging unit.
US09745943B2
An electrical control and power supply system for at least one helicopter motor/generator, the system including a first DC/AC converter selectively delivering AC electrical power to the at least one motor/generator, depending on respective positions of contactors of a connection matrix actuated from an electronic control circuit, the first DC/AC converter powered with DC by a DC power supply device that includes either a circuit for rectifying an AC voltage delivered via a contactor by a starter/generator of an APU, or a voltage booster DC/DC converter powered from a battery via a contactor. The connection matrix further includes a contactor connecting the first DC/AC converter in parallel with the second DC/AC converter to make it possible, once at least one of the motors/generators has started, to inject additional power from the starter/generator of the APU.
US09745940B2
A hydraulic system is disclosed for assisting starting of a machine having an engine. The hydraulic system may include a work tool, a pump driven by the engine to pressurize fluid, and an actuator configured to receive pressurized fluid from the pump and move the work tool. The hydraulic system may also include an accumulator configured to selectively receive pressurized fluid from the pump and from the actuator, an electric starter configured to start the engine, and a motor selectively supplied with fluid from the accumulator to assist the electric starter in starting the engine.
US09745937B2
The required fuel supply amount of an internal combustion engine is reduced by limiting the throttle opening when a high-pressure fuel pump is required to discharge fuel that exceeds the fuel delivery capacity thereof. Further, when the throttle opening is limited, the operation of a return valve, through which fuel and vapor thereof can be discharged from the high-pressure fuel pump, is prohibited. By performing the abovementioned control, a reduction in the fuel delivery amount of the high-pressure fuel pump due to the operation of the return valve is prevented when there is a possibility that the fuel deliver amount of the high-pressure fuel pump runs short and the fuel supply amount of the internal combustion engine runs short.
US09745931B2
A fuel system for an internal combustion engine includes an electric fuel pump; a conduit which defines a flow path through which fuel flows from the electric fuel pump to the internal combustion engine; a fuel pump control module with electronics which drive the electric fuel pump, the fuel pump control module being disposed within a compartment defined by a wall; and a heat sink in thermal contact with the fuel pump control module and extending out of the compartment through an aperture of the wall and into the flow path such that the heat sink is sealed to the wall, thereby preventing fluid communication through the aperture.
US09745930B2
A method for repolarizing a piezoelectric actuator associated with an injector mounted on an internal combustion engine of a vehicle, the piezoelectric actuator having undergone initial polarization before the vehicle was used, includes with the engine stopped: applying a first polarization voltage to the terminals of the piezoelectric actuator during a first specified time interval of not less than ten minutes, stopping the application of the first polarization voltage during a second time interval, following the first time interval and at least equal to the latter, applying a second polarization voltage to the terminals of the piezoelectric actuator during a third specified time interval, following the second time interval, stopping the application of the second polarization voltage to the terminals of the piezoelectric actuator after the third time interval, the successive first, second and third time intervals defining a repolarization sequence of the piezoelectric actuator.
US09745929B2
A fuel pump module for a fuel tank prevents electrification of a filter within the fuel pump module. A port injection filter is housed in a filter case that is separate from a pump case that houses a port injection fuel pump. A ground bracket housed in the filter case includes a cylinder part, a first connection part, and a second connection part, which are formed as a single body and made of conductive resin. The cylinder part is disposed inside of the port injection filter. The second connection part is disposed on an opposite side of the bracket relative to the first connection part, where the first connection part is connected with the cylinder part, for the connection to the ground through a ground line. As a result, a static electricity caused by friction of fuel flowing through the filter is discharged to the ground.
US09745927B2
The present teachings provide for an air system for an internal combustion engine (“ICE”). The air system can include a compressor, separation device, first conduit, second conduit and a system for controlling a ratio of gasses that enter the combustion chamber during an intake stroke. The separation device can include a housing and membrane. The housing can be fluidly coupled to the compressor and configured to receive a first volume of intake air therefrom. The membrane can be disposed within the housing and configured to separate the first volume of intake air into a volume of nitrogen-rich air and a volume of oxygen-rich air. The first conduit can fluidly couple the compressor to the combustion chamber. The second conduit can fluidly couple the compressor to the separation device. The gasses can include the volume of nitrogen-rich air, the volume of oxygen-rich air, and a second volume of intake air.
