US07922977B2
A method and apparatus for converting a hydrocarbon and oxygen containing gas feed stream to a product stream, such as syngas, including catalytically partially oxidizing the hydrocarbon feed stream over a catalyst bed. The catalyst bed has a downstream zone which is less resistant to flow than the upstream zone.
US07922973B2
A combined unit of a humidity indicator and a desiccant pack is provided in which the humidity indicator (I) has one end portion bonded to one end portion of the desiccant pack (D) and can pivot around between a standby position (Ia) in which the indicator (I) overlaps one face of the desiccant pack (D) and an in-use position (Ib) in which it overhangs outside from one end edge (De) of the desiccant pack (D)), with the pivot center in the bonding portion or the vicinity thereof. This enables the humidity indicator to overlap the desiccant pack in the standby position when it is in an unused state, and after being enclosed within a packaging bag the humidity indicator and the desiccant pack can be kept as far away from each other as possible within the packaging bag, thus enabling detection of the humidity of the interior of the bag to be carried out precisely and appropriately.
US07922971B2
Analyte monitoring devices and methods therefore are provided. The devices integrate various functions of analyte monitoring, e.g., sample acquisition and testing.
US07922970B2
The present disclosure generally relates to methods for disinfecting surfaces. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to methods for destroying prion molecules using a combination of ultrasonic energy and enzyme treatment that is effective to denature and degrade prion proteins.
US07922965B2
A method of making a transparent ceramic including the steps of providing nano-ceramic powders in a processed or unprocessed form, mixing the powders with de-ionized water, the step of mixing the powders with de-ionized water producing a slurry, sonifing the slurry to completely wet the powder and suspend the powder in the de-ionized water, separating very fine particles from the slurry, molding the slurry, and curing the slurry to produce the transparent ceramic.
US07922964B2
The invention relates to a method for producing ceramic hollow fibers from nanoscale particles and to hollow fibers produced in such a manner. The inventive method is characterized in that the ceramic material has a solids content of >25% by volume, preferably >30% by volume and is processed by means of extrusion and spinning. The hollow fiber is sintered according to conventional sintering methods. A hollow fiber produced in this manner is used for metal, polymer and ceramic matrix reinforcements, for artificial organs, for microsystems technology components, for fiber optical waveguides, for ceramic membranes, for solid electrolyte in fuel cells (SOFC), for tissue engineering and for producing extremely light ceramic parts, such as heat shields or brake systems, that are subjected to temperature stresses. The inventive ceramic batch can also be processed by means of silk screening whereby resulting in the production of filigree structures over the ceramic silk screening.
US07922952B2
In the simultaneous molding and decorating method for forming an image onto the surface of a resin molding simultaneously with resin molding by holding a decoration sheet on which the image is rotary printed in a die, such a decoration sheet as having a predetermined pattern for every revolution of the cylinder of a printing machine wherein the image is formed in the longitudinal direction at a constant interval is used. By holding the decoration sheet longer than one revolution but shorter than two revolutions of that in the die and performing resin molding, the image is formed onto the surface of a long molding exceeding the outer circumference of the cylinder.
US07922950B2
A building element may be formed from a first cementitious mixture and a second cementitious mixture containing a photocatalytic cementitious mixture. The first cementitious mixture and the photocatalytic cementitious mixture may be co-formed into a shaped uncured two layer monolith having a base layer of the first cementitious mixture and a top layer of the photocatalytic cementitious mixture. The shaped uncured two layer monolith is then cured. The resulting building element may be algae-resistant.
US07922945B2
Arrangement for manufacturing a web-shaped packaging laminate, comprising an extruder arranged so as to extrude a film of polymer material down into a nip between a cooling roll and a counter-roll, and also means of introducing at least one other layer of the packaging laminate into the said nip for joining the film together with the layer. According to the invention, the arrangement comprises an arrangement for covering the cooling roll with a surface layer of a water-based composition comprising a dry matter content. The invention also relates to the method for manufacturing the web-shaped packaging laminate, in which the composition is transferred as a thin layer to the film of polymer material in the nip, while the film of polymer material is still hot.
US07922943B2
The invention relates to a method and a device for producing substantially endless fine threads from polymer solutions, especially spinning material for lyocell, wherein the spinning material is spun from at least one spinning hole or a spinning slot. The spun thread or film is drawn by high-speed accelerated gas flows using a Laval nozzle whose narrowest cross-section is located beneath the point where the spinning material exists. The threads are arranged on a strip in the form of a non-woven or are taken up in the form of a yarn and are subsequently separated in spinning baths by means of solvents.
US07922941B2
A photochromic plastic object which is composed of a transparent polymeric synthetic resin material, into or onto which at least one substantially mesoporous inorganic host structure is introduced or applied containing one or more embedded organic photochromic dye molecules so as to form a photochromic nanocomposite material. In contrast to prior techniques of adding or applying the photochromic organic dyes to the monomer mixture or prepolymer of a transparent synthetic resin material in a molecular form, in the photochromic plastic article of the present invention color is generated by using the photochromic nanocomposite particles or photochromic nanocomposite structures.
US07922939B2
Stabilized silver particles comprise particles comprising silver, a short-chain capping agent adsorbed on the particles, and a long-chain capping agent adsorbed on the particles. The short-chain capping agent is a first anionic polyelectrolyte having a molecular weight (Mw) of at most 10,000, and the long-chain capping agent is a second anionic polyelectrolyte having a molecular weight (Mw) of at least 25,000. The stabilized silver particles have a solid loading of metallic silver of at least 50 wt %.
US07922936B2
A particulate luminescent composition is disclosed that, when excited by electromagnetic radiation at a first frequency, emits electromagnetic radiation at a second frequency equal to or within 1500 cm−1 of the first frequency. The luminescent composition comprises substantially spherical particles having a weight average particle size of less than about 10 μm and a particle size distribution such that at least about 90 weight percent of the particles are not larger than twice the average particle size.
US07922931B1
A low-melting point, heat transfer fluid comprising a mixture of LiNO3, NaNO3, KNO3, NaNO2 and KNO2 salts where the Li, Na and K cations are present in amounts of about 20-33.5 mol % Li, about 18.6-40 mol % Na, and about 40-50.3 mol % K and where the nitrate and nitrite anions are present in amounts of about 36-50 mol % NO3, and about 50-62.5 mol % NO2. These compositions can have liquidus temperatures between 70° C. and 80° C. for some compositions.
US07922929B2
The present invention relates a method of making a coated cellulosic textile, whereby a silk peptide is polymerized with a building block to develop a silk peptide/building block nanoparticle, said nanoparticle then being used to coat the textile. The resultant textile exhibits a high level of wrinkle recovery angle and/or tear strength, all without the use of N-methylol compounds, including ureas and formaldehydes.
US07922900B2
A system for treating feedwater to remove contaminants therefrom, the system comprising at least one high shear mixing device comprising at least one generator comprising a rotor and a stator separated by a shear gap, wherein the shear gap is the minimum distance between the rotor and the stator, and wherein the high shear mixing device is capable of producing a tip speed of the rotor of greater than 22.9 m/s (4,500 ft/min) and a pump configured for delivering feedwater and treatment gas selected from oxygen, air, and chlorine to the high shear mixing device.
US07922897B2
A fluidized bed reactor for removing phosphorus and nitrogen from wastewater has a column comprising a number of sections. The diameter of the column changes stepwise between the sections. A flow velocity in excess of 100 cm/min is maintained in a lowermost one of the sections and lower flow velocities are maintained in subsequent sections. A struvite supersaturation ratio is controlled in part by recycling wastewater from an outlet of the column. Struvite pellets are removed periodically from the bottom of the column.
US07922896B2
A method for reducing furnace fouling in a delayed coking process comprising (a) supplying at least one feed to a delayed coking unit comprised of coker furnace, at least two coke drums and a coker fractionator, (b) increasing the aromaticity of the feed to produce a modified stream by combining with the feed upstream of the coker furnace at least one added stream selected from the group consisting of an aromatic gas oil, a hydrotreated aromatic gas oil and combinations thereof, (c) introducing the modified feed stream into the coker furnace, d) heating the modified feed stream to a coking temperature in the coker furnace to produce a heated modified stream, and e) transferring the heated modified stream from the coker furnace to a coke drum.
US07922893B2
A system and method for enhancing the recovery of heavy oil in an oil extraction environment by feeding nutrients to a preferred microbial species (bacteria and/or fungi). A method is described that includes the steps of: sampling and identifying microbial species that reside in the oil extraction environment; collecting fluid property data from the oil extraction environment; collecting nutrient data from the oil extraction environment; identifying a preferred microbial species from the oil extraction environment that can transform the heavy oil into a lighter oil; identifying a nutrient from the oil extraction environment that promotes a proliferation of the preferred microbial species; and introducing the nutrient into the oil extraction environment.
US07922892B2
A method for improving the lubricating properties of a distillate base oil characterized by a pour point of 0 degrees C. or less and a boiling range having the 10 percent point falling between about 625 degrees F. and about 790 degrees F. and the 90 percent point falling between about 725 degrees F. and about 950 degrees F., the method comprises blending with said distillate base oil a sufficient amount of a pour point depressing base oil blending component to reduce the pour point of the resulting base oil blend at least 3 degrees C. below the pour point of the distillate base oil, wherein the pour point depressing base oil blending component is an isomerized Fischer-Tropsch derived bottoms product having a pour point that is at least 3 degrees C. higher than the pour point of the distillate base oil.
US07922883B2
A biosensor strip having a low profile for reducing the volume of liquid sample needed to perform an assay. In one embodiment, the biosensor strip includes an electrode support; an electrode arrangement on the electrode support; a cover; a sample chamber; and an incompressible element placed between the cover and the electrode support, the incompressible element providing an opening in at least one side or in the distal end of the sample chamber to provide at least one vent in the sample chamber. In another embodiment, the biosensor strip has an electrode support; an electrode arrangement on the electrode support; a cover; and a sample chamber, the cover having a plurality of openings formed therein, at least one of the openings in register with the sample chamber. The invention further includes methods for preparing such a biosensor strips in a continuous manner.
US07922881B2
A sputtering plasma reactors for plasma vapor deposition (PVD) having an improved interface between a PVD target, a ceramic ring and a PVD chamber wall. The reactor includes a PVD chamber wall and a PVD target, wherein the target in conjunction with the PVD chamber wall form a vacuum chamber and wherein at least the portion of the target facing the vacuum chamber is composed of material to be sputtered. The reactor also includes an insulating ceramic ring positioned between the target and the PVD chamber wall. A first O-ring is provided to establish a vacuum seal between the target and the insulating ring and a second O-ring is provided to establish a vacuum seal between the insulating ring and the PVD chamber wall. At least one spacer is positioned between the target and insulating ring to maintain a gap G between the insulating ring and the target. The spacer is made of a suitable low coefficient of friction material and inhibits black marking, scratching or the like that may otherwise occur along the interface between the ceramic ring and the target.
US07922878B2
A system for hydrogen gas generation is provided according to the present invention which includes a hydrogen gas electrode assembly including a first anode in electrical communication with a first cathode; a microbial fuel cell electrode assembly including a second anode in electrical communication with a second cathode, the microbial fuel cell electrode assembly in electrical communication with the hydrogen gas electrode assembly for enhancing an electrical potential between the first anode and the first cathode. A single chamber housing contains the hydrogen gas electrode assembly at least partially in the interior space of the housing.
US07922877B2
A method of plating a plurality of semiconductor devices includes: applying an electrical power source to an anode terminal and a cathode terminal; placing the plurality of semiconductor devices on a non-conductive platform in a plating solution; moving conductive parts across surfaces of the semiconductor devices to be plated, wherein the conductive parts electrically connect the surfaces of the semiconductor devices to the cathode; and wherein plating particles connected to the anode terminal move to and plate the surfaces of the semiconductor devices.
US07922874B2
A multi-effect evaporator, having an upstream and a downstream end, adapted for distillation of water. It comprises a plurality of effects serially connected and arranged into groups. Each group has a common parallel water feed inlet adapted to supply all effects in the group with feed water. The evaporator further includes a main feed water line in fluid communication with the most upstream group. An array of heaters is disposed along the line, adapted for heating the feed water before its entry into the effects of the latter group. Each effect comprises means for forwarding the second outlet vapor into one of the heaters for heating the feed water. Each group comprises a pump adapted to extract the concentrate from the effects of the group and pump it into the common parallel water feed of an adjacent downstream group.
US07922856B2
An apparatus for supplying one or more strands of a relatively wide tape to a high-speed graphite tape laminating machine may include a tape supply reel and a backing paper take-up reel rotatably mounted on the machine, a dancer roller mounted on the machine for lateral movement thereon, and a mechanism for actively controlling the rotation of the tape supply and backing paper take-up reels and the lateral movement of the dancer roller relative to the support frame such that the respective tensions in the tapes are maintained substantially constant during both an on-the-fly tape add operation and an on-the-fly tape cut operation of the laminating machine.
US07922854B2
The presently described technology provides a low cost multilayer elastomeric film containing at least one layer of styrene block copolymer and at least one elastomer layer substantially free of styrene block copolymer such that the resultant film has a low permanent set substantially equal to or less than a film comprised of styrene block copolymer only. The elastomeric film may be used in elasticized features of various articles, such as disposable absorbent articles. Methods for producing the low cost elastomeric film having a low permanent set are also described.
US07922851B2
A closure tab is provided and includes a first substrate. A second substrate is adhesively attached to the first substrate. The second substrate has mechanical closure material formed thereon. A compression bond pattern is applied to the first substrate and the second substrate. The compression bond pattern includes at least one outwardly extending protrusion. The compression bond pattern may include, for example, circular bond points, stripes, or a decorative element. A method is also provided wherein the second substrate is compressed onto the first substrate by a patterned roller. The second substrate may be compressed onto the first substrate by a plurality of pins spaced in alternating offset rows.
US07922850B2
A process is provided for making a fastening element for absorbent sanitary products having first and second parts that are symmetrical with respect to an intermediate plane, each part including a base branch connectable to the first part, and a distal branch connectable to the second part. The base branch and the distal branch are connected together according to a general book-like configuration. A dorsal part of the book-like configuration for connection between the base and the distal branches is set at a distance from said intermediate plane, the base branch connects the two parts to form a single body, each of which can connect mutually facing edges of the end parts of an absorbent sanitary product and to ensure the fastening of the flaps set on the sides. The fastening element can enable releasing and refastening the product and/or adjusting the fit of the product to the wearer's body.
US07922847B2
Disclosed are novel light polarizing articles comprising a substrate, a light polarizing layer, an inorganic intermediate layer between the polarizing layer and the substrate, an optional inorganic sub-layer between the substrate and the inorganic intermediate layer, and a protective layer over the light polarizing layer, and method of making the same. Due to the presence of the inorganic intermediate layer and the optional sub-layer, adhesion of the polarizing layer is improved substantially. The light polarizing article has improved chemical, mechanical and thermal resistance. The light polarizing article can be used, for example, as ophthalmic products and in display devices.
US07922844B2
An adhesive tape masking article that can be used to mask both a door hinge or a corner includes a thin flexible sheet of material having opposed first and second major surfaces, first and second side edges, first and second end edges, and arcuate corners extending between at least one of the first and second side edges and the first and second end edges, and adhesive on at least a portion of at least one of the first and second major surfaces, thereby defining an adhesive surface for adhering the sheet to a surface to be masked. The sheet includes a frangible connection that allows the sheet to be separated into two masking articles, each of which can be used to mask corners.
US07922843B2
A strip-shaped polarizing film has a protective film strip conformably adhered to one surface thereof and a releasable liner conformably adhered to the other surface thereof and delivered from a film delivering station 1. After an appearance inspection, a lamination of the protective film strip and the polarizing film strip F is half-cut using a laser unit 11 to form an array of laminations each consisting of a protective film and a polarizing film F, with the releasable liner being left intact. Then, the polarizing films F are fed to a peeling mechanism 4. The peeling mechanism 4 feeds a forwardmost one the polarizing films F to a laminating mechanism 5 while peeling off the releasable liner therefrom by a knife-edged member. The forwardmost polarizing film F is laminated to a liquid-crystal panel W conveyed to the laminating mechanism by a panel transport apparatus 18 in synchronization of the feeding of the forwardmost polarizing film F.
US07922842B2
An automatic device for perimetric sealing of an insulating glazing unit composed of at least two glass panes and at least one spacer frame supported and movable in a slightly inclined position with respect to the vertical on a conveyor. A sealing head movable with relative motion with respect to the glazing unit has at least one sealing nozzle suitable to deliver a sealant flow. In order to maintain the correct mutual position of said at least one sealing nozzle with respect to the cavities of the glazing unit to be sealed and to allow the spacing of the nozzle therefrom, a sensor is provided transversely to the plane of the insulating glazing unit that detects the distance from the glass pane. An actuation mechanism is further provided for the relative motion between the sealing head and nozzle and the glazing unit.
US07922840B2
A method for producing hot-rolled strip from austenitic stainless steels. In a first step, a cast product is subjected to a rolling operation in a rolling mill with a finishing train, and, in a second step, a heat treatment is carried out to prevent susceptibility to corrosion, especially intergranular corrosion due to chromium carbide precipitation. To establish the final rolling temperature (Twe), a run-in temperature (Tein) of the cast product into the finishing train of the rolling mill that is above 1,150° C., and preferably above 1,200° C., is established by a multistage heating process, especially a two-stage heating process, which comprises a preheating stage and an intensive heating stage, and the heat treatment is carried out by directly utilizing the rolling heat.
US07922839B2
A method of assembly and manufacture of a brake rotor, comprising providing a brake rotor mold. The method also includes pouring brake rotor material into the brake rotor mold. Then the method includes rotating the brake rotor mold during hardening of the brake rotor material thereby forming a brake rotor. The method further includes removing an interior portion of the hardened brake rotor material of the brake rotor with a water jet cutting device. The water jet device shapes the brake rotor to a desired shape. The brake rotor is then heat and cryogenically treated.
US07922835B2
A high strength steel sheet excellent in formability which has a chemical composition in mass %: C: 0.03 to 0.20%, Si: 0.005 to 0.3%, Mn: 1.0 to 3.1%, P: 0.001 to 0.06%, S: 0.001 to 0.01%, N: 0.0005 to 0.01%, Al: 0.2 to 1.2%, Mo≦0.5%, and the balance: Fe and inevitable impurities, with the proviso that the values of mass % for Si and Al satisfy the following formula (1): (0.0012×[objective value of TS]−0.29−[Si])/2.45
US07922829B2
A cleaning system and method remove localized caked or dewatered solids from flat-plate membranes in a sewage treatment plant. The caked sludge on the membranes is removed by intense coherent water sprays directed into the spaces between cartridges of a cassette, without removing the cartridges from the cassette. The sprays can be delivered from the top and/or bottom of the cassette, or the side panels of a cassette can be removed for spraying from at least one side, preferably both sides, using a mechanical device with movable spray bars and motor-driven advancing of the spray bars. In one preferred form of the system the apparatus includes horizontal cutting jets followed by angled cutting jets that further break up and wash away the loosened sludge. Jet diameter, velocity and pressure are controlled so as not to damage the membranes or cartridges but to achieve efficient cleaning.
US07922826B2
A substrate treating apparatus includes a treating unit for treating substrates, a piping for supplying a treating liquid to the treating unit, a heater mounted on the piping, an electronic thermal unit mounted on the piping in series with the heater, a temperature sensor for measuring a temperature of the treating liquid, and a controller for controlling the heater and the electronic thermal unit. The controller sets a first temperature control mode for performing a room temperature control using the electronic thermal unit when the temperature measured by the temperature sensor is below a predetermined boundary temperature between room temperature and high temperature, and for performing a high temperature control with the heater when the temperature measured by the temperature sensor is above the predetermined boundary temperature between room temperature and high temperature. The controller sets a second temperature control mode for performing a heating control using the heater and the electronic thermal unit to heat the treating liquid when a difference between the temperature measured by the temperature sensor and a target temperature at least corresponds to a first specified value set beforehand. Further, the controller sets the first temperature control mode when, after the second temperature control mode is set, the difference between the temperature measured by the temperature sensor and the target temperature becomes less than a second specified value set beforehand.
US07922824B2
An oxidizing aqueous cleaning composition and process for cleaning post-plasma etch residue and/or hardmask material from a microelectronic device having said residue thereon. The oxidizing aqueous cleaning composition includes at least one oxidizing agent, at least one oxidizing agent stabilizer comprising an amine species selected from the group consisting of primary amines, secondary amines, tertiary amines and amine-N-oxides, optionally at least one co-solvent, optionally at least one metal-chelating agent, optionally at least one buffering species, and water. The composition achieves highly efficacious cleaning of the residue material from the microelectronic device while simultaneously not damaging the interlevel dielectric and metal interconnect material also present thereon.
US07922819B2
Reduction in a space of a manufacturing line, improvement of efficiency, improvement of utilization efficiency of materials, additionally, reduction in the manufacturing cost is realized by applying a means for describing a wiring pattern or a resist pattern directly on a substrate, a means for locally performing a vapor phase process such as film formation or etching under atmospheric pressure or adjacent to atmospheric pressure.
US07922814B2
In the production process of the present invention for high purity polycrystal silicon, using a vertical reactor having a silicon chloride gas-feeding nozzle and a reducing agent gas-feeding nozzle which are disposed at an upper part and a waste gas discharge pipe, a silicon chloride gas and a reducing agent gas are fed into the reactor to form polycrystal silicon at a tip part of the silicon chloride gas-feeding nozzle by the reaction of the silicon chloride gas with the reducing agent gas, and the polycrystal silicon is allowed to grow from the tip part of the silicon chloride gas-feeding nozzle toward a lower part thereof.
US07922811B2
Compositions and methods for increasing grinding efficiency of cement, cement clinker, raw materials for cement, and other inorganic particles. Use of biomass-derived polyols such as diols, triols, or mixtures thereof, optionally with a conventional grinding aid, cement quality improver, and/or hexavalent chromium reducer, are believed to provide less risk of sludging when compared to glycerides obtained from fossil fuel sources.
US07922810B2
The invention relates generally to a cement or gypsum composition having improved properties, which is prepared by incorporating an enzyme into a cement material such as a cement, mortar, or concrete, or into a gypsum product. The invention also relates to methods of manufacturing improved cement compositions and gypsum products, methods of improving the compressive strength of cement compositions and gypsum products, and methods of reducing the cost of such compositions by enabling the use of less expensive aggregates in the manufacturing process. More specifically, the invention relates to a cement composition or a gypsum composition, optionally including at least one aggregate and optionally including at least one pozzolan, comprising a cement material or gypsum optionally including aggregate(s) and pozzolan(s) having blended therein an enzyme.
US07922809B1
Provided herein are compositions and methods including hydraulic cement, supplementary cementitious material, and/or self-cementing material. Methods for making the compositions and using the compositions are provided.
US07922796B2
A carbon nanotube filter. The filter including a filter housing; and chemically active carbon nanotubes within the filter housing, the chemically active carbon nanotubes comprising a chemically active layer formed on carbon nanotubes or comprising chemically reactive groups on sidewalls of the carbon nanotubes; and media containing the chemically active carbon nanotubes.
US07922795B2
A nanoscale membrane exposed on opposite sides thereof and having an average thickness of less than about 100 nm, and a lateral length to thickness aspect ratio that is more than 10,000 to 1 is disclosed. Also disclosed are methods of making such membranes, and use thereof in a number of devices including fuel cells, sensor devices, electrospray devices, and supports for examining a sample under electron microscopy.
US07922794B2
A vacuum cleaner cyclone separator having a cyclone chamber with an air inlet and an air outlet. The cyclone chamber directs an airflow into a cyclonic pattern to remove a first amount of debris from the airflow. A filter shroud is located within the cyclone chamber and separates the air inlet from the air outlet. The filter shroud includes an air-pervious filter surface adapted to allow the airflow to pass from the air inlet to the air outlet and remove a second amount of debris from the airflow. One or more protrusions are associated with the filter surface, and configured and dimensioned to direct at least a portion of the airflow passing generally parallel to the filter surface away from the filter surface before passing through the filter surface. A dirt collection assembly having a cyclone separator and a method for using a cyclone separator are also disclosed.
US07922789B1
A portable gas fractionalization apparatus that provides oxygen rich air to patients is provided. The apparatus is compact, lightweight, and low-noise. The components are assembled in a housing that is divided into two compartments. One compartment is maintained at a lower temperature than the other compartment. The lower temperature compartment is configured for mounting components that can be damaged by heat. The higher temperature compartment is configured for mounting heat generating components. An air stream is directed to flow from an ambient air inlet to an air outlet constantly so that there is always a fresh source of cooling air. The apparatus utilizes a PSA unit to produce an oxygen enriched product. The PSA unit incorporates a novel compressor system which includes the use of free piston linear compressors so as to reduce power consumption, noise and vibration reduction.
US07922788B2
The present invention is directed to flotation of refractory gold sulfide ores in which the ore is ground, floated, the tailings reground, and refloated to produce gold-bearing concentrates.
US07922787B2
Embodiments of the present invention are directed to novel methods for the solution-based production of silver nanowires by adaptation of the polyol process. Some embodiments of the present invention can be practiced at lower temperature and/or at higher concentration than previously described methods. In some embodiments reactants are added in solid form rather than in solution. In some embodiments, an acid compound is added to the reaction.
US07922786B2
With this invention, in a nanoparticle production method, wherein nanoparticles are produced by irradiating a laser light irradiation portion 2a of a to-be-treated liquid 8 with a laser light, in which suspended particles are suspended, to pulverize the suspended particles in laser light irradiation portion 2a, laser light irradiation portion 2a of to-be-treated liquid 8 is cooled. In this case, by the cooling of to-be-treated liquid 8, the respective suspended particles are cooled in their entireties. When the portion 2a of this to-be-treated liquid 8 is irradiated with the laser light, the laser light is absorbed at the surfaces of the suspended particles at portion 2a. Since to-be-treated liquid 8 is cooled during this process, significant temperature differences arise between the interiors and surfaces of the suspended particles and between the surfaces of the suspended particles and the to-be-treated liquid at laser light irradiation portion 2a, and highly efficient nanoparticulation is realized.
US07922782B2
A high efficiency gasification process for converting carbonaceous solids to methane and apparatus for its practice are described. The process includes reacting steam and carbonaceous solids comprising ash in the presence of alkali metal catalyst in a gasification reactor to produce combustible gases and char particles comprising ash and alkali metal catalyst constituents, treating a stream of such char particles in an alkali metal catalyst recovery system to recover the catalyst constituents as alkali metal compounds, and recycling such recovered compounds. Within the alkali metal catalyst recovery system the process includes quenching the stream of char particles with water whereby such particles are cooled and fractured, dissolving soluble alkali metal catalyst constituents from the fractured solids to form a first alkali metal catalyst solution and washed solids, optionally reacting the washed solids in alkaline solution to form a second alkali metal catalyst solution, upgrading said first and optional second alkali solution to recover the alkali metal catalyst constituents as said alkali metal compounds.
US07922780B2
To provide a method and an apparatus for reforming a hydrocarbon with a prolonged life of an oxygen-permeable membrane and a high recovery rate.The oxygen-permeable membrane absorbs the free energy change, ΔG, of a partial oxidation reforming reaction and then converts it into work for oxygen isolation and Joule heat, Q. Here, as seen in Table 1 and FIG. 1, ΔG of the partial oxidation reforming reaction is approximately ten times larger than ΔH, and further increases as the temperature increases. The generated Joule heat, Q, has to be removed at a high efficiency, and this removal process is achieved by returning a portion of the Joule heat to the system as the entropy change, TΔS, of the partial oxidation reaction itself and by steam reforming using the total energy change, ΔH.
US07922778B2
A sublimation donor has a first fabric enhancer that sublimates from the donor above a first temperature. That is followed by a second fabric enhancer that sublimates from the donor above a second temperature. Both the first and second temperatures are above 260° F. and the second temperature is at least 10° F. higher than the first temperature. Upon sublimation under a single pass processing unit, first and second catalysts trigger the first and second fabric enhancers to sublimate at the first and second temperatures, respectively.
US07922771B2
Knee prostheses featuring components that more faithfully replicate the structure and function of the human knee joint in order to provide, among other benefits: greater flexion of the knee in a more natural way by promoting or at least accommodating internal tibial rotation in a controlled way, replication of the natural screw home mechanism, and controlled articulation of the tibia and femur respective to each other in a more natural way. Surfaces can be specially shaped using iterative automated techniques that allow testing and iterative design taking into account a manageable set of major forces acting on the knee during normal functioning, together with information that is known about natural knee joint kinetics and kinematics.
US07922769B2
A glenoid implant assembly is provided. The assembly includes a first component for attachment to the glenoid fossa of a scapula. The component defines an assembly face of the component. The assembly also includes a second component removably secured to the first component. The second component includes an assembly face of the second component. The assembly face of the second component is in close approximation to the assembly face of the first component. The second component is attachable to the first component in a direction generally normal to the assembly faces.
US07922761B2
A vascular prosthesis having a tubular structure is provided. The tubular structure is fabricated from at least two layers wherein at least one layer includes a thrombogenic agent.
US07922756B2
A stent with strut bands and connectors, wherein the strut bands have long and short struts with a junction positioned between the short struts. Each junction defines a reservoir, wherein the reservoirs of a strut band are substantially circumferentially aligned. The connectors each have arms, wherein each arm includes an opposing U-shaped link. The opposing links have a shared portion disposed between a peak on one strut band and a longitudinally adjacent trough of an adjacent strut band.
US07922743B2
The present disclosure relates to surgical instruments, structures and methods for enhancing the properties of tissue to be repaired or joined. According to an aspect of the present disclosure, a surgical stapling apparatus is provided including a wound treatment material dispersion system for delivering wound treatment material to a target surgical site. The dispersion system includes an aperture formed in the anvil assembly oriented to dispense wound treatment material in an outward direction; and a source of wound treatment material in fluid communication with the aperture of the anvil assembly.
US07922737B1
A surgical instrument includes a cutting member with an implement for cutting tissue, and a drive coupled to the cutting member to simultaneously rotate and translate the cutting member in response to a force applied to the drive. A method of cutting tissue includes positioning an outer member such that tissue is located within the outer member, engaging the tissue with an inner member, and simultaneously rotating and translating the inner member to cut the tissue. A tangential cutting force is applied to the tissue with the inner member to mechanically cut the tissue. The inner member is mechanically driven to undergo simultaneous rotation and translation.
US07922736B2
A blade holder 16 includes a bottom surface 18 for attachment to a blade 30. A top surface 20 interfaces with a drive-pin 32 of a microkeratome 38. A drive slot 22 is formed in the top surface 20 for engagement with the drive-pin 32 for allowing oscillation of the blade holder 16. A plurality of steps 24 are formed in the top surface 20, and rise from the drive slot 22 toward at least one side 26 of the blade holder 16.
US07922735B2
The invention relates to a device for cutting the cornea of an eye to correct the refractive power thereof, having a frame that comprises a fixation ring, which may be drawn onto the eye, as well as a receptacle, which may be coaxially displaced relative to the fixation ring and which serves to accommodate an applanator for deforming the cornea within the fixation ring, and a holding device, which is guided on the frame in a plane that is perpendicular to the axis with regard to the fixation ring and which serves to hold a blade, which passes through the frame via a peripheral recess and which is mounted in front of the applanator, being radially displaceable relative to the fixation ring as well as movable around an axis perpendicular to the guiding plane, for the purpose of cutting a pocket through a merely tunnel-like entry into the corneal tissue. In order to obtain advantageous cutting conditions, it is suggested to have the blade pass through the frame recess with clearance, and to have the holding device support a vibrator for setting the blade in oscillatory motion in the cutting plane.
