US08011655B2
A sheet feeding apparatus includes first and second sheet sensors provided in order from upstream to downstream sides in feeding direction on a paper feed path, sheet conveyor roller sets arranged along the path, and a roller controller individually controlling groups of rollers on the upstream and downstream sides of the first sheet sensor, in response to a change in values of output signals from first and second sheet sensors. The roller controller includes an overlapped feeding determining device outputting a determination signal assuming a first value when overlapped feeding occurs and a second value otherwise, in response to the change in values of the output signals from the sensors, an overlapped feeding eliminating device eliminating overlapped feeding by controlling the roller controller upon receiving the determination signal of the first value, and a conveyor roller stopping device stopping the sheet conveyor rollers if the overlapped feeding eliminating process should fail.
US08011653B2
A sheet-feeding device includes a tray for holding sheet media of various widths and a shaft extending across the tray. A plurality of pick assemblies is mounted to the shaft. The pick assemblies are spaced along the shaft so that one or more of the pick assemblies contact sheet media in the tray depending on the width of the sheet media. Furthermore, the spacing of the pick assemblies is such that the pick assemblies in contact with the sheet media define a total offset relative to the centerline of the sheet media that is sufficiently small enough to avoid skewing of sheet media for a variety of different media widths.
US08011643B2
A diffuser assembly with a buoyancy vessel and a chamber for buoyantly raising the diffuser assembly for maintenance work. The diffuser assembly has a support structure, diffusers connected to the frame, and a buoyancy vessel positioned on the frame, capable of alternating between a state of buoyancy or ballast.
US08011640B2
The present invention relates to an air valve, including a valve body, an air valve adjusting pipe, an adjusting bolt, an airtight ring and a screw cap. With the geometric shapes of the air valve adjusting pipe and the adjusting bolt, the airtight ring installed onto the adjusting bolt is in contact with the internal wall of the air valve adjusting pipe to achieve a totally airtight effect and adjusting the level of airtightness.
US08011630B1
A hardware accessory display clip is provided that enables hardware accessories to be displayed on a number of different products without damage to the hardware accessories or products. An integrally connected exterior leg, interior leg, and bridge portion are provided that enables the hardware accessory display clip to be removably attached to a variety of products. An accessory connector member is integrally formed in the exterior leg of the hardware accessory display clip that can be removably received in a variety of hardware accessories.
US08011624B2
A stand attachment structure includes a front cabinet, a rear cabinet and a pair of screws. The front cabinet has a pair of right and left bosses and a holder support. The holder support is formed on an outer peripheral face of each of the bosses at a location spaced from a distal end face of each of the bosses by thickness of a tilting stand holder of a tilting stand. The rear cabinet has a pair of right and left retainers. The retainers are formed at locations opposite the bosses of the front cabinet. Each of the retainers has an end face and a screw insertion hole that is formed on the end face. The screws are disposed through the screw insertion holes of the retainers and threaded into the threaded holes of the bosses to fasten the rear cabinet to the front cabinet.
US08011608B2
A silage pile defacer includes a frame having a rear end and a front end. A transverse beam carrying a plurality of downwardly projecting tines is coupled to the front end of the frame. A quick connect coupler is mounted to the rear end of the frame for mounting the defacer to a quick hitch coupler on the lift arm mechanism of a tractor. The tines are oriented at an angle relative to the frame, allowing the tines to be generally vertically oriented relative to the ground when the defacer is elevated above a silage pile. The tines of the defacer are configured to contact the silage pile and to skive off a face layer of the silage pile when the defacer is lowered to the ground by the tractor lift arm mechanism.
US08011607B1
A mobile bucket assembly for crushing objects includes a frame configured as a bucket that can carry a screen and/or a magnet. The mobile bucket assembly can be attached to a piece of construction equipment such as a front end loader or an excavator for example.
US08011606B1
System and method for comminuting gypsum wallboard received from a series of processing hoppers and milling hoppers by discharge into an assembly including a feed hopper, a barrel and trommel screen assembly for separation and final removal of paper and non-ferrous materials from comminuted gypsum wallboard, and separate assembly for receiving and conveying processed barrel screen discharge waste and gypsum.
US08011605B2
Sewage sludge that has been de-watered to 25% solids is subjected to a combination of shearing and heating that liquefies the sludge, and drops its viscosity to below 12,000 cP. The fact of liquefaction prepares the sludge such that subsequent drying can be done more cost-effectively than hitherto. After drying, the dried sludge can be incinerated.
US08011604B1
A pop-up water jet assembly comprises a housing having a vertical, central axis, an upper end, a top surface, a lower end, an interior and a water inlet adjacent to the lower end communicating with the interior of the housing. A pop-up member having an upper portion, a top surface, a lower portion and an interior in communication with the interior of the housing, is movable relative to the housing between a raised position in which the upper portion of the pop-up member extends from the upper end of the housing and a lowered position in which the top surfaces of the housing and the pop-up member are substantially flush. The upper portion of the pop-up member carries a water outlet nozzle communicating with the interior of the pop-up member and having an axis at an angle to the axis of the housing to discharge water directed in a trajectory away from the pop-up jet assembly, the pop-up member being movable to its raised position in response to water flow admitted into the housing through the inlet and to its lower position under gravity bias upon termination of the water flow. The water discharged from the outlet nozzle may be illuminated by an optical fiber or LED light source mounted within the housing. Also disclosed is a water reservoir system such as a spa incorporating a pop-up water jet assembly in accordance with the invention.
US08011603B2
A liquid storage system includes a liquid container having a plurality of through holes of a nano-size from which volatile liquid contained in the liquid container is led outside by capillary action, and photocatalytic films provided on surfaces of the through holes, the photocatalytic films being hydrophilic during light irradiation, an irradiation unit configured to irradiate the photocatalytic films with light, and a control unit configured to control the irradiation unit in accordance with an amount of the volatile liquid to be led outside.
US08011599B2
A method of controlling evaporation of droplet cloud resulting from nebulization of a liquid expelled from a liquid droplet spray device is disclosed, wherein the liquid droplet spray device comprises a reservoir containing liquid, a perforate membrane plate, a fluid interface for feeding liquid from the reservoir to the membrane plate, an ultrasound generating mechanism for acting on the supplied liquid to cause it to be expelled as a spray of droplets through orifices of the membrane plate, and an electronic control device for controlling activation of the ultrasound generating mechanism.
US08011595B2
A substrate having a coding pattern disposed on a surface thereof. The coding pattern comprises a plurality of target elements defining a target grid. The target grid comprises a plurality of cells, wherein neighboring cells share target elements. A plurality of data elements are contained in each cell. Tags are defined by a plurality of contiguous cells and each tag comprises respective local tag data encoded by a respective set of the data elements. Each tag comprises a plurality of replications of the local tag data. Any tag-sized portion of the coding pattern is guaranteed to contain the local tag data irrespective of whether a whole tag is contained in the portion.
US08011593B2
The disclosed invention relates to an apparatus and method for making secured transactions. Such an apparatus may include a smart card device configured with a display for display a static or dynamic number for making a secured transaction. The display is configured to display a valid card number after the user's identify has been verified using a biometric verification process. The device may further comprise a programmable magnetic strip that is programmed with user data after the user's identify has been verified. The apparatus may further include a cloning process to allow a second device to perform secure transactions. One such second device is a smart module associated with a vehicle.
US08011572B2
A cash dispensing banking transaction machine that operates responsive to data bearing records includes a card reader that reads identifying data from a user card. The machine dispenses cash from a cash dispenser for a financial account without causing the card reader device to read data from a card corresponding to the financial account, when a determination indicates that a voice of the user included in an audio input signal to audio input device corresponds to a particular recognized user stored in a data store in correlated relation with the financial account.
US08011568B2
A board tray, a method for manufacturing a board tray and a tray blank from which the board tray is manufactured, said board tray containing side walls and a bottom wall made of a board layer provided on at least one surface thereof with a plastic coating, wherein areas of reduced thickness are formed in the board layer whereby portions of the plastic layer which have been melted and are disposed adjacent to areas of reduced thickness are compressed into such areas forming double-folded linear plastic compressions which seal on themselves.
US08011565B2
A multi-sided container comprising a bottom wall, a top wall, opposite side walls, opposite end walls, a longitudinal axis and a plurality of diagonal corner walls all are cooperating with one another to form an interior space. At least one of the plurality of diagonal corner walls defined by at least one diagonal corner panel and at least one reinforcement flap overlapping one another and wherein a portion of the bottom wall projects under and beyond a bottom edge of the at least one diagonal corner wall. The at least one reinforcement flap extends from longitudinal ends of the respective opposite side walls. At least one end flap extends from long side of the reinforcement flap and the at least one end flap projects beyond an entire surface of the at least one diagonal corner wall terminating its edge at the end wall.
US08011564B2
A carton having a dispensing opening. The carton can be formed from a paperboard blank so it has six corners and two corner panels and has perforations formed therein to provide an easy opening feature for dispensing product. In addition, the formed carton has improved stacking strength.
US08011559B2
A method for controlling welding forces of a weld tip to a work piece during a vibration-welding process includes positioning an Active Material (AM) element adjacently to a welding interface, and varying a property of the AM element to regulate the welding force. The AM element may be disposed between the weld tip and a weld face thereof, or between the work piece and an anvil. The property may be varied as a function of heat generated by the welding process. A property of each of a plurality of AM elements may be independently and selectively varied via an energy source, or passively. A vibration welding system includes a weld tip and an AM element connected adjacently to a welding interface. The system regulates a welding force applied by the weld tip to a work piece during the welding process by varying a property of the AM element.
US08011556B2
The invention relates to a device (100) for the connecting of strips to an endless strip with a clamping arrangement (110, 120) with a clamping device (110-r, 120-r) on the inlet side and a clamping device (110-l, 120-l) on the outlet side, a cutting arrangement (155) with an upper cutter (150) and a lower cutter (130) and with a joining arrangement, in which at least the clamping device (110-r, 120-r) on the inlet side and/or the clamping device (110-l, 120-l) on the outlet side is constructed as a premountable unit.
US08011554B2
A surgical stapling device including a handle assembly, a body portion, and a head portion is disclosed. The handle assembly includes a firing trigger. The body portion extends distally from the handle assembly. The head portion includes an anvil assembly and a shell assembly. The anvil assembly is movable in relation to the shell assembly between spaced and approximated positions. The shell assembly includes a pusher and an inner guide portion. The pusher includes at least one slot therein and is movable in relation to the anvil assembly between retracted and extended positions. The inner guide portion is disposed adjacent at least a portion of the pusher and includes a raised boss extending therefrom. The raised boss is configured to shroud the slot in the pusher when the pusher is in the retracted position.
US08011551B2
A retraction mechanism allows the full distal retraction of the firing drive from various positions. The retraction mechanism has been developed for use with a hand held surgical apparatus. An embodiment of the retraction mechanism includes a drive member, a first pulley, a second pulley, and a firing drive. The drive mechanism is configured to be driven by a motor. The first pulley is configured to rotate when the motor drives the drive mechanism. The second pulley is movable relative to the first pulley between a proximal position and a distal position. The firing drive is movable relative to the first pulley between proximal and distal positions. In operation, the first pulley rotates in a first direction in response to a distal translation of the firing drive and wherein the firing drive moves proximally upon rotation of the first pulley in a second direction.
US08011541B2
A tool containment system provides various configurations of a flexible member each of which can engage a part of the external surface of a tool to provide connection means for a tether to limit travel of the tool, or to oppose disassembly of tool components, or both.
US08011535B2
A process for closing a fill passageway into a container with a closure unit comprising a pour spout and a closure cap. The pour spout is mounted to a neck finish associated with a container in an anchored position on the neck finish without blocking later removal of the closure cap from the pour spout by a consumer to expose the fluid-discharge outlet of the pour spout to permit discharge of fluid material from the interior region of the container through the exposed fluid-discharge outlet while the pour spout remains in the stationary anchored position on the neck finish.
US08011533B2
A fluid-containing system includes an enclosure that houses a fluid that is contained in a bladder coupled to a spigot and houses a sleeve that is inclined relative to the bottom of the enclosure. The spigot protrudes through a spigot opening in the enclosure, while the sleeve contains dispensable items that can be fed through a dispensable item opening in the enclosure.