US09745925B2
A joint in a system for conducting a fluid has a first duct and a second duct that is coupled together via fasteners. Typically, the fasteners are placed into tabs that are affixed to the ducts and shafts of the fasteners run in the same direction as the duct. When the ducts are plastic and the fasteners are metal, the plastic can creep more than the metal such that the joint fails to seal properly after a period of time. To avoid such a situation, a joint that has fasteners installed at an angle with respect to the ducts is disclosed. The tabs are also angled with respect to the ducts: tabs that form an obtuse angle with one of the ducts mate with tabs on the other duct that form a complementary acute angle. In one embodiment, shafts of pairs of fasteners are roughly perpendicular.
US09745921B2
A new dual-mode ramjet combustor used for operation over a wide flight Mach number range is described. Subsonic combustion mode is usable to lower flight Mach numbers than current dual-mode scramjets. High speed mode is characterized by supersonic combustion in a free-jet that traverses the subsonic combustion chamber to a variable nozzle throat. Although a variable combustor exit aperture is required, the need for fuel staging to accommodate the combustion process is eliminated. Local heating from shock-boundary-layer interactions on combustor walls is also eliminated.
US09745920B2
The present application provides a nozzle for a gas turbine engine. The nozzle may include a band, a seal slot positioned within the band, an airfoil extending from the band, a cavity within the airfoil, and an embossment positioned about the band and the cavity.
US09745917B2
Described is a crankcase and a method for assembling a multi-part crankcase. The method can include providing a cylinder block and a bearing tunnel upper part. The cylinder block has a plurality of threaded holes into each of which a stud screw is screwed, where the stud screws protrude from the cylinder block. The bearing tunnel upper part has a plurality of through-holes, where each of the through-holes is arranged coaxially to a corresponding stud screw. On a side facing the cylinder head, each of the through-holes has an internal thread having a first direction of rotation. A plurality of threaded sleeves, each threaded sleeve has an internal thread that has a second direction of rotation, an external thread that has a first direction of rotation, and a driver profile for inserting a screwdriver tool in a positive-locking manner, are provided.
US09745912B2
A method for avoiding pre-ignitions during the operation of an internal combustion engine includes measuring a noise level of a combustion process using an acceleration sensor. An amplitude an amplitude of the measured noise level is measured to detect pre-ignitions. If, in the analysis, the measured noise level of a combustion cycle exceeds a limiting value n times, a safety operating mode of the internal combustion engine for reducing an effecting compression in the combustion chamber is activated. The safety operating mode is maintained if exceeding of the amplitude limiting value is also detected in subsequent combustion cycles of the internal combustion engine.
US09745909B2
Methods are disclosed for determining an oxidation state of a catalyst using RF signals. The method may include introducing radio-frequency signals into a resonant chamber including a catalyst, modulating an air-fuel ratio of an engine upstream of the catalyst to generate a sequence of uniform pulses and at least one altered pulse that differs from the uniform pulses, and comparing a frequency response of two or more resonant modes of the radio-frequency signals during the sequence to determine an oxidation state of the catalyst. The method may further include adjusting the air-fuel ratio based on the comparing step. Two or more altered pulses may be inserted into the air-fuel ratio sequence. The altered pulse may have a pulse width and/or amplitude that differs from the uniform pulses. The methods may be used to adjust an air-fuel ratio to correct or impart a bias.
US09745902B2
If the pressure in a supply passage drops at a speed greater than a first determination speed in a state in which a first mode for supplying gas fuel to an internal combustion engine is selected, a control apparatus inhibits selection of the first mode. Then, the control apparatus switches from the first mode to a second mode, in energy other than gas fuel is used. In this state, if the pressure in the supply passage drops at a speed greater than a second determination speed, the control apparatus maintains the state in which the second mode is selected. If the pressure in the supply passage drops at a speed lower than the second determination speed, the control apparatus cancels the inhibition of selection of the first mode when it is detected that a manual on-off valve is opened.
US09745897B2
An APU has a gas turbine engine and a starter generator to be selectively driven by the gas turbine engine. A sensor senses windmilling of components associated with the starter generator. A lock feature limits rotation within the starter generator when windmilling is sensed. A method of operation is also disclosed.
US09745896B2
Systems and methods for frequency separation in a gas turbine engine are provided herein. The systems and methods for frequency separation in a gas turbine engine may include determining a hot gas path natural frequency, determining a combustion dynamic frequency, and modifying a compressor discharge temperature to separate the combustion dynamic frequency from the hot gas path natural frequency.
US09745892B2
Generally, embodiments of a pre-chamber unit having a pre-combustion chamber including one or more induction ports in a configuration which achieves flow fields and flow field forces inside the pre-combustion chamber which act to direct flame growth away quenching surface of the pre-combustion chamber.