US07922734B2
Compression plate apparatus enables vessels to be joined together in various anastomosis configurations. The compression plates are guided to each other in a parallel orientation by guides. The compression plate apparatus may be utilized with an intraluminally directed anvil apparatus or an externally positioned anvil apparatus. One of the compression plates assists in the eversion of the anastomosis fenestra contour. One of the compression plates enables a graft vessel to be pre-everted so that the anastomosis fenestra contours are everted. The apparatus provides a structure that enables the vessels to be joined without being penetrated.
US07922733B2
A device for end-to-side anastomosis of body ducts comprising a coupling (2) which can be positioned on a side wall (3a) of a first duct (3) and connectable to a second duct (4) in order to create a fluid communication between the first (3) and second duct (4), and means of restraint (5) to firmly and preferably removably attach the coupling (2) to said first duct (3). The device (1) also comprises at least one membrane (6) removably positioned between the coupling (2) and side wall (3a) of the first duct (3) to prevent or allow the fluid communication between the first (3) and the second duct (4).
US07922730B2
In accordance with a particular embodiment of the present invention, an implantation tool includes an elongate inner shaft having first and second ends. The tool also includes a first post coupled to the elongate inner shaft proximate the first end of the elongate inner shaft. The first post is configured to engage with a component to couple the component with the elongate inner shaft. The tool further includes a hollow outer shaft defining a longitudinal axial bore within which the elongate inner shaft is disposed. The hollow outer shaft is able to slide along the elongate inner shaft from a first longitudinal position to a second longitudinal position. The hollow outer shaft includes a first locking arm. Moving the hollow outer shaft from the first longitudinal position to the second longitudinal position moves the locking arm closer to the first post.
US07922729B2
Instruments for inserting and expanding interbody spinal implants having an expandable height are disclosed. The Instruments are provided for engaging expanders of the implants to increase the heights thereof. The instruments include an implant holder and an expander driver. The implant holder has a longitudinal axis, a passage along the longitudinal axis, and a distal end with an implant engagement area adapted to cooperatively engage the implant. The expander driver has a shaft adapted to pass through the passage of the implant holder, and a distal end adapted to engage the expander of the expandable implant.
US07922718B2
An open electrosurgical forceps for sealing tissue includes a pair of first and second shaft members each having a jaw member disposed at a distal end thereof. The jaw members are movable from a first position in spaced relation relative to one another to a subsequent position wherein the jaw members cooperate to grasp tissue therebetween. Each of the jaw members includes an electrically conductive sealing plate for communicating electrosurgical energy through tissue held therebetween. At least one of the jaw members includes a cutting slot defined along a length thereof which is dimensioned to reciprocate a cutting instrument therealong for cutting tissue disposed between jaw members. An actuator advances the cutting instrument from a first position wherein the cutting instrument is disposed proximal to tissue held between the jaw members to at least one subsequent position wherein the cutting instrument is disposed distal to tissue held between the jaw members.
US07922715B2
A device for treating a tissue region is supplied with a separate usage key card. The usage key card comprises a storage medium, which is formatted to contain an identification code unique to the usage key card. The usage key card is adapted to be read by a remote reader, to download the identification code for processing by a controller for the device. Processing of the identification code by the controller either enables or disables operation of the device according to prescribed criteria. A viewable image is generated on a display screen that changes in response to processing of the identification code.
US07922713B2
An electrosurgical apparatus for cutting and/or coagulating living tissue, a method of forming the electrosurgical apparatus, and a method of using the electrosurgical apparatus. The cutting and/or coagulating living tissue is performed with one or two heated loops of resistance wire accompanied by sufficient electrical current across the living tissue to enable said cutting and/or coagulating to be performed. The electrosurgical apparatus may include: a glow blade having one or two glow loops of resistance wire; a radio frequency (RF) generator; and one or two voltage supplies configured to operate concurrently, while the one or two glow loops are heated to said glow, to supply both sufficient RF power and associated electrical current across the living tissue for cutting and/or coagulating the living tissue by the one or two glow loops. A first output of the RF generator is electrically coupled to the one or two glow loops.
US07922701B2
The present invention provides catheter cleaning devices that are effective at reducing microbial contamination of a catheter port entry. For example, the invention provides a catheter, a catheter cleaning device and a catheter cleaning injection port cap, each of which reduces potential microbial contamination at a catheter port entry.
US07922695B2
A drug delivery pump drive which uses a linear piezoelectric motor to advance a syringe piston to deliver a liquid drug and a method thereof are disclosed. The pump drive, provided in a drug delivery pump, provides silent operation and very low energy consumption compared to electric motor-based drives. The small size of the motor helps also to reduce overall size of the pump drive and the resulting drug deliver pump.
US07922690B2
An apparatus and method for introducing material into an injection site of a patient is disclosed. The device includes a cannula and a carrier. The cannula is inserted into an injection site of a patient. The carrier is connected to an injector containing a volume of material. Material may be pre-loaded into the carrier so that the material is delivered to a distal end of the carrier from the injector and the carrier is thus pre-loaded with material. A portion of the distal end of the pre-loaded carrier is inserted into the cannula and material is delivered to an injection site.
US07922689B2
A device (1) is designed for locating a region which is situated in a body (10). The device has a fluid-filled reservoir (30) which is closed off in a sealed manner by a displaceable plunger (32) and is connected to a hollow puncture needle (20). To measure the pressure prevailing in the fluid, the device has a pressure gauge (40). A signal converter (50) is used to convert a continuous pressure-measurement signal provided by the pressure gauge (40) into a form which is suitable for further processing. A synthesizer (60) is designed to process the converted pressure-measurement signal into a continuous sound signal which is representative of the pressure. If, during a displacement of the puncture needle (20), a needle point (21) reaches the anatomical cavity (15), the result is a readily perceptible change in the sound signal. The device records the pressure-measurement signal over the course of time.
US07922681B2
Protective device against frictional irritation due to wearing thong-type sandals and other footwear
A device is provided which gives protection from frictional injury to the web space between toes due to the wearing of thong-type sandals or other similar footwear. The device is comprised of a flat, flexible, medically inert, and preferably transparent plastic material which is can be configured in a variety of shapes and which has a plantar base portion which fits under the toes and on the bottom of the foot, stabilizing the device from moving, a web spacer portion which fits between the toes and provides protection from frictional injury, and a dorsal flap portion which anchors the device to the top side of the foot.
US07922672B2
Embodiments of the invention are directed to a skin testing-device system. The system includes a tray, a well holder that snaps into the tray and that holds a plurality of rows of test-solution wells, and a well holder-assembly lid that snaps into the tray over the well holder. The well-holder may include see-through windows such that a test-solution level is visible for substantially each of the test-solution wells from one or more single viewpoints, which may be elevated, and offset, from the well holder. The well holder-assembly lid may include areas that prevent skin-test devices in the test-solution wells from being dislodged from the test-solution wells while the well holder-assembly lid is snapped into the tray. Embodiments of the invention are directed to a clamshell-package system for holding skin-test devices. The system includes a clamshell package having generally crescent-shaped receptacles in an offset pattern and a clamshell-package lid.
US07922670B2
A system for quantifying and mapping visual salience to a visual stimulus, including a processor, software for receiving data indicative of a group of individual's ocular responses to a visual stimulus, software for determining a distribution of visual resources at each of at least two times for each of at least a portion of the individuals. The system further including software for determining and quantifying a group distribution of visual resources at each of the at least two times and software for generating a display of the group's distribution of visual resources to the visual stimulus.
US07922668B2
An aerobic spa system comprising a water source providing water, an ozone source providing ozone, an ozone introduction mechanism adapted to introduce at least some of the ozone into the water, an ozone saturation mechanism adapted to cause at least some of the ozone to be dissolved into the water, a substantially enclosed chamber receiving water containing dissolved ozone; and a user at least partially disposed inside the chamber who comes into contact with the water containing dissolved ozone.
US07922665B2
Embodiments of the present invention relate to a method for analyzing pulse data. In one embodiment, the method comprises receiving a signal containing data representing a plurality of pulses, the signal generated in response to detecting light scattered from blood perfused tissue. Further, one embodiment includes performing a pulse identification or qualification algorithm on at least a portion of the data, the pulse identification or qualification algorithm comprising at least one constant, and modifying the at least one constant based on results obtained from performing the pulse identification or qualification algorithm, wherein the results indicate that a designated number of rejected pulses has been reached.
US07922661B2
The inventive probe comprises a tubular body (1, 2) that accommodates a transducer (11), which emits a focused incident ultrasonic wave toward structures to be examined and which receives the ultrasonic waves reflected by these structures. This transducer (11) is coupled to actuating means (4), comprises a piezoelectric assembly (15) capable of focusing the emitted beams and, adjacent to this assembly, comprises a spherical layer (20) made of a material that ensures a good transmission of the ultrasonic waves.
US07922650B2
The present invention is directed to features and aspects of an in-vivo visualization system that comprises a catheter having an access port leading to an interior lumen through which an image transmission member is routed, and an endoscope having an access port leading to an interior lumen through which the catheter is routed. The catheter and endoscope are connected by an endoscope attachment device such that a handle of the catheter is mounted distal of the endoscope access port and the catheter access port is distal to the mounted position.
US07922637B2
The present invention provides a conductive roller which has excellent resilience in response to deformation and exhibits small variation in electrical resistance. The conductive roller has a metallic core, a conductive elastic layer formed on the outer surface of the core to which layer conductivity has been imparted by carbon black, and a surface-treated layer formed through impregnating a surface of the conductive elastic layer with a surface-treatment liquid, wherein the difference ΔHs (Hs1−Hs2) between micro-hardness Hs1 of a surface of the conductive roller and micro-hardness Hs2 of the conductive elastic layer after removal of the surface-treated layer, the hardness being determined by means of a micro-hardness tester, is 5% or less of the micro-hardness Hs2.
US07922630B1
A multi station exercise gym includes a pair of bicep curl pivot assemblies pivotally attached to a user support assembly. Each bicep curl pivot assembly includes a pivotally attached support pad assembly. The user support assembly, bicep curl pivot assemblies, and support pad assemblies can be adjusted to multiple positions to support a user's arms during multiple variations of bicep curl exercise. The bicep curl pivot assemblies can also be adjusted into respective storage positions to prevent interference when performing unsupported bicep curl exercises or other exercise movements on the multi station exercise gym. The bicep curl pivot assemblies can also be pivotally attached to a free standing exercise bench.
US07922628B2
An assembly structured to facilitate the practice of various martial art techniques by an individual such as kicks, punches and other physically delivered blows associated with various forms of the martial arts. At least one elongated stanchion is operatively supported by a base, preferably having a stabilizing assembly, in a substantially vertical, upright position. The stanchion comprises a plurality of support assemblies extending outwardly therefrom and being adjustable at various heights along the length thereof. Each or a predetermined number of the support assemblies include a mounting structure secured to an outer end thereof at a predetermined orientation. Each of the mounting structures is dimensioned, disposed and configured to have a striking target, such as a Thai pad, or like structure disposed in an exposed, accessible location to facilitate the delivery, by the individual, of different types of martial art blows.
US07922624B1
Exercise platforms are adapted for aiding a user in performing aerobic exercises, such as step aerobics, as well as resistance and weight exercises. The embodiments of the present invention include a deformable surface, and detachable weight modules that allow a user to perform weight exercises using the weight of the device. Further, the exercise platforms of the present invention are stackable to allow for cooperative use of multiple platforms at once to perform a variety of different exercises. In some embodiments of the present invention, a platform is packaged with at least two sets of weight modules having different weights, and at least one resistance device.
US07922617B2
The present invention relates to a control device for a vehicular drive system which properly controls a shift in a transmission portion upon receipt of a shift demand to the transmission portion for precluding a given element of the differential portion 11 from high rotation. For a shift demand to an automatic transmission (20), the transmission portion shift limiting means (86) determines a permissible range in terms of a speed ratio of an automatic transmission (20) in consideration of a rotational speed of a given element of a differential portion (11) for thereby limiting a shifting of the automatic transmission portion (20) based on the permissible range. Thus, when the shift demand to the automatic transmission (20) is present, the given element of the differential portion (11) can be avoided from high rotation. This enables the suppression of the high ration of, for instance, first and second electric motors (M1), (M2) and a first planetary gear (P1) or the like, improving durability of the first and second electric motors (M1), (M2) and the first planetary gear (P1) or the like.
US07922614B2
The invention proposes a chain for a machine drive, transport of material in a machine or the like, and also a packaging machine comprising one such chain, this chain being better than known link chains at meeting requirements in respect of hygiene conditions during operation and cleaning. This is achieved according to the invention in that flexible chain links (4) are provided between rigid chain links (2), the flexible chain links (4) being fixed to the rigid chain links (2).
US07922600B1
An adjustable weight system for golf clubs improves a golfer's swing and feel as the club strikes the ball. The weight system includes a golf club having a shaft attached thereto which includes an internal channel for receiving cylindrical weights. The golf club head attached to the shaft includes a weight port which is in communication with the shaft channel and is closed, preferably with a threaded fastener. The method of use includes removing the fastener and inserting the desired weights to enhance the golfer's swing.
US07922598B1
A golfer alignment system for efficiently assisting a golfer in aligning their golf club and body properly while hitting a golf ball. The golfer alignment system generally includes a first alignment member comprised of an elongated configuration, a second alignment member comprised of an elongated configuration, wherein the second alignment member is substantially parallel to the first alignment member and at least one diagonal member attached between the first alignment member and the second alignment member. The diagonal member is attached in an oblique configuration with respect to the first alignment member and the second alignment member.
US07922597B2
A golf putter generally has a nearly flat sole surface, multiple or decorative sight lines used to align the putter with the target, or target line. This new design has an extremely rounded sole surface from heel to toe and from the ball striking face to the rear of the putter head. This works extremely well when putting through taller fringe grasses off the green. The well rounded heel and toe and leading angular surface contribute to stabilizing the orientation of the ball striking face when putting from extremely sloped side hill lies in the taller fringe grasses. It has a single brightly colored sight line from the ball striking face to the rear of the putter head to eliminate a majority of visual clutter. This focuses the golfers eyes completely on the sight line, target line, and center of the golf ball.
US07922581B2
The present disclosure relates to a distribution system for providing cash or other items of value to a user at the location of the gaming system and a method for using the distribution system. The disclosure relates to a distribution system for use with an entertainment station. The distribution system includes a remote control unit accessible from the entertainment station and operably coupled to a base processor. The remote control unit is adapted to receive user account information and a requested transaction type from a group consisting of deposit, transfer, and withdrawal. The remote control unit is also adapted to provide a signal to the base processor, and the base processor is adapted to receive the signal from the remote control unit and to process the requested transaction type based on the account information. The base processor is adapted to distribute cash or cash equivalent to a user.
US07922575B2
A video slot game is described that increases a multiplier associated with each active pay line of the game independently of the multipliers associated with other pay lines of the game. Each line multiplier acts to multiply the winnings based on that particular line only. A multiplier for a particular line may be incremented for a current spin based on a wager outcome on that line in an immediately previous spin. A line multiplier may continue to increase as long as the player continues to win on that line. The increased line multiplier may have the side effect of acting as an incentive for a player to keep playing the game of chance, so as not to leave an unused line multiplier for another player. According to one variation, if the player does not win on a particular line, then the multiplier associated with that particular line may revert to a default level.
US07922574B2
When the number of bets is determined and a game is started, reels start spinning. After a lapse of a predetermined time, fifteen symbols are repositioned in symbol display regions. By dragging and dropping a repositioned symbol to a crater of a volcano, a performance character, an animation effect to represent a volcanic eruption of the volcano and a sound effect corresponding to a volcanic eruption sound of the volcano are outputted. In case the symbol is dragged and dropped to the outside of a display, a warning sign is indicated as well as a warning sound is outputted.
US07922568B1
A device to assist in the field dressing of game animals, comprising two (2) tube portions which telescopingly slide inside of each another and mechanically secured at a desired length, is herein disclosed. The device may be used on different sized animals via a spring-loaded button and a plurality of button receiving holes. Each end of the device comprises a toothed portion which enables the device to better grip a carcass which is to be field dressed. Spiked end caps are also provided for increased anchoring of the device to the carcass. The device is preferably made of light-weight aluminum or similar materials and is provided with a belt mounted holster to allow the user to carry the device in the field. Such features allow the user to clean the animal carcass out while protecting the meat from spoilage by helping to aerate the meat for faster glazing.
US07922567B2
A separator apparatus that separates meat from bone in two distinct separation stages includes a rotary cam pump in series with a deboning screw assembly. In the first separation stage, substantially bone-free meat is separated from bone as the meat-bone mixture passes through the rotary cam pump, and expelled from the separator apparatus. The rotary cam pump then drives the remaining meat bone mixture into the deboning screw assembly, where a second separation stage occurs in which additional substantially bone-free meat is separated from bone as the meat-bone mixture passes through the deboning screw assembly, and is also expelled from the separator apparatus. The remaining bone residue is expelled from a bone residue outlet on the separator apparatus. The meat separated during the first stage can have a different coarseness than that separated during the second stage, and each can be expelled and collected at a different location.
US07922563B2
A hard-faced cutting blade and hard-facing method is provided. A hard-facing material is applied to a cutting edge of a cutting blade such that a heat-affected transition zone may be created between the base metal and the hard-facing material. The heat-affected transition zone may create a sufficient bond to help resist delamination and flaking of the hard-facing material from the base metal.
US07922559B2
Compositions and methods for managing bee colonies to prevent a variety of diseases, infestations and generally improve the health and productivity of the colony are provided. Such diseases may arise from a variety of sources, including bacteria, fungi, viruses, protozoa and parasites that infest the colony and the hive. Representative diseases preventable or treatable by this compositions and methods disclosed herein include, but are not limited to Foulbrood, Chalkbrood, and Nosema. Examples of infestations treatable and preventable by the compositions and methods disclosed include acarids or mites and insects such as hive beetles and the like. The compositions of the present invention include neutral or acidic solutions of an aromatic sulfonic acid, aqueous salt solutions, and wood sealants. Methods disclosed herein include applying the aqueous compositions to an interior surface of a bee-hive, suspending hive frames by novel corrosion resistant brackets that minimize the absorption of moisture within the hive body and provide bees access to more of the hive's interior for policing, cleaning and housekeeping purposes. The novel brackets and honey produced by bees administered one or more compositions of this invention are also disclosed.
US07922558B2
An electronic cake includes an inner base, an outer base, a driving device, a bottom shell, a rotatable platform, a number of candle-like lamps, a controlling device and a power source. The outer base is loosely sleeved on the inner base forming a predetermined guiding groove there-between. The bottom shell is rotatably received in the inner base by the driving device. The rotatable platform is attached on the bottom shell. The candle-like lamps are slidably attached on the rotatable platform. Each candle-like lamp has a supporting leg extending out from a side wall of the rotatable platform and received in the predetermined guiding groove. The controlling device is positioned in the rotatable platform. The power source is electrically connected to the driving device and the candle-like lamps via the controlling device for supply driving electric power to the driving device and the candle-like lamps.
US07922557B2
A handheld toy for simulating a fight sequence has an audio circuit for recording and playing simulated fighting sounds. A body section is provided. The body section has a hollow interior section for housing the audio circuit. The body section has a first side which is rounded to allow the first side to fit comfortably in a palm of a user. A second side of the body section has a plurality of ridges. The ridges form finger grips to allow a hand of the user to hold the handheld toy. The body section has a movable cover to replace components of the audio circuit. A plurality of buttons is coupled to the audio circuit. Each of the plurality of buttons activates a different simulated fighting sound of the audio circuit. The user presses different buttons while performing a simulated fight sequence.
US07922556B2
What is disclosed is a versatile interlocking crossbar device and system for coupling modular components of toy assemblages, educational models, hobby constructions, component attachments, or the like together using one or more connectors, configured with a set of male connector parts and a set of female connector parts, configured to enable the selective attachment of such parts. The disclosed system is exemplified in this application as a toy vehicle and a ball and demonstrates how the parts and interlocking crossbar device interrelate to one another in a plurality of ways to create varying embodiments. The unique interrelationships spoken of are, for the most part, capable of creation because similar sized openings and recesses are indexed within each body member such that the pieces and interlocking crossbar conform thereto.
US07922546B1
A grounding clamp for securing a grounding cable to a tray having a number of spaced apart longitudinal and transverse members includes a body portion having a bottom portion and inner and outer end portions projecting from the bottom portion. The inner end portion includes at least two finger-like members projecting from the bottom portion for engaging at least one transverse member between the finger-like members. A portion of the body portion includes a cavity defined by the bottom portion, the inner end portion, and the outer end portion for receiving at least one longitudinal member therein. The cavity further receives the grounding cable. The outer end portion includes a threaded opening therethrough. The grounding claim further includes a threaded bolt that is received in the threaded opening in the outer end portion for securing the grounding cable to the at least one longitudinal member.
US07922543B1
An audio jack connector includes a dielectric housing defining an inserting hole, a movable member, a rotation member, two first switch terminals and two-second switch terminals. The movable member is movably received in the dielectric housing. The rotation member is rotatably received in the dielectric housing. Elastic protrusions protrude from one end of the rotation member. Recessed portions form between every two protrusions. Ends of two first and second switch terminals respectively include a prong, and opposite ends are received in the recessed portion. A plug connector is inserted into the inserting hole, and pushes the movable member to move. The rotation member is driven to rotate to drive the ends of the two first switch terminals and the two second switch terminals to move from the recessed portion to the protrusion, causing the prongs to stay contact with the plug connector.
US07922539B2
A floating connector is provides that enables impedance matching in the entire contact without hindrance of the movement of a movable housing. The floating connector having a contact, a movable housing, a fixed housing, and an impedance adjusting member. The contact includes a contact portion to be mated with a mating contact, a board connecting portion to be connected to a circuit board, and a flexible coupling portion that is flexible and that couples the contact portion and the board connecting portion. The impedance adjusting member is arranged and receives the flexible coupling portion, which is formed in such a way to include a first curved portion, a second curved portion, and a linear coupling portion. The second curved portion bends in a reversed direction from a direction that the first curved portion bends, while the linear coupling portion connects the first curved portion and the second curved portion.
US07922532B2
A cable connector (100) for soldering at a predetermined position with a cable (4) including a number of first wires (41) each having a conductor (412). The cable connector includes an insulative housing (1), a number of contact terminals (2) mounted in the insulative housing, and a pair of shielding shells (3) assembled to the insulative housing. Each contact terminal has a contact portion (21) and a tail portion (22). Each shielding shell is formed with a grounding portion (35) extending toward the tail portion of one of the contact terminals. The grounding portion, the tail portion of one of the contact terminals arrive at the predetermined position and are soldered with the conductor of an associated first wire at the predetermined position.
US07922528B2
A connector, and a connector system that implements the connector, that exhibits a value of characteristic impedance that is responsive to a tuning insulator. In one embodiment, the connector includes a connector body that defines a longitudinal axis, and a conductor that is disposed in the connector body so that it is aligned coaxially with the longitudinal axis. The connector also includes a tuning insulator that has a pre-determined effect so that, when the insulator is positioned on a portion of the conductor, the value of characteristic impedance of the connector changes from a first value to a second value.
US07922521B1
A DIN rail terminal block essentially includes a plastic main body, a resilient plate, and a terminal. The resilient plate and the terminal are coupled together by multiple fastening structures and are simultaneously secured in position to the plastic main body, wherein the multiple fastening structures prevent the resilient plate and the terminal from shifting leftward, rightward, upward, or downward with respect to each other. With the terminal configured for ground connection, and the resilient plate configured for pressing tightly against a DIN rail, the terminal block is stably positioned, provides good electrical connection, and allows easy operation.
US07922513B2
An electrical connector includes a base having a number of passageways and a compartment in one end thereof. A cover is mounted to the base. The cover has a plurality of through holes corresponding to the passageways and a driving compartment corresponding to the compartment. The driving compartment has one single-step stopper. One recess is positioned adjacent the stopper and receives a stiffener therein for supporting the stopper. A cam is disposed in the driving compartment and the compartment to drive the cover moving relative to the base along a front-to-back direction.
US07922509B2
A surface mount header is shown which may be mounted to a surface of a printed circuit board, where pins project away from the board. Alternatively, the surface mount header may be connected to a surface of a printed circuit board with the pins projecting downwardly through an opening in the board. Insulative sleeves surround the pins in order to protect the pins from contact with conductive paths within the board.
US07922507B2
A card connector, comprising: an insulative housing having a base, first and second sidewalls extending upwardly from two opposite sides of the base, a card receiving space defined by the base and the first and second sidewalls; a plurality of contacts held within the housing, the contacts having contact sections extending beyond the base; a pair of detecting switches including a stable switch and a movable switch both around a region located backwardly of the first sidewall; and a flange-like plane portion on said first sidewall and essentially vertical to said first sidewall, a front guiding entrance defined by said flange-like plane portion, the first sidewall, the second sidewall and the base.
US07922504B2
A lever-type connector capable of securely and efficiently carrying out a secondary latch onto a contact by a retainer and release of the secondary latch is provided. The lever-type connector includes an inner housing, an outer housing, a retainer, a slider, a lever and a first and second retainer operation passageway. The inner housing includes a contact receiving passageway for receiving a contact, which is latched by a retainer inserted into the inner housing. The inner housing is inserted into and received by the outer housing. The slider is movable within the outer housing and having a cam groove into which a cam pin provided on the mating connector is inserted. The lever is attached to the outer housing and moves the slider by rotation of the lever. The first retainer operation passageway is positioned on a side surface of the outer housing, while the second retainer operation passageway is located on the slider. The first retainer operation passageway is in communication with the second retainer operation passageway when the slider is set to a mated position.
US07922502B1
An electronic device with a hidden I/O interface module is disclosed. The electronic device includes a container and a surface with an opening, container and the opening communicate with each other. The container includes a first position and a second position. The electronic device also includes an I/O connection unit, a pivot module and a cover. The I/O connection unit is disposed at the container, electrically connected to the electronic device and includes a connecting surface. The pivot module is connected to the I/O connection unit. The cover is connected to the pivot module. When the cover is shut, it covers the container and makes the I/O connection unit located at the first position. When the cover is open, it drives the pivot module to drive the I/O connection unit to move to the second position to make the connecting surface of the I/O connection unit aligned with the surface.
US07922491B2
In one embodiment, an explosive device (IED) simulator usable with a laser detector is provided, the IED simulator comprising a laser transmitter and a first switch. The laser transmitter is capable of directing a laser signal to the laser detector, the laser signal comprising information readable by the laser detector, wherein the laser signal is designed to simulate at least a first type of explosion of an IED. The first switch is operably coupled to the laser transmitter, the first switch permitting a user to trigger the laser signal from the laser transmitter. The first type of explosion that is simulated can comprise at least one type selected from the group consisting of an indoor IED explosion, an outdoor IED explosion, a long range IED explosion, an IED explosion of 2 m to 5 m away from a target, an IED explosion of up to 600 m from a target, and an IED explosion having a predetermined kill pattern. Advantageously, the laser transmitter is constructed and arranged to generate a laser signal encoded with a MILES code.
US07922486B2
A capsule for storage, mixing, and dispensing of dental material, including an indicator for indicating proper activation of the capsule. The indicator may indicate that a minimum required displacement of an applicator member or of an activator member, or both, has occurred.
US07922484B2
To provide a rotary hearth furnace which has a simple furnace structure in which the furnace is not damaged even if the furnace is operated for a long term while presenting general equations capable of adequately determining a thermal expansion margin in the rotary hearth furnace.
US07922480B2
The invention provides a combustion apparatus which can inhibit an NOx generation even in the case of promoting a mixing between a high-temperature combustion gas and an air so as to intend to reduce an unburned combustible. In a combustion apparatus provided with a burner burning a fuel within a furnace in a theoretical air ratio or less, and an air port supplying a combustion air for a shortfall in the burner, a supply apparatus for supplying a nitrogen oxide generation inhibiting gas is provided in a mixing region between the both or near the mixing region. Further, the invention provides a wind box which can inhibit an NOx generation even in the case of promoting a mixing between a high-temperature combustion gas and an air so as to intend to reduce an unburned combustible. In a wind box having an air port arranged in a back flow side of the burner and supplying a combustion air for a shortfall in the burner, a supply apparatus for supplying a nitrogen oxide generation inhibiting gas is provided in a mixing region between the both or near the mixing region.
US07922479B2
An injection molding hot runner system of modular construction adapted for rapid removal and replacement during required maintenance. The system includes at least one hot runner module adapted for mounting at a support surface. The hot runner module includes one or more injection nozzles adapted for fluid communication with a supply of molten material and an arrangement of acceptance openings adapted to engage mounting projection elements extending away from the support surface.
US07922477B2
The invention concerns a rotating machine such as a carrousel comprising a rotating frame driven in rotation about an axis of rotation, several working stations supported by the rotating frame, a fluid supplying rotating column, coaxial to the axis of rotation of the rotating frame. The invention is characterized in that it comprises a column element (50, 250) provided with two assemblies (52, 252, 53) mobile in rotation relative to each other, about said axis of rotation, a first assembly (52, 252) including an axial tubular body (80, 280) provided with at least two tiers of radial through holes (81-86, 281-286), the axial conduits of the first assembly (52, 252) extending over different lengths in the space delimited by said tubular body (80, 280), each conduit (65a, 70-73, 75) emerging perpendicularly to one specific tier of radial through holes (81-86, 281-286), the column element (50, 250) thereby defining a rotating connection dispensing at least two fluids towards the working stations of the machine, and in that a sleeve C is interposed between said tubular body (80, 280) of the second assembly (53) and said first assembly (52, 252).
US07922464B2
A magnetic drive pump includes a pump chamber including an inlet port and an outlet port, a partition wall separating the pump chamber from an exterior, a rotational shaft provided at a side of the pump chamber relative to the partition wall, an impeller rotatably supported by a first end of the rotational shaft, an inductor integrally fixed to the impeller to rotate, a magnetic member positioned radially outside of the partition wall and facing the inductor, the magnetic member rotatably supported, a rotation drive device fixed to the magnetic means and actuating the magnetic member to rotate, and a drive device moving at least one of the magnetic member and the inductor in an axial direction of the rotational shaft.
US07922463B2
Disclosed herein is a linear compressor wherein a compression unit, including a cylinder and a linear motor, is supported by a frame mounted in a hermetic container. The frame is die cast using diamagnetic zinc having a high forming accuracy, thereby preventing an electromagnetic force of the linear motor from being leaked therethrough, and enabling a reduction in the number of machining times thereof after die casting.
US07922459B2
A pressure-generating device includes an axle hub having a rotary shaft portion supported rotatably in a nonrotatable cylindrical support portion via bearings; a piston attached to the rotary shaft portion in a unitarily rotatable manner and so as to perform a pumping action, and, in cooperation with the rotary shaft portion, forming a pump chamber therebetween; a cam member and cam followers for converting a rotary motion of the axle hub in relation to the cylindrical support member to the pumping action of the piston; a suction path formed in the axle hub and enabling introduction of air into the pump chamber; and a discharge path formed in the axle hub and enabling discharge of air from the pump chamber.
US07922454B1
A blade segment of a rotor blade assembly formed from two or more blade segments is disclosed. The blade segment may generally include a body shell and a shear web extending longitudinally within the body shell. The shear web may be disposed between opposed spar caps. The blade segment may also include an attachment member and a spar member. The attachment member may be at least partially disposed within the body shell. The spar member may generally extend outwardly from the spar caps along an inner surface of the body shell and may be configured to support the attachment member within the body shell.