US08011530B2
An articulating handle for an item of cookware is provided. The articulating handle is configured for connection with the cookware through a hinge assembly. The handle may be locked into substantially horizontal position such as for use of the cookware, or a substantially vertical position for storage. As such, cookware including such a handle can be stacked in a space-saving manner. A method for stacking cookware and a stack of cookware incorporating such a handle are also provided.
US08011527B2
A can end for a two-piece beverage can is described. The can end has a center panel positioned about a vertical center axis. The center panel has a stay-on tab opening assembly located on a public side. A reinforcing bead surrounds the center panel. The reinforcing bead has an inner curved portion having a radius of curvature located radially inwardly from an outer curved portion having a radius of curvature. The radius of curvature of the outer curved portion is greater than the radius of curvature of the inner curved portion.
US08011525B2
A plastic container for a child-resistant package, including a sidewall with an outer surface, a deflectable release cantilevered from the outer surface and deflectable toward the outer surface, and deflection limiting elements carried by the deflectable release to limit deflection of the release. The deflection limiting elements include laterally spaced lugs transversely extending toward the sidewall outer surface from the deflectable release and having portions normally spaced from the sidewall outer surface, such that deflection of the release brings the portions of the lugs into abutment with the sidewall outer surface.
US08011521B2
A fluid container may include a body, a grip element, a cap, and a nozzle. The fluid container may be capable of containing and dispensing fluid, such as water. The body may contain the fluid and the grip element may be shaped for a user's hand. The cap may be attachable to the body and may be tapered as it extends away from the body. The grip element may provide a user with traction and gripping ability. The cap may be attachable to the body and may be detached to expose an opening through which the body may be filled with fluid. The nozzle may be capable of selectively dispensing fluid. The fluid container may be a sports water bottle shaped to fittingly engage a user's hand. The sports water bottle may be portable and may be used during such activities as athletics and travel.
US08011520B2
A storage rack having one or more clamps and one or more rails. Each clamp has two or more resilient arms attached at a first end to opposite ends of a rear section, such resilient arms having free ends which permit the introduction of an object between the resilient arms. In one embodiment, each resilient arm contains at least one aperture through which a rail proceeds. For at least one aperture, the portion of the resilient arm which forms the outer edge of the forward wall of the aperture touches a first side of the rail while the portion of the resilient arm which forms the inner edge of the rear wall of the aperture touches a second side of the rail. In another embodiment, a deformable extension proceeds to the rear from the rear section of the clamp and contains at least one channel through which a rail proceeds.
US08011519B2
The disclosure relates to a material suitable for forming a honeycomb monolith for liquid filtration and, more particularly, to a mullite material for forming a cross-flow filtration device for separating a feed stock into filtrate and retentate, methods for forming the filtration device, and filtration devices formed from the material.
US08011514B2
Modified resins are disclosed for removing a wide variety of solids and/or ionic species from the liquids in which they are suspended and/or dissolved. These modified resins are especially useful as froth flotation depressants in the beneficiation of many types of materials (e.g., mineral and metal ores), including the beneficiation of impure coal comprising clay impurities, as well as in the separation of valuable bitumen from solid contaminants such as sand. The modified resins are also useful for treating aqueous liquid suspensions to facilitate the removal of solid particulates, as well as the removal of metallic ions in the purification of water. The modified resins comprise a base resin that is modified with a coupling agent, which is highly selective for binding to solid contaminants and especially siliceous materials such as sand or clay.
US08011506B2
A tray is provided for receiving a plurality of pre-filled syringes each having a tubular body defining an outer surface and a chamber having an open first end sealed with a plug and an open opposite second end configured to establish fluid communication with a hypodermic needle, wherein a flange extends from the tubular body at the first end. The tray includes a plate defining a plurality of through-going ridges and a plurality of through-going grooves parallel to the ridges, wherein the ridges are interconnected with the grooves. A multitude of open apertures is defined at the ridges, wherein the apertures are configured for (a) receiving the flange of a syringe received between two adjacent ridges, and (b) permitting the passage of a gas through the plate to contact the outer surface of the syringe.
US08011504B1
The device of the invention comprises a protective cover for an optical device such as a gonioscope, capsulatomy lens, wide-angle lens, or any other lens having an eye-contacting surface. The cover is made sterile and disposable for allowing multiple use of the protected optical device. The cover is made from a soft material biologically acceptable for contact with a human eye. According to one aspect, the gonioscope protective cover is used merely for physically protecting the eye-contacting surface from direct contact with the eye. According to another aspect, the gonioscope protective cover combines the protective function with an optical function that changes the direction of light so that it becomes possible to observe the light emitted from the pupil at angles that are close to the angle of full internal reflection from the pupil medium.
US08011496B2
A conveyor means (1) for transporting articles (3) by an endless conveyor belt (5) is disclosed. The endless conveyor belt (5) has lengthwise two sides (6) and is lead on a support (11) and composed of a plurality of chain links (9). The endless conveyor belt (5) has a curved path (8) in at least one section and the curved path (8) having a radius of curvature (44) with reference to a central point (42) of a circle (40). The support (11) has at least one inner guiding (17) for the endless conveyor belt (5), and the inner guiding (17) running along an inner side section (7) of a side (6) of the endless conveyor belt (5) being directly opposite of the central point (42) at the curved path (8). A plurality of rolls (21) is arranged along the inner guiding (17), wherein the rolls (21) operating with each face (23) of the chain links (9).
US08011494B2
A loading head for use with food articles has a main conveyor adapted to convey a plurality of food articles, an indexing conveyor positioned beneath the main conveyor, and a transfer member positioned between the main conveyor and the indexing conveyor. The transfer member is adapted to transfer each food article from the main conveyor to the indexing conveyor. A buffering mechanism is adapted to move the transfer member between a first position and a variable second position. A pusher mechanism is associated with the indexing conveyor to raise and lower gates from an open position permitting food article transfer to a closed position prohibiting food article transfer. The pusher mechanism includes a cam operably associated with the gates to open and close the gates.
US08011487B2
A clutch outer member (1) for a multi-plate clutch is provided that includes an end wall (7), a large number of fins (30) extending axially from the outer peripheral part of the end wall (7) and arranged at equal intervals in the peripheral direction so as to define spline grooves (20B) therebetween, and an annular connecting part (31) formed on the outer periphery at the extremity of this group of fins (30) and connecting the fins (30) integrally to each other, the fin (30) having an axially-extending weight-cutting bottomed groove (33) formed, wherein the annular connecting part (31) is provided, on a part of its outer end face corresponding to each of the spline grooves (20B), with a reference notch (32) indicating the position of the spline groove (20B), and spline teeth (20A) of a friction plate (3) are fitted into the spline grooves (20B) corresponding to the reference notches (32). This enables differentiation between the weight-cutting bottomed groove and the spline groove of the clutch outer member to be carried out quickly and appropriately and an operation of fitting the spline teeth of the friction plate into the spline grooves to be carried out quickly.
US08011481B2
A method for monitoring the operating state of an elevator drive having a brake includes the mounting of a sensor on a movable brake part. The sensor generates an output proportional to the extent of relative movement between the brake part upon which it is mounted and a fixed brake part. The sensor output is monitored to provide an indication of the operating state of the drive and may be combined with other data to provide indications of a variety of drive states.
US08011478B2
A vibration damping system for an elevator is provided with a damping device (5) that is provided between a cab (1) and a car frame (2) for supporting the cab (1) and whose damping coefficient can be changed. A speed detector detects the traveling speed of a reference elevator car, and a calculation unit (15) receiving the traveling speed detected by the speed detector calculates a control signal for the damping device (5), and outputs the control signal to the damping device. The calculation unit (15) controls the damping device (5) in such a way that, in the case where the traveling speed exceeds a predetermined value, the damping coefficient of the damping device (5) is larger than that in the case where the traveling speed is the same as or smaller than the predetermined value.
US08011474B2
A device for accessing an elevated entry position on a machine including an operator position includes a platform, which includes a step surface, configured to ascend and descend between a base position and the elevated entry position, wherein the platform remains within an existing envelope of the machine throughout ascent, descent, and storage of the platform, and wherein the ascending and descending proceeds along an axis substantially orthogonal to the step surface. The device may further include a lifting mechanism operatively connected to the machine and the platform.
US08011469B2
A tunable sound transmission device for transmitting an engine rumble sound into an interior of a motor vehicle includes a transmission line having a first end in acoustic communication with an air intake tract of an engine. A flexible membrane is positioned to sealably close off a portion of the transmission line thereby dividing the transmission line into two portions that are airflow isolated from each other. A receptacle is arranged at the second end of the transmission line and a user changeable sound characterization device is replaceably installed into the receptacle. The sound characterization device is configured and adapted to provide an intended frequency dependent sound attenuation characteristic and an overall sound dampening level for the transmitted engine sound.
US08011464B2
A vehicle has a motor and axles which are selectively rotatable by the motor, a reduction gear set, a differential transferring torque from the motor to the axles, and selectable one-way clutch (SOWC) assemblies. The SOWC assemblies are connected to a different one of the axles, and are engaged to transfer torque to the drive axles whenever the motor is energized. The SOWC assemblies are disengaged when the motor is de-energized to prevent rotation of the rotor and various elements of the reduction gear set and differential. A method minimizes parasitic spin losses in an electric rear drive motor (eRDM) system. The method includes engaging a pair of SOWC assemblies when the motor is on to transfer torque from the motor to the axles, and disengaging the SOWC assemblies when the motor is off to prevent rotation of a rotor and of elements of the reduction gear set and differential.
US08011458B2
A ZTR vehicle includes true or proper ZTR steering in the forward and reverse directions. The vehicle has independently driven locomotive drives that drive the wheels to provide mobility and steering to the vehicle. A steering wheel is included that pivots one of two steering input members that rotate to independently shift the drive units. A speed and direction pedal is also included, which is communicated to provide direction and magnitude input to the drive units. The steering input and speed and direction inputs coordinate propelling the vehicle such the vehicle turns in the same direction when traveling forward as well as in reverse.
US08011457B2
A drill bit assembly comprises a bit body intermediate a shank and a working face. The shank is adapted for connection to a drill string. The drill string comprising a fluid passage at least partially disposed within the body. A hammer assembly is movably disposed within the fluid passage along it central axis, the hammer assembly comprises a proximal end stabilized by a centralized upper bearing and a distal end stabilized by centralized a lower bearing. The distal end protrudes out of the working face and the hammer assembly comprises a carrier between the upper and lower bearings. Wherein, under normal drilling operations the carrier is adapted to resist a fluid pressure within the fluid passageway such that the fluid pressure will further extend the distal end of the hammer assembly from the working face by pushing on the carrier.
US08011455B2
A percussive assisted rotary drill includes a top sub for connection with a drill pipe. The drill pipe imparts torque to the drill and also supplies motive fluid to the drill. The drill includes a shank adapter to facilitate affixing a rotary drill bit to the drill. The motive fluid is divided between a bit flow which flows through the bit to clear debris at the bottom of the drill, and an actuator flow. An actuator, which may be in the form of a reciprocating piston, moves within the drill under the influence of the actuator flow to impart cyclical blows to the shank adapter. At least a portion of the actuator flow portion of the motive fluid is exhausted through the top end of the drill.
US08011448B2
A rotary steerable tool (2) for use in a downhole drilling apparatus for adjusting the direction of drilling is disclosed. The tool comprises a tubular outer housing (20) and a row of steering pushers (24) slidably mounted to the housing for movement between an extended position, in which the steering pusher engages a wall of a borehole formed by the drilling apparatus, and a withdrawn position, in which the steering pushers do not engage the wall of the borehole. A tubular sleeve (4) is mounted inside the housing (20) to transmit rotary drive to a drilling bit. A pressure chamber (22) defined between the sleeve (4) and the housing (20) communicates with the steering pushers (24) to move the steering pushers (24) to the extended position. A piston (56) is slidably mounted in the sleeve (4) and is moved by means of changes in drilling fluid pressure between a first axial position, in which the interior of the sleeve (4) communicates directly with the pressure chamber (22) for directional drilling, and a second axial position, in which the interior of the sleeve (4) does not communicate directly with the pressure chamber (22) for straight drilling.
US08011444B2
A locking assembly for the spindle of a tool includes a locking member, a biasing member interconnected with the locking member, and a collar surrounding a portion of the spindle. The spindle includes a spindle slot that receives the locking member to lock the spindle with respect to the tool housing. The collar may be rotated into an unlocked position in which the biasing member holds the locking member out of engagement with the spindle slot. The collar may also be rotated into a locked position in which a cam surface in the collar acts on the biasing member to apply a biasing force on the locking member toward engagement with the spindle slot. The biasing member may deflect to accommodate rotation of the collar into the locked position with the spindle slot not aligned with the locking member.