US09745889B2
A system according to the principles of the present disclosure includes a heat transfer rate module, a desired flow rate module, a flow rate adjustment module, and a pump control module. The heat transfer rate module determines a rate of heat transfer from an engine to coolant flowing through the engine based on a cylinder wall temperature and a measured coolant temperature. The desired flow rate module determines a desired rate of coolant flow through the engine based on the heat transfer rate. The flow rate adjustment module determines a coolant flow rate adjustment based on a desired coolant temperature and the measured coolant temperature. The pump control module controls a coolant pump to adjust an actual rate of coolant flow through the engine based on the desired coolant flow rate and the coolant flow rate adjustment.
US09745885B2
A modular exhaust manifold 1 for a motor vehicle, with multiple adjoining manifold pipe modules, having: at least one engine flange, via which an inlet connection pipe of the manifold pipe modules can be connected to a cylinder head of the motor vehicle; at least one manifold pipe module, configured as a collector pipe module and having a contact flange, via which the exhaust manifold can be connected to an exhaust system of the motor vehicle, the respective manifold pipe modules having an overlap contour of a length a that permits the telescoping of two manifold pipe modules to an insertion depth t for coupling purposes, at least two manifold pipe modules being identical in shape, and a variation of the insertion depth t of at least 5 mm to 30 mm or 10 mm or 15 mm or 20 mm or 25 mm being obtained by the formation of length a of the overlap contour. A method for producing a manifold formed from multiple adjoining manifold pipe modules.
US09745883B2
An exhaust component extends between a first end and a second end. The exhaust component defines an internal cavity with a central axis that extends from the first end to the second end. The exhaust component includes an inlet and an outlet, wherein the inlet extends transversely relative to the central axis. A perforated plate is positioned within the internal cavity at the inlet. The perforated plate extends obliquely relative to the center axis.
US09745874B2
A piston assembly for pressurizing a hydraulic chamber is provided. The piston assembly has a cylinder and a piston configured to reciprocate within the cylinder. The piston has a first end in the cylinder and a second end adapted to be acted on by a drive element. The piston assembly also has a spring configured to bias the piston. The piston assembly further has a retainer mounted to an exterior of the cylinder and including a seat surface. The spring is seated on the seat surface. The outer diameter of the spring is less than the outer diameter of the cylinder.
US09745871B2
A system includes a waste heat recovery heat exchanger configured to heat a heating fluid stream by exchange with a heat source in a crude oil associated gas processing plant; and a Kalina cycle energy conversion system including a first group of heat exchangers to heat a first portion of a working fluid by exchange with the heated heating fluid stream and a second group of heat exchangers to heat a second portion of the working fluid. The second group of heat exchangers includes a first heat exchanger to heat the second portion of the working fluid by exchange with a liquid stream of the working fluid; and a second heat exchanger to heat the second portion of the working fluid by exchange with the heated heating fluid stream. The energy conversion system includes a separator to receive the heated first and second portions of the working fluid and to output a vapor stream of the working fluid and the liquid stream of the working fluid; a first turbine and a generator to generate power by expansion of the vapor stream; and a second turbine to generate power from the liquid stream.
US09745867B1
A compound energy co-generation system converts forestry, agricultural, and similar biomass to energy at the source farm. A working fluid reserve at the base is coupled with a boiler inlet. The boiler has a combustion chamber, a vertically rising exhaust stack, and a liquid jacket around the combustion chamber and rising from the working fluid reserve. The liquid jacket receives thermal energy from the combustion chamber and converts a portion of the liquid working fluid into a gas to create a dual-phase working fluid. A reciprocal fluid container, which in one embodiment is a piston and in another is a sealed and insulated container, receives the elevated liquid working fluid. The change in weight drives a power conversion system to convert lowering of the fluid container into electrical energy. Additional ordinarily wasted energy components are employed to perform useful work to improve overall efficiency.
US09745864B2
Systems and methods are disclosed for anti-rotation lugs. A stator for a gas turbine engine may comprise an outer shroud, an inner shroud, and a plurality of vanes located between the outer shroud and the inner shroud. A plurality of anti-rotation lugs may be coupled to the inner shroud. The anti-rotation lugs may be configured to contact a diffuser case in order to prevent rotation of the stator. The anti-rotation lugs may comprise a body and a tapered shoulder. The tapered shoulder may distribute stress concentrations in the anti-rotation lugs.