US07922453B2
Process for preparing turbine blades or vanes for a subsequent treatment, for example the application of a coating and/or a material-removing operation, wherein the turbine blade or vane has an airfoil, which is delimited at at least one end by an endplate with peripheral surfaces, wherein at least one of the peripheral surfaces is at least partially covered prior to the treatment of the turbine blade or vane. In the process a covering strip is fitted onto at least one peripheral surface to form a plug connection.
US07922451B1
A turbine blade for use in an industrial gas turbine engine, the blade having a squealer pocket with a plurality of discrete curved cooling channels to cool the blade tip and to reduce the hot gas flow leakage across the tip. The curved cooling channels include a side wall cooling channel, a tip rail crown cooling channel and an inner tip rail wall cooling channel all discharging cooling air from a cooling supply channel within the airfoil. Both the pressure side and suction side tip rails include this arrangement of cooling channels.
US07922450B2
A wind turbine blade comprises a main blade body and trailing edge section movably connected to the main blade body, and an actuator structure internally within the blade. The actuator interconnects the trailing edge section and the main blade body, and it comprises a stack of a plurality of piezoelectric elements, so that the stack of piezoelectric elements is capable of operating as a linear actuator. The actuator structure is arranged such that it is capable of causing the trailing edge section to move or deform relative to the main blade body in response to aerodynamic loads on the blade. The actuator structure is controllable by a control system applying a voltage to the stack of piezoelectric elements in response to, e.g., detected wind or load characteristics.
US07922449B2
A method of operating a wind turbine having rotor with at least one blade, includes sensing an icing hazard for the blade; and moving the at least one blade into a position to reduce the icing hazard.
US07922448B2
A wind turbine includes a first vibration sensor for producing a first vibration signal; a second vibration sensor, displaced from the first vibration sensor, for producing a second vibration signal; and a processor for comparing the first vibration signal to the second vibration signal and controlling the wind turbine in response to the comparison.
US07922441B2
A system for sensing at least one physical characteristic associated with an engine including a turbine having a plurality of blades turning inside a casing, the system including: a pressure sensor coupled substantially adjacent to the casing and including at least one output; a port in the turbine casing for communicating a pressure indicative of a clearance between the blades and casing to the pressure sensor; a cooling cavity substantially surrounding the pressure sensor; and, an inlet for receiving fluid from the engine and feeding the fluid to the cooling cavity to cool the pressure sensor; wherein, the pressure sensor output is indicative of the clearance between the blades and casing.
US07922437B1
Disclosed is a system and method for dispensing products provided initially in a package. The system includes a frame and an opening tool. The frame has longitudinally opposed front and rear end sections and includes an upper support deck extending at least partially between the front and rear end sections and below which a product display area is provided. The opening tool is associated with the frame and is arranged to open the package when the package is moved longitudinally on the upper support deck and relative to the opening tool thereby allowing the products to be at least partially dispensed from the package into the product display area.
US07922435B2
A sheet collecting device includes a tray on which sheets are placed, a sheet discharging roller for transferring sheets to the tray, an abutment regulating device for regulating a leading end and a trailing end of the sheets on the stacking tray in a conveying direction, and an aligning device for aligning the sheets relative to the abutment regulating device. The stacking tray includes a tray base supported by an apparatus frame and a plate member disposed on the tray base for placing and supporting at least some of the sheets. The plate member is supported on a top surface of the tray base so as to be movable toward an abutment regulating member. A biasing device is provided between the plate member and the tray base to bias the plate member toward the abutment regulating member.
US07922420B2
A barrier includes a housing having a front wall and an opposing back wall each extending between opposing sidewalls. The housing also includes a floor and an interior surface bounding a chamber, the chamber communicating externally through an inlet opening. A first inset projects into the chamber from the front wall so as to form a recessed pocket on the front wall. A second inset projects into the chamber from the back wall so as to form a recessed pocket on the back wall. The first inset and the second inset are connected together within the chamber so that the chamber encircles the connection.
US07922418B2
A mounting assembly comprising mating inner and outer components (36, 38) mounted together using a tolerance (20) is disclosed. The tolerance ring (20) has radially extending projections (28) that are configured to cause the tolerance ring (20) to operate into the plastic phase of its compression force/retention force characteristic. This can be achieved by using softer projections than those found in conventional tolerance rings. The force required to mount the tolerance ring and a range of retention forces exhibited by it for a given variance in sizes of mating components is thereby stabilized.
US07922417B2
An interlocking structural element is disclosed for the construction of cabinets and enclosures, including modular cabinets and enclosures. Four equal lengths of the interlocking structural element can be used in conjunction with simple flat rectangular panels to fabricate a single enclosure. Additional lengths may be used to fabricate an enclosure with multiple compartments. The interlocking structural element may be fabricated by extruding metal or other material such as plastic. The element incorporates slots for easy mounting of shelves, printed circuit boards or other objects within the enclosure.
US07922413B2
A connection element for attaching components such as trim parts to a structure of an aircraft, includes a retainer on the component, on which retainer an insertion pin is held so as to be adjustable to a limited extent in at least a Z-translational direction in relation to a component surface and mates a receiver coupled to the structure. The receiver has a recess contoured for receiving a trunnion portion of the insertion pin, providing a snap connection between the receiver and the insertion pin. The receiver on the structure includes a support flange, which is capable of coupling with a retainer mounted on the structure such that, the receiver rests flat against the retainer on the structure, and is adjustably held and attachable in a XY-plane that is arranged substantially perpendicularly in relation to the Z-translational direction.
US07922412B2
To provide a fluid feeder of an applicator having a structure that allows a fluid to flow into a tubular member and be positively pressurized at the time of an ejecting operation, which can readily eject the fluid even if the fluid becomes unlikely to flow out and which allows the user to readily use over a long period of time even if a high-viscosity fluid is used. In the fluid feeder of an applicator, at the time of the closed state, the periphery of a base of a rod-like part comes into hermetic contact with the inner peripheral surface of a fore part of a tubular member. When the thrust against pressing end is weakened after an open state and then the fluid is pressurized before returning to the closed state, the plunger-like part is inserted into the cylinder surface so as to pressurize the fluid held in the space between the inner surface of tubular member and the outer surface on the front side of a step of a valve member, whereby the fluid is flowed out from an ejection opening that is in a state where the periphery of base of valve member is released from the inner peripheral surface of fore part of tubular member.
US07922404B2
A diaphragm unit includes: a pair of straight-moving diaphragm blades and a pair of swing diaphragm blades overlapping with each other in an optical axis direction of an optical system and forming a diaphragm opening centered on the optical axis by moving in directions in which the diaphragm blades get close to and apart from the optical axis along a plane perpendicular to the optical axis; a receiving member receiving the pair of straight-moving diaphragm blades and the pair of swing diaphragm blades; and a diaphragm driving mechanism adjusting the size of the diaphragm opening by moving the diaphragm blades. The receiving member has a pair of side surfaces facing each other in the optical axis direction. One and the other of the straight-moving diaphragm blades and one and the other of the swing diaphragm blades are disposed on one and the other of the side surfaces, respectively.
US07922403B2
A blade driving apparatus for cameras includes a base plate having an aperture section for a photographing optical path; a partition plate having an aperture section for the photographing optical path so that a blade chamber is interposed between the base plate and the partition plate; a cover frame having an actuator chamber between the partition plate and the cover frame; a permanent magnet rotor rotatably mounted on the cover frame so that an output pin is introduced into the blade chamber; a yoke in which tops of two legs constructed as magnetic pole sections are opposite to the peripheral surface of the rotor in the actuator chamber and one of the two legs is fitted into a bobbin around which a coil is wound; and at least one blade rotatably mounted to a shank for at least one blade which is set upright on the cover frame and is introduced into the blade chamber, and introduced into, and removed from, the exposure aperture by the output pin.
US07922402B2
A camera holder (3) is provided for fixing a camera (11) or a camcorder to an optical observation device. The holder (3) has a variable-length sleeve (13) with a first end configured to receive the camera objective and a second end configured to secure the sleeve (13) relative to the optical observation device. The holder (3) also has an adjusting device (19) fixed to the sleeve (13). The adjusting device (19) has a pin for connection with a stand mating thread of a camera (11) and is configured to compensate for an offset between the stand mating thread and the camera objective. The adjusting device (19) enables the camera (11) to be positioned with respect to the sleeve and the optical observation device.
US07922401B2
A camera rig with a center-of-gravity correction system, which includes an adjustable shoulder platform, a camera platform connected to the shoulder platform, and an abdominal support system connected to the camera platform. The camera platform is vertically, horizontally, and pivotably movable relative to the shoulder platform, and includes a mechanism for providing center-of-gravity correction for a camera mounted thereon. The abdominal support system is horizontally and vertically adjustable relative to the camera platform.
US07922394B2
In a propeller shaft for a motor vehicle, an outer periphery of an outer end of an annular support member is formed as an expanded poison.
US07922381B2
In a two-way backlight assembly and a two-way LCD apparatus, the two-way backlight assembly provides light emitted from one light source to a first direction where a main LCD panel is placed and to a second direction where a sub LCD panel is placed. Also, a sub mold part for receiving the sub LCD panel comprises a black-colored material so as to prevent reflection of the light. Accordingly, thickness and power consumption of the backlight assembly may be reduced and display quality may be also improved by preventing leakage of the light at ends of the sub LCD panel.
US07922379B2
A backlight module including a back cover, a reflector, a lamp supporter, and a number of lamps is provided. The back cover includes a number of holes, an inner face, and an outer face. The reflector is disposed on the inner face and has a number of openings. The openings expose parts of the holes. The lamp supporter has a base substrate and a number of carriers that are connected to the base substrate. The base substrate is assembled to the outer face of the back cover, and the carriers penetrate the holes of the back cover and the openings of the reflector. The lamps are disposed in the carriers, such that the lamps and the base substrate are located at two opposite sides of the back cover.
US07922374B2
The present invention provides various lamp assembly configurations for motorized vehicles. In one embodiment, the lamp assembly includes a light source, such as a light emitting diode (LED) module, that is operable to generate light. The light source is attached to the vehicle structure, located on the interior of the vehicle adjacent to the aperture. A light guide is operatively connected to the light source. The light guide is configured to transmit light generated by the light source to preselected locations along the exterior of the vehicle structure, and diffuse the light. The light guide is attached to the vehicle structure, located on the exterior of the vehicle adjacent to the aperture in opposing relation to the light source. The cross-sectional area of the aperture formed through the vehicle structure is less than the cross-sectional areas of the LED module body and the light emitting segment of the light guide.
US07922368B2
A liquid crystal display device may include a backlight unit for providing light for the display. A backlight unit may include light modules. The light modules include colored LEDs surrounded by a first lens for refracting the light from the LEDs. A second lens surrounds the first lens for further refraction of the light to improve brightness and the uniformity of the light.
US07922362B2
A circuit board assembly and a backlight module comprising the circuit board assembly are provided. The circuit board assembly has a first surface and a second surface opposite to the first surface, and further comprises at least one laminate, a first conductive wiring structure and a coating. The first conductive wiring structure is formed on the first surface. The coating is formed on the coating area of the second surface, wherein the coating can conduct heat and provide electric insulation. Thus, the circuit board assembly is adapted to outwardly conduct heat from the laminate through the second surface and to promote the heat dissipation efficiency of the circuit board assembly.
US07922357B2
Disclosed are an external light-shielding layer for a display filter preventing occurrence of ghosting using a difference between refractive indexes of a base substrate and an external light-shielding part, and a display filter and display apparatus including the external light-shielding layer. The external light-shielding layer for the display filter comprises a base substrate made of a transparent resin; and at least one external light-shielding part arranged on a surface of the base substrate and filled with an external light-absorption material, wherein ny of a refractive index of the base substrate is less than or equal to nx of a refractive index of the external light-shielding part.
US07922354B2
A high performance, high efficiency solid state electronic lighting device, having a sealed fixture body for use outdoors or in environments requiring IP rated sealed fixtures, uses light emitting diodes for producing light from AC current that operates on an as needed basis dependent upon occupancy, ambient light levels and facility load requirements. The high performance, high efficiency solid state electronic lighting device can also be used to replace the internal workings and reflective surfaces of a standard fluorescent fixture, a high-intensity-discharge (HID) lamp, or other arc-based lamps using light emitting diodes for producing light from AC current that operates on an as needed basis dependent upon occupancy, ambient light levels and facility load requirements.
US07922353B2
In light of the foregoing background, exemplary embodiments of the present invention provide an improved apparatus, method and system for providing multi-mode illumination. Specifically, exemplary embodiments of the present invention include a lighting apparatus capable of multiple modes of illumination (e.g., infrared illumination mode, visible light illumination mode, spot-light mode, flood-light mode, blended spot and flood light modes, etc.) and battery powered operation. The lighting apparatus further includes a fuel gage module capable of communicating an expected battery life based on a current operating mode of the lighting apparatus and a current state of charge of the battery. Lighting devices structured in accordance with various embodiments of the present invention may be light-weight and portable to improve ease of transport and deployment. Such lighting devices may also include a stable and yet retractable mounting device. In this regard, such lighting devices may be transported to remote locations and for providing a reliable light source.
US07922350B1
A plurality of actuators allow an operator to control the status of an illuminator. Rotation of one of the actuators either prevents the illuminator from illuminating, allows an operator to selectively illuminate a person or area of interest with a second actuator, or maintains illumination without maintaining an applied force.
US07922346B2
An object of the preset invention is to provide a medical lighting apparatus capable of illuminating an affected part with proper illuminance while assuring a work space for an operator near the affected part. A medical lighting apparatus for irradiating an affected part with light includes: a light source (a light emitting element); a light condenser (a collimate lens and a condenser lens) for condensing light emitted from the light source; an image forming unit (an image lens) for forming an image on the affected part from the light condensed by the light condenser; and an aperture portion provided between the light condenser and the image forming unit and regulating passage of the light condensed by the light condenser.
US07922341B2
In a projection optical system for use in an image projection apparatus illuminating an image display panel forming an image in accordance with a modulating signal with illumination light from a light source, the projection optical system includes first and second optical systems arranged along an optical path defining an upstream-downstream direction in the order described from upstream to downstream on the downstream side of the image display panel. The first optical system includes at least one dioptric system and has positive power. The second optical system includes at least one reflecting surface having power and has positive power. The image formed by the image display panel is formed as an intermediate image in the optical path, and the intermediate image is magnified and projected.
US07922327B2
A digital camera that combines the functions of the retinal camera and/or corneal camera into one, single, small, easy to use instrument includes features such as image and laser spot stabilization, an LED light source, stereo corneal imaging, polarizing reflection reduction, visual function testing, and so on.
US07922325B2
An optical article includes: an optical substrate, and a functional layer that is light-transmissive and is laminated to the surface of the optical substrate, the period Pk (nm−1) of reflectance of the functional layer in the k-space being not more than 3.66×10−5.
US07922324B2
The synthetic resin lens has a function to generate heat by selectively absorbing infrared rays with wavelengths of 780 to 3000 nm. The synthetic resin lens includes an infrared absorber. Selective absorption of infrared rays allows the synthetic resin lens itself to generate heat and thus the lens of the present invention has the same function as being electrically heated to prevent fogging.
US07922314B2
One method of ink formulation may include providing a shipping material in a reservoir of a printing mechanism, placing a concentrated ink in communication with the reservoir, and mixing the shipping material and the concentrated ink together to create a print-ready ink.
US07922313B2
An inkjet printhead is provided. The printhead comprises a plurality of nozzle assemblies; a nozzle plate covering the plurality of nozzle assemblies; an ink supply system for supplying ink to the plurality of nozzle assemblies, the ink supply system comprising at least one conduit wall defined by part of the nozzle plate; and at least one pressure-dampening structure positioned in the part of the nozzle plate. The pressure-dampening structures dampen ink pressure fluctuations in the ink supply system.
US07922312B2
In one embodiment an ink pen for an inkjet printer includes: an ink filter chamber; a pressure regulator chamber downstream from the ink filter chamber along a path of ink flow through the pen; a pressure regulator in the pressure regulator chamber; a filter in the ink filter chamber; an inlet to the ink filter chamber upstream from the filter along the ink flow path; and an outlet from the ink filter chamber to the pressure regulator chamber downstream from the filter along the ink flow path such that ink flowing from the inlet to the outlet passes through the filter. In another embodiment a method implemented in an ink delivery system for an inkjet ink pen includes: chambering ink in the pen; filtering the chambered ink; and then regulating the pressure of filtered ink.
US07922299B2
An ink jet print head comprises a print head matrix having nozzles for drop∥ formation and release opening onto a print side surface of said matrix and individual local micro-reservoirs, each associated with the local nozzles. The reservoirs open onto an ink supply surface of the matrix and are supplied with ink by capillary action from wiping or spraying of ink regularly refreshed onto the ink supply surface. The design allows for a print head that substantially covers the area of the print media and thus permits stationary printing. Printing is rapid and the ink supply arrangement allows for reliable ink supply at atmospheric pressure.
US07922297B2
A silicon chip has a plurality of ink jetting structures. Each ink jetting structure of the plurality of ink jetting structures includes a heater stack having an electrical heater element. A power transistor is electrically connected to the electrical heater element. A planarization layer is interposed between the power transistor and the heater stack. The planarization layer has a planar base surface on which the heater stack is formed.
US07922296B2
Provided is a method of operating a nozzle chamber. The nozzle chamber has a wafer defining a chamber with an ink ejection port and ink supply channel along with a plurality of radially positioned actuators about the port. Each actuator has an internal serpentine core arranged in signal communication with a CMOS layer on the wafer. The method includes the steps of supplying the chamber with ink via the ink supply channel, and passing current through the serpentine cores for a predetermined period of time. The current produces thermal expansion of the actuators into the chamber to increase a chamber ink pressure to eject ink from the ejection port.
US07922295B2
An ink jet apparatus electrifies ink in a nozzle, and ejects the ink from an ink ejecting hole onto a printing medium by a first electric field generated between the nozzle and the printing medium. The apparatus includes an ink catching device including an ink catching portion adjacent to the nozzle that catches an ejected substance. Between the nozzle and the ink catching portion, the apparatus applies a voltage for generating a second electric field which (i) causes an ejected substance, formed from the ink or the ink whose viscosity is changed, to be ejected from the nozzle, and (ii) causes the ink catching portion to attract the ejected substance. The apparatus, utilizes an electrostatic force to eject fluid, removes a clogging of an ejection head at any position, realizes less initial ejection fluctuation and improves the reliability of ejection.
US07922291B2
An ink jet head, includes: an actuator including a plurality of terminals; a wiring material including a base made of a flexible resin film on which a plurality of lands are arranged in arrays corresponding to the plurality of terminals, the wiring material of which one end is superimposed on a surface of the actuator, and which is extended in a direction parallel to the surface of the actuator; and a drive circuit for driving the actuator, wherein: the wiring material includes a small width portion, of which a width in a direction, perpendicular to an extended direction is smaller than that of the one end superimposed on the actuator, arranged on an extended portion; and the drive circuit is mounted on the extended portion; and wiring patterns are formed on the wiring material, for connecting the drive circuit and the plurality of lands.
US07922267B2
A worksurface storage system includes a frame, a tray, an actuator, and a cover. The tray and actuator are connected to the frame such that operation of the actuator translates the actuator and the tray relative to the frame. The cover is pivotably connected to the frame such that translation of the tray rotates the cover between an open and a closed position relative to the worksurface. The storage system is constructed to engage the worksurface such that devices supported by the tray are selectively extended and retracted relative to the worksurface. An opening formed in the worksurface accommodates passage of the devices and the cover, which is rotationally connected to the frame and which covers the opening formed in the worksurface when the devices are not in use. The storage system provides for multi-functional use of the worksurface.
US07922261B2
The invention relates to a cast wheel having a wheel rim base, a rear edge region, and a front edge region, wherein the front edge region is coupled to the rear edge region via the wheel rim base. The cast wheel includes at least one reduced-material portion structured and arranged in the rear edge region and a circumferential bead arranged in a rearward portion of the rear edge region, wherein at least a part of the reduced-material portion is located in a region of the circumferential bead and is structured and arranged to widen radially inward from a radially outwardly located vertex region towards a leveling-off end.
US07922260B2
A wheel assembly includes a wheel rim and a wheel disk that attaches to the wheel rim. The wheel rim includes an inner region for receiving a wheel hub and defines a rotational axis. The wheel disk includes a section for attachment to the wheel hub and an attachment flange for securing the wheel disk and the wheel rim together. The attachment flange includes a first side corresponding to the inner region and a second side corresponding to the wheel rim, where the attachment flange extends from the section in a direction that is transverse to the rotational axis.
US07922250B2
Hinge mechanism comprising first and second frames connected together by an adjustment device comprising a first set of gear teeth integral with the first frame and a first mobile toothed element engaging with the first set of gear teeth A second toothed element, mounted mobile on the second frame, engages with an additional set of gear teeth integral with the first frame.
US07922241B2
A sunshade for a vehicle having a first guide and a second guide spaced from the first guide. The sunshade has a pair of edges and includes a substrate layer and an aesthetic layer fixed to the substrate layer to present a show surface. Slide portions are disposed along each of the edges and are adapted to move within the first and second guides as the sunshade moves between an open position and a closed position. The slide portions define a generally corrugated configuration to provide a force that must be overcome to move the sunshade between the open position and the closed position.
US07922238B2
A vehicle having a driving cab and specialized frame extending rearward from the driving cab and a rear module body which can be easily exchanged on the specialized frame. The specialized frame has two rails, each with an incline, and the rear module body has two open bottom frame channels, which conform to the rails and the inclines. When lowered onto the specialized frame, interaction between the specialized frame and frame channels creates a forward push resulting in a tight fit of the rear module body to the rear of the driving cab. Sliding lock jack assemblies fasten the rear module body to the specialized frame and deploy to unfasten and then lift the rear module body free of the specialized frame. The slide lock jack assemblies conceal in compartments while fastening and rotate 90 degrees to lift.
US07922236B2
A method of operating a volume-filling structure, comprising sensing an impact event and expanding the volume-filling structure from a non-expanded state to an expanded state upon the sensed impact event. The volume-filling structure comprises an open celled material, a first end cap connected to one end of the open celled material and a second end cap connected to a second end of the open celled material. The volume-filling structure further includes an activation mechanism regulating expansion of the open celled material from the non-expanded state to expanded state in response to an activation signal, and the activation mechanism includes an actuator interfaced with the end caps. Embodiments may include triggering a pneumatic device to force the second end cap from the first end cap. Additionally, embodiments may include triggering a mechanical event to force the second end cap from the first end cap.
US07922234B2
A rear lid closes a rear compartment of a passenger vehicle. The rear lid, when fitted, is attached to the vehicle and is composed of an inner part and an outer part. The rear lid contains a spoiler device which can be displaced between an inoperative position and an operative position and interacts with an adjustment device. In order to simplify producibility of the rear lid, the inner part is formed by an assembly carrier which forms the supporting structure of the rear lid and to which at least the adjustment device of the spoiler device is fastened. The outer part is formed by the spoiler device and a panel device.
US07922231B2
A fuel door locking system for a fuel door and hinge arm combination in which the fuel door is slidably interfaced on the hinge arm. The fuel door has a pin aperture. An abutment of the hinge arm is disposed adjacent said pin aperture. A locking pin is adapted for being inserted into the pin aperture with an interfering relationship with respect thereto which impedes the locking pin from being removed from the pin aperture. When the fuel door is slidably interfaced on the hinge arm and the locking pin is inserted into the pin aperture, then the abutment interferingly abuts the locking pin to prevent the fuel door from being slid off from the hinge arm.
US07922230B2
A foldable vehicle seat assembly includes a pivotable seat back that is can be positioned into an upright position and a folded position. The pivotable seat back may optional also be able to be positioned in one or more additional positions thereby allowing a reclining or forward positioning of the seat back. The seat bottom cushion subassembly is positioned over the seat bottom reinforcement member. The pivotable seat bottom reinforcement member provides structural support to a forward section of seat bottom cushion subassembly when this section is raised during seat repositioning.
US07922226B2
A gripping device for gripping a printed product including a rotatable first gripper arm having a first gripper pad and a pivot, a rotatable second gripper arm having a second gripper pad and a pivot, a first link connecting the first gripper arm and second gripper arm and a second link having a spring connected to the first link. A method is also provided.
US07922220B2
A safety mechanism for a gate having first and second ends, a first fulcrum point intermediate the first and second ends and a first rotational axis proximate the second end, the safety mechanism including a first force resisting means intermediate the first fulcrum point and the first rotational axis, wherein a force applied to the first end is transmitted toward the first rotational axis via the first fulcrum point and the first force resisting means prevents transmission of the force to the first rotational axis. The present invention also comprises a safety mechanism for a gate having first and second ends, a locking means and a first rotational axis proximate said second end, wherein a force applied to the first end is transmitted toward the first rotational axis via the locking means, the safety mechanism including a first force resisting means intermediate the first rotational axis and the force, wherein the first force resisting means prevents transmission of the force to the first rotational axis.
US07922219B2
A connecting clip for connecting two members to each other at apertures through the two members. The connecting clip includes a first section connected to a second section by a living hinge. The first section includes a general ring shaped portion forming a hole, a first stationary projection extending away from the general ring shaped portion at a rear side of the general ring shaped portion, and a movably second projection connected to the general ring shaped portion by another living hinge. The second projection is movable to a deployed position extending out of the hole with an end of the second projection extending in a direction different from the first projection. The second section includes a pushing portion adapted to push against the second projection when the second section is moved from an open position to a closed position to thereby move the second projection to the deployed position.
US07922210B1
A multi-layer label with variable data and method for its manufacture. First indicia is printed on a first label face ply of a multi-ply label material in registration with an eventual location of at least one of a plurality of multi-layer labels. The first indicia may be variable between at least two of the plurality of multi-layer labels. A second label material is removably adhered to the multi-ply first label material, thereby covering the first indicia. Second indicia is printed on the face of the second label material.
US07922209B1
An article bears an HVS-perceivable security pattern based on metamerism. The metamerism causes the security pattern to be perceived differently when viewed under two different light sources.
US07922208B2
An envelope used in voting by mail includes a signature area on which the signature is affixed and a concealing portion structured to cover the signature area thereby concealing the signature. The concealing portion includes a concealing layer that is preferably positioned on top of a protective layer. The protective layer is positioned between the signature area and the concealing layer when the concealing portion covers the signature area. The concealing layer is formed from a material that is normally opaque but becomes at least partially transparent when one or more chemicals are applied to the concealing layer. The protective layer protects the signature from the one or more chemicals since the protective layer is impermeable to the one or more chemicals.
US07922203B2
Provided is a steering column system capable of firmly holding a jacket during a normal condition and securing a larger movement stroke for the jacket when an excessive impact force is applied. To this end, when a clamp bolt (72) is fastened, sliding contact portions (70a) are pressed to abutment parts (43), respectively. Thus, a jacket (3) is firmly clamped to and held by a mount bracket (6). When a force in excess of a predetermined value is applied to the jacket (3) in its axial direction, shear portions (74b) break, and thereby a restraint imposed on a movement range by restraint portions (74a) is lifted. This contracts the jacket (3).
US07922201B2
The invention relates to a swivelable roll bar, in particular for construction vehicles, with two vertical carriers, each of which has a pair of spars, whereby in each, one spar is connected swivelably through a link joint with the another spar, and the link joint comprises a lock and a stop. The stop consists of a joint stiffener, which is built as an extension of one spar and partially grips about the end of the other. In addition to that, the lock has a continuously adjustable final control element, with which the joint stiffener can be braced against the other spar. With the grip about the other spar, the flexural strength of the link joint of the swivelable roll bar is increased. Further, the bracing of the joint stiffener against the other spar eliminates the play in the link joint. The joint stiffener is preferably built as a U-shaped tubular segment that is attached to the latter as an extension of the spar.
US07922193B2
An airbag comprises a bag which is bent in the shape of an arrow ′<′ in a deployed state, and a connection member which is arranged on a side of the bag, facing a vehicle body, and connects the upper and lower ends of the bag with each other. A longitudinal intermediate portion of the bag projects toward a vehicle occupant. A space is defined between the projecting intermediate portion and the connection member. The head of the vehicle occupant initially comes into contact with the intermediate portion and then presses the bag toward the vehicle body. Upper and lower parts of the bag which extend upward and downward from the intermediate portion cooperate with the connection member to define a triangular space.
US07922190B2
In one form, an airbag is provided with a first bag as a bag formed by joining base fabrics which includes a gas inlet for supplying pressure fluid fed from an inflator inward and a discharge passage for discharging the pressure fluid supplied inward to an outside, a second bag as a bag formed by joining base fabrics which includes an intake passage for introducing the pressure fluid discharged from the discharge passage of the first bag inward, and a passage joint member for joining the discharge passage of the first bag and the intake passage of the second bag while maintaining each cross section shape of the passages.
US07922184B2
Steering mechanism for orienting the steered wheels (1a-d) of a short vehicle with respect to the chassis, comprising one first vertical axis (2) per steered wheel, allowing each steered wheel (1a-d) to pivot with respect to said chassis and a first link (5a-d) allowing a torque to be applied to each steered wheel to make it pivot around said first vertical axis.The inner end of the link is able to slide along a straight rail (11a-d) which in turn is rotatably mounted with respect to the chassis 60. A second link (6a-d) not parallel to the wheels forces the first link (5a-d) to slide in a defined manner along a rail (11a-d). This makes possible the differentiated orientation of the left and right wheels.Advantage: very small turning radius. Particularly applicable to electric chairs for the disabled.
US07922172B2
A bottom surface of a stacking and accommodating portion is structured such as to be sloped to be lower in accordance with moving away from a paper carry-in side, and a push plate is controlled so as to be moved in a direction moving close to a carry-in port of the paper by detecting a stack paper width determined on the basis of a product of a stacked number count information of the papers and a thickness information per one paper, and the papers are accommodated.
US07922162B2
A sheet processing apparatus staples a bundle of sheets, folds the sheets into two to make a book, and presses the folded sheets.A stitch bookbinding unit moves a press unit having press rollers and, a press holder, and the like constituting a creasing unit along the fold of a bundle of sheets subjected to the folding process by the press rollers and so as to reliably nip-press the fold by the nip between the moving press rollers and for pressing it. The press holder performs intermittent movement in which it is stopped during movement.
US07922157B2
A stopper for a cylindrical elastic mount includes a concave portion which is formed at each of a plurality of locations on a circumference of a cylindrical portion of a stopper fitting, the concave portion being concaved in a radially inward direction to partially enlarge a width of an outward flange so as to provide a large width portion on an enlarged width portion of the outward flange of a first rubber portion. The stopper further includes a plurality of second rubber portions each of which is fixedly disposed only between adjacent concave portions in a circumferential direction of a bottom portion and protruding higher than the first rubber portion. The first and each of the plurality of the second rubber portions are separated by a groove-shaped gap that is provided so as to continuously extend around each of the plurality of second rubber portions.
US07922155B2
A control method for boiler outlet temperatures includes predictive control of SH and RH desuperheater systems. The control method also includes control and optimization of steam generation conditions, for a boiler system, such as burner tilt and intensity, flue-gas recirculation, boiler fouling, and other conditions for the boiler. The control method assures a proportional-valve control action in the desuperheater system, that affects the boiler system.
US07922152B2
A valve element opening/closing device may include a main body formed with a space, an inflow pipe and an outflow pipe which are connected to the main body, a valve element for opening and closing a flow passage, and a drive part for driving the valve element to open and close the flow passage. The valve element may be arranged on an inflow pipe side with respect an opening of the main body to which the inflow pipe is connected. The valve element is preferably arranged within the inflow pipe.