US08011438B2
An apparatus includes a base pipe and a fluid control material. The base pipe includes openings, and the fluid control material is mounted to the pipe to control fluid communication through the openings of the pipe. The fluid control material has a permeability that may be changed to selectively control the communication of well fluid through the openings.
US08011434B2
A securing device comprises an axially reciprocable drive shaft which has a head adapted to pass forwards through a detent plate. The head is adapted to engage the plate after rotation. A cam slot is defined in a drive housing and is engageable by a cam follower carried on the drive shaft. The cam slot has two end portions extending parallel to the axis of the drive shaft and an oblique intermediate part such that the drive shaft is rotated when the follower moves along the intermediate part and the drive shaft moves only axially when the follower moves along either of the end portions. A subsea assembly including the securing device includes a fixed stab plate including a central collar, and a free stab plate having an aperture through which said collar extends, the collar including an chamber defined by the detent plate.
US08011432B2
An inflow control assembly. The inflow control assembly can include an inner tubular member comprising a hole formed therethrough. A cover assembly can encircle the hole. The cover assembly can include a first outer member disposed about at least a portion of the inner tubular member. The first outer member can be secured to the inner tubular member. A second outer member can be disposed about at least a portion of the inner tubular member, and the second outer member can be secured to the inner tubular member. A screen portion can be disposed between the outer members and between the inner tubular member and the outer members. An annulus can be formed between the outer members and the inner tubular member, and the annulus can provide a flow path between the hole and the screen portion.
US08011431B2
A system and method for cavitating a producible formation is disclosed to improve hydrocarbon production and to increase a production rate without an concurrent co-production of formation particulate. The method and system include conglomerating the producible formation using a conglomerating composition. Once the producible formation is conglomerated, the conglomerated, producible formation is produced above its critical draw down pressure to form a cavity surrounding the wellborn in the conglomerated, producible formation and placing the cavitated, conglomerated, producible formation on production below a higher maximum sand free rate (MSFR).
US08011429B2
A transport assembly configured to be attached to downhole apparatus has a support assembly configured to be attached to the downhole apparatus and a ground engaging assembly, which may be a roller wheel configured to contact with and move in relation to a surface of a wellbore. The roller wheel may engage with the support assembly so as to provide for their relative rotation. The transport assembly also includes a retaining member disposed between the roller wheel and the support assembly, and the retaining member is operable to resist separation of the roller wheel from the support assembly. The transport assembly is further configured such that, when the transport assembly is in use moving along a wellbore, the roller wheel bears against the retaining member, which in turn bears against the support assembly. The retaining member is a ball-bearing.
US08011427B2
A double-acting jar is disclosed comprising: an outer housing; an inner mandrel at least partially disposed telescopically within the outer housing to define a fluid chamber between the inner mandrel and the outer housing, the fluid chamber containing fluid and being sealed; a valve disposed within the fluid chamber on one of the inner mandrel and the outer housing; the valve having a downhole portion that is movable between a downhole seated position in which the valve seats against the one of the inner mandrel and the outer housing and an unseated position, the downhole portion having a downhole restriction surface; the valve having an uphole portion that is movable between an uphole seated position in which the valve seats against the one of the inner mandrel and the outer housing and an unseated position, the uphole portion having an uphole restriction surface; the other of the outer housing and the inner mandrel having a cooperating restriction surface that cooperates with the downhole restriction surface and the uphole restriction surface to set the double-acting jar for a jar.
US08011426B1
A method for gripping a tubular with a tubular gripping mechanism includes the steps of moving the tubular gripping mechanism adjacent the tubular, positioning a jaw assembly of the tubular gripping mechanism around the tubular, applying a force by an actuator onto the jaw assembly of the tubular gripping mechanism such that the jaw assembly moves so as to clamp onto the tubular, removing the force from the actuator onto the jaw assembly such that the jaw assembly remains clamped onto the tubular. The clamping force is directed to surfaces of the tubular gripping mechanism away from the actuator.
US08011414B2
The invention relates to improvements in a roll-up shutter. More particularly, the invention provides an electrically-driven shutter which can be electrically deployed or retracted, and the slats may be electrically tilted for ventilation or vertically closed for maximum security, all by use of a single electric motor. The invention achieves the above objects by providing an electrically driven roll-up shutter, comprising a plurality of upper pivoted link elements each of which supports all lower components, the linkage pivots being arranged to allow roll-up on a shutter shaft or tube, the lowest of the link elements being attached to a slat tilt mechanism, the upper pivoted link elements when in tension with only the highest of the link elements in contact with the shutter shaft or tube form a substantially straight line.
US08011411B2
For transferring an image-forming layer from a transfer foil a printing sheet, an adhesive layer is first applied to the sheet to be printed. The transfer foil provided with the image-forming layer is guided past the printing sheet under pressure, in a coating module (2), such that the image-forming layer adheres to the adhesive and an image is created. The present invention provides a foil transfer device that includes a substrate on the press cylinder that has a reduced adhesiveness relative to the transfer foil.
US08011410B2
A driving mechanism for a labeling machine includes a plurality of driving arm assemblies and a gear set. The driving arm assemblies and the gear set are independent and can rotate quickly and are less likely to be worn off, and can drive feeding wheels coupled on axles to rotate concurrently to draw and convey a roll of film. A dust guarding plate is provided to surround a base. The driving mechanism provides secure transmission and simple repair and maintenance.
US08011409B2
Splicing device to join together two web materials, unwinding device comprising said splicing device
A splicing device to join a first web material coming from a reel being fed (BA), to a second web material (NB), coming from a reel standing by (BB), comprising two heads (107A, 127A; 107B, 127B), each of which comprises: a roller (129A; 129B) associated with a clamping bar (143A, 145A; 143B, 145B) to hold an initial edge of the second web material (NB); a counter-pressure member (109A; 109B) cooperating with said roller (129A; 129B) to press said first and second web material (NA, NB) against each other; a cutting member (111A; 111B); a moving unit (113A; 113B), on which said counter-pressure member (109A; 109B) and said cutting member (111A; 111B) are carried. A first common control member (121) is provided to cause, by the movement it imparts to the moving unit of one or other head alternately: pinching of the first and second web material between the roller (129A; 129B) and the counter-pressure member (109A; 109B); cutting of the first web material; and release of the second web material.
US08011408B2
There is disclosed labeling apparatus including a portable labeler having a handle that can be suspended using a hanger assembly. The hanger assembly suspends the labeler so that the labeler is in a position ready to apply a label and with the handle at an attitude to be conveniently grasped to maneuver and operate the labeler.
US08011390B2
The present invention relates to a regulating device (1) for regulating a fluid flow, the regulating device (1) comprising an actuator element (3) which is provided with a flow area (4) arranged to convey fluid between a fluid inlet (9) and a fluid outlet (13) and which includes a first restriction device (17), and a regulating device body (5) which is disposed at least in a portion of the flow area (4) and which is provided with a second restriction device (19) forming, together with said first restriction device (17), the restriction unit or choke device (17, 19) of the regulating device (1), the actuator element (3) and regulating device body (5) being arranged to move freely independently of each other as a consequence of a material expansion or material contraction, the throughput of the choke device (17, 19) being influenced by an energy source (21) which is arranged to supply energy to at least one of the actuator element (3) and/or regulating device body (5). Also described are methods of using the regulating device (1). The regulating device (1) is also suitable for use as a flow meter.
US08011386B2
A control valve having a shiftable valve plug includes a valve body having an inlet, an outlet, a flow passage extending between the inlet and the outlet, and defining a longitudinal axis, a generally cylindrical valve cage disposed within the valve body and sized to receive the valve plug, with the valve cage including at least one aperture comprising at least a portion of the flow passage, a portion of the valve cage disposed adjacent a portion of the valve body at an interface. A seal having a C-shaped cross section is provided and is disposed at the interface between the valve cage and the valve body, and a retainer is disposed adjacent the interface and positioned to secure the seal against movement along the longitudinal axis.
US08011382B2
A bi-modal bleed valve assembly is provided. In one embodiment, the bi-modal bleed valve assembly includes a housing assembly having a bleed inlet, a bleed outlet, a control servo port, and a control chamber therein. A main flow control valve is fluidly coupled to the control chamber and configured to move between an open position and a closed position to regulate fluid flow from the bleed inlet to the bleed outlet. The main flow control valve is configured to move from an open position to a closed position when the pressure within the control chamber surpasses a predetermined threshold. A switching valve is fluidly coupled between the bleed inlet, the servo control port, and the control chamber. The switching valve is configured to route fluid flow into the control chamber from: (i) the bleed inlet in an autonomous mode, and (ii) the servo control port in a servo-controlled mode.
US08011381B2
Methods and apparatus for providing a gas to a slit valve opening are provided herein. In one embodiment, a slit valve is described. The slit valve includes a housing having an opening, the opening defined by a plurality of interior sidewalls and sized to allow a substrate to pass therethrough, a door adapted to selectively seal the opening, a gas inlet formed in the housing, and a plurality of nozzles disposed in or on at least one of the plurality of interior sidewalls, each of the plurality of nozzles in fluid communication with the gas inlet and the opening.
US08011378B2
Disclosed herein is a megasonic cleaning module. The megasonic cleaning module includes a vibrator having a piezoelectric element mounted therein for generating ultrasonic waves by the vibration of the piezoelectric element, a first vibratory rod having a diameter gradually decreased to concentrate the longitudinal ultrasonic waves generated from the vibrator, and a second vibratory rod for progressing the longitudinal ultrasonic waves, generated from the first vibratory rod, in the transverse direction. The size of the second vibratory rod at one side thereof where the second vibratory rod is coupled to the first vibratory rod is less than that of the second vibratory rod at the other side thereof, with the result that the longitudinal ultrasonic waves are not prevented from affecting the wafer.
US08011360B2
A vented, gas-fired air heater especially designed for temporary heating applications includes an improved burner design providing effective air and gas mixing and efficient burning in the combustion chamber. Highly efficient heat exchanger including corrugated heat exchanger panels provides enhanced heat transfer characteristics.
US08011358B2
A burner for range covers or similar, to allow a broad range of calorific capacities, and a better burner distribution in the cover, with a generally semi-rectangular form, and containing a plurality of ports and a plurality of manners to ignite it, wherein the burner is capable of interacting with other burners at determined length and height distances, creating discontinuous flames between the burners.
US08011357B2
A cutting and dust collecting assembly comprises a rotatable, circular saw blade (4) having a first side (20), a second side (21), and a cover device (6) with a terminal member (52). The bottom surface (36) of the cover device extends in a plane. A longitudinal passage (45, 46) for the saw blade extends through the cover device from its top surface to its bottom surface. The terminal member comprises a terminal chamber (60) having an inlet (45a), the mouth of which coincides with the plane of said bottom surface. An outlet (58) can be connected to a vacuum source. The direction of rotation of the operating blade is such that the rear part (4a) of the saw blade which has passed beyond the bottom surface of the cover device will move in a direction upwards-rearwards towards the bottom surface. The invention also concerns the cover device, a sealing body belonging to the cover device and a working machine which is provided with the cutting and dust collecting assembly.
US08011352B2
A gas introducing structure of an intake path includes a gas introducing path introducing a gas into an intake airflow in the intake path of an internal combustion engine, wherein an inner peripheral surface of the gas introducing path is made of a bottom surface appearing as a straight line at a lower side of a perpendicular cross section of the inner peripheral surface and a curved wall surface appearing as a convex curved line, connecting with each end of the straight line at an angle, at an upper side of the perpendicular cross section of the inner peripheral surface.
US08011351B2
An accurate control of a solenoid-operated fuel injector in a Diesel or gasoline engine specifies that a pull-in voltage (Vpull-in) higher than the generally available battery voltage (Vbatt) is applied to the injector, and that the injection is ended as quickly as possible, in order that the fuel injection closely follows the solenoid current profile. When the initial pull-in voltage is lower than the expected nominal value, a deviation of the injected fuel quantity appears with respect to the nominal quantity. This inconvenience is overcome by monitoring the actual value of a selected parameter, such as the actual value of the initial pull-in voltage (Vpull-in), and the injection start time (te) and the solenoid energizing time (ET) are correspondingly modified.