US09745862B2
A lubrication system for a fan drive planetary gear system according to an exemplary aspect of the present disclosure includes, among other things, a stationary first bearing configured to receive a lubricant from a lubricant input, the stationary first bearing is located adjacent a fan drive shaft. A second bearing is configured to rotate with the fan drive shaft, the first bearing engages the second bearing and is configured to transfer the lubricant from the first bearing to the second bearing and into at least one fluid passage in the fan drive shaft. A conduit fluidly connects the at least one passage in the fan drive shaft with at least one component on the fan drive gear system.
US09745858B2
A turbine seal plate includes an inner rim with a labyrinth seal land that defines a central bore having a labyrinth seal diameter. The turbine seal plate also includes a housing coupling ring arranged radially outward of the inner rim. A housing pilot extends axially from the housing coupling ring and substantially parallel to the labyrinth seal land with respect to a radially inner portion of the housing pilot. The housing pilot has a housing pilot thickness, and a ratio of the housing pilot thickness to the labyrinth seal diameter is between 0.08 and 0.14. A frusto-conical body extends between the radially inner portion of the housing pilot and the inner rim of the turbine seal plate.
US09745855B2
The apparatus and method allows multiple components to be simultaneously bonded to a central shaft or tube using linear friction welding in a single welding process. The method involves simultaneously pressing the work pieces radially against the central shaft or tube at the desired locations while the shaft is vibrated axially. The weld is facilitated by the use of a linear friction welding machine, which includes a number of fixtures and press assemblies to hold and press the various work pieces against the central shaft or tube and a vibrating assembly for vibrating the central shaft or tube.
US09745853B2
A turbine rotor blade includes at least two integrated cooling circuits that are formed within the blade that include a leading edge circuit having a first cavity and a second cavity and a trailing edge circuit that includes at least a third cavity located aft of the second cavity. The trailing edge circuit flows aft with at least two substantially 180-degree turns at the tip end and the root end of the blade providing at least a penultimate cavity and a last cavity. The last cavity is located along a trailing edge of the blade. A tip axial cooling channel connects to the first cavity of the leading edge circuit and the penultimate cavity of the trailing edge circuit. At least one crossover hole connects the penultimate cavity to the last cavity substantially near the tip end of the blade.
US09745844B2
Estimating casing wear for individual portions or lengths of a casing may take into account that individual drill string sections cause different amounts of casing wear based on the physical and material properties of each drill string section. In some instances, a method performed during a drilling operation may involve tracking a location of the plurality of drill string sections along the wellbore; corresponding a casing section with the drill string wear factors of the drill string sections radially proximate to the casing section the drilling intervals of the drilling operations; and calculating a drilling casing wear for the casing section based on the drill string wear factors corresponding to the casing section.
US09745839B2
A method of increasing a permeability of a strata includes positioning an electromagnetic tool at a first location of the strata, generating a first time-varying magnetic field using the electromagnetic tool, and applying a first time-varying magnetic force to a first magnetic material of the strata using the first time-varying magnetic field, where the strata includes a first plurality of pores. The method further includes fracturing the strata to increase the permeability of the strata proximate the first location using the first time-varying magnetic force.
US09745837B2
In one aspect, the present invention provides a surface unit for a pumping system. The surface unit may include a conduit that is reciprocatable to pump produced fluid from downwell to the surface unit and a flow line in fluid communication with the conduit such that the produced fluid may be collected from the conduit. The surface unit may also include a pump barrel that separates the conduit from a well tubing and a diluent line in fluid communication with a space between the pump barrel and the well tubing. The diluent line may be sealed from the conduit and the flow line such that a diluent or lubricant may be delivered to the space between the pump barrel and the well tubing via the diluent line without contaminating the produced fluid.
US09745831B2
A safety apparatus for personnel on an oil drilling rig includes a cylindrical quick disconnect switch having a receptacle and a plunger. The receptacle has an open circuit pair of electrical wires. The plunger is configured to attach to a derrick man. The plunger and the receptacle are configured to mate when the plunger is inserted into the receptacle and to remain frictionally mated until pulled apart. The mating results in closing the circuit between the pair of electrical wires.
US09745820B2
A method of releasing plugging devices into a wellbore can include conveying a dispensing tool to a desired downhole location in the wellbore, the dispensing tool including a container, and then releasing the plugging devices from the container into the wellbore at the downhole location. A plugging device dispensing system for use with a subterranean well can include a dispensing tool having a container configured for containing multiple plugging devices, and an actuator operable to release the plugging devices from the container at a downhole location in the well.