US07922146B2
A method of forming an optical element forming metal mold to form an optical element, having steps of: laminating a heat insulation layer 13 on a surface of the base member 11 where the optical element is formed; laminating an intermediate metal layer 14 on a surface of the heat insulation layer 13 by thermal spraying; laminating a surface forming layer 15, on which a surface shape to be transferred to the optical element is formed, on the intermediate metal layer 14; wherein the intermediate metal layer 14 is laminated in a way that parts of the heat insulation layer 13 are exposed substantially evenly from the intermediate layer 14.
US07922143B2
The present invention improves the shape of a protruding part of a locking member which allows a lower stationary rail and an upper moving rail of a seat moving track assembly to be coupled with each other, thereby enabling a stable movement with a further simplified configuration component.
US07922135B2
A fastener assembly securely fastens a decorative panel in spaced relation to a support backing. The fastener assembly includes a base member adapted to be operatively mounted to the decorative panel, a carrier member, and a fastening medium supported by the carrier member and adapted to operatively interconnect the carrier member to the support backing. At least one biasing member is adapted to operatively support the carrier member and provide swiveling articulation of the carrier member relative to the base member. At least one leg extends from the base member and is adapted to operatively engage the carrier member so as to attach the carrier member to the base member in articulating fashion.
US07922134B2
Generally large objects including ergonomic gaming stools are provided with a supporting assembly including an easy rolling support base to enable them to be moved easily along a generally unidirectional line of movement. An easy rolling support base for the supporting assembly includes a shaped disc member to the underside of which are affixed a plurality of freely mounted roller members in predetermined angular spaced relationship. The freely mounted roller members are so mounted that the rollers are in alignment with each other and rotate in the same direction. A roller members connecting plate is provided to facilitate mounting the roller members in predetermined angular position before they are mounted into assembled position on the easy rolling support base and to facilitate repair of a roller member that may fail. The roller members are formed of materials to support the load and shaped to oppose other than unidirectional movement.
US07922130B2
A support device is provided herein and includes a pliable support structure. The support device further includes a plate structure for use with the pliable support structure. The plate structure is disposed on the support structure. A coupling member is associated with the plate structure allowing for other members to be coupled to the support device. Elevating assemblies are optionally further included to elevate elongate structure supported by the support device.
US07922128B2
A one-piece easily manufactured and economical unitary product that both facilitates the routing of cable and the storage of extra lengths of cable is provided in one embodiment by a cable management apparatus including a flange mate-able with an opening and a cable management structure connected to the flange. In various exemplary non-limiting embodiments, the innovation provides multimedia furniture that includes structure for supporting an entertainment device, at least one outwardly facing rear section, wherein the at least one outwardly facing rear section includes an opening through which a cable is receivable and a cable management apparatus disposed on the outwardly facing rear section, the cable management apparatus includes a flange mate-able with the opening and a cable management structure connected to the flange.
US07922121B2
An ice protection system for a vehicle is disclosed which includes a plurality of de-ice power distribution units positioned proximate to a leading edge surface of the vehicle that is susceptible to ice accretion, at least two anti-ice power distribution units located within the vehicle, spaced from the de-ice power distribution units, and a point of power regulation located within the vehicle, spaced from the power distribution units, from which power is fed to the power distribution units through independent feeder wire bundles so as to distribute line current across the system in a manner that optimizes wire weight.
US07922108B2
A method for industrial production of especially fine powders and mineral powders, where the material to be ground is mixed to a gas-solid matter suspension, which through acceleration nozzles (12) is led at least to two counter jets, which meet in grinding chamber (13) for further grinding of the powders. The ground gas-solid matter suspension is led in its turn by means of working gas at least to two intermediate containers (2a);(2b) in the grinding circulation, in which containers the gas is removed from the mixture and into intermediate container (2) a certain quantity of solid matter is collected, which quantity is returned to be ground and led to the other container (2) and the said quantity is circulated through the grinding process among intermediate containers (2a);(2b) until in some container the quality is established sufficient for removal off the process.
US07922103B2
The present invention relates to a decorative waterfall apparatus and more particularly to a decorative waterfall having a decorative image on a backboard which can be rapidly changed by removing the removable mounted backboard and changing a polymer film having a decorative image thereon extending thereover.
US07922100B2
A ground wire adaptor for operatively connecting a low-voltage control unit (e.g. a thermostat) requiring a three-wire connection to a three-wire system-under-control (e.g. a HVAC system) using a two-wire conductor. A ground terminal and an output control signal of the control unit are interconnected such that the output control signal, in the form of a half-wave rectified signal, is superimposed on the ground. The ground wire adaptor detects the half-wave rectified signal superimposed on the ground connection and generates a control output signal to be provided to the system-under-control responsive to the presence of the half-wave rectified signal (i.e. the control signal from the control unit). In another aspect of the invention the ground wire adaptor can be used to connect an ‘N’ function control unit to an ‘N’ function system-under-control using a two-wire conductor.
US07922096B2
The invention relates to: A support (15) for a cartridge (10) provided with one or more electronically readable information carrying areas (121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127). The invention further relates to the use of a composite material for a support. The object of the present invention is to provide means, which are capable of securely transferring information with an increased density from a cartridge to an electronic circuit, and which are flexible and may be customized to a variety of physical designs. The problem is solved in that the support (15) for the cartridge (10) is at least partially constituted by one or more electrically connecting supports (151), each comprising a number of closely spaced mutually electrically insulated conductors (1511) embedded in an electrically insulating material (1512, 155) that stretches from one of the supporting surfaces of the cartridge to a contact area (163) for receiving and transferring the information, when said cartridge (10) is positioned in said support (15). This has the advantage of providing a flexible solution, allowing a large information density on a cartridge to be safely transferred to an electronic circuit. The invention may be used e.g. in connection with replaceable medication cartridges for medication delivery devices and with other cartridges from which an item of information is to be electronically transferred.
US07922089B2
A hand-supportable digital image capture and processing system including a hand-supportable housing having an imaging window, and an area-type image formation and detection subsystem having image formation optics for projecting a field of view (FOV) through the imaging window and upon an object within the FOV, and forming and detecting 2D digital images of the object on an area-type image detection array. The system includes an object presence detection subsystem for automatically detecting an object within the FOV, and generating a first trigger event indicative of automatic object detection within the FOV. The system also includes an object targeting illumination subsystem for generating and projecting a visible targeting illumination beam within the FOV, in response to the generation of the first trigger event signal. A manual trigger switch is integrated with the hand-supportable housing, for generating a second trigger event, indicating that a code symbol on the detected object is aligned with the visible targeting illumination beam and is ready for illumination and imaging. Also, the system includes an LED-based illumination subsystem, responsive to the second triggering event, for generating and projecting a field of illumination through the imaging window and within the FOV so that light transmitted through the imaging window and reflected/scattered off the object and detected by the area-type image detection array within the hand-supportable housing.
US07922085B2
Systems, methods, apparatus, and computer program products are provided for monitoring the transfer of cargo, such as a shipping container, to and from a transporter, such as a truck. Identification codes are provided on the cargo and the transporter to aid in the identification of the cargo and the transporter. One or more identification code receiving devices, such as a camera, may be associated with a cargo moving apparatus, such as a crane, and configured to automatically capture the transporter identification code and the cargo identification code as the cargo is being transferred to or from the transporter. The transporter identification code and the cargo identification code can be associated with each other along with other information about the transfer in order to monitor the transfer. In this regard, identification information may be communicated to a shipping terminal's operating system to provide real-time information about one or more transfers occurring within a shipping terminal.
US07922077B2
A payment instrument in the form of a cell phone is loaded with account information and activated as a payment instrument by reading account information from a nearby RFID device, and entering a user PIN or password. In one embodiment, the account information is read from an RFID tag provided to the user, and the password is entered on the phone keypad. In a second embodiment, the account information is read from an RFID device at an ATM or kiosk after the user inserts a card into a card reader at the ATM or kiosk and enters the password at the ATM or kiosk keypad.
US07922068B2
This invention relates to a thermite welding process for joining sections of a railway line in situ, the process including the preliminary step of mounting a suitable welding mould about the aligned sections of railway line to be welded together and sealing the mould to prevent run out; mounting a vibration means on the railway line at a suitable distance from the mould and operating it at a suitable frequency; heating the sections of railway line to a desired temperature; igniting an ignitor means and allowing it to drop into the mould to react with molten steel in the mould and fill a weld area about and between the sections of railway line in the mould; and when solidified, to vibrate the railway line for a further period of time until stress relieving of the cast weld area has occurred.
US07922055B2
The housing is intended to receive a source introduced by means of its head and pushed into a position ensuring good transmission of energy. The housing includes a mechanism for converting a transverse movement towards the interior of the housing imparted by a pusher element of the mechanism accessible from the exterior of the housing into an orthogonal movement for ejection of the source.
US07922052B2
A carrying strap arrangement for use in supporting stretchers in land vehicles, aircraft, or watercraft. A carrying strap is attached to a vehicle ceiling and floor by fittings disposed at ends of the carrying strap. At least one support strap is disposed on the carrying strap and is formed into a strap loop to accommodate the carrying handle of the stretcher. The support strap is guided in a sliding manner through a pass-through fitting to form the strap loop. An end of the support strap is secured to the pass-through fitting such that under load the support strap is drawn through the fitting and the strap loop is constricted. A spring element is disposed in the strap loop and expands the strap loop when it is not loaded.
US07922047B2
In a combination of an intimate apparel hanger and an indicator for displaying garment-related information, the indicator is mounted to a lower neck region of the hanger where the hanger hook intersects the hanger body. The hanger has a flange, having a sloped surface and an undersurface. The indicator has a resilient tab disposed in a wall of the indicator body. The resilient tab is outwardly displaced by the sloped surface to expand the top opening of the indicator to allow the indicator to pass over the flange. The undersurface of the flange retains the indicator at the lower neck region after the indicator passes over the flange.
US07922036B2
The present invention relates to a container for dispensing vertically configured wipes, which provides improved sequential dispensing of the contained wipes while permitting enhanced accessibility to the wipes within the container.
US07922030B2
The present invention is a lid for a beverage container comprising; a top wall having a generally circular periphery, an annular side wall depending from the top wall about its circular periphery, a drinking opening in the top wall adjacent to the circular periphery, an enclosed fluid channel provided in the top wall the channel comprising a fluid path which prevents the direct flow of the beverage from the container through the drinking opening wherein the beverage moving along the fluid path does not rise above the level of the beverage in the container, and an annular mounting portion at the bottom of the side wall for sealingly engaging the lip of the beverage container the lid enabling mobility of the beverage container without spillage of the beverage.
US07922029B1
A cylindrical receptacle has an open space accessible from above, and an optional cover. An outer shell, an inner liner, and a pair of oppositely moving doors that slide about the circumference define the receptacle. The vertically extending side wall has an opening circumscribing substantially one half of the circumference formed in the side wall. The pair of doors are operative in a first position to fully enclose the opening and are operative in a second position to provide full access to the opening. Various alternative embodiments incorporate vertical reinforcing supports adjacent the opening, gussets circumscribing the opening for reinforcing the opening, a reinforcing spacer adjacent the receptacle top, a discontinuous spacer adjacent the receptacle bottom, a floor adjacent the base and sloped towards the opening, a feature locking the outer shell and inner liner together, and a taper so the receptacle may be stacked together with like receptacles.
US07922027B2
Food serving pans made from a heat conductive materials include a gasket protecting a flange to protect fingers from heat or cold, improve gripping ability, seal against countertops of food serving tables, and protect paint or nonstick coating from chipping off the flange. The food serving pan is made from aluminum or other highly heat conductive material. The gasket comprises silicone, other elastomer, or other heat resistant and insulating material. The gasket includes a circumferential sealing ridge and finger gripping recess. A food serving system includes one or more food pans and food serving table. The food serving pans help maintain food at a desired temperature by efficiently transferring heat or cold from the serving table while sealing the interface between the flange and the countertop of the serving table. The interface between the gasket and flange prevents buildup of food or debris, maintaining cleanliness during repeated use and cleaning cycles.
US07922024B2
A receptacle having a lid or door can be provided with a damper configured to slow the movement of the lid or door from the open position to its closed position. As such, the lid closes in a more aesthetically pleasing manner, for example, closing slowly enough so that it does not create an excessively loud noise when it closes. Additionally, the damper can be mounted to the base of the receptacle, thereby more securely mounting the damper within the receptacle. Additionally, the damper can be arranged to allow a liner within the receptacle to be held in an elevated position for simplifying a process of inserting or removing a trash bag into the liner.
US07922021B2
A closure for a container comprises a base and a top cover. The base comprises a flange trap, a seal lock, and an opening. The top cover comprises a seal boss, a seal lock, a flange boss, and a top surface. The flange trap and flange boss secure the closure to a container when the closure is in a closed position. The seal locks are positioned to engage one another when the closure is in the closed position. The seal boss extends into the container when the closure is in the closed position to help prevent sauce or other liquid from leaking out of the container. A method for using a closure for a container and a container combination provides a closure and a container and arranges the closure so that the container is within the opening of the closure.
US07922003B2
A magnetic claiming system for a shale shaker including at least one screen having at least two side ends extending between a first side and a second side and at least one attachment surface, at least one mating surface of a shale shaker configured to receive at least one screen, wherein the shale shaker has a first end and a second end, and at least on magnet disposed between the at least one screen and the shale shaker, wherein the at least one magnet is configured to magnetically couple the at least one screen to the shale shaker is disclosed. A method for replacing a screen in a shale shaker including activating at least one decoupling apparatus, wherein a magnetic clamping system includes the at least one decoupling apparatus, removing at least one screen from the shale shaker, deactivating the at least one coupling apparatus, and installing at least one screen into the shale shaker is also disclosed.
US07922000B2
A thin plate container includes: a tray stack for holding and housing semiconductor wafers in spaces between a plurality of stacked, removable loading trays; and an external container for housing the tray stack. At opposite ends of each of the loading trays, a pair of grips for engagement by a processing arm of an external apparatus is provided. The external container includes: a container body; a lid; a sealing material provided between the lid and the container body to seal the inside; a pair of tray stack supporters for supporting the tray stack; and tray stack retainers for holding and supporting the tray stack housed in the container body from above and below.
US07921990B2
A tote for a conveyor system may include an upper part and a lower part. The upper part may define an upper, article-supporting surface. The article-supporting surface may be adapted to receive and support articles while the articles are conveyed in or on the tote. The lower part may define a lower, substantially plane bearing surface that extends over an area substantially equal to the article-supporting surface. The upper and lower parts may be transparent to X-rays. The upper and lower parts may be made from fire-retardant material. A plurality of support points and areas may be provided between the upper part and the lower part in order to transfer forces between the article-supporting surface and the bearing surface.
US07921964B2
To reduce or eliminate the startle response in aquatic life, embodiments of the present invention alter the sound produced by a diver's exhaled bubbles by adjusting up or down the frequency of the sound produced by the bubbles.
US07921963B2
An intake system for an internal combustion engine has an intake silencer 30 provided with an expansion chamber 33, and a connecting pipe 40 having an inlet 46 through which air from the expansion chamber flows, and an outlet 47 through which air flows toward combustion chambers. The connecting pipe 40 is made of an elastic material having rubber elasticity, and has a connecting part 41 connected to the intake silencer 30, an inner tubular part 42 extending from the connecting part 41 into the expansion chamber 33 and having the inlet 46, and an outer tubular part 43 connecting to a throttle device 50. The wall 42w of the inner tubular part 42 is provided with a communication opening 44 for connecting the expansion chamber 33 and the air passage 45 to make the expansion chamber 33 serve also as a resonance chamber. The outer tubular part 43 of the connecting pipe 40 is shorter than the inner tubular part 42 of the same. The intake silencer is compact and has a combined effect of expansion silencing and resonance silencing.
US07921951B2
Two side members are provided so as to be in side portions of a vehicle. Each side member is provided with a kick-up portion curved upward. A cross member is provided so as to interconnect side surfaces of forward portions of the kick-up portions of the two side members. A forward portion of a battery pack is fixed to an upper surface of the cross member via forward brackets welded to the forward portion of the battery pack. A rearward portion of the battery pack is fixed to upper surfaces of rearward portions of the kick-up portions of the two side members via a bridge provided so as to interconnect the two side members.
US07921947B2
A saddle riding type fuel cell vehicle includes a fuel cell that generates power by a chemical reaction between a fuel gas and a reactive gas with radiators that cool cooling water of the fuel cell. The radiators are adjacently arranged in right and left sides of the fuel cell in a vehicle width direction. Each outer end surface of the radiators, outside in a vehicle width direction, is positioned closer to the front side of a vehicle body than each inner end surface inside in the vehicle width direction. Thus, each plane portion, which receives an air flow, is inclined to the inner side of the vehicle body, and air courses, which allow an air flow to be passed to the rear side of the vehicle body, are each formed between the inner end surface of each of the radiators and each side surface of the fuel cell.
US07921946B2
A system is provided for cooling an energy storage system of a hybrid electric vehicle. The energy storage system includes at least one energy storage device, including a maximum temperature storage device with a maximum temperature and a minimum temperature storage device with a minimum temperature. The system includes a cooling fluid duct in flow communication with an inlet and the at least one energy storage device, and a blower positioned within the cooling fluid duct to draw cooling fluid into the inlet and through the cooling fluid duct. The system further includes a controller coupled with the at least one energy storage device to increase the temperature of the at least one energy storage device having a temperature below the maximum temperature reduced by at least a predetermined threshold. The cooling fluid duct and blower are coupled to form a common cooling system for the at least one energy storage system.
US07921944B2
As one example, a vehicle propulsion system is provided. The system includes: an with an intake air compressor and an exhaust gas turbine. Further, a control is provided to operate the compressor at a different speed than the turbine, at least under an operating condition, and to adjust an amount of opening overlap between engine valves in response to a rotational speed of the compressor.
US07921938B2
A system having a number of land units [100, 4000, 5000] is disclosed which operates to efficiently find and create boreholes [5] to one or more underground targets [1]. Each of the land units [100, 4000, 5000] may be remotely controlled from a central command unit [6000]. The land unit also may be self-controlled, or partially controlled by the central command unit [6000]. The system [10] is reconfigurable to reallocate tasks to functional land units [100, 4000, 5000] which were originally allocated to land units which have been destroyed and are now non-functional.
US07921922B2
A formation saver sub or pump out sub incorporating an anti-surge feature. The sub includes a body, a mandrel, a piston (or an annulus fluid pressure chamber and a tubular pressure chamber), a sleeve, a spring, a releasable seat, and a plug. The plug and seat are released from the sub when one or more dogs releasably positioning the seat in the mandrel bore disengages from the seat due to a bleed off of fluid pressure in the well bore.
US07921915B2
One or more valves can be run into a string to land near associated ports in the string for injection or/and production service. When multiple valves are installed they can be initially configured to balance flow into or from a zone. The position of each valve can be altered without removal from the string preferably by a wireline shifting tool. One or more valves can also be removed and replaced when worn preferably using a wireline run tool. The valves can come with an integral sand control feature to facilitate production. Sensors to monitor well conditions and to transmit data to the surface can also be incorporated into the valve module.
US07921909B2
A method includes identifying application parameter(s) including a subterranean formation temperature, determining a breaker particle size in response to the application parameter(s), providing a treatment fluid including a carrier fluid and a granular breaker sized according to the breaker particle size, and treating the subterranean formation with the treatment fluid. The granular breaker is a metallic peroxide which may be an alkaline peroxide and/or zinc peroxide. The application parameter(s) may further include a flowback wait time, a composition of the metallic peroxide, a gel loading of the carrier fluid, and a permeability of the subterranean formation. The breaker particle size may include a breaker large particle size that is not greater than 25% larger than a breaker small particle size. At least 90% of the breaker particles may be sized between the breaker small particle size and the breaker large particle size.
US07921908B2
A downhole pumping system includes a submersible pump assembly having a pump and a motor, and an inlet apparatus operably coupled to the submersible pump assembly. The inlet apparatus includes a tubular housing for connection to an intake of the pump, the housing having an axis and defining a plurality of circumferentially spaced apart apertures, a plurality of valve members, each valve member positioned within a corresponding aperture, and a plurality of spring members coupled to the housing, each spring member coupled to a corresponding valve member. At least a portion of one or more of the spring members and the valve members extend above the outer surfaces of the housing.
US07921907B2
A system and process for extracting hydrocarbons from a subterranean body of oil shale within an oil shale deposit located beneath an overburden. The system comprises an energy delivery subsystem to heat the body of oil shale and a hydrocarbon gathering subsystem for gathering hydrocarbons retorted from the body of oil shale. The energy delivery subsystem comprises at least one energy delivery well drilled from the surface of the earth through the overburden to a depth proximate a bottom of the body of oil shale, the energy delivery well extending generally downward from a surface location above a proximal end of the body of oil shale to be retorted and continuing proximate the bottom of the body of oil shale. The energy delivery well may extend into the body of oil shale at an angle.
US07921903B2
A heat exchange system for electronic devices, preferably data processing devices which include high-performance processors or have a high processor density, includes essentially a primary cooling circuit and a secondary cooling circuit both being thermally associated to the one or more processor units. The secondary cooling circuit is configured as a completely closed system, the coolant in the secondary cooling circuit being driven exclusively by mechanical or inductive coupling with the flow drive of the primary cooling circuit.
US07921896B2
A device that dispenses tape structures comprising multiple lengths of overlapping tape. Rolls of tape are attached to the device in a manner that allows the device to unroll lengths of tape into at least one guide and pressing mechanism. In the event that multiple lengths of tape pass through or against the guide and pressing mechanism the lengths of tape overlap and combine into a tape structure comprising multiple lengths of overlapping tape. In a preferred embodiment of the device, the dispensed tape structure comprises adhesive on its opposing surfaces. After creating the tape structure, a blade cuts the tape structure and allows the device to dispense a portion of the tape structure. In addition, the device combines a length of paper with the tape structure by overlapping the length of paper and the tape structure.
US07921893B2
A method and apparatus is disclosed for joining of composites with thermoplastic surfaces. The process includes the location of the said components within a load bearing frame, and bringing the thermoplastic surfaces to be joined into contact. Pressure application devices, in the form of fluid filled bladders, are also located within the frame, and are located such that pressure is applied evenly to said thermoplastic surfaces. Where components have a high level of curve or twist, form blocks that have the approximate shape of the component surface are located between the frame and bladders. Pressure and heat are applied to the joint area, and heat removed while the joint area is maintained under some pressure. A feature of the present invention is the option of using opposing pressure application devices, reducing the need for substantial tooling in order to maintain component location accuracy. A distinct advantage of this invention is the flexibility to join curved or twisted components, or complete the welding of closed assemblies such as wing boxes.
US07921892B2
The invention relates to a machine for the manufacture of a web of corrugated board which is conveyed in a working direction and comprises at least one smooth liner and at least one corrugated medium that has corrugation tips and corrugation troughs, the corrugated medium being applied by adhesion to the at least one liner at least in the vicinity of the corrugation troughs, wherein a quality assessment device for assessment of the quality of the adhesive bond between the at least one liner and the at least one corrugated medium is provided, which comprises at least one ultrasonic transmitter that is disposed on one side of the web of corrugated board and at least one ultrasonic receiver that is disposed on the opposite side of the web of corrugated board and is allocated to the at least one ultrasonic transmitter; and a control anti evaluation unit which, in a manner for data transmission, is connected to the at least one ultrasonic receiver for evaluation of the signal of the ultrasonic receiver.
US07921890B2
A credit card case mainly has a case body and two self-restoring parts disposed within the case body. The case body is formed with an inlet disposed at one end thereof and has two nicks disposed respectively at the upper and lower ends of the inlet. Each of the two self-restoring parts has a locking point disposed at the end thereof that is near the inlet. By means of such a structure, the credit card can push the locking points toward the side ends of the inlet after being placed into the case body till it is fully contained in the containing space within the case body, and the self-restoring parts can be restored elastically and thus lock the edges of the credit card with the locking points.
US07921889B2
A power tool comprises a base unit and a motor unit. The base unit includes a handle and a first electrical connector. The motor unit includes an electric motor and a second electrical connector. The motor unit is configured to be releasably connected to the base unit. An electrical connection is established between the first electrical connector and the second electrical connector when the motor unit is properly connected to the base unit. A sensor is configured to determine whether the motor unit is properly connected to the base unit.
US07921886B2
A filling valve apparatus for filling a container with a fluid. The apparatus includes a body portion and a stem. A sleeve is disposed over the stem and is removable from the stem and the body portion when the filling valve apparatus is serviced. A seal is mounted to the bottom of the sleeve. At least one component is movably connected to the sleeve and remains connected to the sleeve when the sleeve is removed from the stem and the body portion during the servicing of the filling valve apparatus. Similarly, a valve assembly, having a housing and a movable plunger is removable from the body portion. At least one member is mechanically connected to one of the housing and plunger for creating a unitary valve assembly that remains intact when the valve assembly is removed from the body portion during servicing of the filling valve apparatus.
US07921884B2
An injection-molded load line connection spillage container for catching and retaining liquid spilled when liquids are pumped between storage tanks and tankers provides an injection-molded reservoir and an injection-molded cover attached to the reservoir by hinges. Reinforcing ribs molded into the reservoir provide strength and ruggedness without the need for reinforcing steel collars and saddles. Gussets molded into the reservoir hinge brackets ensure repeated stresses produced by energetic opening of the cover does not result in failure of the hinge brackets. An optional load line mounting assembly permits secure mounting of the load line container directly onto the load line. An optional cleanout assembly provides a valved suction line for removing retained spillage, and an optional sampling assembly provides a valved sample line for sampling the liquid being transferred.
US07921882B2
The feed line for a hydraulic system, in particular of a motor vehicle, is formed, at least over part of its longitudinal extent, by a dimensionally variable body. The wall of the dimensionally variable body is elastically deformable, at least in regions, so that, when the flow passes through the dimensionally variable body, the cross section of the dimensionally variable body can be varied as a function of the pressure of the hydraulic medium.
US07921879B2
A pilot valve (3) is designed as a directional control valve in which a control slide (20) is movably disposed in a longitudinal bore (22) of the valve body (21) so as to control the flow of hydraulic oil between two working connecting bores (A, B), a pump connecting bore (P), and a reservoir connecting bore (T). A check valve (32) which is biased with the aid of a bias spring (33) is disposed within the control slide (20). The check valve (32) is connected to an auxiliary control groove (28) via a first transversal bore (29) while being connected to the B-reservoir groove (23) via a second transversal bore (31). The check valve (32) is to be opened from working connecting bore B while the auxiliary control groove (28) is arranged between the B control groove (24) and the B reservoir groove (23) and is delimited on both sides by means of sealing cylindrical areas (35, 36).
US07921870B2
A clutch mechanism for a slurry valve, wherein the slurry valve has a valve seat for seating a valve closure member carried on a valve stem, a drive member threadably engaged with the valve stem, the drive member being rotatable relative to the valve stem to axially move the valve stem and closure member relative to the valve seat to open and close the slurry valve, and a driving means for rotating the drive member, the clutch mechanism comprising: a clutch body having an internally threaded bore for threadably receiving the valve stem; and clamping means actuable with the clutch body for clamping the clutch body to the driving means so as to lock the valve stem and drive member together and allow them to rotate in unison to grind scale from the valve seat and valve closure member when they are positioned against each other.
US07921863B2
A self-supporting, high-profile, insect net enclosure made of a fabric membrane that defines an interior rectangular space having two side walls, two end walls, a floor and ceiling with advanced insect protection properties, enhanced comfort, accessibility, ventilation, and lightweight storage characteristics, includes two resiliently flexible segmented poles having two angles each that separate three straight pole sections into one horizontal section and two vertical sections.The enclosure maintains a stable shape as the fabric membrane is pushed out by the poles contained within the interior rectangular space that are biased in place by the fabric membrane when the pole ends are positioned in opposite lower inside corners, with the vertical pole sections crossing diagonally, and the horizontal pole sections parallel to each other along top of side walls.The enclosure has a zipper door opening, and includes a fabric pouch that reverses to store the enclosure with poles for transportation.
US07921860B1
A combined jazzy stick carrying case assembly includes a plurality of top pockets located about a top section of a carrying case and situated exterior of an outermost surface of the carrying case. A plurality of bottom pockets are located about a bottom section of the carrying case and situated exterior of the outermost surface of the carrying case. In this manner, a first one of the top pockets is isolated from a corresponding first one of the bottom pockets such that the corresponding first bottom pocket has a top opening overlapping about a closed bottom end of the first top pocket. Conversely, a second one of the top pockets is in fluid communication with a corresponding second one of the bottom pockets such that a corresponding second bottom pocket has a top opening in continuous communication with an open bottom end of the second top pocket.
US07921858B2
An apparatus for transporting an object from one workstation to another, where the object or workstations may be contaminated with unwanted dirt or dust particles. A movable transfer arm connected to a control unit has an end effector including an array of nano-scale projections, where each projection provides one or more distal contact ends. The density of the contact ends is such as to grip a surface of the object with an intermolecular force sufficient to hold the object for movement in accordance with a control unit program. In accordance with a control unit program, after moving the gripped object to the workstation, the end effector is manipulated to release the gripped object, and before, during or after transport of the object, bring the arm's end effector into contact with a cleaning surface.
US07921853B2
A system and method for phototherapy, including skin tanning, lupus phototherapy, teeth whitening, hair growth and psoriasis phototherapies are provided. The system (1) includes a chamber adapted for at least one type of phototherapy and at least one UV LED, at least one nanostructure UV light emitting device or a combination of UV LEDs and nanostructure light emitting devices.
US07921842B2
Disclosed is a water-cooled barbecue system with a cooling fluid circulation system which avoids meat from sticking to a grill and from burning. The water-cooled barbecue system comprises: a body, the upper portion thereof being open to provide heat from the supplied fuel, a receiving space being defined by the body; a grill with a frame, the frame having a first communicating hole and a second communicating hole to introduce and/or discharge fluid, a fluid circulation tube communicating between the first communicating hole and the second communicating hole being provided inside of the frame; and a cooling device connected with the fluid circulation tube through the first communicating hole and the second communicating hole, and cooling fluid which circulates inside of the fluid circulation tube. The water-cooled barbecue system, which has the body at the upper portion thereof and the cooling device inside thereof, can further a housing, which can be moved and assembled.
US07921840B2
An apparatus for launching projectiles may incorporate a hermetically sealed launch tube, projectile or projectiles within the launch tube with their payload inside or connected via meaning of socket to projectile from outside. The space between the outer surface of the projectile inside the launch tube and the inner surface of the launch tube is filled with compressed gas and hermetically sealed with a fast removable lid. If outside payload is used, then it will be attached to inside projectile via a socket where inside projectile is located inside the launch tube and outside payload connected to the protruded via fast acting valve, portion of projectile and connected to it via the socket. Projectile may incorporate another meaning of control via controllable surfaces or propulsion or constant acting engines. The exhaust gas would be in addition to use for projectile stabilization or additional propulsion, by incorporation a exhaust gas organizers.
US07921835B2
A wireless projectile loader system is provided. The system includes at least one sensor for detecting a firing operation of a compressed gas gun and sending a signal to a wireless transmitter. The system further includes a wireless transmitter in communication with the at least one sensor, the wireless transmitter adapted to send a wireless signal in response to the sensor detecting a firing operation. The system further includes at least one wireless receiver for receiving the wireless signal in communication with a motor of a projectile loader and adapted to operate the motor in response to the signal transmitted by the transmitter.