US08011350B2
In a high pressure fuel pump control apparatus for an internal combustion engine which has a high pressure fuel pump of an engine driven type capable of pressure feeding a controlled amount of fuel by driving a fuel suction valve to close at predetermined timing in a fuel delivery stroke, fuel pressure in an accumulator is swiftly raised by reliably pressure feeding a maximum amount of fuel from a fuel delivery stroke immediately after engine starting while avoiding heat generation by a solenoid for controlling the fuel suction valve, whereby deterioration of a combustion state and exhaust emissions at engine starting can be prevented. A starting time control section continuously energizes the solenoid over a period from the beginning of engine starting until when it becomes possible to perform valve closing timing control on the fuel suction valve based on the rotational position of the engine after completion of cylinder identification.
US08011348B2
A method for intensifying combustion of gas-fuel mixtures consists of stimulating the combustion mixture in a combustion chamber by a pulsed high-voltage discharge of nanosecond duration, wherein the discharge amplitude is set up according to a condition of maximising a heat input in electronic degrees of freedom and in a gas dissociation and preventing the passage of plasma electrons to an escape mode at a main discharge stage, the high-voltage pulse leading edge build-up time is limited by the condition of obtaining a homogeneous filling of a discharge gap by plasma and a pulsed energy efficient transmission to the plasma, a high-voltage pulse time is limited by the condition, wherein a highly-unstable plasma state is attained, the discharge gap resistance is reduced, the discharge gap is better matched to a generator, and an efficient electric power input into the plasmas is obtained.
US08011341B2
An oil pan (20) includes: a pair of oil pan rail portions (21a, 21b), which are spaced apart from each other under an engine body (10a), and are fastened to the engine body (10a); a pair of side wall portions (22a, 22b), facing each other, which are formed integrally with the oil pan rail portions (21a, 21b); and a cylindrical portion (23), which surrounds a driving axle (19L, 19R) passed through the oil pan (20), and is integrally joined with the pair of side wall portions (22a, 22b) near the pair of oil pan rail portions (21a, 21b). At least one axial end (23a, 23b) of the cylindrical portion (23), an upper half portion (23c) of the cylindrical portion (23) positioned over the driving axle (19L, 19R) is thickened upward up to the level near the upper surface of the oil pan rail portion (21a, 21b).
US08011340B2
An oil pan is provided for an internal combustion engine. The oil pan includes, but is not limited to a base part configured to form an oil sump and a suction channel that opens into the oil sump through an opening. The oil pan also includes, but is not limited to a nose in a region of the opening for at least partly covering a cross section of the suction channel in a horizontal direction of flow.
US08011339B2
An electronic module for a fan of an internal combustion engine in a motor vehicle comprising at least one deformable element (12, 28, 68), which when deformed can engage with a part (4) of the fan in a detachable manner, and at least one rigid projecting retaining element (24, 66), which can be inserted in a direction of insertion into a receptacle (26) or opening (38, 78) of a fan frame (4) before the deformable element (12, 28, 68) engages, wherein after the retaining element (24, 66) is inserted into the receptacle (26) or opening (38, 78), the electronic module (2) is movable with a single degree of freedom different from the direction of insertion in order to bring the deformable element (12, 28, 68) into engagement with the fan frame.
US08011330B2
The present invention relates to the reduction of harmful exhaust emissions on ships using diesel engines equipped with a wet emissions reduction system. In particular, the invention relates to a large diesel internal combustion engines installed on a ship and fitted with a wet emissions reductions system that is supplied water by an onboard advanced wastewater treatment system (AWTS).
US08011326B2
A cat toy in the form of a hollow spherical shell having an opening configured therein. A power supply is supported by the interior of said shell, and a spindle emanates from the power supply and extends toward the opening. An offset weighted element having a borehole configured therein is provided for receipt of the spindle, as is a motor for rotating the offset weighted element about said spindle. A shaft is included for attachment to the spindle which is sized to pass through the opening and which further supports an attractant external to the hollow spherical shell.
US08011318B1
An article support system for supporting articles and collecting paint or stain that drips off of the articles includes a plurality of stanchions being positioned and upwardly extending from a support surface. Each of the stanchions includes a top wall, a bottom wall and a perimeter wall that extends between the top wall and the bottom wall. Each of a plurality of span assemblies is mounted to a pair of the stanchions and extends between the stanchions. The span assemblies support the articles above the support surface when the articles are placed on and extend between the span assemblies positioned adjacent each other.
US08011315B2
A thin film forming apparatus such that a substrate can be easily fixed/removed to/from the outer circumferential surface of a drum type substrate holder through a simple arrangement.The drum type substrate holder (5) is supported in a horizontal posture rotatably about a horizontal rotational shaft in a film deposition chamber A jig (13) holding a substrate (12) fixedly is transferred by an arm horizontally onto the outer circumferential surface of the drum type substrate holder (5), and an end part (13b) of the substrate fixing jig (13) can be secured by a securing device (14) provided at the corner part (5a) of the outer circumferential surface of the drum type substrate holder (5).
US08011314B2
A personal dive device includes a body having a power source that is disposed in the body with a voltage of the power source being greater than or equal to about 37 volts. A controller is in electrical communication with the power source. A rotary device is in selective electrical communication with the controller and a propeller assembly is engaged with the rotary device. A method for controlling the speed of a personal dive device includes providing a personal dive device having a power source disposed within a body and an electronic controller. A signal from a trigger mechanism is received. An effective power output from the power source is varied based on the signal from the trigger mechanism. The effective power output from the power source is provided to a rotary device that is in selective electrical communication with the electronic controller.
US08011311B2
An apparatus for inhibiting and removing marine deposits from a submerged portion of a boat or yacht include a submersible stainless steel frame having a plurality of sections extending longitudinally and transversely under the submerged portions of a watercraft and a plurality of nozzles disposed on said sections of the frame to direct a stream of air bubbles toward and against the submerged portion of the watercraft. The apparatus also includes an air compressor, a battery and a solar source of energy for charging the battery to power the air compressor. A plurality of valves and hoses are also provided for connecting each of the nozzles to the air compressor through one of the valves to thereby control the flow of air to each of said nozzles on each of said sections of the frame. A mechanism for positioning the frame and nozzles at about 40 cm away from the lowest point of a watercraft is provided as well as a timer for periodically starting and stopping the flow of air to the nozzles.
US08011309B2
The invention provides an innovative yet straightforward approach to driving the seed distribution system in planters which feature hinged winged extensions. The flexibility of the hinged winged extensions may allow the planter to adjust to the contours of a field and to fold to facilitate transport of the planter. In one embodiment, for example, the invention may provide a mechanical coupling between several sections of a seed drive shaft which may support and be driven by a hydraulic motor for each of the winged sections. The seed drive system may also be coupled to row units to synchronize and power the distribution of seeds by the planter.
US08011306B2
A railroad car truck for a railroad freight car, such as an autorack car, has a bolster mounted cross-wise between two sideframes. The bolster ends are mounted on respective spring groups carried by the sideframes. The bolster can translate laterally relative to the sideframes. The side frames are mounted to swing laterally relative to the wheel sets, and hence relative to the rails. Resistance to lateral deflection is provided by the resistance of the sideframes to the pendulum swinging motion, and by shear in the spring groups. The truck has a doubled damper arrangement of dampers in a four-cornered layout at each end of the bolster, giving a flexing resistance to yaw between the sideframes and the bolster ends. The doubled damper arrangement works against large wear plates mounted on the sideframe columns. The large wear plates are mounted normal to the dampers and square to the sideframes.
US08011305B2
The present invention relates to symmetrical arrangements in multi-unit articulated rail road cars. A multi-unit railroad car has an odd number of railcar units joined end to end by articulated connectors supported by railcar trucks. The railroad car has a transverse centerline. The arrangement of articulated connectors about the transverse centerline is symmetrical.
US08011293B2
A speed cooking oven with sloped oven floor and reversing gas flow is disclosed comprising a cooking cavity, a controller, thermal heating source, blower assembly, air directing means, and a sloped oven floor that directs air flow from the oven side walls to oven center thereby producing a highly turbulent reversed air flow.
US08011282B2
A sheet processing device having punch processing device(s) for punch-processing on a conveyed sheet member and a punch-scrap storage box for storing punch scraps therein that are produced by the punch processing and dropped from the punch-processing device(s) having an increased storing capacity of punch scraps, including a punch-scrap storage box constituting an air distribution duct having a punch-scrap suction inlet and an air discharge outlet; and air-sucking device(s) (fan) arranged on the most downstream side in the air discharge outlet of the air flowing direction for conveying the punch scraps produced by the punch processing device(s). Air is sucked by the fan so as to catch the punch scraps with punch-scrap separating device(s) arranged on the upstream side of the air flowing direction of the fan so that the punch scraps are heaped within the punch scrap storage box.
US08011275B2
A method of designing a rotary drill bit includes selecting and positioning a plurality of cutting elements on a rotary drill bit. At least one substantially helically extending feature is selected and positioned to rotationally follow at least one of the plurality of cutting elements, the at least one substantially helically extending feature exhibiting a selected maximum Helical Pitch.
US08011273B2
A wave generator (4) of a wave gear device (1) is formed from a material in which only the minor axis-side portions (51, 52), which include the two end portions (51a, 52a) of an elliptical minor axis Lmin, has a larger coefficient of linear expansion than the other portions. When the temperature of a rigid cam plate (5) increases during high-speed rotational input, the minor axis-side portions (51, 52) thermally expand considerably more than the other portions do, and balls (10) other than several balls (10b) on a minor axis Lmin of a wave bearing (7) enter a tight state and form a locked state in which the wave bearing (7) rotates integrally with the rigid cam plate (5). Since the generation of agitation resistance of the lubricating agent due to the high-speed rolling movement of the balls (10) during high-speed rotational input can be avoided or reduced, a reduction of the torque transmission efficiency caused by the agitation resistance can be prevented or inhibited.
US08011272B1
The epicyclical drive incorporates a dual flywheel carrying a pinion in a balanced axially compact assembly. The assembly includes a counterweight for the pinion nested between the flywheels, which also connects the flywheels and transfers loading conditions therebetween, to reduce and distribute torsional and eccentric loading conditions and reduce vibrations. The use of a second flywheel also provides an improved rotary seal capability for keeping out dust, debris and moisture. The drive is adapted for incorporation into a floor of a header of an agricultural harvesting machine for reciprocatingly driving a sickle thereof, advantageously jointly with a mirror image companion drive in a side by side relationship and timed such that forces generated by the reciprocating actions are cancelled.
US08011270B2
A pedal assembly including a pedal support and a pedal member rotatably coupled to the pedal support to allow pivotal movement of the pedal member about a pivot axis. The pedal assembly further includes a friction member having a bearing surface, and a clamp member engaged with the pedal member and having an engagement surface abutting the bearing surface of the friction member to define at least two separate and distinct surface contact regions. The pedal assembly also includes a biasing member arranged to bias the clamp member to provide frictional engagement along the separate and distinct surface contact regions to resist pivotal movement of the pedal member. In one embodiment, the clamp member is engaged with the pedal member by a sliding pivot configured to allow the clamp member to be pivotally and slidably displaced relative to the pedal member during pivotal movement of the pedal member.
US08011261B2
A transmission is provided having a dual clutch to achieve torque flow through a countershaft gearing arrangement. The countershaft gearing arrangement includes a plurality of co-planar gear sets having gears that are selectively connectable to a countershaft. A transfer gear set transfers torque from the countershaft to an output shaft. The output shaft is connected to a final drive unit that has a final drive unit output shaft that is transverse to an input member connected at one end to a torque converter and at the other end to the dual clutch.
US08011255B2
One embodiment of the present patent application is a method of monitoring a rotating part. The method includes providing a shaft, a sensor, a processor, an energy storage device, and a transmitter. The method further includes mounting the sensor directly on the shaft and mounting said processor, said energy storage device, and said transmitter to rotate with said shaft. The method further includes rotating the shaft and waking the processor for a period of time and drawing energy to the processor from the energy storage device to provide the processor in an active mode during the period of time. The method also includes sampling the sensor during the period of time. It also includes returning the processor to sleep mode. The method also includes transmitting data derived from the sensor.