US07921827B2
To provide an accumulator fuel injection device, so as to stabilize the operation of a pressure control valve for controlling a fuel pressure in an accumulator. The accumulator fuel injection device includes a pressure control valve 6 for controlling the fuel pressure in the accumulator by moving an armature 13 in an armature chamber 22 and by adjusting escaped volumes of the fuels from the accumulator 2 due to a valving element 11 formed integral with the armature 13 in a control chamber 21 introducing the fuels in the accumulator 2. A means for attenuating the pressure transmitted from the accumulator 2 to the valve seat 10 is provided in the valve seat 10 disposed between the control chamber 21 and the accumulator 2 of the pressure control valve 6.
US07921825B2
A heat engine including at least one engine block that rotatably receives a crankshaft and a cartridge fixed to the engine block and that rotatably receives a pair of parallel balance shafts, namely a primary shaft and a secondary shaft, which are rotated by the crankshaft. A ring gear is rotationally connected to the crankshaft, permanently meshing with a first pinion borne by one end of the primary balance shaft. In addition, a second pinion, borne by the end of the primary balance shaft, meshes with a pinion borne by one end of the secondary balance shaft. Transverse holes extend through the ends of the primary and secondary balance shafts and are configured to be aligned with one another, before the cartridge is mounted to the engine block, to receive a pin.
US07921819B2
An actuating system for a gas exchange valve of an internal combustion engine is described which comprises two cams (12,14) associated with the valve (10), a summation linkage (22,24,30,32) for lifting the valve in dependence upon the sum of the instantaneous lifts of the two cams (12,14). A de-activating mechanism 34 is provided for selectively decoupling the summation linkage from one (12) of the two cams.
US07921814B1
A method of producing an enriched, natural collagen pet chew by means of vacuum sealing impregnation technology to add nutrients, flavoring, and/or anti-microbial agents to a natural, but demineralized, canine bone chew. A pet mastication article is soaked in acetic acid to reveal a flexible, chewable collagen structure. After the collagen structure is soaked and rinsed, nutrients and other agents are infused into the porous structure of the bone by means of vacuum impregnation.
US07921810B2
A method and apparatus for detecting a target substance in a monitored environment involves, in a training phase, training at least one animal capable of detecting the target substance to execute a particular avoidance action, immediately upon detecting said target substance, in order to avoid particular aversive stimulus; and in an operational phase, exposing the trained animal to a specimen (e.g., air) from the monitored environment or object, and sensing when the animal has executed the particular avoidance action.
US07921805B2
A liquid injector is used to vaporize and inject a silicon precursor into a process chamber to form silicon-containing layers during a semiconductor fabrication process. The injector is connected to a source of silicon precursor, which preferably comprises liquid trisilane in a mixture with one or more dopant precursors. The mixture is metered as a liquid and delivered to the injector, where it is then vaporized and injected into the process chamber.
US07921799B2
A pattern forming apparatus comprises a surface treatment system and an ink jet system 14, where a solvent is sprayed from a solvent spray nozzle of the surface treatment system to surface of a glass substrate where a bus line pattern groove is formed. The ink is discharged from an ink discharge nozzle of the ink jet system into the groove of bus line pattern on a glass substrate, and a bus line pattern is formed.
US07921798B2
The oxygen detecting device (10) of the present invention includes an oxygen detector sheet having a sheet carrier (13) having a porous inorganic material filled therein which has been impregnated with an oxygen detecting fluid, and a film (11) having a predetermined oxygen transmittance for covering and sealing the sheet carrier (13). Since the sheet having the porous inorganic material filled therein is adopted, the oxygen detecting device has an excellent light resistance, leading to clear recognition of coloration for a long period of time. Because of excellent light resistance, the device keeps excellent property even after long exposure to a fluorescent lamp in a display case for displaying foods. Thus the device is suitable for checking quality of commercial products.
US07921797B2
A retractable bimini top movable between stowed and deployed orientations includes a frame including a first bow and a second bow movable relative to the first bow. The retractable bimini top further includes a cover positioned over at least a portion of each of the first and second bows and a first elastic cord having a first end coupled to the first bow and a second end coupled to the second bow such that the first elastic cord is under tension at least when the retractable bimini top is in the deployed orientation. The first elastic cord has an allowable percent elongation of at least 200 percent.
US07921792B2
An apparatus is disclosed especially configured and adapted for mooring a floating dock to an inboard mooring pile—a pile positioned within and extending through the top deck of a floating dock—. The apparatus minimizes damage to both dock and mooring piles caused by changes in tide, waves, wake and other water disturbances while, simultaneously, adding stability to the floating dock—especially in regarding to listing—. The apparatus is comprised of a cylindrical sleeve which is coaxially applied to a mooring pile, a dock mounted mooring bracket comprised of a base plate which connects to the sleeve mounted upon the pile via at least one “U” shaped arm. The arm, in turn, extends, and is mounted upon a vertical planar portion of the base plate and is disposed in a parallel relation to the top surface of the floating dock. An inner, semi-circular portion of the “U” shaped arm engages selected and parallel circumferential grooves formed in the outer surface of the sleeve. The base plate, in turn, is affixed to a structurally sound portion of the floating dock adjacent to a pile aperture through which the mooring pile extends. In certain alternate preferred embodiments, an elongated rod is utilized to firmly engage a selected circumferential groove of the columnar sleeve. In such embodiments, the elongated rod is mounted to the floating via a mounting means at both termini of the elongated rod. Embodiments utilizing elongated rods for engagement of the columnar sleeve utilize at least two such rods and engage the columnar sleeve on opposite sides thereof.
US07921789B2
A carpet that can be installed onto a flooring surface without the requirement for registration between adjacent broadloom carpet pieces. The carpet comprises a design member that comprises a plurality of pattern members that are colorized and that define a void area, which has a substantially uniform color and pile height.
US07921785B1
Furniture with a foldable support is provided. The furniture includes a top plate constituting an upper surface of the furniture, a support hinged to support the top plate, a folding part including first and second folding parts hinged to fold the support, and a resilient part for resiliently supporting the second folding part in an unfolding direction. Therefore, it is possible to reduce a volume of the furniture by folding the support into a lower space of the top plate during storage, and improve an unfolding support force of the support by installing the resilient part for applying a resilient force to the folding part upon unfolding of the support.
US07921784B2
A pallet for use with a fork lift includes a top deck, a mid-top member and a base. The top deck has a plurality of ribs extending downwardly and a plurality of column-receiving recesses formed on the underside thereof. The base includes a plurality of columns projecting substantially vertically and received within the recesses of the top deck. Snap-tabs secure the columns to the deck. A generally planar mid-top member is secured to the plurality of ribs on the deck and has a plurality of openings into which are received the plurality of columns. The mid-top member is sandwiched between the ribs of the top deck and shoulders formed on the outer periphery of the columns.
US07921777B2
The present invention relates to a method and an arrangement for the production of radially perforated, cylindrical propellant tubes (1, 23, 31). The invention is based on the underlying idea that the respective propellant tube (1, 23, 31) must be fixed and centred between its own open ends and thereafter to be perforated in stages in a large number of consecutive perforation operations by means of one or more pins (13) capable of displacement in a pin die (10) relative to the propellant tube towards and at least through the major proportion of the cylindrical wall of the propellant tube. Also included in the invention is the requirement for the displacement, between each perforation operation, of the propellant tube and the pin die (10) used for the preparation operation in such a way relative to one another that the propellant tube, after a complete perforation operation, shall be covered in its entirely by perforations (32, 33, 35, 36), which lie at a predetermined e-dimension distance from one another.
US07921770B2
A can press system includes a base with a side wall, an open top and a bottom. A lid is movably connected with the base. A press, with an upper surface and a lower surface, is connected in spaced apart relation with the lid. The lower surface of the lid is smaller in diameter than the upper surface and the lower surface is connected with the upper surface by an edge such that the edge angles upward and outward from the lower surface to the upper surface.
US07921769B2
A bowl and basket assembly (100, 200) is disclosed as including a perforated basket (104, 204) and a bowl (102, 202) for receiving said basket, the basket including a top body part (104a, 204a), a middle body part (104b, 204b) and a third body part (104c, 204c) connected with each other via a number of links (126, 205), in which the body parts are movable relative to one another between an expanded configuration in which the top body part (104a, 204a) sits on the middle body part (104b, 204b), and a collapsed configuration in which the middle body part (104b, 204b) is within the top body part (104a, 204a), and the third body part (104c, 204c) is within the middle body part (104b, 204b).
US07921767B2
A flexible automatic broiler and method of use for variable batch cooking for particular use in quick serve and fast food service restaurants. The automatic cooking devices include a conveyorized cooking surface for alignment and discharge of food products, an altering/pulsating infrared energy radiation heat sources, and a control system. The arrangement and method facilitate a combination of batch preparation and made-to-order assembly of fast-food sandwiches.
US07921763B2
The invention relates to a brake control system for motor vehicles comprising a brake pedal (1), a brake booster (4), a brake master cylinder (5). The system of the invention further comprises a simulator (3) pneumatically coupled to the piston (42) of the brake booster (4). This simulator (3) receives at least one brake command from the brake pedal (1) and in return establishes a pressure difference between the front chamber (40) and the rear chamber (41) of the booster so as to cause the piston (42) to move.
US07921744B2
Rolling screw (1) comprising a first threaded male member (6), a second threaded member (3), means (5) that permit said second threaded member (3) to rotate freely in relation to the housing (2), as well as means (7) that permit to maintain fixed and constant the position of the axis of said first threaded member (6) in relation to the housing (2). Means of synchronization are also foreseen for the relative rotation between said first member (6) and said second member (3). Said screw is characterized in that at least one of the two threaded members presents a threading conformation such to permit the transmission of the rotation motion to another element without relative tangential sliding action.
US07921743B2
A ball circulating member constructed in an external face of a nut is provided with ball scooping sections for scooping up balls rolling on between ball screw grooves of a screw shaft and the nut, along a line tangent to a center orbital circle of the balls. The path length of a ball scooping path section formed in the ball scooping sections is set to be ½ or greater of the diameter of the ball.
US07921740B2
The present invention provides a fluid sampling device comprising a port insert, a plurality of flexible conduits, and a plurality of sample containers. The port insert comprises a body having a plurality of shafts therethrough and a rotatably displaceable member for individually opening and closing any of said shafts to enable the flow of fluid therethrough. Flexible conduits (e.g., flexible tubing) are equal in number to the shafts, with each flexible conduit connected to or otherwise in fluid communication with an individual shaft. Similarly, sample containers (e.g., flexible bags) are equal in number to the conduits, with each sample container connected to an individual conduit opposite the connection to the shaft. A specific configuration for the port insert, as well as kit containing sterilized components of the fluid sampling device, are also described.
US07921739B2
A method for in situ sampling and monitoring of a fluid flowing in a flow path, whereby the fluid is to be directed to a chamber a first valve may provide a connection between an inlet to the chamber and the flow path and a second valve may provide a connection between an outlet from the chamber and the flow path, comprising the following steps: a) opening the first valve and the second valve to let the incoming fluid flow through the inlet to the chamber and from the chamber through the outlet into the continuation of the fluid path, thereby allowing fluid to circulate through the chamber for a certain time, b) trapping the fluid in the chamber by closing the second valve and thereafter closing the first valve, c) opening a valve 9 for reducing pressure, to obtain a pressure in the chamber suitable for monitoring the fluid, d) opening an access valve 11 and leading the fluid trapped in the chamber into a monitor system wherein the fluid is analyzed, and thereby providing the data representing the fluid characteristics, e) providing exit for the fluid analyzed through a further fluid path possibly to a low pressure section of the system.
US07921736B2
The invention relates to a magneto-inductive flow measuring device (1), including: A measuring tube (2), through which a medium (11) flows essentially in a direction of a measuring tube axis (16); a magnet arrangement (6, 7), which produces a magnetic field (H) passing through the measuring tube (2) and extending essentially perpendicularly to the measuring tube axis (16); a first measuring electrode (3) and a second measuring electrode (4); wherein the measuring electrodes (3, 4) are positioned in the measuring tube (2) on a connecting line, which is directed essentially perpendicularly to the measuring tube axis (16) and to the magnetic field (H); and an evaluation/control unit (12), which ascertains, on the basis of a measurement voltage tapped on the measuring electrodes (3, 4), the volume- and/or mass-flow of the medium (11) through the measuring tube (2).In order to increase the measuring accuracy of the multi-parameter flow measuring device (1), the first measuring electrode (3) is made of a first material (A) and the second measuring electrode (4) is made of a second material (C) different from the first material (A); the control/evaluation unit (12) ascertains the direct voltage portion (UD) of the voltages (U3, U4) tapped on the two measuring electrodes (3, 4) relative to a reference potential (ΦR), and makes available, on the basis of the direct voltage portion (UD), medium-specific information.
US07921716B2
A method and system for measuring energy expenditure of individuals by measuring force from a plurality of foot-borne force sensitive resistors and calculating incline from a foot-borne tri-axial accelerometer.
US07921705B2
An engine coolant temperature estimation system comprises a coolant temperature estimation module and a coolant monitoring module. The coolant estimation module estimates an engine coolant temperature based on at least one of a mass air flow, a vehicle speed, and an ambient temperature. The coolant monitoring module selectively operates an engine based on the estimated engine coolant temperature.
US07921704B2
Alcohol concentration level of flex fuel is estimated based upon in-cylinder ionization signals. The in-cylinder ionization signals are integrated and the rotational completion point of a chosen percentage of the integration total is identified as the integration location for the operating conditions under observation. The calculated integration location correlates with alcohol concentration level of flex fuel, and the integration calculations provide a basis for a virtual flex fuel sensor that provides calculated estimates of alcohol concentration rather than direct sensing using an expensive physical flex fuel sensor.
US07921695B2
For measuring the filling level of a measuring medium, including detecting multiple medium layers and interfaces between them, a multi-sensor probe can be dipped into the measuring medium and longitudinally segmented into a plurality of segments, each segment comprising a sensor for measuring a predetermined physical parameter of the surrounding medium. To provide an accurate, reliable and robust measurement of multiple medium layers a measurement model is defined for modeling signals of the sensors as a function of positions of a number of interfaces between the medium layers and the physical parameters of the medium layers. Prior distributions of the number of the interfaces, the positions of the interfaces and the physical parameters of the medium layers are defined. Based on the measurement model and the prior distributions a joint posterior distribution of the number of the interfaces and the positions of the interfaces is determined. The joint posterior distribution of the number of the interfaces and the positions of the interfaces is evaluated based on Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods.
US07921690B2
A method of calibrating positions within a materials handling system, wherein the materials handling system includes multiple stations for carrying out tasks and a carrier that is movable between the multiple stations, includes the steps of: providing calibration points at a plurality of the multiple stations; moving the carrier to at least some of the calibration points; contacting the calibration points; recording the locations of the calibration points; and determining locations of key components of the stations based on the locations of the calibration points. In some embodiments, the method includes contacting the calibration points with a calibration tool, which may include: a cylindrical body; a groove in the cylindrical body sized and configured to receive jaws from the carrier; and a cylindrical upper flange positioned on an upper end of the cylindrical body. In this configuration, the tool can be gripped by the carrier and employed to perform a variety of calibration functions.
US07921682B1
A padlock includes a lock body, a lock shackle having two ends respectively inserted into a respective shackle hole in the lock body, two actuation members, two latches, a lock cylinder having a core inserted in between the actuation members and rotatable with a predetermined key to drive the actuation members in moving the latches to lock the lock shackle, and an alarm control device affixed to the lock body for causing a buzzer to buzz upon a vibration.
US07921680B2
A process and an apparatus for treating large articles to impart color or performance enhancing additives to the article in which a treatment system which includes: (i) a coloring solution and/or a solution containing at least one performance enhancing additive, (ii) water, and (iii) a solvent such as ethylene glycol monobutyl ether and diethylene glycol is applied to the article. The apparatus is made up of (a) a spray enclosure sized to contain the article(s) to be treated; (b) dispensing means, such as nozzles, which are configured to dispense sequentially, hot solution (i), hot solution (ii) and hot water (iii) directly onto the article surface(s); (c) means for securing and transporting the article to be treated into and out of the spray enclosure (such as a trolley system); and at least three closed vessels capable of delivering enough hot saturated coloring and/or performance enhancing solution, hot dye-free rinse solution and deionized water, respectively, with sufficient pressure to form small droplets from the spray nozzles, to thoroughly cover and rinse articles contained in the enclosure.
US07921679B2
Disclosed is the washing/drying machine having a pedestal, including: a washing/drying machine main body performing a washing or drying operation of laundry; and a pedestal for mounting the main body thereon, wherein a base having legs is coupled at a lower end of the main body, and a supporter having coupling ribs for fixing the base to the pedestal is mounted at an upper surface of the pedestal, thereby preventing a damage to the surface of the pedestal or the washing/drying machine and facilitating mounting/dismounting the supporter or the pedestal.
US07921671B2
A refrigerant flow divider is made up of an inlet pipe 12 through which refrigerant Xin flows in, a main body 11 of which the inside is a cavity, and a plurality of branching pipes 13 through which refrigerant Xout flows out. When the length of the above described main body 11 of the flow divider is L mm and the inner diameter of the above described main body 11 of the flow divider is D2 mm, the relationship 2≦L/D2≦8 holds, and thus, a flow divider can be gained, where discrepancy (variation) in the flow rate ratio in the respective paths for the flow discharged from the outlet of the flow divider and entering the heat exchanger is small and pressure loss is small when there is a change of approximately ±10° in the installation angle, a change in the dryness of the refrigerant at the inlet (0.2 to 0.4) or a change in the flow rate of the refrigerant (50% to 100%).
US07921663B2
A heat sink (1), has heat pipes (3) which are disposed in a high temperature section (A) of a base plate (2) on which a heating element (4) is disposed so that the heat pipes (3) extend from the high temperature section (A) to low temperature sections (B) in different directions.
US07921661B2
A refrigerant cycle is provided with a multi-port compressor or compressor stages connected in series, and multiple condensers. A single evaporator communicates with the plurality of condensers. At least one of the plurality of condensers receives fully compressed refrigerant while the other condensers receive refrigerant at intermediate pressure. A control can optionally direct refrigerant to the condensers to achieve desired system heat rejection characteristics and operating conditions. One or multiple reheat coils may be associated with the evaporator and are arranged either in series or in parallel to provide a desired dehumidification function and reheat stages. One or several of the intermediate pressure condensers may be utilized for the reheat function as well.
US07921653B2
A combustor for a turbine including a combustor liner; a first flow sleeve surrounding the combustor liner with a first flow annulus therebetween, the first flow sleeve having at least one cooling aperture formed about a circumference thereof for directing compressor discharge air as cooling air into the first flow annulus; a casing surrounding first flow sleeve with a second flow annulus therebetween, the first flow sleeve having at least one air extraction opening formed about a circumference thereof for directing compressor discharge air from the first flow annulus as extraction air into the second flow annulus; and an extraction port operatively coupled to the casing for extracting the extraction air from the second flow annulus.
US07921648B2
An exhaust gas turbocharger internal combustion engine is disclosed including at least one cylinder in a fuel-air mixture is pre-compressed by a compressor and compressed and burned. Exhaust gas is evacuated from the cylinder and released in a turbine, wherein part of the evacuated exhaust gas is recirculated before being released in the turbine, via a high-pressure recirculation system including an exhaust gas cooling device including at least two cooling circuits guided through heat exchanging blocks successively connected in the flow direction of the exhaust gas. The heat exchanging block arranged furthest downstream in the flow direction of the exhaust gas is vertically arranged such that exhaust gas passes through the block parallel to the working line, wherein a condensate collection and/or evacuation device is provided on the lower end of the block.
US07921644B2
A power transmission for a thermal elastic wire including a frame for supporting a pair of anchor posts which stretch said wire there between. One of the posts being pivoted in the frame and having an extension arm projecting therefrom towards the other post. A spring biased rotator drum is rotatably supported in the frame proximate to the end of the extension arm. A flexible connection interconnects the periphery of the rotator drum with the end of the extension arm of the pivoted anchor post. A power takeoff connection on the rotator drum is provided for the attachment of a connecting link there to whereby as the thermal elastic wire changes phase, a smooth power stroke can be extracted from the transition at the power takeoff connection and stored in a spring.
US07921642B2
A pressure selector valve (13) is provided between a hydraulic motor (1) and a directional control valve (5) to connect one of the main conduits (4A), (4B) on a high pressure side to a high pressure conduit (14) while connecting the other of the main conduits on a low pressure side to a low pressure conduit (15). As an inertial body approaches a stop position, a spool valve (16) is switched to an open position (e), bringing a branch passage (14A) of the high pressure conduit (14) into communication with the low pressure conduit. When the pressure difference between the main conduits becomes small, the pressure selector valve is automatically returned to a neutral position to cut off communication between the main conduits, suppressing a reversing movement of the hydraulic motor so that an inertial body can be brought to a stop smoothly.
US07921632B2
A device for protection against icing for aircraft engines including at least one sensor, sensitive to an amount of accumulated ice, arranged in the air intake of an aircraft engine, a system for measuring the amount and comparing the amount to be predetermined threshold and a triggering system for launching a response to the detection of the crossing of the predetermined threshold, the response may be an alarm, an increase in the engine power delayed by the engine control system or the return of hot air upstream of the engine.
US07921626B2
Apparatus for controlling the speed of a combine harvester (10) includes one or more sensors (48) each generating one or more signals that correspond during use of the combine harvester to variables of a harvesting process. The apparatus further includes a processor and one or more control devices operatively connected in a feedback arrangement including two loops. In a first loop, a first signal (28) corresponding to the ground speed of the combine harvester (10) is fed back as an input to a first control device (42) that is capable of adjusting the ground speed relative to a set value. In a second loop, the first signal (28) is fed together with a second signal (34) indicative of the flow rate of crop through the combine harvester to a second control device (32) that generates as a third signal (31) the set value, the third signal being input to the first control device (42).
US07921621B2
A beam-like structural component (1) made up of individual parts, comprising a flange (2) and two webs (3, 4) is characterized in that a flange (2) is provided with one web (3, 4) each on its two longitudinal sides, wherein each web is attached to a longitudinal sidewall of the flange (2) preferably by means of an adhesive material, and that the end regions (7) of the webs (3, 4), which end regions are facing away from the flange (2), are planarly interconnected with the surfaces (8, 9) facing each other preferably by means of an adhesive material, wherein the webs (3, 4), in their cross-sections, have in each case the shape of a “stretched S”.
US07921619B2
A method for insulating and ventilating a space between rafters for supporting a roof includes, an elongated insulation mat having an integral baffle, at least one channel on a roof facing side of the baffle for passage of ventilating air, and at least one vapor permeable membrane covering at least a portion of the insulation mat facing the channel, wherein each vapor permeable membrane transmits water vapor emanating from the insulation mat.
US07921618B2
A modular flooring system that includes a plurality of interlocking floor panels arrangeable into a variety of configurations. In one embodiment, each interlocking floor panel includes tongues and grooves that allow adjacent ones of the panels to connect with one another by the mating of tongues and grooves. A locking mechanism can be provided to one or more of the floor panels for locking the connected panels together. In other embodiments, the modular flooring system includes either integrally formed conduit chases or separately formed conduit chases, or a combination of both.
US07921585B2
A simulator for providing a user with a simulated burning log display providing moving patterns of light which simulate a flickering flame image. The flame image is generated by rotating a shaft with a helically wound light array such that the lights reflect off a mirror with flame shaped reflecting areas onto a partially transparent screen to give the impression to a viewer of flickering flames appearing on a front side of the screen and behind a non-burning pile of logs. The logs have flame colored light transmissive regions which are illuminated by an array of ember LED's under the control of circuitry which generates apparently randomly varying illumination levels, to thereby create a glowing ember effect.
US07921569B2
A tool assembly is disclosed that provides reciprocating motion to a tip of the assembly. The tool assembly has a drive assembly, a shaft assembly and a retraction mechanism contained within a housing. The tip of the shaft assembly protrudes from the housing during a portion of the stroke of the drive mechanism and upon disengagement of a motor of the drive assembly, the tip of the shaft assembly is recessed within the housing of the tool assembly.
US07921566B2
A hair trimmer includes a main body, a cutter block and a comb attachment. The cutter block has a stationary blade and a movable blade, both of which are comb-shaped and are slidably in contact with each other. In addition, the cutter block is protrudingly installed at one end of the main body. The comb attachment has a plurality of comb tooth-shaped sections and covers the cutter block. The comb tooth-shaped sections are provided with cut-off hair deflectors to prevent hairs cut by the cutter block from outwardly scattering away from the comb attachment. Furthermore, cut-off hair deflectors located between two neighboring comb tooth-shaped sections are disposed at relatively inner and outer positions.
US07921559B2
A number of flat tubes, flat tube heat exchangers, and methods of manufacturing both are described and illustrated. The flat tubes can be constructed of one, two, or more pieces of sheet material. A profiled insert integral with the flat tube or constructed from another sheet of material can be used to define multiple flow channels through the flat tube. The flat tubes can be constructed of relatively thin material, and can be reinforced with folds of the flat tube material and/or of an insert in areas subject to higher pressure and thermal stresses. Also, the relatively thin flat tube material can have a corrosion layer enabling the material to resist failure due to corrosion. Heat exchangers having such flat tubes connected to collection tubes are also disclosed, as are manners in which such tubes can be provided with fins.
US07921558B2
A heat exchanger assembly includes an outlet header extending along an outlet axis to define an outlet cavity and an inlet header defining an inlet cavity. A plurality of refrigerant tubes extends from the inlet header through the outlet header and into the outlet cavity. A collector conduit having a generally semi-circular conduit cross-section defining an arced surface and a chord surface interconnected with rounded ends is disposed in the outlet header and includes a conduit body portion and at least one conduit end portion interconnected by a conduit transition portion with the conduit body portion being offset from the conduit end portion. The conduit body portion is engaged to an interior surface of the outlet header to space the conduit body portion from the refrigerant tubes and the conduit end portion is coaxial with the outlet header axis to provide a central outlet for the refrigerant vapor.
US07921553B2
A method of making a customized wireless communication device (100) is disclosed. It can include the steps of: inputting (110) customer requirements; generating (120) a checklist of customer requirements; providing (130) an extruded housing with an opening defining a pocket configured to receive electrical components; and removing (140) material from the extruded housing to form an industrial design having at least one receptacle integral to the extruded housing to receive an antenna module and display module. The method is adapted to allow a designer to customize the look and feel of an electronic device, such as wireless communication device. This method is attractive to a customer.
US07921544B2
A thin-film magnetic head structure has a configuration adapted to manufacture a thin-film magnetic head configured such that a main magnetic pole layer including a magnetic pole end part on a side of a medium-opposing surface opposing a recording medium, a write shield layer opposing the magnetic pole end part so as to form a recording gap layer on the medium-opposing surface side, and a thin-film coil wound about the write shield layer or main magnetic pole layer are laminated. The main magnetic pole layer has an end face joint structure where respective end faces of the magnetic pole end part and a yoke magnetic pole part having a size greater than that of the magnetic pole end part are joined to each other, and a surface with a flat structure on a side closer to the thin-film coil.
US07921542B2
Certain example embodiments relate to a manufacturing method for a disk drive unit. At least one head gimbal assembly having first terminal pads is provided. A controlling circuit for controlling the at least one head gimbal assembly is provided, with the controlling circuit having second terminal pads to connect with the first terminal pads. The at least one head gimbal assembly is disposed in a motor base. The controlling circuit is disposed in the motor base. The at least one head gimbal assembly and the controlling circuit are tightened to the motor base such that the first and second terminal pads are face-to-face and have an electrical touch contact therebetween.
US07921532B2
A tool for installing a retainer ring onto the lower portion of a loosely inserted drain fitting for engaging a mounting flange thereto includes a generally resilient cup structure provided with a plurality of axially aligned and resiliently cantilevered peripherally adjacent strips within which the retaining ring is received in a compressed engagement seated on a helical interior shoulder. A threaded rod extends through a centering plug received in the drain fitting and then through the cup interior to axially advance the axially aligned ring carried by the strips.
US07921530B2
A fastener installation tool including an anvil member having a swage cavity, a collet having a pull section with a fastener engagement end and a plurality of teeth, and an anvil member. The plurality of teeth includes a first tooth with a first inner diameter, and each of the remainder of teeth includes a second inner diameter, the first inner diameter being greater than the second inner diameter. The collet has a protrusion extending the length of the pull section to increase the contact area with the anvil member. The anvil member includes a swage cavity with an entrance section, a swage land located adjacent to the entrance section, and an inner bore located adjacent to the swage land.
US07921528B2
A coffin having a curved bottom surface and a removable cover that accommodates bodies of differing lengths having, within an enclosure, a support platform that adjusts to different angles so as to accommodate bodies of different sizes.
US07921516B2
A hinge assembly has two tracks, a main bracket, at least one connecting bracket, at least one sliding hinge and at least one tilting hinge. The main bracket is mounted slidably between the tracks. The connecting bracket is mounted securely on the main bracket. The sliding hinge corresponds to and selectively holds the connecting bracket. The tilting hinge is connecting to the main bracket. With the related movement between the connecting bracket and the sliding hinge, the connecting bracket is selectively held or moved. Therefore, a moving bracket of a frame for an electronic device being attached to the tilting hinge is selectively pushed and held in a body of the frame or received in the body.
US07921514B2
Hinge assembly for vehicle doors that comprises two hinge bodies articulately connected, the articulated connection consisting of at least two articulating formations spaced apart along the axis of rotation of the hinge assembly, each of which consists of a male element situated on a hinge body that can be coupled by moving it in the direction of the axis of rotation of the hinge onto a complementary female element that is situated on the other hinge body, the hinge assembly also comprising a safety element disposed so as to rotate around an axis that is solidly joined to one of the hinge bodies and that can move between at least a release position, wherein it is possible to decouple the male and female elements, and a second position wherein it is inserted between the two aforementioned articulating formations and prevents said male and female elements from becoming decoupled.
US07921509B2
A suction brush for use in a vacuum cleaner and a method of adjusting the height thereof. The suction brush includes a brush casing having a suction opening to draw in air and a main air passage through which the air drawn in through the suction opening flows, a detecting unit disposed to the brush casing to detect a kind of a surface to be cleaned, a lifting unit to move a bottom surface of the brush casing close to and away from the surface to be cleaned, and a driving unit operated in response to a signal generated from the detecting unit and moving the lifting unit using air pressure generated by the air flowing through the main air passage.
US07921504B1
A windshield wiper includes a primary frame member and secondary frame members coupled to the primary frame member. The primary frame member is in the form of an inverted U-shape and includes end portions in which mounting holes are formed. Each secondary frame member has symmetrically arranged wall plates and a positioning section formed between and slightly projecting beyond the wall plates. Each wall plate forms open-ended slots that are symmetrically arranged. A boss is formed on an inside surface of each wall plate between the open-ended slots. The primary frame member has side plates that are fit over the positioning section of the secondary frame member to have the wall plates of the secondary frame member covering and clamping the vertical side walls of the primary frame member. The bosses are fit into the mounting holes of the primary frame member.
US07921498B2
A connection assembly configured to secure a mop head to an elongate member is provided. In one embodiment, a connector may include an insert having a plurality of tabs with an inner portion and an outward extending outer portion that extends radially outward from and traverse to an elongate member when the insert is properly mounted to the elongate member. The connector may include an inner member comprising a plurality of depressions configured to engage the inner portion of the plurality of tabs of the insert. A collar having an inner wall may also be utilized, wherein at least a portion of the inner wall is of a generally circular cross-section configured to engage the outward extending outer portion of the plurality of tabs. Connection assemblies may further comprise a wringer cup configured to be mounted on the elongate member.
US07921497B2
A floor scrubbing apparatus that is particularly well suited to scrubbing carpet materials is disclosed. The floor scrubbing apparatus is manually operated and includes a drive roller coupled to a scrub roller. In one embodiment, the drive roller is coupled to the scrub roller using a gear arrangement that causes the scrub roller to rotate faster than the drive roller. If desired, the apparatus can include a cleaning fluid dispensing system. For instance, the apparatus can include one or more nozzles that dispense a cleaning fluid onto a carpet material as the material is being cleaned.
US07921494B2
An internal unit of a washing machine or spin-dryer normally includes a washing container, which has a laundry drum mounted in the container such that it can rotate, and an electric motor for driving the laundry drum via a reduction gear, a transmission, or direct drive. The internal unit is suspended in a machine housing such that it can vibrate and constitutes an overall system which can vibrate in a damped manner and which is subject to unbalance-dependent resonance phenomena in specific regions of the rotational speed of the laundry drum. The causes of these resonance phenomena are vibratory movements due to momentary unbalances in the load in the laundry drum. To reduce these unbalance-dependent resonance phenomena, the internal unit is provided with a vibration sensor which is rigidly or substantially rigidly coupled to the internal unit
US07921492B2
A method of controlling a laundry treatment machine is provided in which a siphon phenomenon may be detected before performing a requested laundry treatment operation by performing an intermittent water supply operation and detecting a variation, if any, in a water level in a tub of a washing machine. Such a method may prevent was water form being discharged due to a siphon phenomenon, prevent the waste of wash water, and minimize the amount of time taken to discharge wash water and perform a washing operation. Such a method may also prevent the waste of detergent by using a water supply valve for a pre-washing operation to detect the siphon phenomenon. Such a method may also prevent a water supply failure from being mistaken as a siphon phenomenon by keeping a water supply valve open for a predefined amount of time and then detecting a variation, if any, in the water level in the tub.
US07921489B2
A system for supporting patient care equipment alongside a patient support is provided. In one embodiment, the system includes a plurality of arms supported by a support structure. The arms may be pivoted to either side of the patient support. The arms may be stored in a console. At least one of the arms may carry service conduits that provide medical air, oxygen, vacuum, nitrogen, nitrous oxide, or electricity.
US07921487B2
A tension mechanism for use with existing conventional bed platforms in the well known Murphy bed system in which the bed platform may be connected to the tension mechanism when the tension is at a low level by only a single installer, and the tension thereafter increased in infinite increments to any desired level by a remotely operated tool.
US07921480B2
An optical system includes one or several passive optical detectors sensitive to ambient (room) light for controlling, for example, the operation of automatic faucets or automatic bathroom flushers. The passive optical sensors provide signals to flow controllers, including control electronics and flow valves and require only very small amounts of electrical power for sensing users of bathroom facilities, and thus enable battery operation for many years. To control the operation of automatic faucets or automatic bathroom flushers based on ambient light, the controller executes novel algorithms.
US07921468B2
Protective eyeglasses provide hearing protection from elevated noise levels. The protective eyeglasses have safety lenses for protection of each of the eyes. Support members extend from the lenses of the eyeglasses to the ears, and have earplugs or protectors thereon which are inserted into the ears. The side support members are spring biased towards each other so that the side members provide pressure to hold the plugs in the ears of the wearer. Ear plugs are mounted so as to swivel relative to the side support members. The side support members are telescoping and are adjustable in length.
US07926112B2
A system protects a computing device from potentially harmful code in a document by receiving a data structure representation of the document and adding dynamically one or more definitions of potentially harmful active content to an editable configuration file. Each definition identifies potentially harmful active content and specifies an action to be performed on that potentially harmful active content if that potentially harmful active content is found in the document. The editable configuration file is parsed to generate a data structure representation of the one or more definitions in the editable configuration file. The data structure representation of the document is compared with the data structure representation of the one or more definitions of potentially harmful active content to identify potentially harmful active content within the document. The document is modified to render harmless any identified potentially harmful active content before presenting the document to the computing device.
US07926111B2
A method/system for determining a group of related entities of interest in one or more processing systems. The method comprises identifying a starting entity from one or more entities in the one or more processing systems, then obtaining, based on an entity type of the starting entity, a first set of rules for determining at least one other related entity, and then determining, using the first set of rules, the at least one related entity.
US07926110B2
An anti-worm-measure parameter determining apparatus determines parameters for controlling timing for an anti-worm-measure means to start blocking of a communication by a worm in a network, for preventing a spread of the worm. An infectivity calculating unit calculates infectivity of the worm based on number of nodes connected to the network. A number-of-infected-nodes estimating unit calculates an expected value of number of infected nodes at a time when the worm transmits a predetermined number of packets, based on the infectivity calculated by the infectivity calculating unit.
US07926099B1
A computer-implemented device provides security events from publishers to subscribers. There is provided a message bus, configured to contain a plurality of security events. Also provided is a receiver unit, responsive to a plurality of publishers, to receive the plurality of security events from the publishers. There is also a queue unit, responsive to receipt of the security events, to queue the plurality of security events in the message bus. Also, there is a transport unit, responsive to the security events in the message bus, to transport the plurality of security events in the message bus to a plurality of subscribers.
US07926098B2
A method includes establishing a secure connection between a client device and a first security gateway, the first security gateway being associated with a service provider for providing a service to the client device, and handing off the secure connection from the first security gateway to a second security gateway. Handing off the secure connection includes sending from the first security gateway to the second security gateway security information used to encrypt and decrypt messages transmitted through the secure connection, and sending from the first security gateway to the client device an address of the second security gateway to enable the client device to initiate contact with the second security gateway.
US07926096B2
A system and a method for operating a device that is not capable of independently maintaining a local time clock to enforce a time-based transaction policy that requires a reliable time reference. The device establishes a secure communications channel to one or more network-attached time sources and inquires of each of the network-attached time-sources as to the current time using the secure communications channel. The device receives the current time from the network-attached time-sources and uses the received current times to estimate a current calendar time and to compute a reliability index associated with the estimated current calendar time. The device uses the estimated current calendar time and reliability index to enforce the time-based transaction policy.
US07926092B2
A method and system for enabling devices to join secure networks without requiring the devices to be aware of any particular security credential delivery mechanism or to implement multiple security credential delivery mechanisms.
US07926088B2
A computer system receives from a user computer, an authorization code and an access instruction for at least one data record with person-related contents. It executes the access instruction only if the authorization code matches a comparison criterion which it determines on the basis of a data record code assigned to the data record. The data record code is specific at least to the person whose personal data the data record contains.
US07926086B1
A access control mechanism is provided on a computing device to allow an application provider to set up a declarative security policy specific to an application module. When a runtime environment of the computing device receives a request from a second application instance in a second execution context to access a protected resource in a first application instance, the runtime environment invokes the access control mechanism to determine, based on a protection-domain-level domain security policy, whether the second application instance is allowed to access protected resources in the first execution context. If so, the runtime environment invokes the access control mechanism to determine, based on a declarative security policy for a first application module associated with the first application instance, whether the second application instance is allowed to access the protected resource. If so, the runtime environment allows the second application instance access to the protected resource requested.
US07926073B2
Methods and apparatus for indirect illumination in electronic media rating systems are disclosed. A disclosed example method to detect an audience member includes reflecting non-visible light off of a room surface to indirectly illuminate a first portion of the room, receiving reflections of the indirect illumination, processing the received reflections to determine whether an audience member is present in the illuminated portion of the room, and when the audience member is not detected, adjusting a source of the non-visible light to illuminate a second portion of the room.
US07926071B2
Interfaces are provided to notify of conditions pertaining to memory management. Thus, efforts to avoid time-outs during execution of code in a managed execution environment may be implemented.
US07926068B2
A printing interface provides facilities for handling print server properties, print queues, print commands, printing-related operations, and the like. These facilities allow developers to access and utilize various printing-related information and functions.
US07926061B2
A computing system that includes a number of processing elements, a memory and a multi-task controller. The memory is organized into a set of logical partitions. Task partitions describe a task and include task state information, task data registers and ASCII task instructions. The task state information includes a set of index registers that are accessible by the task instructions. The index registers typically have dedicated locations in the task partition and are referred to by lower case ASCII alphabetic characters. Index registers are used to refer to a task partition in some cases or to a location in the current task partition in other cases for purposes of branching. Index registers can be incremented or decremented and loaded with an immediate data value. In one embodiment, the data flow unit is used to interpret the branch code and fetch contents of a named index register used in the branch.
US07926057B2
A facility is presented for scheduling computer jobs of a computing environment having a plurality of computing nodes. The facility includes scheduling N sequential computer jobs of a job queue until achieving a top job party, wherein N≧2, and the number of jobs in the top job party is dynamically determined by monitoring backfill window coverage of the computing nodes by the N scheduled jobs and automatically closing membership in the top job party once (i) all computing nodes are covered by at least one backfill window, or (ii) a backfill end time of at least one computing node is greater than or equal to a maximum wallclock limit of a set of job classes having the N scheduled jobs. Responsive to determining the top job party, the facility then backfill schedules jobs of the job queue around the top job party for execution.
US07926052B2
Embodiments of a stacked file system and method are disclosed. One system embodiment includes a memory including a stack that includes a first module and a second module, the first module including executable code that has distinct functionality from executable code of the second module; and logic configured to create a stack template comprising information about the stack.
US07926049B1
A system and method for determining differences between configurations of a software program. A configuration differencing command generates a hash table of configuration keys and values for each of the configurations being compared. A key is selected from a first hash table and the command determines if an identical key exists in the second hash table. If the key exists in the second hash table, a comparison is made of the values associated with the keys and, if the values are not identical, the configuration differencing command displays the differences to an administrator.
US07926047B2
An embodiment relates generally to a method of optimization in a run-time execution environment. The method includes providing for a plurality of symbol tables, each symbol table associated with a respective object, the plurality of objects being linked to create a runtime version of a program. The method also includes searching through a selected symbol table of the plurality of symbol tables and determining a symbol type of an entry in the selected symbol table. The method further includes executing a callback function in response to the symbol type being an special symbol table entry and returning the address of an optimized function for the entry in the selected symbol table.
US07926038B2
A solution for facilitating the test of a command line interface (CLI) of a software product is proposed. A first phase of a process generates a scenarios matrix. Each command of the CLI is defined with its arguments and the corresponding properties; the test activity is defined by specifying a desired accuracy level of the test process. The scenarios matrix can then be generated automatically, by selecting (according to the desired accuracy level) predefined rules specifying happy paths and errors cases for each property. A second phase generates corresponding test cases. An expected result is associated with each test scenario in the respective matrix. This allows creating a test document for the manual execution of the test process and/or a bucket for its automatic execution by an automation tool.
US07926037B2
A program verification process begins by converting a language of the program from a first language into an intermediate language representation. The loops of the program are eliminated. The program is converted from the intermediate language representation into a passive form. Dominators for the passive form of the program are determined. A verification condition is generated from the passive form of the program. The verification condition is structured according to the computed dominators such that when a theorem prover identifies a potential error, portions of the passive form of the program irrelevant to the potential error are ignored.
US07926032B2
The present invention is directed to an improved mapping system and code generation system. Embodiments of the present invention separate the mapping of data elements into two metalevels. The first metalevel maps between types of elements (e.g., string, int, float, varchar, etc.). This first metalevel mapping is associated with an object that contains a method (i.e., a function) which performs the conversion between the type of the element from a first data structure to the type of element in a second data structure. The second metalevel describes the actual mapping between the data elements at issue. Accordingly, the second metalevel results in an instance of the first metalevel object. Source code or scripts generated in accordance with this separation provide numerous advantages including improved flexibility, reduced storage space usage and others. The two metalevel modeling of the invention can be embodied in source code (or script) generators to generate more efficient source code (or scripts).
US07926017B2
A layout method is provided, adaptable to place cell on a chip. Firstly, a chip area is assigned for a floor plan. A global reservation deployment process is then performed to define a plurality of room units to be uniformly distributed on the chip area. Cells are placed on the chip based on the floor plan. The chip area is categorized into at least a high frequency region and a low frequency region according to operation frequencies of the placed cells thereon. A frequency based reservation deployment process is then performed to move one or more room units distributed in the low frequency region toward the high frequency region. A local cell replacement process, a routing and timing analysis are performed. If hotspots are induced, room units around the hotspots are redistributed, and then the steps of local cell replacement, routing and timing analysis are repeated.
US07926015B2
In one general embodiment, a method is provided. In operation, a first phase noise in a first circuit located on an integrated circuit is determined. Additionally, a second phase noise in a second circuit coupled to the first circuit but which is not located in the integrated circuit is determined, the second circuit being programmable. Furthermore, the first phase noise is compared with the second phase noise. Also, the second circuit is conditionally modified to optimize the performance of the integrated circuit, based on a result of the comparison. Additional methods are also presented.
US07926012B1
A method is provided to improve the usability of Design-For-Testability Synthesis (DFTS) tools and to increase the design process productivity. The method comprises receiving a list of testability and design impact analysis functions, to be performed on the circuit, also referred to as a device under test (DUT). The impact analysis leads to the creation of logical transformations, which can be selected by a user with one or more available transformation methods from a list including, but not limited to, boundary scan test logic insertion, scan test logic insertion, memory BIST (built-in-self-test) logic insertion, and logic BIST logic insertion, and scan test data compression insertion logic insertion.
US07926011B1
A system and method of designing an integrated circuit capable of deriving timing constraints for individual block-level circuits of an integrated circuit that are derived from the chip-level timing constraints and analysis. The block-level timing constraints are in the form of one or more logical timing constraint points at the input and output ports of block-level circuits. Each logical timing constraint points specifies a clock source used to clock data through the port, a delay parameter specifying data propagation delay backward from an input port and forward from an output port, and any timing exception associated with the data path. Using the logical timing constraint point, the circuit design system performs independent timing analysis and optimization of each block-level circuit. The system then reassembles the block-level circuits into a modified chip-level circuit for which timing closure can be achieved.
US07926009B2
The present invention is generally related to integrated circuit devices, and more particularly, to methods, systems and design structures for the field of image processing, and more specifically to vector units for supporting image processing. A dual vector unit implementation is described wherein two vector units are configured receive data from a common register file. The vector units may independently and simultaneously process instructions. Furthermore, the vector units may be adapted to perform scalar operations thereby integrating the vector and scalar processing. The vector units may also be configured to share resources to perform an operation, for example, a cross product operation.
US07926006B2
A method of designing features on a semiconductor wafer. A design of active or functional features is provided for chiplets separated by kerf areas on the wafer. The method then includes determining pattern density of the chiplet features, and applying a pattern of spaced dummy features on chiplet area not covered by active or functional features, as well as in the kerf areas. The dummy features are uniformly expanded or reduced in size until a desired dummy feature pattern density is reached.
US07926001B2
Systems and methods of semiconductor device optimization include a system and method to determine a dataset for a layer of the semiconductor device, where the operation includes receiving a dataset defining a plurality of original patterns of sacrificial material in a layer of a semiconductor device, wherein the original patterns of sacrificial material are used to define placement of spacer material to define patterning of circuit elements for the semiconductor device; determining densities of the plurality of original patterns of sacrificial material in areas across a portion of the layer of the semiconductor device; and augmenting the dataset to include an additional pattern of sacrificial material in an area of the layer having a density lower than a threshold density.
US07925998B2
An input pin capacitance of a cell is obtained in advance in a function expression, and a delay is calculated in such manner that the input pin capacitance is calculated in functions of an input slew and a drive load capacitance in each instance. In a cell characterizing process, a total volume of a current running into an input terminal before a voltage value of the input terminal reaches a reference voltage is obtained so that a value approximate to a real input pin capacitance can be obtained.
US07925989B2
In a system and method for displaying hierarchically related data, a processor may display in a single display window of a display device respective representations of a plurality of hierarchically related data records in accordance with the hierarchical relationship, where each of at least two of the representations includes a respective table including a plurality of data columns, and where the display of some of the columns of the tables is in accordance with display settings set based on a determination that columns of different tables correspond to each other for alignment.
US07925986B2
Methods of and systems for entering ambiguous text input via a linear character selection display are provided. A system for entering an alphanumeric string includes presentation logic for displaying on a presentation device an alphabet arranged into a row of letters and indication logic for presenting visual cues grouping a series of letters of the row into a cluster. The system also includes navigation logic for receiving user actions to move the visual cues along the row of letters to change the letters grouped into the cluster. The visual cues move along the row of letters in variable offsets based on a rate of input of the user actions. The system further includes selection logic for receiving user actions to select the cluster of letters to cause at least one of the letters of the selected cluster to be displayed in a string field.
US07925985B2
The structure and status of a process are displayed jointly. Multiple visualization mechanisms are used to provide the visualization of business process data. Drill-down of the data provides interactivity for a user to access information. In one embodiment color coding is used to provide a color distribution to visually indicate information to a user regarding a process.
US07925979B2
A manufacturing/process control system information access provider architecture is disclosed. Manufacturing/process control system data provider flexibility is achieved through a user-configurable manufacturing/process control information portal server that comprises multiple selectable data provides (sources) and/or data types that a particular data provider accommodates. A user configures the portal server to deliver manufacturing/process control information associated with a controlled process environment, such as a food processing plant floor or an oil refinery reactor, to the user via a browser client over the Internet or a corporate intranet. Furthermore, an extensible architecture is provided that enables adding new components to the portal server. Such extensions include new data sources and new data types/handlers. The new architecture enables a user to select particular ones of the available data handlers and then their associated data sources thereby facilitating customizing the configuration of the portal server to the particular needs/interests of the user.
US07925978B1
Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, for designating a memory region for receiving image frames from an image frame server, the image frames are from a first sequence of image frames. Each image frame in the first sequence of image frames is associated with a time position on a first timeline. A needed image frame is selected, the needed image frame associated with a second time position on a second timeline. The second time position is mapped on the second timeline to a first time position on the first timeline. The image frame server is requested to provide an image frame from the first sequence of image frames at the first time position on the first timeline.
US07925975B2
A user can access a searching component that allows the user to enter search terms to search for commands associated with a computer program. The most likely commands are provided to the user, and a command can be selected for execution.
US07925968B2
Navigation from content to a portal page is provided by identifying a name of a first object in content to be displayed in a computer system. A first portal page is configured to present information about the first object. Metadata of a kind that, when received by the portal, causes the first portal page to be displayed, is obtained. An input control associated with the name of the first object is created in the content, the metadata to be forwarded to the portal upon a user activating the input control. A GUI comprises a portal area for displaying a first portal page associated with a first object upon the portal receiving metadata for the first object, and a content presentation area including an input control that is associated with a name of the first object. Upon a user activating the input control the metadata is forwarded to the portal.
US07925962B2
A Digitally Video Broadcasting—Handheld (DVB-H) system for performing forward error correction includes: a tuner for receiving a data stream; a base-band receiver, coupled to the tuner, for extracting data bytes of a multi-protocol-encapsulation forward-error-correction (MPE-FEC) frame, and performing syndrome calculation on each extracted data byte to determine a corresponding partial syndrome; and an embedded memory, coupled to the base-band receiver, for accumulating each partial syndrome to determine a complete syndrome; wherein once all syndromes of the MPE-FEC frame are received, the base-band receiver determines corresponding error values and utilizes the error values to forward error correct the MPE-FEC frame.
US07925961B2
A transmitter generates error correction data according to an error correction scheme that logically arranges the communication data in a number of rows and a number of columns. The transmitter transmits the communication data and the error correction data. A receiver receives the communication data and the error correction data. The receiver processes the error correction data to correct errors in the communication data. The receiver generates information regarding the errors in the communication data. The transmitter processes the information to alter at the number of rows and/or the number of columns.
US07925949B2
Electronic apparatus, systems, and methods of operating and constructing the electronic apparatus and/or systems include an embedded processor disposed in a logic chip to direct, among other functions, self-testing of an electronic device structure in conjunction with a pattern buffer disposed in the logic chip, when the electronic device structure is coupled to the logic chip. Additional apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed.
US07925939B2
A pre-code device includes firstly memory circuit, an address decoder, and an alternative logic circuit. The first memory circuit includes a number of memory blocks and at east a replacing block. The memory blocks are pointed by a number of respective physical addresses. The replacing block is pointed by a replacing address. The address decoder decodes an input address to provide a pre-code address. The alternative logic circuit looks up an address mapping table, which maps defect physical address among the physical addresses to the replacing address, to map the pre-code address to the replacing address when the pre-code address corresponds to the defect physical address. The alternative logic circuit correspondingly pre-codes the pre-code data to the replacing block.
US07925938B2
A structure and method for repairing SDRAM by generating a Slicing Table of Fault Distribution and using the size of SDRAM page as the partition basic block. The Slicing Table of Fault Distribution is generated at each booting or memory-testing, and the elemental range of the number of detected defects is formed. When the number of detected defects exceeds the elemental range, the limits of another partition block with a lower rate of defects are used to cure the defect. The repair bit is also encoded according to the Slicing Table of Fault Distribution, pointing to the remapping bit so that the access operation occurs at the remapping bit. As such, the cost of producing, testing and repairing SDRAM is greatly reduced.
US07925922B2
A failover method for a computer system having a clustering configuration, in which among a plurality of computers having the clustering configuration, any one of computers, when detecting a malfunction of a system including a certain computer, transmits a detection of the system malfunction to computers configuring the other systems, and the any one of computers, when detecting the malfunction of the system including the certain computer and receiving malfunction notifications of the system including the certain computer from the computers configuring the other systems, issues a reset request to the certain computer.
US07925921B2
A method for fault tolerance and fault recovery in multiprocessor systems that concurrently manage queues is disclosed. The illustrative embodiment comprises a plurality of servers, a queue of jobs to be assigned to the servers, and two queue managers—a primary unit and a secondary unit—such that the secondary fills in for the primary unit while the primary unit is down. The illustrative embodiment provides for smooth transitions from the normal state into the failure state and back into the normal state without losing jobs or violating the queue discipline of the system.
US07925920B2
Methods and systems for facilitating fault tolerance in a non-hot-standby configuration of a network routing system are provided. According to one embodiment, a failover method is provided. A fault manager executing on a control blade of multiple server blades of a network routing system actively monitors an active processing engine of multiple processing engines within the network routing system. Responsive to detecting a fault associated with the active processing engine, the active processing engine is dynamically replaced with a non-hot-standby processing engine of the multiple processing engines by (i) determining one or more software contexts that were associated with the active processing engine prior to detection of the fault, and (ii) creating one or more replacement software contexts within the non-hot-standby processing engine corresponding to the one or more software contexts.
US07925915B2
There is provided a system and method of disaster preparedness and restoration of service of damaged or destroyed telecommunication network elements. A computer-implemented method of disaster backup for network elements includes establishing connectivity to a plurality of network elements. A host computer may transmit one or more commands to the network elements for invoking a computer routine to create a plurality of computer readable service continuity data to a local memory of the network elements. An automated system of computer executable components for disaster recovery of network elements includes a computer executable controller component that is configured to select a plurality of network elements designated for disaster backup action. A computer executable engine component is configured to establish connectivity to the plurality of network elements and to transmit one or more commands to the network elements so as to replicate service continuity data for each of said network elements.
US07925909B1
In various aspects, a portable electronic device includes electrical components supported by a housing, the electrical components including a user interface coupled to a processor and a storage medium including an emergency power storage module coupled to the processor. The portable apparatus further includes one or more power storage devices configured to provide electrical energy to the electrical components, at least one power storage device operably controlled by the emergency power storage module to provide emergency electrical energy to the electronic components for an emergency communication.
US07925899B2
Assertions of sentinel nodes within a device may be used to calculate device power consumption at runtime. These power estimates may be used to estimate a device temperature or leakage power, and/or may be used to make device throttling decisions.
US07925898B2
Secure computation environments are protected from bogus or rogue load modules, executables and other data elements through use of digital signatures, seals and certificates issued by a verifying authority. A verifying authority—which may be a trusted independent third party—tests the load modules or other executables to verify that their corresponding specifications are accurate and complete, and then digitally signs the load module or other executable based on tamper resistance work factor classification. Secure computation environments with different tamper resistance work factors use different verification digital signature authentication techniques (e.g., different signature algorithms and/or signature verification keys)—allowing one tamper resistance work factor environment to protect itself against load modules from another, different tamper resistance work factor environment. Several dissimilar digital signature algorithms may be used to reduce vulnerability from algorithm compromise, and subsets of multiple digital signatures may be used to reduce the scope of any specific compromise.
US07925893B2
A copyright protection system is provided that keeps manufacturing costs down regardless of the total number of playback apparatuses belonging to the system. In this system, a device key generating unit of a key management apparatus performs a modular exponentiation operation on a random number with an inverse element of a product of predetermined prime numbers, so as to generate and distribute device keys to playback apparatuses in one-to-one correspondence. A key revocation data generating unit generates, as key revocation data, information identifying the prime numbers used by an unrevoked playback apparatus to generate a decryption key from its device key and distributes the key revocation data along with an encrypted content to each playback apparatus. Playback apparatuses each attempt to generate a description key based on the key revocation data, and only those playback apparatuses that have successfully generated a decryption key are able to decrypt the encrypted content.
US07925891B2
The present invention provides an apparatus and method for performing cryptographic operations on a plurality of message blocks within a processor to generate a message digest. In one embodiment, the apparatus has an x86-compatible microprocessor that includes translation logic and execution logic. The translation logic receives a single, atomic cryptographic instruction from a source therefrom, where the single, atomic cryptographic instruction prescribes generation of the message digest according to one of the cryptographic operations. The translation logic also translates the single, atomic cryptographic instruction into a sequence of micro instructions specifying sub-operations required to accomplish generation of the message digest according to the one of the cryptographic operations. The execution logic is operatively coupled to the translation logic. The execution logic receives the sequence of micro instructions, and performs the sub-operations to generate the message digest.
US07925890B2
A method is provided for re-initializing a cryptographic processing module (102) at a location designated as an unclassified environment. The method includes storing in a database (122) a module unique recovery vector (310, 510) assigned to a cryptographic processing module. The method also includes indexing the module unique recovery vector in the database using a unique module identifying code (for example, a serial number) assigned to the cryptographic processing module. The method further includes subsequently communicating the module unique recovery vector from the database, over a computer network (120), to a remote computing environment (400) that is unclassified. The module unique recovery vector is used to re-initialize the cryptographic processing module.
US07925885B2
Material code recording and reading method and devices designed for protection of products and control of their authenticity. The marking device 1 embeds a sign upon the product 4, the marked product 5 is passed to camera 2 which films the product material structure around the sign and transfers the image to the recording device 3, the latter records the database. The comparing alarm device 8 compares the icon from camera 7 with the icon from database 6 and alarms whether they are identical or not.
US07925884B2
A method of verifying a carved seal includes detecting a pressure on a carved seal stamp is detected through pins extending from a face of the carved stamp steal. It is determined if the pressure indicates that the seal is being pressed. A fingerprint of a user of the seal is read when it is determined that the seal is being pressed. An image of an object being stamped by the seal is photographed if the pressure indicates that the seal is being pressed. A time that the seal is being pressed is determined if the pressure indicates that the seal is being pressed. A location of the seal is determined if the pressure indicates that the seal is being pressed. An audio note is recorded if the pressure indicates that the seal is being pressed. The fingerprint, time, and location is associated with the photograph of the image of the object being stamped by the seal. The information is encoded into a face of the seal to indicate that the fingerprint was determined to belong to an authorized user.
US07925882B2
Data application method enabling evaluations to be properly received while content is being protected, enabling content users to use only what they want to use in the amount they want to use it, and enabling advertising providers in certainty to have users use ads. The method includes: a step of converting first data for permitting use based on predetermined conditions, into encrypted first data by means of a predetermined encryption key; a step of generating watermarked second data in which the encryption key is embedded, as an invisible electronic watermark, into second data for permitting use unconditionally; and a step of compositing and distributing the encrypted first data and the watermarked second data.
US07925874B1
Disclosed are systems, methods and computer program products for adaptive configuration of conflicting applications. An example method comprises collecting system configuration information from a computer system, including system hardware and software information. The method further comprises monitoring system resource utilization during execution of a first program and one or more second programs. The method further comprises determining one or more critical levels of system resource utilization by applying fuzzy logic rules to the collected system configuration information. When the monitored system resource utilization exceeds the determined critical level for a predetermined period of time, determining, based on the collected software information, if the first program conflicts with execution of one or more second programs. Determining whether conflicting second programs are harmful to the computer system and changing configuration settings of the first program to resolve conflicts with the conflicting second programs that are harmless.
US07925871B2
A data processing apparatus 2 is provided with one or more branch predictors 10 for generating branch predictions. A supervising predictor 12 is responsive to at least a stream of branch predictions to identify one or more cyclically recurring errors in the branch predictors and generate corrected behaviours for a prefetch unit 4.
US07925862B2
A coprocessor (14) may be used to perform one or more specialized operations that can be off-loaded from a primary or general purpose processor (12). It is important to allow efficient communication and interfacing between the processor (12) and the coprocessor (14). In one embodiment, a coprocessor (14) generates and provides instructions (200, 220) to an instruction pipe (20) in the processor (12). Because the coprocessor (14) generated instructions are part of the standard instruction set of the processor (12), cache (70) coherency is easy to maintain. Also, circuitry (102) in coprocessor (14) may perform an operation on data while circuitry (106) in coprocessor (14) is concurrently generating processor instructions (200, 220).
US07925857B2
In a method of generating a cache directory to include a plurality of associativity classes, each associativity class includes an address tag including a plurality of address bits. Each address tag is configured to store a unique address to a specific location in an memory space. An amount of memory that is in an actually configured portion of the memory space is determined. A minimum number of bits necessary to address each memory location in the actually configured portion of the memory space is determined. Each address tag is configured in each associativity class to include the minimum number of bits necessary to address each memory location in the actually configured portion of the memory space. The cache directory is configured to include a maximum number of associativity classes per line in the cache directory.
US07925853B2
An information handling system includes a processor with an array power management controller. The array power management controller gates off a memory array, such as a cache, to conserve power whenever a group of instructions in a branch instruction queue together as a group exhibits a confidence in the accuracy of branch predictions of branch instructions therein that is less than a first predetermined threshold confidence threshold. In one embodiment of the information handling system, the array power management controller speculatively inhibits the gating off of the memory array when confidence in the accuracy of a branch prediction for a particular currently issued branch instruction exhibits less than a second predetermined threshold confidence threshold. In this manner, the array power management controller again allows access to the memory array in the event a branch redirect is likely.
US07925851B2
A storage device is provided with a file I/O interface control device and a plurality of disk pools. The file I/O interface control device sets one of a plurality of storage hierarchies defining storage classes, respectively, for each of LUs within the disk pools, thereby forming a file system in each of the LUs. The file I/O interface control device migrates at least one of the files from one of the LUs to another one of the LUs of an optimal storage class, based on static properties and dynamic properties of each file.
US07925841B2
A method for allocating memory associated with a local shared memory segment to facilitate execution of a first process. The method includes automatically allocating memory associated with a first MRG to the local shared memory segment if the local shared memory segment is created by the first process. The first MRG is associated with a first local shared affiliation that involves the first process. The method also includes automatically allocating memory associated with a second MRG to the local shared memory segment if the local shared memory is created by a second process different from the first process. The second MRG is associated with a second local shared affiliation that involves a second process.
US07925837B2
A method, computer program product and computer system for maintaining write cache and parity update footprint coherency in a multiple storage adaptor configuration for storage adaptors in a storage subsystem, which includes providing atomic updating of the storage adaptors and the attached disk drives, enabling runtime addition and runtime subtraction of a storage adaptor in the multiple storage adaptor configuration, and maintaining write cache and parity update footprint coherency using atomic updating, runtime addition and runtime subtraction of a storage adaptor.