US08011253B2
A stress-wave sensor module, a stress-wave sensor, and a method for detecting a vehicle collision event utilizing the stress-wave sensor are provided. The stress-wave sensor has first and second support members and a diaphragm member coupled between the first and second support members. The stress-wave sensor further has first and second strain gauge sensors coupled to both the first support member and the diaphragm member. The first and second strain gauge sensors generate first and second signals, respectively, in response to the first and second strain gauge sensors detecting deflection of the diaphragm member due to stress waves propagating through the diaphragm member.
US08011242B2
According to some embodiments, a sensor device for determining forces exerted by a cyclist on a pedal of a bicycle is provided. The sensor device includes a plurality of sensors coupled to a substrate, and wiring coupled to the sensors and the substrate, wherein the sensors, the substrate, and the wiring are housed inside a pedal spindle coupled to the pedal. The sensor device may also be used in a system for improving a pedaling technique of a cyclist.
US08011237B2
Subject matter disclosed herein may relate to energy harvesting piezoelectric modules as may be used, for example, in power supplies for tire pressure monitoring systems.
US08011236B2
A method of monitoring a pressure (P) of a tire of a motor vehicle involves measuring a pressure (P) of the tire and comparing the measured pressure with at least one reference value (PrM, Prm, Pr). The reference value (PrM, Prm, Pr) varies in accordance with a temporal law that depends on at least one of the following parameters: a temporal benchmark, a speech of the vehicle, a temperature of the tire, and a parameter that is based on at least one of the previous three parameters. The reference value (PrM, Prm, Pr) varies between first and second extreme values.
US08011232B2
A method for diagnosing a condition of a system for supplying fuel to a fuel injected controlled-ignition internal combustion engine, of a type including an electric control device that makes use of an oxygen probe for closed-loop regulation of a value of air/fuel ratio admitted to combustion chambers of the engine, and according to which a signal delivered by an oxygen probe is analyzed, the method a) deducing from the signal, a change in a effective injection time making it possible to regulate richness of exhaust gases leaving the engine; b) calculating CRITERION=∫(CRITERION 1+CRITERION2+CRITERION3); c) comparing CRITERION against predetermined minimum and maximum threshold values THRESHOLD_MIN and THRESHOLD_MAX; d) diagnosing a defective condition when CRITERION is outside of a window included between THRESHOLD_MIN and THRESHOLD_MAX.
US08011231B2
The control apparatus for the internal combustion engine includes: a unit for detecting the change in the alcohol concentration of a fuel supplied to the internal combustion engine including a plurality of cylinders; a unit for detecting an air-fuel ratio variation between the plurality of cylinders; a unit for making the failure diagnosis when the air-fuel ratio variation between the plurality of cylinders exceeds a predetermined threshold value; and a unit for inhibiting the failure diagnosis executed based on the air-fuel ratio variation between the plurality of cylinders when the change in the alcohol concentration is detected.
US08011222B2
An impact detection device, as well as a system that includes such a device for simulation of a combat sport, or more generally for use in a sport in which the user creates an impact by striking an adversary or an object. This device includes a sensor that detects an impact and its intensity, which is mounted on a printed circuit, together with an indicator that activates when the detector detects an impact and/or in order to indicate to a user that the user must generate an impact. The indicator is imbedded in a protective covering so that it is located near the surface of its embedding material. The indicating means are mounted directly on the printed circuit, so that the embedding material also covers the printed circuit and the sensor.
US08011217B2
The present invention provides for a handle set for a lock with a latch, the handle set having an authentication circuit and actuator in the interior handle that allow access to authenticated transponders. The present invention also provides a device and method for transmitting a rotational movement and force in an electronic lock, wherein the transmission takes place in a coupled state and not in a decoupled state and wherein the transmission of force does not damage an actuator that requires little energy to change between the coupled and decoupled states. The handle set can include a coupling cartridge that can be easily handed. The electronic lock can be retrofitted in installed mortise locks and used with cylindrical locks. The electronic lock can include a security feature that prohibits the electronic lock from changing between the coupled and decoupled states.
US08011208B2
According to an embodiment of the invention a method of manufacturing optical fiber cane comprises the steps of: (i) providing a core rod manufactured of relatively low viscosity glass; (ii) depositing SiO2 based soot around the core rod to form a soot preform, the soot being of relatively high viscosity material such that the softening point of the low viscosity glass is at least 200° C. lower than the viscosity of the high viscosity outer core region; and (iii) consolidating the soot of the soot preform by exposure to hot zone at temperatures of 1000° C.-1600° C. The soot is consolidated by heating the outer portion of the soot preform at a relatively fast heating rate, the heating rate being sufficient to densify the soot, so as to render the densified material with enough rigidity to confine the heated core rod and to prevent the heated core rod from puddling.
US08011206B2
A charm is provided including a body formed from a pliable material including an opening. A first member is at least partly inserted into the opening and is secured to the body. A cap is connected to the first member and is located external of the body. A method for securing such a cap to the charm is also provided.
US08011203B1
Provided is a refrigeration appliance including a cabinet defining a fresh-food compartment and a freezer compartment. The refrigeration appliance includes a refrigeration system that is operable to provide a cooling effect to an interior of the fresh-food and freezer compartments. A pair of doors is pivotally connected to the cabinet with a hinge assembly for restricting access to the interior of the fresh-food compartment. Each door includes a side portion extending between an exterior face and an interior portion of the door. The side portions of the doors generally oppose each other when the doors are closed. A user interface is also provided to the side portion of at least one of the doors comprising an input device to be manipulated by a user for controlling a target temperature within at least one of the fresh-food and freezer compartments.
US08011201B2
A refrigeration system is provided for use with an ultra-low temperature freezer having a deck and a refrigerated cabinet supported above the deck. The system has a first refrigeration stage and a second refrigeration stage. The first stage defines a first fluid circuit for circulating a first refrigerant. The first stage has a first compressor, a condenser and a first expansion device that is in fluid communication with the first fluid circuit. The second stage defines a second fluid circuit for circulating a second refrigerant. The second stage has a second compressor, a second expansion device and an evaporator that is in fluid communication with the second fluid circuit. The system includes an insulated enclosure supported within the deck and a split-flow heat exchanger that is in fluid communication with the first and second fluid circuits and which is located within the insulated enclosure.
US08011194B2
A collapsible foldable cooler can be converted to a stadium seat by folding back a top lid and folding diagonally down the top portions of the sidewalls. The folded down top lid extends along the back wall, forming a part of a converted stadium seat backrest, while the sidewalls form the sides of the stadium seat.
US08011191B2
A two-stage cascade refrigeration system is provided having a first refrigeration stage and a second refrigeration stage. The first refrigeration stage defines a first fluid circuit for circulating a first refrigerant, and has a first compressor, a condenser, and a first expansion device that is in fluid communication with the first fluid circuit. The second refrigeration stage defines a second fluid circuit for circulating a second refrigerant, with the second refrigeration stage having a second compressor, a second expansion device, and an evaporator that is in fluid communication with the second fluid circuit. A heat exchanger is in fluid communication with the first and second fluid circuits to exchange heat between the first and second refrigerants. At least one of the first or second compressors is a variable speed compressor.
US08011184B2
An electric booster which drives an electric motor (40) in response to a movement of an input member (9) moving together with a brake pedal (B), and generates a brake hydraulic pressure in a master cylinder (10) through a ball screw mechanism (50). The electric motor (40) includes a stator (41) having a coil therein, a rotor (42) which rotates by applying current to the stator (41), and an annular motor casing (2) containing the stator (41) and the rotor (42). The ball screw mechanism (50) is fittedly disposed in the rotor (42). An opening (3b) on one axial end side of the motor casing (2) has a larger diameter than an outer diameter of the ball screw mechanism (50). In manufacturing, after the electric motor (40) alone is tested, the ball screw mechanism (50) is inserted through the opening (3b) and installed without the need of disassembling the motor casing (2).
US08011159B1
The invention provides a composite building that will float if the building site is flooded. The materials of the composite are resistant to mold and mildew.
US08011157B2
A grating system provides enhanced see through characteristics and typically includes longitudinal deep bars, axial crossbars, axial filler bars between the crossbars and longitudinal joining bars which join the crossbars and filler bars to one another. The deep bars are part of a first subassembly and the other bars are part of a second subassembly which may be lowered to join the two subassemblies to one another. The crossbars and filler bars are typically seated on the deep bars. The joining bars are typically above and aligned with the deep bars. The upper surfaces of the crossbars and filler bars are usually substantially flush with one another. The grating system is configured to support vehicular and pedestrian traffic.
US08011131B2
A water percolating earthen vase with smooth, compacted walls is formed in the earth. Water is applied and stems of cut flowers inserted for flower display. Water percolates from the vase, eliminating undesirable standing and stagnant water. Methods and forming tool are disclosed.
US08011128B1
The present invention relates to an apparatus for loading a barrel of a muzzle loading firearm to provide powder and a projectile at a breach end of the barrel. The apparatus comprises: (i) a handle having a central longitudinal axis and adapted to be gripped by one hand, the handle having an opening between opposed ends along the axis; (ii) a moveable casing having a head and mounted in the opening adjacent one end of the handle and adapted to receive a ramrod of the muzzle loading rifle into the casing; (iii) a retaining means for retaining the casing within the opening, the retaining means mounted on the handle with at least a portion of the retaining means mounted inside the opening; and (iv) a coil spring mounted in the opening inside the handle between the portion of the retaining means mounted in the opening and the head of the casing. When the ramrod is used to force the projectile onto powder in the barrel at the breach end, the casing is moved towards the portion of the starter against the coil spring to pressure the projectile against the powder. The retaining means can comprise a starter for the projectile extending from one end of the handle. The starter is adapted to start a projectile in the barrel of the muzzle loading firearm.
US08011121B2
A coupler for a backhoe or other excavator includes a frame with a lock system including a first safety lock that moves relative to a first hook between an engaged position for capturing the first associated attachment pin in the first hook and a disengaged position for releasing the first associated attachment pin from the first hook. An actuator moves the first safety lock between its engaged and disengaged positions. At least a first lock arm is movable between a locked position and an unlocked position. The first lock arm engages and retains the first safety lock in its engaged position when the first lock arm is in its locked position. The first lock arm is movable to its unlocked position by contact with the associated backhoe or excavator arm when the frame is moved to a curled position relative to the associated backhoe or excavator arm.
US08011116B2
A method is provided for removing a residual fluid remaining at a point of contact between a substrate support member and a back surface of a substrate being prepared by a proximity head. According to the method, the proximity head is applied onto the back surface of the substrate and the substrate support member being held by a carrier. The substrate support member is heated after the substrate support member passes the proximity head. The heating of the substrate support member is discontinued once the residual fluid has substantially evaporated.
US08011108B2
A novel and useful leveling device and more specifically a leveling device which is primarily constructed for the purpose of constructing walls. The device has three glass level components that provide the user with not only side to side leveling of the wall, but also a front to back leveling.
US08011104B2
Cutting members for razors are provided that have been subjected to a localized heat-treating process, e.g., application of laser energy. In some cases, the cutting members include a bent portion, and the localized heat-treating process is used to enhance ductility and thereby facilitate formation of the bent portion.
US08011099B2
A method of manufacturing an orientation film which method is suitable for manufacturing an orientation film containing a ceramic at low cost. The method includes the steps of: (a) forming a film containing a piezoelectric ceramic on a seed substrate in which crystal orientation is controlled at least on a surface thereof by using an aerosol deposition method of injecting powder toward a substrate and depositing the powder on the substrate; and (b) heat-treating the ceramic film formed at step (a) to form an orientation film in which crystal grains contained in the ceramic film is oriented.
US08011095B2
The invention relates to a method for producing a piston for a combustion engine comprising a combustion recess, during which an annular fiber preform for reinforcing the edge of the combustion recess is firstly fastened inside the casting mold. Afterwards, a low-silicon aluminum/copper melt is introduced into the casting mold by which the fiber preform is infiltrated and molded into the recess edge within the scope of the casting process. The piston blank produced in this manner is then subsequently compacted by a high-temperature isostatic pressing before the piston is completed by means of a machining completion process. The flanks and the base areas of the second and third annular groove are coated by means of anodic oxidation, and the hub boreholes are smoothed and hardened by roller-burnishing. This results in a very high-quality and heavy-duty piston.