US07925830B2
A disk array includes a drive management unit, which is a program for identifying kinds of disk devices and managing different disk devices separately, and a drive management table for storing information to be utilized by the drive management unit. The disk array further includes a program for managing accumulated time of disk devices. The program includes a drive lifetime setting portion for setting lifetimes of drives, a drive start/stop portion for intentionally starting/stopping ATA disk devices, and an operation time measurement portion for measuring accumulated operation time. Since it is necessary to be conscious of difference in reliability and performance among disk devices when forming a RAID, a drive kind notification unit, which is a program for notifying of the kind of a disk device when forming the RAID, is provided.
US07925828B2
According to one embodiment, a disk has a set of tracks thereon. A controller performs refresh control for reading data by a head from a track on the disk to be refreshed and for writing the read data by the head to a spare track adjacent to the track from which the data has been read. The controller switches the track from which the data has been read to a new spare track after the writing.
US07925824B2
A memory system is provided that reduces latency by running a memory channel fully asynchronous from a memory device frequency. The memory system comprises a memory hub device integrated in a memory module. The memory hub device comprises a command queue that receives a memory access command from an external memory controller via a memory channel at a first operating frequency. The memory system also comprises a memory hub controller integrated in the memory hub device. The memory hub controller reads the memory access command from the command queue at a second operating frequency. By receiving the memory access command at the first operating frequency and reading the memory access command at the second operating frequency an asynchronous boundary is implemented. The first operating frequency is a maximum designed operating frequency of the memory channel and the first operating frequency is independent of the second operating frequency.
US07925823B2
A mechanism is provided to reuse functional data buffers. With Extreme Data Rate (XDR™) Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), test patterns are employed to dynamically calibrate data with the clock. To perform this task, data buffers are employed to store data and commands for the calibration patterns. However, there are different procedures and requirements for transmission and reception calibrations. Hence, to reduce the amount of hardware needed to perform transmission and reception calibrations, the data buffers employ additional front end circuitry to reuse the buffers for both tasks.
US07925822B2
An erase count of a flash memory block which is lost, e.g., due to power failure is updated or replaced by using known erase counts of other blocks of the flash memory. A flash management algorithm assigns a new erase count value instead of the lost one based on either a maximum value, an average value or a value combining the maximum value of the known erase counts and some tolerance value. The known values may be obtained from wear leveling data or from a stored erase history.
US07925816B2
Embodiments of the present invention provide a system that transfers data between the components in the computer system through a switch. In these embodiments, the switch includes multiple switch chips which are coupled together and are configured to collectively function as a switch. During operation, each switch chip, receives cells from the subset of the set of inputs and selectively transfers each of the cells to at least one output of the subset of the set of outputs coupled to the switch chip or of the subset of the set of outputs coupled to the other switch chips.
US07925814B2
A dynamically configurable logic gate includes an input summer for receiving a first input signal and a second input signal to generate a summed input signal. Further the dynamically configurable logic gate includes a nonlinear element that applies a nonlinear function to the summed input signal to produce a nonlinear output signal. The dynamically configurable logic gate output signal corresponds to one of a plurality of different logic gates responsive to adjusting the summed input signal and/or the nonlinear function. In another embodiment, the dynamically configurable logic gate includes feedback to one of the inputs. The dynamically configurable logic gate receives the two inputs and operates as one of a plurality of different logic gate types so as to produce an output signal that corresponds to a memory latch according to a selection of the control signal. An array structure of dynamically configurable logic elements is also disclosed.
US07925813B2
A portable computer adapted for electrical connection to a docking station having multiple power modes of operation is described. The portable computer has one or more CPU chips which have at least two power modes of operation, a low power mode and a high power mode. When the portable computer is operated as a stand-alone computer, it operates in the low power mode. When the portable computer is operated while electrically connected to the docking station, it operates in a high power mode. The docking station has greater cooling capacity than the portable computer alone to provide enhanced cooling of the high power mode of operation.
US07925809B2
Methods and systems for storage management in a data processing device. The data processing device may be connected to a host computer and it can be in one of two states: disk mode (e.g., docked) or device mode (e.g., undocked). According to an embodiment, a mass storage device associated with a data processing device is divided into two or more segments or virtual volumes, and at least one volume is managed by the device even in a disk mode. In some cases, this makes the device usable while in the docked state and hence it improves the user experience. In some embodiments, an extra software component other than the file system is employed on the device to manage the storage device. Certain volumes may be dynamically increased or decreased while the data processing device is in a disk mode.
US07925808B2
A memory system with serialized data transfer. The memory system includes within a memory controller and a plurality of memory devices. The memory controller receives a plurality of write data values from a host and outputs the write data values as respective serial streams of bits. Each of the memory devices receives at least one of the serial streams of bits from the memory controller and converts the serial stream of bits to a set of parallel bits for storage.
US07925807B2
Providing for arbitration and dynamic downloading of microcode at a controller associated with electrically erasable non-volatile memory is described herein. By way of example, a download agent can be provided to a module of such non-volatile memory. Characteristics of the memory module and/or specifications of a host application can be utilized to select one or more memory control modules from a group of such control modules. A selected control module(s) can be installed at the controller via the download agent to provide non-default management of raw memory. Further, arbitration of multiple control modules can be implemented to select among various mechanisms to control/manage raw memory. Arbitration can be based, for instance, on specifications of a host device application. Accordingly, great flexibility and control of raw non-volatile memory can be provided for a host device at an application level.
US07925806B2
An information transceiver including a storage unit storing usage information transferred from a provider device, an information transferring unit transferring the usage information to a user device when a usage start request is received in a state of being connected to the user device, an information monitoring unit performing processing for making the user device monitor a usage of the usage information and store usage record information after the usage information is transferred to the user device, an ending processing unit performs processing for making the user device read and transfer the usage record information after the user device deletes the usage information when a usage end request is received in the state of being connected to the user device, a location information monitoring unit obtaining present location information from an external location information service site for transmission when a communication request is received from the provider device.
US07925803B2
Full-duplex communication over a communication link between an initiator operating with an initiator clock and a target operating with a target clock involves, in communication from the initiator to the target: storing data from the initiator in a first FIFO memory with the initiator clock, reading data from the initiator stored in the first FIFO memory, wherein reading is with the target clock transmitting the data read from the first FIFO memory over a first mesochronous link, and storing the data transmitted over the first mesochronous link in a buffer whereby the data are made available to the target. Communication from the target to the initiator includes: transmitting data from the target over a second mesochronous link, and storing the data transmitted over the second mesochronous link in a second FIFO memory, wherein storing is with the target clock, whereby the data are made available to the initiator for reading from the second FIFO memory with the initiator clock signal.
US07925796B1
Methods, systems, and computer program products for performing an input/output (I/O) operation that includes a virtual drain. According to one aspect, the subject matter described herein includes a method for performing an input/output operation that includes a virtual drain. The method includes receiving a request to perform a consistent operation involving a storage entity, and in response to receiving the request: arresting write requests to the storage entity; performing a virtual drain, where performing a virtual drain includes identifying, and indicating as deferred, pending writes to the storage entity; performing the consistent operation; releasing write requests to the storage entity; and processing each deferred write using information that is associated with the write and that describes the context in which the write request was accepted.
US07925786B2
A system, a method and computer-readable media for hosting network-based services for a domain name. Authorization is obtained to host services for the domain name. This authorization may originate from an entity in control of the domain. The authorized network-based services are provided to users of the domain in interfaces that present advertising content to the users. Advertising revenue is generated in connection with this presentation of advertising content, and a portion of the advertising revenue is allocated for distribution to the entity in control of the domain.
US07925768B1
A method and network for adapting a network management protocol (e.g., TL-1) for various transmission protocol terminologies (e.g., SDH and SONET). A network element operates in one transmission protocol mode and sends network management messages to a network management device in a managing terminology based on another transmission protocol mode. The network management device then translates the network management messages to be presented in a user interface at the network management device to an operating terminology based on the operating transmission protocol mode used by the network element.
US07925758B1
A system and method for managing data transfers. A system comprises a plurality of nodes and a fabric including at least a first link interconnecting the plurality of nodes. The system allocates a first pipe having a unique first pipe identifier and a second pipe having a unique second pipe identifier within the first link. A first initiator node uses the first link and the first pipe identifier to communicate with a first target node. A second initiator node uses the first link and the second pipe identifier to communicate with a second target node. The system allows concurrent data exchanges via the first and second pipes. The first link comprises a Fibre Channel link. The first and second initiator nodes each comprise at least one SCSI initiator and the first and second target nodes each comprise one or more SCSI logical units coupled to a physical storage medium.
US07925749B1
A system and method for transparent data replication of one or more data containers over migrating virtual servers (vfilers) operating on physical storage systems is provided. A mirroring (or other replication) procedure associated with a vfiler generates an entry in a mirror table maintained by one or more appropriate mirroring applications executing on the physical storage systems. The mirror table identifies source and destination “owners” of a replicated data container by vfiler instead of only by physical storage system. Thus, when a vfiler is migrated from a source physical storage system (“source”) to a destination physical storage system (“destination”), the mirroring application may continue to perform mirroring operations on the data containers at a per vfiler level to thereby improve the utility of migration of the vfiler among the storage systems.
US07925748B2
A method for managing system resources in a network environment. The method begins by reading from a first log timestamp Ti for i=1, 2, . . . , I, where each Ti comprises a timestamp corresponding to a unique request to utilize system resources. After reading timestamps, calculating estimated response Ei for i=1, 2, . . . , I, according to a function. After calculating estimated responses, the method continues by calculating actual response Ri for i=1, 2, . . . , I, according to a function Ri=Ei−Ti. After calculating all actual responses; storing each actual response in a second log. The second log comprising both timestamp Ti and actual response Ri for i=1, 2, . . . , I.
US07925744B1
A derived state value is calculated based on a plurality of component state values. As any of the plurality of component state values changes, the derived state value is recalculated. When sending information about a MAC address or other data between two components, the derived state value is included in the information sent. An object receiving a MAC address or other data from another object checks the validity of the received derived state value to determine whether to accept the new data and flush old data, to accept the new data, or to ignore the new data.
US07925740B2
A system and method for detecting and recording events related to the quality of service experienced by a wireless device in a wireless network. In one example, these events may be detected and recorded by the wireless device, without support from the network. Performance monitoring tests may be initiated by the wireless device at the direction of a management server, independent of the network in which the device may be operating. The wireless device may store the results of these tests and report the results to the management server.
US07925737B2
The present invention comprises a method for automatically configuring network resources. The method includes receiving a request from a client for at least one of a plurality of network resources in a network and automatically configuring the at least one of the plurality of network resources and the network in response to the request. The method also includes automatically associating in a client cell the at least one of the plurality of network resources with the client, wherein the client can access the at least one of the plurality of network resources that have been associated with the client in the client cell. In a particular embodiment, the client cell may be a virtual local area network.
US07925736B2
The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for redirecting client messages between hosts within a messaging infrastructure. When a host receives a client message, it can refer to lock information in a shared database to determine if it is the correct host to receive the client message. The lock information includes a redirect endpoint. The redirect endpoint identifies an endpoint where client messages can be sent for delivery to the appropriate workflow instance. The redirect endpoint can be included in a redirect fault message, that is returd to a host when a host attempts to process a client message that is already locked to another workflow instance. Using the redirect endpoint, a host receiving a redirect fault message can use the redirect endpoint to send a client message to the correct host.
US07925735B2
The claimed subject matter provides late network binding functionality to network or web-based applications or services. An application gateway component exposes generic interfaces for different types of network applications allowing client application developers to utilize generic functionality. Client applications can invoke the generic interfaces, at which point the application gateway component can determine contextual information related to the end user. Using the contextual information, the application gateway component can perform late network binding to a network or web-based application or service by generating and transmitting a request thereto based at least in part on the generic interface invocation and user context. The contextual information can include explicit binding information or data that can be utilized to determine or infer binding preferences.
US07925726B2
Various embodiments of the present invention relate to a system for distributing data (e.g., content data) over a computer network and a method of arranging receiver nodes in a computer network such that the capacity of a server is effectively increased (e.g., the capacity of a server may be effectively multiplied many times over; the capacity of the server may be effectively increased exponentially).
US07925725B2
The present invention provides an apparatus, method, and program for automatically generating setting information for a different model on the basis of settings previously made. Additionally, the present invention is directed to automatically determining one piece of setting information to be set for a different model on the basis of settings previously made. The present invention is also directed to automatically generating, on the basis of settings previously made, setting information that is to be set for a different model and that meets the user's intention.
US07925723B1
A system and method for collaboratively providing configurations for a media environment are provided. In general, configuration events from a number of media environments are collected and provided to a Collaborative Configuration System (CCS) server. Based on the configuration events, the CCS server generates and provides recommended configurations to a media environment. The recommended configurations may be generated prior to or after receiving a request for recommended configurations from the media environment. In one embodiment, the recommended configurations are provided as a recommended configuration profile providing a set of configurations to be applied at the media environment. In another embodiment, the recommended configurations are provided as a CCS track associated with a particular media presentation. The CCS track includes configuration changes to be applied to the media environment for a number of time slices of the media presentation during playback of the media presentation.
US07925721B2
The present invention relates to modality conversion for supporting Quality of Service (QoS) according to media resources, which includes the steps of receiving a modality conversion descriptor in which the characteristics of the modality conversion of the multimedia contents are described, receiving the multimedia contents, and converting the modality of the multimedia contents into a modality determined according to a media resource and the modality conversion descriptor. According to the present invention, a systematic approach to a design for an overlap content value model is provided so that the conversion boundaries between modalities can be quantitatively calculated. As a result, the correlation between various modalities can be established in a single model, and modality conversion supporting the optimal QoS can be performed.
US07925717B2
Techniques are disclosed for controlling interaction between an enterprise application and a mobile client device in a communication system. Push content is generated in a wireless secure server or other type of server, responsive to information received in the wireless secure server from the enterprise application. The push content is deliverable from the wireless secure server to the mobile client device over a wireless network. The wireless secure server receives from the mobile client device, responsive to the push content, a request for additional information identifiable at least in part by the push content. The additional information is deliverable from the server to the mobile client device over the wireless network.
US07925715B2
Apparatus, methods, and programs for servicing persistent storage items on a wireless device. Embodiments include a wireless device having a computer platform with a module operable to retrieve and/or change persistent storage items on the wireless device based on a received configuration. The wireless device may further include an access module operable to either permit or deny access to persistent storage items based on information associated with the configuration. The embodiments may also include an apparatus operable to receive information relating to the activity performed with respect to the persistent storage items and to generate a corresponding report.
US07925711B1
There is a constant battle to break even between continuing improvements in DRAM capacities and the growing memory demands of large-memory high-performance applications. Performance of such applications degrades quickly once the system hits the physical memory limit and starts swapping to the local disk. We present the design, implementation and evaluation of Anemone—an Adaptive Network Memory Engine—that virtualizes the collective unused memory of multiple machines across a gigabit Ethernet LAN, without requiring any modifications to the either the large memory applications or the Linux kernel. We have implemented a working prototype of Anemone and evaluated it using real-world unmodified applications such as ray-tracing and large in-memory sorting. Our results with the Anemone prototype show that unmodified single-process applications execute 2 to 3 times faster and multiple concurrent processes execute 6 to 7.7 times faster, when compared to disk based paging. The Anemone prototype reduces page-fault latencies by a factor of 19.6—from an average of 9.8 ms with disk based paging to 500 μs with Anemone. Most importantly, Anemone provides a virtualized low-latency access to potentially “unlimited” network memory resources.
US07925710B2
Embodiments described herein provide for a message object that simultaneously exposes an XML view and Type view for a message infoset. In this embodiment, interaction with a message can occur using either an XML or Type application program interface (API), which are synced. More specifically, embodiments herein provide or expose a common set of headers (e.g., SOAP headers) as “typed” properties (e.g., CLR properties), which allow for getting and/or setting a value thereof. In other words, the Type API reads/writes values for typed properties without regard to how the message is encoded with XML. Moreover, the two APIs are synced such that a value can be set using one API and retrieved using the other. For example, an XML API may be used as a writing mechanism for interacting with a value, while the Type API can read that same value, and vise-versa.
US07925709B1
Distinctively treating digital communications sent by bulk message senders includes providing a set of bulk sender behavior policies and monitoring compliance by a bulk message sender with the set of policies. Based on compliance by the bulk message sender with the set of policies, digital communications sent by the bulk message sender are distinctively treated.
US07925685B2
A control system, a method of operating the same, and a method for setting up the same are disclosed for simplified driving of a function unit parametrized by a plurality of input variables. The control system includes a setting unit and a control unit, the setting unit being used to set a number of prescribed control parameters and to feed them to the control unit. A value tuple that is fed to the function unit for the parametrization thereof is determined by the control unit as a function of the controlled variables in accordance with a stored interpolation function based on interpolation points. To set up the control system, it is provided to select a number of value tuples of the input variables as interpolation points from a parameter space defined by the input variables, and to determine the interpolation function in such a way that it defines a continuous subspace of the parameter space which has a dimensionality corresponding to the number of controlled variables and contains every interpolation point.
US07925681B2
A file namespace hierarchy bypass and method to access files are provided. The bypass can be employed, for example, as a computer-readable medium with instructions for generating a unique identifier associated with a file and instructions for accessing the file based on the unique identifier and a specified search space. A computer-readable medium having instructions for obtaining the unique identifier and specified search space associated with the file and instructions for generating a path designation by combining the unique identifier and the specified search space used to access the file may also be employed. The method for bypassing the namespace hierarchy of the file, for example, may include passing the unique identifier and specified search space to a program and accessing the file based on a path designation generated by the program by combining the unique identifier and specified search space.
US07925673B2
Systems and methods for providing knowledge and online access to knowledge resources to users are disclosed. Features embodied in various embodiments include: 1) linking members of communities with mentors and subject matter experts that can help the member derive value from their online experience; 2) assessing and delivering online knowledge at a participant level; 3) pushing knowledge resources to participants based on the participant profile; 4) creating and updating an online personal growth plan; and 5) tracking value by participant or by community, as required by community leadership.
US07925672B2
Systems and articles of manufacture for managing metadata associated with a data abstraction model abstractly describing data in a database. One embodiment provides a technique for managing metadata describing objects of a data abstraction model with logical fields that define abstract views of physical data in a database. Managing metadata includes traversing a logical tree structure representing the data abstraction model. The logical tree structure has a plurality of nodes, each representing a logical field or a category of logical fields of the data abstraction model. Managing metadata also includes identifying metadata describing logical fields or categories represented by the plurality of nodes. The identified metadata is stored in a queryable database. A user is allowed to query the database to identify objects in the data abstraction model that may be used to construct an abstract query.
US07925670B2
A method and system for updating a database structure. The database structure includes a dynamically changing list of control documents. A control document specifies tasks to be performed on the database structure. An agent finds an approved control document on the list such as by looking into a view of control documents. Processing the approved control document includes causing an execution of at least one task on the approved control document. Execution of a such task includes updating of the database structure, and may be implemented by the agent that found the control document or by another agent called by the agent.
US07925669B2
The invention provides a method and software for use within audio and video authoring software applications wherein the relationships between the source media files are saved and used as part of a media manager. The software allows the artist to efficiently recall which files were used together, as well as how they were used together musically or visually.
US07925661B2
A method, system, apparatus, and computer program product are presented for a meta-archive information server that provides a set of operations or services for obtaining information from a meta-archive; these operations may include dynamic indexing, searching, comparing, or other operations. A meta-archive is a set of one or more archive files that are logically grouped in (or otherwise associated with) a container object, e.g., a file system folder, a directory, or another archive file. By allowing a user to derive sets of information from an entire meta-archive, a user can maintain more files within archives, thereby reducing file system disorganization. The meta-archive information server can be easily run over a specific meta-archive when necessary, thereby generating information dynamically, even if the archive files within a meta-archive change over time.
US07925655B1
An information retrieval system uses phrases to index, retrieve, organize and describe documents. Phrases are extracted from the document collection. Documents are the indexed according to their included phrases, using phrase posting lists. The phrase posting lists are stored in an cluster of index servers. The phrase posting lists can be tiered into groups, and sharded into partitions. Phrases in a query are identified based on possible phrasifications. A query schedule based on the phrases is created from the phrases, and then optimized to reduce query processing and communication costs. The execution of the query schedule is managed to further reduce or eliminate query processing operations at various ones of the index servers.
US07925653B2
A method and system for accessing a group of objects in an electronic document is disclosed herein. The method comprises: selecting at least one object from an electronic document and grouping a plurality of objects in the electronic document based on characteristics of the selected object. The method further comprises: accessing a group of objects upon focusing on at least one of the grouped objects.
US07925652B2
A computer-based method for character string matching of a candidate character string with a plurality of character string records stored in a database is provided. The method includes identifying a set of reference character strings in the database wherein the reference character strings are identified utilizing an optimization search for a set of dissimilar character strings and generating an n-gram representation for one of the reference character strings in the set of reference character strings. The method also includes generating an n-gram representation for the candidate character string determining a similarity between the n-gram representations, and indexing the candidate character string within the database based on the determined similarities between the n-gram representation of the candidate character string and the reference character strings in the identified set.
US07925651B2
A dependency structure is used to divide samples corresponding to items to be ranked into leaf nodes, based on the rank of the items. The dependency structure is trained by splitting or merging training data received at given nodes based on selected features and selected thresholds for those features. A metric is then calculated which is indicative of performance of the node, in splitting the data. The trained structure is then used during runtime to rank items.
US07925645B2
A classifier is used to predict relevant results with arbitrary filtering conditions specified by the user. The classifier model is stored as a database table and joined with a metadata properties table instead of calculating the query result probability using the full classifier model. A user-specified query based filter is applied to the joined tables to obtain the list of documents satisfying the filter. The probability is then computed using the sub-model.
US07925643B2
A statistical tree representing an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) Schema document (XSD) is generated. The statistical tree captures information defined by the XSD by representing elements, attributes, and enumerations of the XSD as branches, nodes, and leaves of the statistical tree. The statistical tree has bits corresponding to nodes of the statistical tree. An XML document defined by the XSD is adaptively encoded, or compressed, as a number of bits based on the statistical tree that has been generated. The number of bits encoding the XML document are decoded, or decompressed, to yield the XML document also based on the statistical tree that has been generated.
US07925641B2
A system, article and method of indexing web content is presented. An attribute is generated for a rendered web page rendered by a display component. The attribute includes a uniform resource locator to the rendered web page, and the rendered web page is associated with a complex resource structure that defines content of a design time version of the rendered web page. The attribute is added to the complex resource structure, and the uniform resource locator from the attribute is indexed in a search engine index.
US07925631B1
A process such as a snapshot creation application process freezes a file system upon initiating a process to create a snapshot of a file system or a part thereof. Upon freezing the file system, the snapshot application process causes a second process to make a change to the file system. If the change is successfully made before the snapshot creation application process tries to thaw the file system, the second process sends a signal back to the snapshot application. Upon receiving a signal from the second process, the snapshot creation application process outputs a warning to a user that the snapshot is inconsistent. The snapshot application also causes a third process to automatically thaw the file system, if a certain period of time has passed and the third process has not received a signal from the snapshot application process indicating the snapshot has been successfully created.
US07925620B1
A method, a system, and an apparatus for storing, retrieving, and sharing business or personal contact information on one or more servers on a computer network. A set of contact information (e.g., for a single individual) is given an identity, called contact entity, and it is managed through the system-wide unique identifier. Same contact entity is shared by one or more users with proper permission settings in the system. Contact entities can be searched and retrieved based on degrees of separations or other criteria. The social networking relationship may be established through use of certain electronic or physical tokens. In one embodiment, a business card is used to define a contact entity and/or it is used as (a medium for transmitting) a networking/connecting token.
US07925607B2
A system (1) has an analysis engine (2) for analyzing transaction data (20) received in real time at an interface (3). A context generation engine—(25) directly receives transaction data (20) from the interface (3) and also macro data (26). Queue listeners (52) pull data from a shared memory queue (50(a), 50(b)) and feed it to transaction processors (53), which call a dynamic procedure (43) of the context generation engine (25) in real time. The transaction processors (53) therefore feeds transaction data and context parameters to a rule processor (61), effectively customizing the rule processor in real time. Each rule processor (61) executes a decision tree to determine the rules to execute in real time.
US07925599B2
A method and system for graph mining direction-aware proximity measurements. A directed graph includes nodes and directed edges connecting the nodes. A direction-aware proximity measurement is calculated from a first node to a second node or from a first group of nodes to a second group of nodes. The direction-aware proximity measurement from a first node to second node is based on an escape probability from the first node to the second node. Disclosed herein are methods for efficiently calculating one or multiple direction-aware proximity measurements. The direction-aware proximity measurements can be used in performing various graph mining applications.
US07925598B2
A method and a processing device may be provided for performing efficient weighted consistent sampling. A group of sets having multiple elements with associated weights may be provided. A single hash function may be applied to each of the elements of the group of sets to produce consistent uniformly distributed non-negative random numbers. Transformed values corresponding to each of the elements may be produced by determining a wth root of a value based on applying the hash function to a respective element, where w may be based on a weight associated with the respective element. A minimum transformed value or a maximum transformed value may be determined for each of the sets. Sets having matching ones of the minimum transformed value or the maximum transformed value may be determined. The determined sets may be considered to be similar.
US07925597B2
In a power system stabilization system for stabilizing a small-scale electric power system to which electric power generated by a rotating power generator is supplied, an electric water heater receives electric power from the electric power system and heats water, a system frequency measuring device measures system frequency of the electric power system, and a hot water controller increases the power consumption of the electric water heater when the system frequency exceeds a reference frequency, and decreases the power consumption of the electric water heater when the system frequency is less than the reference frequency.
US07925593B2
A method that uses a computer network to provide a single point of access between a plurality of video & audio devices and a plurality of video & audio content provider systems. The present invention is a method for providing a searchable, aggregated directory view of available video & audio content from multiple content providers as well as additional services such as content renting. The present invention includes a method for identifying users as subscribers of content providers' memberships.
US07925588B2
A method of processing a check issued by a payor includes creating a check image at a payor location, obtaining positive pay data from the image at the payor location using OCR and transmitting the positive pay data to a payor bank of the payor. Alternatively, the positive pay data may be generated by the payor bank from the check image received from the payor. The positive pay data includes at least a name of a payee of the check and a payment dollar amount of the check, but may also include one or more of a date of the check, a serial number of the check, and an account number of the account on which the check is drawn. The positive pay data is stored by the payor bank and used to detect potential fraud when the check is later presented to the bank for payment.
US07925584B2
A system and method of managing a construction payment process involving a plurality of participants associated with the construction project and at least one document to be transferred between at least two participants of the plurality participants during the course of the construction project. One method can include assigning at least one enforcement action to the at least one document wherein the enforcement action is automatically effected if the document is not transferred between the at least two participants.
US07925581B2
The invention includes a system and process that employs contractual bargaining with agent-based computational methods for the dynamic allocation, optimization, and pricing of contingent rights and obligations between multiple counterparties with overlapping interests. The processes employ a dynamic and endogenous hierarchy or tiering of binding incentive compatible contingent strategies, which may include optimal liquidation policies for matched assets and liabilities based upon stochastic volume/price schedule related to statistically non-stationary supply/demand elasticities and order-flow, as well as variations in market microstructure. The invention includes a dynamic open system with distributed stochastic control of strategic interactions among dynamic optimizing agents across random states, wherein the actions of any one affects the joint costs and benefits for all the agents.
US07925573B2
A computer program product is provided for administering a single investment company. The computer program product has a computer-readable medium encoded with computer-executable instructions. The instructions perform a method wherein the single investment company issuing one or more classes of shares that are bought from and redeemed with the single investment company at a net asset value and issues one or more classes of shares that are listed for trading on a securities exchange and that are bought and sold at negotiated market prices. One or more computers maintain account data of the outstanding shares. An owner of any share of any share class has an undivided interest in the single investment company.
US07925563B2
The described embodiments of the invention include a method for maintaining accounting records for a portfolio of investments, comprising accounting records stored on a computer readable medium and providing a table for each event type affecting an investment for generating an account entry, each line of the table designating which accounting record receives the account entry and at least one key designating a data source for the account entry and an operation on the data source to determine the amount of the account entry. In an alternate embodiment of the invention, a data processing system for maintaining accounting records for a portfolio of securities comprises a plurality of accounting records stored on a computer readable medium, the accounting records including tax accounts, a plurality of defined security types and, for each security type, a plurality of tables for each transaction affecting a security for generating an account entry, each line of the table designating which accounting record receives the account entry and a key designating a data source for the account entry and an operation on the data source to determine the amount of the account entry.
US07925560B2
Methods for calculating a value of a derivative based on a multiplicative index, where the multiplicative index is a multiple of an underlying index. The methods may comprise the steps of providing a first value of the underlying index and estimating a ratio of the multiplicative index over the underlying index as a first function of the underlying index over a first range of values of the underlying index. The method may also comprise the steps of calculating at least one parameter of the first function by comparing the first function to historical values of the multiplicative index and the underlying index. In addition, the method may comprise the steps of calculating a first value for the ratio given the first value of the underlying index, and calculating the value of the derivative for the first value of the ratio.
US07925556B1
A system for streaming conversion of data from a first system to a second system. The system comprises an extractor component, a translator component, and a loader component. The extractor component is operable to extract a unit of data from the first system. The translator component is operable to convert the unit of data from a first data format compatible with the first system to a second data format compatible with the second system. The loader component is operable to load the unit of data converted to the second data format into the second system, the extractor, the translator, and loader components operable for conversion of the unit of data during normal operation of the first and second systems.
US07925553B2
A system for tax planning with legislation conformance options comprises one more processors coupled to a memory. The memory stores instructions executable by the processors to implement a tax planner configured to receive data exported from a tax return preparation tool. The tax planner receives input indicating whether a tax projection to be prepared using the data is to include an impact of specified tax legislation. If the input indicates that the tax projection is to include the impact of the specified legislation, the tax planner is configured to include the impact of the specified legislation in the tax projection without requiring data to be re-exported from the tax return preparation tool. If the input indicates that the tax projection is to exclude the impact of the specified legislation, the tax planner is configured to prepare the tax projection without including the impact of the specified legislation.
US07925551B2
Transaction processing is facilitated using an approach for automatically grouping transaction-based documents as a function of matching data in the documents. In one example embodiment of the present invention, data from selected attribute fields in transaction-based documents is parsed as the documents are received at a transaction processor. When data in selected attribute fields from two or more documents match, the transaction processor automatically groups the documents having matching data under a particular anchor identification code defined as a function of the match. Upon receipt of one or more other transaction-based documents, the transaction processor advances progress towards completion of the common transaction to which the documents apply. With this approach, predefined data (e.g., a purchase order number) need not necessarily be included with a particular transaction document in order to group the document with another document belonging to the same common transaction.
US07925546B2
Various computer-implemented services are disclosed for increasing the utility of electronic wish lists, and for assisting users in making gift purchases. One such service automatically notifies a user when an item being accessed in an electronic catalog is on, or is similar to an item on, an electronic wish list of an “affiliated” user. The affiliations may be created explicitly by the users (e.g., by completing an online form), and/or implicitly based on actions performed by the users (e.g., when one user purchases a gift for another user). Another service automatically reminds a first user who is affiliated with a second user when a known or inferred gift-giving event of the second user is approaching. The reminder may include a link to a wish list of the second user, and/or may include or provide a link for viewing personalized gift recommendations for the second user.
US07925541B2
Method and system for bartering between trade parties each having one or more items available for barter, via a communications network. Items available for trade are listed and the parties can browse and search the lists to locate items they want to acquire and items they have available to trade. Each party can make an offer to trade with another party subject to various conditions and requirements relating to, for example, a requirement to maintain an item offered for trade available for a certain period of time.
US07925533B2
In particular, systems and methods are provided for delivering a discount using a virtual currency. Inventive systems and methods offer a high perceived savings value to an end-user while maintaining the perception of product value. Further, systems and methods for providing a discount are described which impose little or no cost on the service or product provider. An embodiment of an inventive method includes presenting a display of a price paid by a consumer without access to the virtual currency along with a display of an amount payable by the end-user in actual currency in combination with an amount payable in virtual currency by an end-user of an inventive system. The end-user perceives a benefit to using the virtual currency since the price paid in actual currency is less than the displayed price to be paid by a consumer without access to the virtual currency.
US07925530B2
In response to a request from a terminal, a sales-force server creates a page for providing information regarding sales activities, and sends the created page to the terminal. An e-mail server sends an e-mail including a word(s) registered in a first word table to a new addressee. The sales-force server provides the terminal with data corresponding to a predetermined number of sales tools whose usage frequency is equal to or greater than a predetermined value. The sales-force server provides a staff terminal used by at least one sales staff with target information, based on calling history regarding telephone calls from at least one customer to a call center. The sales-force server provides the staff terminal with a correction message, upon detection of error information included in utterance of the sales staff which corresponds to voice data created by the staff terminal.
US07925508B1
In one embodiment, the present invention is directed to a communication device that analyzes received utterances and detects when the speaker has a target physical condition.
US07925501B2
Speech is coded using an orthogonal search by calculating a search reference value. An adaptive codevector representing a pitch component is generated. A random codevector representing a random component is also generated. The orthogonal search further includes generating a synthetic speech signal by a synthesis filter being excited by the adaptive codevector and the random codevector. A distortion between the input speech signal and the synthetic speech signal is calculated. One random codevector that minimizes the distortion is selected.
US07925493B2
A method of machine translation, using a bilingual corpus containing translation pairs each consisting of a sentence of a first language and a sentence of a second language, for translating an input sentence of the first language to the second language, including the steps of: receiving the input sentence of the first language and extracting, from the bilingual corpus, a sentence of the second language forming a pair with a sentence of the first language with highest similarity to the input sentence; applying an arbitrary modification among a plurality of predetermined modifications to the extracted sentence of the second language, and computing likelihood of sentences resulting from the modification; selecting a prescribed number of sentences having high likelihood from among the sentences resulting from the modification; repeating, on each of the sentences selected in the step of selecting, the steps of extracting, computing and selecting, until the likelihood no longer improves; and outputting, as a translation of the input sentence, a sentence having the highest likelihood among the sentences of the second language left at the end of the step of repeating.
US07925492B2
A method for emulating human cognition in electronic form is disclosed. Information is received in the form of a textual or voice input in a natural language. This is parsed into pre-determined phrases based on a stored set of language rules for the natural language. Then, the parsed phrases are determined as to whether they define aspects of an environment and, if so, then creating weighting factors to the natural language that are adaptive, the created weighting factors operable to create a weighted decision based upon the natural language. Then it is determined if the parsed phrases constitute a query and, if so, then using the weighted factors to make a decision to the query.
US07925484B2
This invention is an algorithm for estimating the topology of a protein by determination of the free energy from a global entropy evaluation model combined with local correction methods.
US07925477B2
The present invention provides systems and methods for transfer of information between various modeling environments in a model of a system. In one embodiment, a system and method for transferring data between a discrete event model environment and an external model environment other than a discrete event environment is provided.
US07925470B2
A method and apparatus for detecting an abnormality in e.g. in operating characteristics or function of a machine, apparatus or system, the method including providing a data sample set comprising n values of a measured physical parameter associated with the apparatus or system generated by repeating a measurement of the physical parameter n times. An extremal measured parameter value is selected from amongst the data sample set, determining a probability of observing the selected parameter value (e.g. of observing a value not exceeding the selected parameter value) by applying the selected parameter value to an extreme value probability distribution function having a location parameter and a scale parameter. The value of the location parameter and the value of the scale parameter are each constructed using an integer value m (e.g. notionally representing the size of a sub-sample data set comprising m of said measured parameter values) in which m is less than n (i.e. m
US07925468B2
The present invention is directed to an apparatus and a method that characterizes the hiding of coating compositions, such as automotive OEM and refinishes paints. The method is directed to sequentially storing in a computing device hiding data obtained by measuring the color difference (ΔRGB) in reflections of light and dark portions of target areas of a monotonic coating resulting from a coating composition applied over hiding test panel and by measuring coating thicknesses of the monotonic coating that correspond to the target areas, classifying the type of the hiding data, selecting fitting equations applicable to the classified hiding data, fitting the selected equation to match the classified hiding data and locating a hiding thickness on the monotonic coating that corresponds to the threshold value of the color difference at that location to determine the hiding thickness of the coating composition.
US07925457B2
One embodiment provides a flow meter including an airfoil movably secured in the airflow path of a fan in an electronic system. The airfoil is configured to generate a lift component in response to the airflow. A sensor engages the airfoil and generates a signal in relation to the movement of the airfoil. Airflow parameters such as volumetric airflow rate and turbulence may be identified by an analysis of the movement of the airfoil.
US07925451B2
Techniques for displaying chromatographic data using a graphical user interface are provided. Chromatographic separation data that represent a series of measurements for multiple samples at a detection location over time can be displayed on a display device as a series of bands, the bands being arranged to resemble output from an electrophoresis gel. Additionally, the chromatographic separation data may be displayed in the form of measured intensity at the detection location versus time.
US07925444B2
The present invention provides systems and methods that utilize an information architecture for disambiguating scientific names and other classification labels and the entities to which those names are applied, as well as a means of accessing data on those entities in a networked environment using persistent, unique identifiers.
US07925442B2
In order to improve the tie between depositionally equivalent beds relative to two or more basins detected within a multi dimensional seismic volume of interest, pseudo logs based on the average of attributes derived from seismic impedance where the compaction trend is not present are created for each basin. The mean is taken over all available azimuths, following the structural variations of introduced micro layers. The correlation between the pseudo log relative to each basin enable a more reliable interpretation between the different basins from which sound exploration decision can be made. Such a process has been successfully applied to seismic data acquired in deep water environment.
US07925440B2
A system and method for accurate express tolling of highway vehicles. A multilane tolling system comprises a tolling (MVIC) unit that collects information from tolling subsystems arranged to take various vehicle measurements. Preferably, an intelligent vehicle identification subsystem sends vehicle information to the MVIC unit many times per second. Preferably, a vision tracking system (VTS) communicates with the MVIC unit and sends the latter information about the vehicle position using vision tracking sensors. Preferably, an RF subsystem conducts multiple reads of a transponder on a passing vehicle and forwards the read information to the MVIC unit. Preferably, a vehicle image capture unit (VICU) captures images of the passing vehicle when a camera in the VICU receives a trigger from the MVIC unit. Preferably, a driver alert module is used alert a driver passing through a tolling point as to account balance associated with a silent toll tag or pay by plate system.
US07925436B2
A method and device are disclosed for navigation. In at least one embodiment, the method includes determining a route of travel of a vehicle in which the navigation device is located, based upon at least a desired destination and a current location of the vehicle; storing map information including attribute information relating to network area coverage; and determining, based upon at least one of the map information and the attribute information and based upon the route of travel of the vehicle, when network area coverage will permit data information transfer along the route of travel. In at least one embodiment, the navigation device includes a processor to determine a route of travel of a vehicle in which the navigation device is located, based upon at least a desired destination and a current location of the vehicle; and a memory to store map information including attribute information relating to network area coverage, the processor being further useable to determine, based upon at least one of the map information and the attribute information and based upon the route of travel of the vehicle, when network area coverage will permit data information transfer along the route of travel.
US07925433B2
A vehicle tracking device (101), method and/or system are provided. The device (101) includes a location interface (117), for receiving a location signal indicating a current location when operably connected to a GPS antenna; a sensor interface (109), for receiving sensor signals from sensors in the vehicle indicating a sensed status of the vehicle, when electrically or electronically connected to the sensors; and a processor (105). The processor (105) is configured to facilitate receiving, from the location interface, indications of a current location; determining, responsive to the location signal, a determined current location of the vehicle (127); receiving, from the sensor interface, a sensed status of the vehicle (129); recording a pre-defined event condition, when the pre-defined event condition occurs (131) responsive to the sensed status, in a vehicle history; and recording the determined current location in the vehicle history (133).
US07925431B2
A system is provided for removing particulate matter from a diesel particulate filter. The system includes an engine controller coupled to the diesel engine, and to a locomotive controller. The locomotive controller includes an algorithm to create a trip plan to optimize the performance of the locomotive along a route in accordance with a power setting of the diesel engine at each location along the route. Each sensor is configured to output a first alert signal to the engine controller once the trapped particulate matter exceeds a predetermined threshold. Upon receiving the first alert signal, the engine controller communicates with the locomotive controller to determine a time region or distance region within the trip plan when the power setting exceeds a power threshold. The engine controller increases the temperature of the diesel exhaust gas entering the diesel particulate filter during the time region or distance region.
US07925428B2
A method and apparatus for a navigation system efficiently stores the data associated with a calculated route to the destination in a backup memory by incorporating a direction coding method. The method and apparatus can be advantageously implemented in such a situation where the operation of the navigation system is terminated during the route guidance operation before reaching the destination. Since each direction code requires a small amount of data bit, an overall amount of data for the calculated route can be dramatically reduced and can be stored in a small memory space. When the navigation system is restarted, the calculated route will be reproduced based on the direction codes retrieved from the backup memory, thereby enabling to continue the route guidance operation to guide the user the destination.
US07925426B2
Described herein are devices, systems, and methods for managing the power consumption of an automotive vehicle, and thereby for optimizing the power consumption of the vehicle. The devices and systems for managing the power consumption of the vehicle typically include power management logic that can calculate an applied power for the vehicle engine based on information provided from the external environment of the vehicle, the operational status of the vehicle, one or more command inputs from a driver, and one or more operational parameters of the vehicle.
US07925425B2
Navigation information distribution systems, methods, and programs transfer a piece of vehicle position information to an information distribution center every predetermined time period, the piece of vehicle information including a vehicle position and a time when the vehicle passes through the vehicle position. The systems, methods, and programs receive pieces of vehicle position information and traffic information including congestion information, store the received pieces of vehicle position information in order of arrival, and specify a congested road section on the basis of congestion information. The systems, methods, and programs assign a weight of a first travel distance within the congested road section, the weight of the first travel distance calculated on the basis of two of the received pieces of vehicle position information received from the navigation apparatus and congestion information about the congested section. The systems, methods, and programs calculate a first travel time corresponding to the first travel distance, calculate the congested section travel time necessary for passing through the congested section based on the calculated first travel time, and distribute the calculated congested section travel time to a navigation apparatus.
US07925423B2
A system and method for detecting traffic conditions. Communications are performed wirelessly with a traffic detector. A determination is made whether a vehicle is approaching a traffic condition within safe parameters. A driver is alerted of the traffic condition in response to determining the vehicle is not approaching the traffic condition within the safe parameters.
US07925422B2
A glow plug is provided in a combustion chamber of a diesel engine. An ECU diagnoses existence or nonexistence of a disconnection abnormality of the glow plug through a controller. When there is an abnormality in the glow plug, processing for cutting fuel supply of an abnormal cylinder, processing for increasing fuel injection quantity of a normal cylinder, processing for delaying injection timing of the abnormal cylinder, or processing for delaying valve timing of an intake valve of the abnormal cylinder is performed. Thus, suitable startability of the engine can be ensured even when the abnormality occurs in the glow plug.
US07925419B2
A fuel injection control system in which an appropriate command is obtained both before and after learning a correction amount. Command storage means 3 stores a command for pre-learning and a command for post-learning; the command for pre-learning is a command for a pre-learning time, which is a time before correction amount learning means 5 learns a correction amount, and a command for post-learning for a post-learning time, which is a time after the correction amount learning means 5 learns a correction amount; command injection amount determination means 4 refers to the command for pre-learning at the pre-learning time, and refers to the command for post-learning at the post-learning time.
US07925418B2
Various systems and methods are described for operating an engine in a vehicle in response to fuel having varying amounts of alcohol. One example method comprises delivering fuel to the engine, limiting engine speed during vehicle operation to a maximum permitted engine speed, the maximum permitted engine speed responsive to the amount of alcohol in the fuel.
US07925412B2
A system and method for providing stability control for a commercial vehicle. The system may include multiple selectable control tuning modes or sensitivities for defining when the system may intervene to provide corrective action to aid vehicle stability. The control tuning modes may be representative of different vehicle configurations/conditions and a source of input data indicative the present configuration/condition of the vehicle may be provided.
US07925381B2
Methods and apparatus that provide a hardware abstraction layer (HAL) for a robot are disclosed. A HAL can reside as a software layer or as a firmware layer residing between robot control software and underlying robot hardware and/or an operating system for the hardware. The HAL provides a relatively uniform abstract for aggregates of underlying hardware such that the underlying robotic hardware is transparent to perception and control software, i.e., robot control software. This advantageously permits robot control software to be written in a robot-independent manner. Developers of robot control software are then freed from tedious lower level tasks. Portability is another advantage. For example, the HAL efficiently permits robot control software developed for one robot to be ported to another. In one example, the HAL permits the same navigation algorithm to be ported from a wheeled robot and used on a humanoid legged robot.
US07925379B2
Systems for enclosing at least one target product in a covering material, include an elongate product chute having an outer surface and opposing receiving and discharge end portions with an interior cavity extending therethrough and an elongate breech loading chute alignably positioned generally above the product chute, the elongate loading chute configured to direct at least one target product into the product chute.
US07925370B2
A substrate processing system which is capable of preventing dust from becoming attached to substrates without increasing the degree of cleanliness of a clean room to a predetermined level, and also capable of increasing the substrate processing throughput without increasing the burden on workers. a plasma processing apparatus 2 that subjects semiconductor wafers W to plasma processing in a cleaned atmosphere. A SMIF 4 has a enclosure 23 that is connected to the plasma processing apparatus 2 and has a cleaned atmosphere therein, a pod stage 26 on which a pod 3 housing semiconductor wafers W is mounted, a pod mounting portion 24 that carries out removal of semiconductor wafers W from the pod 3 and housing of semiconductor wafers W into the pod 3, and a wafer cassette transfer arm 27 that transfers semiconductor wafers W between the pod stage 26 and the plasma processing apparatus 2 via the enclosure 23. A preliminary loader 5 having a stage-shaped unprocessed pod port 28 that stores a pod 3 housing semiconductor wafers W that have not been subjected to the plasma processing, a shelf-like processed pod port 29 that stores a sealed container housing semiconductor wafers W that have been subjected to the plasma processing, and a pod moving mechanism 30 that moves the pods 3 between the stage-shaped unprocessed pod port 28 and the pod stage 26, and between the pod stage 26 and the shelf-like processed pod port 29.
US07925366B2
Features described herein relate to optimizing a job plan procedure for selecting a plan for executing a manufacturing job. A planner can receive a model of a system that is to perform a job, and may select a precomputed plan that is sufficient to perform the job. The precomputed plan is identified during a first portion of a planning period, and the remainder of the planning period may be utilized to search for and identify a better plan for executing the job. If a better plan cannot be identified by the end of the planning period, then the selected precomputed plan can be executed.
US07925364B2
Provided is an audio reproduction device capable of immediately starting to reproduce audio data, particularly compressed audio data, from an arbitrary point in a forward or a backward direction at an arbitrary speed. In the case where data, to be reproduced, which is stored in a storage device is compressed data, the compressed data is temporarily stored in a RAM. Then, the stored compressed data is decoded by a decoder, thereby extracting a segment of PCM data. The segment of PCM data is supplied to a PCM data buffer formed in a RAM via a reproduction controlling microcomputer. Based on an operation of a rotational operation element, the PCM data stored in the PCM data buffer formed in the RAM is reproduced by a reproduction processing circuit, thereby reducing a rapid change in reproduction speed.
US07925362B2
An autotuning method using an integral of a relay feedback response is disclosed, which obtains an ultimate data and frequency model of a process with greatly removing effects of harmonics by using integral of a relay feedback signal. The autotuning method using an integral of a relay feedback response comprises the first step for integrating a process data; and the second step for removing effects of harmonics after the first step and computing an ultimate gain, a frequency model and a parametric process model.
US07925361B2
Circuits for detecting faults in variable resistive position feedback sensors common in the use of motion control systems, provide a filter coupled to an output signal of the variable resistive position sensor for processing the signal to detect noise indicative of intermittent faults. A memory stores occurrences of signals from the filter. The memory can activate an alarm which indicates that a failure is detected. The circuits are particularly applicable to medical imaging systems such as SPECT, PET or MRI systems which contain a multiplicity of moving components that require accurate motion control and positioning.
US07925358B2
A cardiac transvenous defibrillation lead has a continuous coil conductor within a layer of insulation. A portion of the coil conductor is exposed as a defibrillation electrode. In order to enhance fluoroscopic visualization of the exposed electrode during implant, the end of the exposed electrode is marked with a radiopaque element. The element may be in the form of an adhesive filled with radiopaque material that is used to backfill under the layer of insulation. Alternatively, a tube made of radiopaque material may be installed between the layer of insulation and the coil conductor.
US07925356B2
A far-field radio frequency (RF) telemetry system for communicating with an implantable medical device includes a diversity antenna system. Multi-frame messages each including multiple outgoing data frames are transmitted to the implantable medical device. In response, the implantable medical device transmits response data frames each following one or more of the outgoing data frames, according to a predetermined communication protocol. An antenna control circuit selects an antenna of the diversity antenna system for transmitting the outgoing data frames and/or receiving the response data frames based the quality of signal reception associated with the response data frames.
US07925350B1
Methods of detecting an error associated with an implantable device include powering up the implantable device with an external device, disabling a back-telemetry transmitter within the implanted device after the implanted device is powered up, detecting an error with the implanted device, generating a fault signal corresponding to the error with the implanted device, turning on the back-telemetry transmitter after the fault signal has been generated, and transmitting the fault signal to the external device with the back-telemetry transmitter.
US07925349B1
An implantable system acquires intracardiac impedance with an implantable lead system. In one implementation, the system generates frequency-rich, low energy, multi-phasic waveforms that provide a net-zero charge and a net-zero voltage. When applied to bodily tissues, current pulses or voltage pulses having the multi-phasic waveform provide increased specificity and sensitivity in probing tissue. The effects of the applied pulses are sensed as a corresponding waveform. The waveforms of the applied and sensed pulses can be integrated to obtain corresponding area values that represent the current and voltage across a spectrum of frequencies. These areas can be compared to obtain a reliable impedance value for the tissue. Frequency response, phase delay, and response to modulated pulse width can also be measured to determine a relative capacitance of the tissue, indicative of infarcted tissue, blood to tissue ratio, degree of edema, and other physiological parameters.
US07925342B2
Described herein are methods and devices that utilize electrical neural stimulation to treat heart failure by modulating a patient's autonomic balance in a manner that inhibits sympathetic activity and/or augments parasympathetic activity. In one embodiment, the duty cycle for delivering neural stimulation is adjusted in accordance with one or more measured physiological variables.
US07925332B2
A multi-layered structure in the form of a disposable patch is described for supporting a light source and useful in conjunction with procedures for the non-invasive visualization of veins, arteries or other subcutaneous structures of the body or for facilitating intravenous insertion or extraction of fluids, medication or the like, which in a representative embodiment includes a coupling layer for interfacing and optically coupling with the body surface and conforming to the surface topography of the body portion of interest, a ring for supporting a light source, and a reflective layer between the source and coupling layer for redirecting light reflected from the body surface back through the coupling layer.
US07925329B2
The inventive implantable Doppler tomography system allows, for the first time, the use of Doppler shift for purposes of tracking cardiac wall motion. The present inventive Doppler tomography system methods and devices provide a critical new tool in the physician's armamentarium which provides accurate, real time monitoring of the mechanical performance of the heart.
US07925327B2
The invention relates to the assistance of the navigation of a catheter (1) in a vessel (2). A sequence of cross-sectional images of the portion of the vessel that is of interest is first obtained with the help of an intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) probe (3) and stored as a roadmap of the vessel. A cross-sectional image (10) that is obtained at the current position of the IVUS probe (3) can then be sorted to the position on the roadmap that is the best fit. A model (3′) of the probe, and a model (11′) of the instrument (a stent (11), for example) coupled to the probe, can be shown on a display (6) at the corresponding position on the roadmap.
US07925304B1
An audio manipulation method is provided. A call associated with a mobile device is received. Whether an audio manipulation flag is set for the mobile device is determined. An audio signal from the mobile device is manipulated based on an audio manipulation selection in response to a determination that the audio manipulation flag is set for the mobile device. The manipulated audio signal is routed to a receiver communicating with the mobile device.
US07925301B2
A portable telephone set includes a case having first and second sides opposite to each other, a group of keys is located on the first side of the case, and a card loading mechanism. The case includes first and second portions located on the second side. The first portion can accommodate a battery pack, and the second portion is next to the first portion and accommodates the card loading mechanism. A card in which information is stored can be loaded to the card loading mechanism.
US07925290B2
A system and method for providing high performance dispatch services for a push-to-talk (PTT) communication over a wireless communication network. When a wireless device is powered up, it registers with a server and then transitions to a paging state instead of an idle state. When the wireless device is ready to transmit PTT communications, it sends a message to the server and transitions to a transmission state when a confirmation is received from the server. Once in the transmission state, the wireless device is ready to transmit the PTT communications to the server.
US07925281B2
Methods of evaluating access to Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) from alternate access connections and for improving access to VPNs from alternate access connections such as ISPs. The methods include downloading a set of tests through a network backbone to simulate access to the VPN from the alternate access connection and comparing the results of the test to benchmarks for the test of access to the VPN from leased lines and modems. By obtaining comparisons of the tests and the benchmarks, it is possible to determine the throughput of data through the VPN and tell the customer how its access connections are affecting, among other things, the raw data throughput. This allows the customer and/or the network service provider to adjust the access connections to improve communications with the VPN.
US07925270B1
A wireless communication system has a plurality of base stations. The wireless communication system maintains a data structure that indicates wireless communication capacity for the base stations by time. The wireless communication system processes a user location and the data structure to select base stations having capacity during selected timeframes. A user communication interface has antennas that exchange wireless communications with the selected base stations. The user communication interface selects the antennas to use for the wireless communications with the selected base stations.
US07925265B2
A system and method for managing voice communication between devices located within a local network and other devices. The present invention permits the managing and selective routing of voice communications over VoIP systems, circuit-based cellular systems and public switched telephone network systems based upon predefined criteria such as Quality of Service (QoS) considerations, geographic considerations, cost considerations and other factors.
US07925256B2
A mobile device for roaming between wireless communications networks in different geographical regions is provided. The mobile device includes an interface configured to transmit and receive signals over a wireless channel according to a communication mode using one of a plurality of access technologies. The device also includes a store holding a preferred roaming list having a common block holding data common to the plurality of access technologies, and a set of access technology-specific blocks each holding channel acquisition data specific to one of the plurality of access technologies for setting up the communication mode.
US07925253B2
Systems, methods, apparatus, processors and computer-readable media include a radiated testing module that executes a predetermined radiated performance test on a wireless device. The test dictates various performance-related parameters to measure and log at each of a plurality of predetermined positions. Further, the wireless device receives synchronization information operable to enable synchronization between the logged measurements and each of the positions. The synchronized log allows the wireless device, or another apparatus, to determine a radiated performance characteristic based on a predetermined analysis protocol. Further, the described embodiments allow for the determination of several radiated performance characteristics in a single test, using a single, unaltered wireless device.
US07925247B2
A system and electronic device supporting wireless deployment of communication services to a plurality of electronic devices.
US07925243B2
An enhanced services platform said platform includes an interface for receiving a communication from a user requesting a desired data. A response module parses the communication and retries the desired data. The platform arranges the desired data into a response message that is sent to the user. A user identifier database module stores information about the users in a user profile that including at least a preferences field and a preference value field identifying relative values of user preferences stored in the preference field, wherein when a preference having a higher ranking in the preference value field is non available, a second preference having a lower ranking in the preference value field is utilized.
US07925239B2
A power line communication apparatus is provided with an auto gain detector that detects a gain fluctuation of an AGC (Auto Gain Control) circuit that automatically adjusts a gain of a received signal; a retry ratio calculator that calculates a ratio of retry based on output from an ARQ (Automatic Repeat request) unit that detects an error in the received data and issues a repeat request; and a transmission rate calculator that calculates a transmission rate based on output from a channel estimation unit that calculates a CNR so as to estimate a transmission status. A display displays a transmission status, including the detected AGC noise fluctuation, retry ratio, transmission rate and the like.
US07925236B2
A cross polarization interference canceling apparatus of the present invention includes: error detector 26 for extracting a difference between a demodulated signal that is the main polarization signal in which compensation for cross polarization interference has been made and the received signal which indicates an ideal state of the main polarization, and outputting an error signal that indicates the extracted difference; phase noise detector 27 for outputting a phase noise difference by comparing a cross polarization interference compensating signal that is the opposite polarization signal in which compensation for cross polarization interference has been made with the error signal; a control signal generator for generating a control signal corresponding to the phase noise difference; and phase rotator 18′ disposed prior to, or posterior to, a cross polarization interference canceller for generating the cross polarization interference compensating signal, for controlling the phase of the cross polarization interference compensating signal in such a direction as to suppress the phase noise difference, in response to the input of the control signal.
US07925235B2
A communication system includes: a transmitter including a transmission circuit unit generating an RF signal for transmitting data and an electrical-field coupling antenna transmitting the RF signal as an electrostatic field or an induction field; a receiver including an electrical-field coupling antenna and a reception circuit unit subjecting an RF signal received by the electrical-field coupling antenna to reception processing; and a surface-wave propagation device including a plurality of linear surface-wave transmission lines for propagating a surface wave radiated from the electrical-field coupling antenna of the transmitter.
US07925234B2
The present invention relates to a maximum ratio combining method of spatial-filtered received signals and an apparatus using the same. For this purpose the present invention provides a method for receiving signals by using a plurality of antennas that form a linear array antenna, multiplying a plurality of weight vectors by the received signals, summing the multiplication results for each weight vector, and combining the summing results by using maximum ratio combining. According to the present invention, signals are dividedly received by applying spatial filtering for a receiving direction of each signal and performance can be improved by combining the received signals by using maximum ratio combining. In addition, performance of an MRC-rake and a beam forming gain can be simultaneously acquired according to the present invention.
US07925226B2
A transmission circuit capable of transmitting a modulated wave signal using polar modulation in a broad band and with low power consumption is provided. The transmission circuit generates an amplitude signal and a phase signal based on data to be transmitted, and separates the amplitude signal into a low-frequency amplitude signal and a high-frequency amplitude signal. The transmission circuit amplitude-modulates the phase signal in a broad band using the high-frequency amplitude signal in a high-frequency voltage control section 104 and an amplitude modulation section 105 and amplitude-modulates the phase signal into low power consumption using the low-frequency amplitude signal in a low-frequency voltage control section 106 and amplitude modulation section 107.
US07925223B2
A coil pair having a transmission coil and a reception coil. The transmission coil is configured to transmit a transmission signal having a carrier. The reception coil is configured to receive from a source a reception signal having the carrier and data, and to significantly suppress the carrier while maintaining coupling with the source at any position along and any position proximate to the reception coil.
US07925214B2
Bluetooth standard provides the applications with different profiles which allow for example only a specific number of devices operable in one network using the same profile. Without changing the Bluetooth standards the described apparatus and method provide a solution to allow wireless devices to receive data addressed to other wireless devices. Therefore a wireless electronic apparatus for Bluetooth communication receives data specifically addressed to said wireless electronic apparatus and to a wireless electronic device for Bluetooth communication, said wireless electronic device being operable to receive data specifically addressed to said wireless electronic device, said wireless electronic apparatus being different from said wireless electronic device. This can be realised for example by a wrist display which can pickup the electromagnetic waves containing the audio signals sent to the headset. Afterwards the properties can be displayed on the wrist to inform the user about the status of the audio signals or the cell phone transmitting the audio signals.
US07925206B2
A new approach to adaptive wireless communications suitable for use in military environments and for other purposes is provided. One technique for reliably communicating between a first node and a second node includes the broad steps of establishing a wireless connection between the first node and the second node at a level of communication, monitoring a quality of the wireless connection, adjusting the level of communication if the quality of the wireless connection crosses a threshold, and repeating the monitoring and adjusting steps throughout the duration of the wireless communication cooperatively using the in-band or out-of-band signaling schemes and negotiating the appropriate level of communication link avoiding excessive link outages and signaling overheads. By communicating at a level appropriate for the quality of signals received and adjusting the level as the quality changes, the overall reliability of the wireless communication is improved.
US07925201B2
Sharing media content among families of broadcast stations includes receiving information relating to media content from families of broadcast stations, storing the information such that the information is accessible to at least two of the families of broadcast stations via a computer network, receiving a query for specific media content from a broadcast station, searching the stored information in accordance with the query to identify the specific media content; and enabling the broadcast station to access to the specific media content if the specific media content is identified among the stored information.
US07925196B2
During a first operation, at least one of a first pattern and a second pattern is formed on a first area of an image carrier, and at least the other pattern is formed on a second area of the image carrier. The first area corresponds to a half of the image carrier, while the second area corresponds to the remaining half of the image carrier. During a second operation, a second pattern is formed on an area of the image carrier where a first pattern is formed during the first operation, and a first pattern is formed on an area of the image carrier where a second pattern is formed during the first operation.
US07925186B2
A developing device includes (a) a developing member; (b) a developer container; (c) a partition member that partitions an interior of the developer container into a primary chamber and a secondary chamber; and (d) a developer-conveying unit that is disposed in the primary chamber, the developing device defining a collected-toner-receiving port through which a collected toner that is collected from a toner image carrier is received into the developer container; and a migration opening through which a developer held in the primary chamber is migratable to the secondary chamber, the developing device further including (e) a capturing unit that is disposed at the migration opening and captures a foreign material which migrates through the migration opening together with the developer; and (f) a foreign-material-removing unit that is disposed at the developer-conveying unit and moves the foreign material out of the developer container in accordance with the rotation of the developer-conveying.
US07925183B2
A developing unit is detachably mounted on a photosensitive unit to form a combined unit called a process unit. In use, the process unit is loaded into an electrophotographic image forming device. A rotational shaft of a photosensitive drum projects out from the photosensitive unit. When the process unit is loaded into the image forming device from a top open space, both ends of the rotational shaft are engaged with a pair of guides formed in side walls of the image forming device and guided down along the guides. The process unit is accommodated in an accommodating section when both ends of the rotational shaft have been brought into abutment with stops at the ends of the guides and a trailing end of the process unit is rotated downward about the rotational shaft.
US07925180B2
An image forming apparatus includes a main body, image formation units disposed in the main body, a moving member disposed in the main body, the moving member including a surface facing each image formation unit, a pair of first stoppers disposed in each image formation unit, and a pair of second stoppers disposed in the main body in correspondence with each image formation unit, each second stopper being configured to prevent the developer on the moving member from entering the image formation unit.
US07925148B2
This document relates to an apparatus and method for controlling a camera according to temperature. The apparatus according to an embodiment of this document may comprise a camera comprising lenses comprising a focus lens, an iris, a lens barrel, a motor drive for controlling positions of the lenses and the iris, and a CCD, a temperature sensor for measuring a temperature of the camera, memory for storing information about a relationship between temperatures and positions of the lenses, and a state of the camera, and a controller for controlling the camera to capture an image, measuring temperature variation between a current state and a previous state through the temperature sensor, calculating a position where the focus lens has been moved according to the temperature variation based on the relationship information of the temperatures and the positions of the lenses, and determining whether to compensate for the moved position.