US08011087B2
A method for assembling a lens module with an image sensor, includes providing a holder having first and second receiving spaces, disposing the image sensor in the second receiving space, locating lens barrel at a first position in the first receiving space, casting a light beam on the lens module to allow the lens module to converge the light beam into a light spot on the image sensor, determining if the light spot is at its smallest to determine if a distance between the lens module at the first position and the image sensor is equal to a focal length of the lens module, moving the lens module to a second position in the first receiving space to achieve a predetermined distance from the first position, and positioning the lens module at the second position.
US08011086B2
A method of manufacturing a component-embedded printed circuit board is disclosed. By using a method of manufacturing a component-embedded printed circuit board, which includes: mounting a component on a first copper foil, on which a pattern is formed, such that the component is electrically connected with the pattern; stacking an insulation layer, which has a cavity formed in a position corresponding to the component, on a second copper foil, on which at least one conductive protrusion is formed; stacking together the first copper foil and the second copper foil such that the component is embedded in the cavity and the first copper foil and the second copper foil are electrically connected by the conductive protrusion; and removing portions of the first copper foil and the second copper foil to form circuit patterns, the circuit pattern formed from the first copper foil may be given a buried form, so that it is possible to manufacture a thin printed circuit board, when embedding a flip chip type component.
US08011085B2
A method of fabricating a clamping device for a flexible substrate is provided. A carrier board is provided. A plurality of holes is formed in the carrier board. A fixed positioning assembly and a movable positioning assembly are respectively embedded in the plurality of holes.
US08011083B2
Replacement of a transducer assembly for an ultrasonic fluid meter. At least some of the illustrative embodiments are methods including: disconnecting a wiring harness that electrically couples electronics of an ultrasonic meter to a transducer assembly; removing the transducer assembly as a single unit from a transducer housing; inserting a replacement transducer assembly as a single unit into the transducer housing; and reconnecting the wiring harness.
US08011077B2
A method of retrofitting a steering knuckle of an amphibious vehicle to make the knuckle and axle assembly water-tight includes the steps of providing a neoprene rubber boot; attaching a flange to an axle of the vehicle; clamping one end of the boot to the flange; clamping the other end of the boot to the steering knuckle; and attaching a steering stop to either the axle or the flange.
US08011074B2
The present invention provides a composite structure having a supporting substrate between a piezoelectric substrate and a compensation layer. The materials used to form the piezoelectric substrate and the compensation layer in isolation, have higher thermal coefficients of expansion (TCE) relative to the TCE of the materials forming the supporting substrate. Once the composite structure is created, the piezoelectric substrate and compensation layer tend to expand and contract in a similar manner as temperature changes. The expansion and contraction forces applied to the supporting substrate by the piezoelectric substrate due to temperature changes are substantially countered by similar opposing forces applied by the compensation layer, resulting in the opposing forces substantially counteracting one another. Due to the counteraction, the composite structure resists bending or warping, reducing expansion and contraction and increasing stress of the piezoelectric substrate, and thus reducing the effective TCE and TCF of the piezoelectric substrate.
US08011066B2
A hinge assembly includes a first connecting member, a second connecting member, and a pivot subassembly. The pivot subassembly connects the first connecting member to the second connecting member. The pivot subassembly includes a rotatable shaft, a sleeve, and a positioning ring. The rotatable shaft is non-rotatably connected to the first connecting member. The sleeve is sleeved on the rotatable shaft, and non-rotatably connected to the rotatable shaft. The positioning ring is non-rotatably connected to the second connecting member. The sleeve defines two positioning cutouts, and the positioning ring defines two positioning protrusions engaging with the positioning cutouts. When the rotatable shaft rotates, one of the sleeve and the positioning ring deforms, so that the at least one positioning protrusion disengages from the at least one positioning cutout.
US08011063B2
An overload clutch (10) for a rotating agitation member (11) for a surface cleaning machine includes a clutch member (12) connected to the agitation member (11) to rotate therewith, a coupling member (20) rotatable relative to the clutch member (12), and a torque lever (40) having an end pivotally mounted to the coupling member (12). The other end of the torque lever (40) is biased to engage with the clutch member (12) such that the agitation member (11) is rotated together with the coupling member (20) when a torque load from the agitation member (11) is not greater than a preset level. The torque lever (40) pivots outward away from the clutch member (12) and disengages from the clutch member (12) to disconnect the torque lever (40) from the clutch member (12) when the torque load from the agitation member (11) is greater than the preset level.
US08011061B2
A nozzle assembly of a vacuum cleaner is disclosed. The A nozzle assembly includes a main casing having an air inlet formed thereto to draw in dust or dirt from a surface to be cleaned, a drum brush disposed in the main casing to brush away the dust or dirt adhered to the surface while rotating in contact with the surface, and a subsidiary brush unit disposed in front of the main casing to preliminarily brush away the dust or dirt adhered to the surface in front of the drum brush, and having a cover disposed in front of the main casing, and a subsidiary brush member to come in elastic contact with the surface. The subsidiary brush member is configured to change a relative position to the cover, and thus to selectively maintain a contact state or a non-contact state to the surface.
US08011050B2
The present invention is a device (10) for use in cleaning a fabric surface (16) of dust, dirt, pet hair and other debris (20) present on the surface (16). The device (10) includes a pair of cleaning members or rollers (60, 61) disposed on an underside of the device (10) which can roll with respect to the device (10) and with respect to one another. The rollers (60, 61) are selectively contacted with one another such that each roller (60, 61) can assist in removing debris (20) picked up by the opposite roller (60, 61) and dispensing the debris (20) into a collection chamber (32) releasably positioned within a housing (11). The removal of the debris (20) from each roller (60, 61) is also facilitated by opposed edges of a central opening (58) in the housing (11) that contact the rollers (60, 61) and direct the debris (20) into the debris collection chamber (32).
US08011048B2
A multi-tool attachment having a configuration that is well-suited for incising material and performing various operations where two incising members are positioned on a main portion of the tool and the cutting-edge surfaces are in close engagement with one another at an interface point where the two blades meet in forceful engagement with one another.
US08011043B2
A cushion 302 comprising a molded foam base 302 with an array of individual suspension elements 306 at the ischial area of the cushion. In one aspect the array of suspension elements is in a recess 307 in the top of the base and in another aspect the array of suspension elements is in an inner cavity 406 defined by the base. The suspension elements are arranged in a pattern wherein the longitudinal axis of each suspension element in the array is positioned at a right angle or parallel to the longitudinal axes of the adjacent suspension elements. Each suspension element has a displaceable load-bearing surface 14, a first end wall 20, a second end wall 22, and an optional bottom wall 30, with load-bearing surface and recited walls defining an inner chamber. The material thickness of the load-bearing surface generally is greater than the material thickness of the end walls whereby the end walls deflect outwardly toward the load-bearing surfaces of adjacent support elements under load. The load-bearing surface can have a substantially arch-shaped, elliptical or rectangular cross-section.
US08011039B2
A patient support including a patient support surface, a fluid movement system provided at the patient support, and a plurality of ports mounted at the patient support, which are in selective fluid communication with the fluid movement system. At least one of the ports is adapted for coupling to a device for delivering fluid to the device from the fluid movement system or delivering a vacuum pressure to the device from the fluid movement system for suctioning fluid through the device when the device is coupled to the port.
US08011034B2
A sofa-bed includes: a frame with opposed arms; a backrest operatively connected to the frame; a seat; a subseat hinged to the seat and pivotable relative thereto; an extension-assist mechanism attached to the frame and at least one of the seat and the subseat; and a folding-assist mechanism attached to the frame and at least one of the subseat and seat. The frame, backrest, seat and subseat are configured to move between a folded position, in which the backrest is generally upright, the seat is generally horizontal, and the subseat is generally horizontal and positioned beneath the seat in a first inverted orientation, and an unfolded position, in which the backrest, subseat and seat are generally horizontal, and the subseat is positioned between the backrest and the seat in a second non-inverted orientation. The folding-assist mechanism is configured such that the sofa-bed is biased toward the folded position as the sofa-bed moves from the unfolded position toward a first intermediate position. Also, the extension-assist mechanism is configured such that the sofa-bed is biased toward the unfolded position as the sofa-bed moves from a second intermediate position toward the folded position.
US08011033B2
A sink system includes a sink and a storage area receiving and storing matter from the sink. The storage area receives air from the bypass line during a flush. Also, matter from the storage area and sink is vacuumed through a common line during the flush. A valve limits an amount of air supplied by the bypass line such that increased suction is applied to the sink through the common line. The valve may be manually operated or operated by a controller.
US08011030B2
A pop-up stopper includes a main body having an inside provided with a receiving space and a periphery provided with a plurality of through holes, a control unit removably mounted on a top of the main body and including a top cap and a plurality of connecting members, and a bottom cap removably mounted on a bottom of the main body. Each of the connecting members includes at least one upper elastic plate having a protrusion and at least one lower elastic plate having a protrusion. Thus, the stopper has draining and straining functions to achieve a sanitary effect. In addition, the control unit and the bottom cap can be mounted on and detached from the main body easily and quickly, thereby facilitating a user assembling and disassembling the stopper.
US08011029B2
In a drain socket for a toilet stool includes a vertical pipe including an upper end connected with the discharge port of the toilet stool, an adjustable pipe extending substantially horizontally from the lower end of the vertical pipe and a connecting pipe between the adjustable pipe and a drain of a toilet. The vertical pipe has a bend causing the vertical pipe to have at its lower end an axis displaced longitudinally and rearward of the toilet stool from an axis at the upper end to define an eccentrically curved flow path. The flow path includes a part located near the bend and formed by increasing a transverse dimension of a longitudinal front end thereof with respect to the toilet stool so that the part has such a noncircular cross section in which a front portion of the section has a larger area than a rear portion of the cross section.
US08011027B2
A sealing mechanism for use in protective garments, such as hazard suits and the like, enables components of the protective garments, such as gas masks, hoses, respirators and the like to be removably attached to the garment material. The sealing mechanism includes a framing ring which may be attached to an object to be sealed to the garment material and a locking ring. The framing ring and the locking ring are adapted to engage each other in a snap fit type connection while trapping a portion of the garment material therebetween to thereby form an airtight seal between the object and the protective garment.
US08011024B2
An odor absorbing system includes a head covering article of clothing configured to be worn by a person. The head covering article of clothing includes a base layer comprising a cap section configured to substantially cover a head of the person wearing the article of clothing. An odor absorbing insert is removable attachable to the article of clothing.
US08011018B2
A garment protector is configured to absorb moisture and to thereby preserve a garment of a user. The garment protector can have a pad attached to the garment. The pad can absorb moisture and reduce or prevent moisture from staining the garment. The garment protector can have multiple layers to perform these functions. The garment protector can have one or more application channels. The application channel can span a seam and the associated cross-stitching of a garment so as not to add bulk at the seam that a pad would if over the seam.
US08015612B2
A computer includes a processor. When an instruction to be executed by the processor involves writing to memory, the write can be redirected to a temporary page of memory. The correct amount of data can then be copied from the temporary page to the original target memory address. The advantages of the invention can be achieved, among other possibilities, via re-compiling the program or modifying instructions before execution.
US08015608B2
Theft, distribution, and piracy of digital content (software, video, audio, e-books, any content of any kind that is digitally stored and distributed) is generally accomplished by copying it, if possible, or, if it is protected from being copied in any fashion, such piracy is based upon a number of reverse engineering techniques. Aside from the straightforward copying of unprotected content, all of these other methods require first an understanding of the protective mechanism(s) guarding the content, and finally an unauthorized modification of that protection in order to disable or subvert it. Methods which prevent a skilled individual from using reverse engineering tools and techniques to attain that level of understanding and/or prevent anyone from performing such modifications can offer significant advantages to content creators who wish to protect their products.
US08015605B2
A monitor of malicious network traffic attaches to unused addresses and monitors communications with an active responder that has constrained-state awareness to be highly scalable. In a preferred embodiment, the active responder provides a response based only on the previous statement from the malicious source, which in most cases is sufficient to promote additional communication with the malicious source, presenting a complete record of the transaction for analysis and possible signature extraction.
US08015596B2
A personal credential store that aggregates a number of physical credential stores beneath an application programming interface (API) and offers tag-based credential look-up. The API of the disclosed system runs on the user's client system, and effectively hides the underlying credential store types from applications using it. The tags used to look up credentials through the API may advantageously include or consist of unique identifiers indicating the functional purpose of the desired credential. The types of physical credential store aggregated together under the disclosed API may include a local credential store, a network-resident private credential store that may be shared across multiple client systems operated by a single user, and a network-resident shareable credential store, that may be used by processes acting on behalf of the user, and/or shared by multiple users.
US08015594B2
Techniques for validating a first device are provided. A second device receives a first device public key and first device identification information from the first device. Validation of the first device identification information is required for a security process using a security protocol. The second device sends the first device public key and the first device identification information to an AAA server for validation. The AAA server is separate from the second device. The second device receives a response from the AAA server, the response including an indication whether the received first device identification information is validated with stored first device identification information for the first device public key. If the first device identification information is validated, an action for the security process is performed using the security protocol.
US08015593B2
A method for protecting a data entry device from eavesdropping includes masking a signature of entry resulting from entry of data by a user of the data entry device so as to reduce the detectability of the signature by eavesdropping. The signature may include a temperature differential in the data entry device from data entry by the user and the masking may include controlling the external temperature of the data entry device to reduce temperature differentials left in the data entry device by the user. Alternatively, the signature may include sound waves emitted from the data entry device and the masking may include masking sound waves emitted from the data entry device to reduce the detectability of the sound waves. A system may also be employed for protecting data entry to a data entry device from eavesdropping. The system includes a data entry device and means for masking a signature of entry resulting from entry of data by a user of the data entry device so as to reduce the detectability of the signature by eavesdropping.
US08015592B2
The present invention provides a system, method and apparatus that includes a user device having a magnetic field generator disposed within a substrate that is normally inactive, a biometric sensor mounted on the substrate, a memory disposed within the substrate and a processor disposed within the substrate that is communicably coupled to the magnetic field generator, the biometric sensor and the memory. The processor is operable to process biometric information received from the biometric sensor to verify that a user is authorized to use the apparatus and activate the magnetic field generator when the user is verified. A power source is also disposed within the substrate. The magnetic field generator can create a spatially varying magnetic signal using a magnetic stripe and one or more induction coils, or create a time-varying magnetic signal for emulating data obtained from swiping a magnetic stripe card through a magnetic card reader.
US08015589B2
One and only instance of a video service model component (for example, an electronic program guide (EPG) model description) is executed in a home network gateway, with multiple instantiations of a view/controller module associated with the model module being generated, one for each display device seeking to simultaneously display the video service. In this way the functionality of a single video service model is shared in the network without requiring the underlying model module itself to be replicated.
US08015583B2
A method and apparatus for group billing purchasers of transmitted programming events is provided. In one embodiment, a subscriber group includes two or more individual subscribers who receive programming from a programming provider. The individual subscribers periodically elect to view a program provided via the program provider. The program is provided on a pay-per-view basis, meaning that the program provider requires a sum of money to be paid in order to view the program. The sum of money is determined according to the number of viewers in a single subscriber group. In one embodiment, the subscribers interact during a program via a network connection.
US08015582B2
The availability of a new information service is publicized by displaying an icon in an EPG when the presence of a new information service is detected. A list of new services is then displayed responsive to a user command. When one of the new services is displayed instead of the list.
US08015573B2
An I/O device is provided for use in a process control system having a controller operating under a particular version of communication software. The I/O device has a storage device for storing a plurality of potential versions of I/O communication software. An I/O device processor determines the particular version of I/O communication software utilized by the controller and configures the I/O device to operate using a compatible version of I/O communication software stored in the storage device. Further, an I/O device is provided for use in a process control system including a plurality of I/O devices and a controller in communication using a bus. The I/O device has an interface for communicatively linking the I/O device with the bus, where a device processor, upon detection of a potential I/O device fault, severs the communication link provided by the interface with the bus. Additionally, a process control system is provided having a plurality of I/O devices in communication using a bus. A primary redundant device and a secondary redundant device are coupled to the bus, where the secondary redundant device is programmed to detect a primary redundant device fault. The secondary redundant device, upon detecting the primary redundant device fault, publishes a primary redundant device fault message on the bus. The controller may deactivate the primary redundant device and activate the secondary redundant device responsive to the primary redundant device fault message.
US08015571B2
A computer-implemented method for registering an event includes detecting occurrence of at least one event to be registered in a sequence. The sequence is to have entries for occurred events, each of the entries being a number indicating at least one of the occurred events and being associated with an aggregation number reflecting a number of times the entry has been aggregated within the sequence. The method includes identifying a new entry for extending the sequence, the new entry comprising a first number corresponding to the detected at least one event. The method includes revising the sequence by adding the numbers of at least two entries whose respective aggregation numbers satisfy a criterion for aggregation. The method includes storing the revised sequence.
US08015568B2
A disk drive is described which executes distributed computing tasks including a CPU and associated memory. The communication interface with the host computer is modified to allow the host computer to send executable code for a task to the drive and to allow the drive to communicate the results and status information about the task to the host computer. In a preferred embodiment the disk drive has a task control program, task program code, task data and status information for the distributed task. In alternative embodiments, the disk drive can communicate with other similar disk drives in the bus to provide the results of computation to the other processors. The RAM memory, and mass storage are intimately connected through the associated hard disk controller such that the exact location of the required data and program instructions are known.
US08015560B2
The invention provides a process for managing an application operating on a virtual machine. In the invention, information regarding a program file of the application is stored in an internal storing device of a managing apparatus. The program file is stored in an external storing device, and positional information indicating a position in the external storing device at which the program file is stored is registered in the internal storing device when the program file of the application is received from a client via a network.
US08015557B2
Methods and apparatus to support the execution of a managed application that is linked to a native library or application are disclosed. The disclosed methods and apparatus support a virtual machine that is associated with the same ISA as the executing platform, while the ISA of the native library or application is of a different ISA. The disclosed methods and apparatus also support the execution of a managed application that is linked with several native libraries or applications that are associated with several different ISAs respectively.
US08015554B2
An analysis and source-to-source transformation framework covers dialects of programming languages that lack formal definition for all individual dialects. Multiple instantiations of the same compiler front-end tools can be used with different settings to create distinct intermediate forms and maps. Intermediate forms and maps are used in an individual analysis and source-to-source transformation context, and performing the analysis and source-to-source transformation thereupon. A unified tool set is desirably provided, including standard compiler front-end tools and code transformation/generation tools, wherein source code edits are carried out in order to make the source code more amenable to translation to intermediate forms. The analysis results or intermediate forms created by individual tools are used by other tools as well as further analyzed to create a map of the regions of validity and invalidity of the intermediate forms, and tracking the source-code edits performed in order to obtain the same. Among other benefits, this provides a choice of the best tools combination for maximum code analysis coverage.
US08015553B2
A method and apparatus for testing an execution flow of a program are provided. The method includes measuring the execution flow that reflects instruction values constituting the program and an execution order of the instructions; and verifying the measured execution flow.
US08015548B2
The present invention is to provide a method for enabling Blue-ray Disc Java (BD-J) to effectively obtain context of a corresponding application, namely an Xlet, while playing BD-J title, which comprises the steps of setting up source file attribute of each class by adding an Xlet context ID as an unique code to the class when loading all classes into a cache of the BD-J; looking up back onto a call stack to search for Xlet class of the current BD-J title when searching for Xlet context; and then obtaining the Xlet context through the Xlet context ID according to the source file attribute. Thus, the method of the present invention enables BD-J to normally play the BD-J title in the Blue-ray Disc Read Only Memory (BD-ROM) and, at the same time, effectively improves the playing performance.
US08015544B1
A system and method enable a user to specify function signatures for automated code generators to generate code based on a model representation. The method for automatically generating a function based on the model representation includes providing at least a portion of the model representation. A function signature is received for the model representation. The function signature is generated by a user. The function is generated based on the model representation and the function signature. A user interface can be provided to enable the user to enter the function signature and also to present a preview of a function that results from the function signature as modifications are made to the function signature. The user can enter the function signature using regular expressions, if desired.
US08015537B1
A computer-implemented method of automatic rate realization for implementing a circuit design within a programmable integrated circuit can include comparing data rates of clock domains of the circuit design with frequencies of available clock sources of the circuit design and determining which clock domains have data rates that match frequencies of clock sources. For each clock domain that has a data rate matching a frequency of a clock source, loads of the clock domain can be clocked using a multiple synchronous clock technique with the matching clock source. For each clock domain having a data rate that does not match a frequency of a clock source, loads of the clock domain can be clocked using a clock enable technique. The circuit design specifying the clock circuitry for each clock domain can be output.
US08015523B2
Methods and systems are provided for sequential netlist reduction through trace-containment for a circuitry design netlist by first identifying a cut of the netlist and enumerating a set of mismatch traces. Perform time-bounded unfolding of a cofactored version of the cut to reflect the sequential cofactor for a specific input i and temporal uncorrelation constraints for the set of inputs ‘J’. Determine whether there is trace containment by performing equivalence checking with respect to the cut of the netlist under temporal uncorrelation constraints for the set of inputs ‘J’. In response to detecting trace containment, simplify the netlist by merging the input ‘i’ to a constant.
US08015519B2
In a verification supporting apparatus, a recording unit records a DIRW matrix in which a state transition possibly occurring in a register of a circuit to be verified and information concerning validity of a path corresponding to the state transition are set and an acquiring unit acquires a control data flow graph that includes a control flow graph having a data flow graph written therein. When a register is designated for verification, a data flow graph having described therein the designated register is extracted from the control data flow graph. From the data flow graph extracted, a path indicating the flow of data concerning the register is extracted. The state transition of the path extracted is identified and if the state transition is determined to be is set in the DIRW matrix, information concerning the validity set in the DIRW matrix and the path are correlated, and output.
US08015516B2
A system and method for transforming a physical representation of a functional logic system or sub-system to a logical representation of the same functional logic system or sub-system. One embodiment provides a method comprising loading a physical hardware description language (HDL) representation of the system or creating a physical HDL representation from a physical schematic of the system, identifying the power nets and component blocks, identifying initial conditions on the power nets and component blocks, converting connector blocks to hierarchical IO logical HDL representations, converting appropriate component blocks to logical HDL representations, deleting component blocks appropriate for deletion, and converting resistor components to logical HDL representations.
US08015515B2
A display designing system and a method thereof. The display designing system includes a variety of operation modules and an integration module. After receiving initial parameters and selecting operation type parameters, the operation modules generate operation results and transfer the operation results to the integration module. The integration module integrates the operation results and generates a correspondence relation, such as an operation window, a compare-table and an equation. The integration module then transfers the operation results and the correspondence relation to the output module. The output module displays effect variations of a variety of designs corresponding to the initial parameters. Therefore, the method can provide a user with an easy way to obtain ideal design parameters for designing a display pixel circuit.
US08015514B2
Disclosed are embodiments of a method for randomly personalizing chips during fabrication, a personalized chip structure and a design structure for such a personalized chip structure. The embodiments use electronic device design and manufacturing processes to randomly or pseudo-randomly create a specific variation in one or more instances of a particular electronic device formed on each chip. The device design and manufacturing processes are tuned so that the specific variation occurs with some predetermined probability, resulting in a desired hardware distribution and personalizing each chip. The resulting personalized chips can be used for modal distribution of chips. For example, chips can be personalized to allow sorting when a single chip design can be used to support multiple applications. The resulting personalized chips can also be used for random number generation for creating unique on-chip identifiers, private keys, etc.
US08015513B2
A method of generating a scalable OPC model for composing reticle pattern files from IC layouts using 2D test patterns is disclosed. The 2D test patterns include basic features which replicate features found in advanced ICs. Variations of feature dimensions and structure pitches provide measurement data which enables the scalability of the OPC model. A method of checking reticle pattern files for features which cannot be modeled by the scalable OPC model is also disclosed.
US08015512B2
The invention is directed to a method for designing an assistant pattern of a mask pattern on a mask. The mask pattern has an assistant pattern arrangement region around a main pattern. The method comprising defining a reverse pattern of the main pattern. The reverse pattern is shrunken to be a first shrunken pattern with a first shrinking proportion and a first margin placed within the assistant pattern arrangement region. The reverse pattern is shrunken to be a second shrunken pattern with a second shrinking proportion and a second margin placed within the assistant pattern arrangement region. The first shrunken pattern and the second shrunken pattern are merged to define an assistant pattern of the mask pattern, wherein the assistant pattern entirely surrounds the main pattern.
US08015510B2
In one embodiment, an interconnect object in a layout of an integrated circuit design to be created with a photolithographic process is determined. The interconnect object includes a width and a length in the layout. A contour generation of the interconnect object in a drawn design is determined based on processing variation factors for the photolithographic process, which produces a generated contour object. A plurality of segments in the generated contour object may be determined based on processing variations. Segments are then broken up based on the processing variations that result. An adjusted width and adjusted length for each of the plurality of segments of the generated contour object are then determined. Resistances and capacitances may be extracted using the adjusted widths and adjusted lengths. Then, the output of the LVS tool may be sent to a SPICE simulation to verify the electrical behavior of the interconnect.
US08015504B1
A system and method displays information for a multiple programs, each containing zero or one agent, an application, and zero or more pods. The agent communicates with another device such as a network to retrieve or provide information. Information to or from the agent is displayed by an application in a window that is used by other applications, one application at a time. Information to or from the agent is also displayed in one or more windows, each window dedicated to a single pod, and such window being much smaller than the window displaying information from the application.
US08015503B2
To solve an overlap between a part table and components automatically and adequately in a drawing using a CAD. In a part table creating method for creating a part table including a plurality of rows of CAD data, an overlap between the part table and other geometric elements is detected. When the overlap is detected, the height of the respective rows of the part table is reduced to H1. When the overlap between the part table and the other geometric elements still remains even when the respective rows of the part table is reduced to the height H1, the number of overlapped rows between the part table and the geometric element are obtained. The portion of the overlapped rows is separated and moved in the direction to avoid the overlap with the geometric elements to separate into an original part table and a destination part table.
US08015501B2
One implementation provides a method for accessing a window previously viewed by a user in a graphical user interface (GUI) during an interaction with an individual. The method includes displaying to the user a first window in the GUI. The first window contains a collapsible/expandable menu. The menu contains an entry that refers to a window previously viewed by the user. Upon selection of the entry in the menu, the method further includes displaying to the user the corresponding window previously viewed by the user in the GUI. The corresponding window has a data-entry field that contains a latest version of information that is related to the interaction with the individual that was previously entered or modified by the user.
US08015500B2
When a digital camera is set to retrieval mode, a map-style retrieval screen having a matrix structure is displayed on a display device. The digital camera searches for images photographed in the regions corresponding to each cell in the matrix structure, based on shooting location information appended to the images. The number of found images is displayed within each cell. When the user inputs a zoom in or zoom out command, the regions corresponding to each cell are made smaller or larger, according to the command. At the same time, a new retrieval is performed for images photographed in the regions corresponding to each of the modified cells. The number displayed within each cell is updated according to the number of images found in the new retrieval. When a single cell is selected, a list view of the images photographed in the region corresponding to the selected cell is displayed.
US08015498B2
A display control section 77 causes meta-information (attribute information 73 and function information 75) related to an icon 79 read out at step S14 to be dynamically switching-displayed in a space 81 equivalent to two icons, i.e., a display area of unselected icons, said display area not being required to display thereof any longer, as a result of selecting an icon that fits the intent of a user. Thereby, it becomes possible to display with good visibility the meta-information related to the icon selected by the user, out of a plurality of icons list-displayed on the display screen, while effectively utilizing resources related to the display screen.
US08015496B1
A system and method for facilitating visual social communication through co-browsing is provided. A social session is established and includes a plurality of Web browsers. Each Web browser is loaded with social session code, which displays a social viewport. Substantially similar portions of Web content are synchronously displayed in the social viewport of each Web browser. A social change is displayed in the social viewport of one such Web browser. The social change is partitioned into at least one social change segment Each social change segment is transmitted to each other of the Web browsers. Each social change segment is received and displayed in the other Web browsers, such that the social change is reproduced smoothly in the Web browsers as the social change is progressively created.
US08015489B2
This invention relates to the field of computer image processing technology, particularly, to a method for adding marks in the process of page rasterizing, which in detail is the method for adding marks on the output medium when description files of pages are output in raster imaging devices. The description files of pages are generally PostScript file, i.e. PS file, and Portable Document Format (PDF) files, i.e. PDF file. The prior art has disadvantages of poor compatibility, slow speed and the like. The present recognizes adding various marks to description files of pages in the process of page rasterizing in an RIP, thereby it is possible to add marks to any of PS files and PDF files without pre-scanning the description files of pages, and obtain good flexibility and compatibility substantially without effects on speed.
US08015483B2
A computerized system that implements a type system can process one or more XML documents that comprise unknown schema elements, which may not correlate within one or more types in the type system. In one implementation, for example, a computer system receives one or more XML document feeds and deserializes only those schema elements that correlate with one or more system types. The computer system further passes the unknown schema elements to a buffer. An application program, such as an XML reader, can extract the unknown schema elements from the buffer as appropriate. In one implementation, for example, the application program maintains its own types separately from the system types. The application program can then correlate its application-specific types with the buffered schema elements to deserialize and process the buffered schema elements.
US08015467B2
In an interpretation interval INTALL used in a communication system, there are provided a future-direction interval INTF associated with a 5-bit sequence number (LastSendAckNum) transmitted after LastSendAckNum ±0, and a past-direction interval INTP associated with a 5-bit sequence number (LastSendAckNum) transmitted prior to LastSendAckNum ±0. A transmitter side encodes a 13-bit sequence number into the 5-bit sequence number while setting, as an upper limit, the 5-bit sequence number associated with the future-direction interval INTF.
US08015464B2
Scan and Scan-BIST architectures are commonly used to test digital circuitry in integrated circuits. The present disclosure improves upon low power Scan and Scan-BIST methods. The improvement allows the low power Scan and Scan-BIST architectures to achieve a delay test capability equally as effective as the delay test capabilities used in conventional scan and Scan-BIST architectures.
US08015452B2
The present invention provides a control system which is used for a stacked battery of a plurality of battery packs. Each battery pack has a plurality of battery cells coupled in series. The control system is capable of reconfiguring communication among the battery packs in the stacked battery, and comprises a plurality of processors, a plurality of controllers, and a monitoring unit. The processors are coupled to the battery packs. Two adjacent processors among the processors are able to communicate with each other though a first bus. The controllers are coupled to the battery packs. Two adjacent controllers among the controllers are able to communicate with each other through a second bus. The processors are capable of communicating with the controllers through a third bus. The monitoring unit is used for monitoring communications among the plurality of processors and communications among the plurality of controllers. The monitoring unit is capable of detecting communication problems on the first bus and/or the second bus. The monitoring unit further is capable of reconfiguring communication paths among the plurality of processors and communication path among the plurality of controllers.
US08015451B2
Controlling an unreliable data transfer in a data channel from a transmitting unit to a receiving unit. A bypass mode or a buffer mode is activated depending on the error rate in the data channel. If bypass mode is selected, data packets are directly transferred in probation from the transmitting unit to the receiving unit by a bypass line. The data packets are error checked after the data transfer. If buffer mode is selected, data is transfer from the transmitting unit to the receiving unit by a buffer line via an error detecting and correcting unit and a buffer unit. The errors are detected and corrected during the data transfer.
US08015442B2
In a storage device incorporating a plurality of kinds of disk drives with different interfaces, the controller performs sparing on a disk drive, whose errors that occur during accesses exceed a predetermined number, by swapping it with a spare disk drive that is prepared beforehand.
US08015440B2
An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for data storage with progressive redundant array of independent drives (“RAID”). A storage request receiver module, a striping module, a parity-mirror module, and a parity progression module are included. The storage request receiver module receives a request to store data of a file or of an object. The striping module calculates a stripe pattern for the data. The stripe pattern includes one or more stripes, and each stripe includes a set of N data segments. The striping module writes the N data segments to N storage devices. Each data segment is written to a separate storage device within a set of storage devices assigned to the stripe. The parity-mirror module writes a set of N data segments to one or more parity-mirror storage devices within the set of storage devices. The parity progression module calculates a parity data segment on each parity-mirror device in response to a storage consolidation operation, and stores the parity data segments. The storage consolidation operation is conducted to recover storage space and/or data on a parity-minor storage device.
US08015433B2
A disk drive that includes nonvolatile memory monitors the drive's reliability-related parameters to detect real or potential failure events, and records failure-related data in nonvolatile memory, rather than in reserved areas of the disks. The monitoring may be by running a diagnostic routine or by regular or periodic monitoring of disk drive sensors, like temperature and shock sensors. The failure events to be monitored and recorded may include defective data sectors. When a new defective sector is detected after the disk drive has been put into operation, that defective sector is taken out of service and its logical block address (LBA) is mapped to a memory space in the nonvolatile memory rather to a reserved spare sector on the disk. When a read or write command is received for an LBA range that includes the defective sector's LBA, the defective sector is skipped while the whole LBA range of the command is processed and the user data for the defective sector's LBA is read from or written to the mapped memory space in the nonvolatile memory.
US08015424B2
The present invention relates to a portable information apparatus which can realize electrical power for a longer period of time. Under the condition that the suspending mode is set, when an exclusive key is manipulated, a switch monitoring circuit detects this condition and issues an interruption to the CPU. In this timing, the CPU supplies the necessary electrical power to the CD-ROM controller, CD-ROM drive and audio circuit which are required for reproduction of CD. Thereby, a CD can be reproduced under the suspending mode.
US08015414B2
An approach provides detection of unauthorized use of data services. A determination is made as to whether connections supporting remote access to a data network are completed. The number of completed connections associated with a selected attribute is tracked over a time period. It is then determined whether the number of completed connections satisfies a connection frequency threshold. A fraud alert is generated if the connection frequency threshold is satisfied.
US08015413B2
An efficient solution for secure implementation of indirect addressing (IA) is described. IA may be used, for example, in networks of which the routing algorithms are not capable of multicast but also contain very constrained devices that, although requiring multicast, are not capable of repeated unicast. This ID is useful in wireless networks containing low-power low-cost devices.
US08015408B2
A method and system for performing trust evaluation for a mobile software agent on a trusted computing platform are disclosed. A sending entity, which includes a mobile software agent, verifies if a receiving entity is trustworthy before transferring the mobile software agent to the receiving entity. The receiving entity may verify the state and details of the mobile software agent and/or the state of the sending entity, and receive the mobile software agent if the state of the mobile software agent and the sending entity are trustworthy. The mobile software agent may include its own virtual trusted platform module (TPM) which is tied to an agent's identity. The agent's virtual TPM is part of the agent and transferred along with the mobile code when the mobile code is transferred.
US08015404B2
A system and method for authenticating the source and ensuring the integrity of traffic data collected from probe vehicles while maintaining the privacy of the data's source. This is accomplished by dividing the traffic analysis functionality into two distinct responsibilities: data collection, including authentication and verification, and data processing, and assigning each responsibility to a different entity, such the first entity has access to authentication information which identifies the data's source but not to traffic information such as the source's location, and the second entity has access to the traffic information but not to the authentication information which identifies the data's source.
US08015403B2
In accordance with a particular embodiment of the present invention, a method for providing security information associated with a prospective communication session to a user includes providing at least one communication network for the establishment of a prospective communication session between a first network device and a second network device. A security rating is assigned to the prospective communication session, and security information is provided to a user associated with the first network device that includes the security rating.
US08015396B2
In a computer system in which a server has, in addition to a disk used for booting, an operation transfer destination disk that has the same content as the boot disk, a method for changing the disk used by the server or another server in the computer system for booting to the operation transfer destination disk is realized by changing the content of the operation transfer destination disk to enable the OS and applications installed in the operation transfer destination disk to be booted from the destination disk and by changing the setting of a boot program of the server to enable booting from the operation transfer destination disk.
US08015390B1
A flight control system includes an output device, a first processor, and a second processor. The second processor is dissimilar to the first processor. The flight control system also includes a first arbitration device coupled to the first processor and a second arbitration device coupled to the second processor. The second arbitration device is configured to coordinate transaction synchronization with the first arbitration device and the first arbitration device is configured to coordinate transaction synchronization with the second arbitration device. A comparator processor is coupled to the first arbitration device and the second arbitration device. The comparator processor is configured to compare transaction synchronized outputs of the first and second processors and the comparator processor effectuates a command to the output device if the comparison is valid.
US08015380B2
A data processing system has an asynchronous memory mover, which includes multiple sets of registers for storing addressing and control parameters utilized to generate one or more asynchronous memory move (AMM) operations. The memory mover detects a receipt of a first set of parameters in a first set of registers from the processor. The processor forwards the parameters after the processor initiates a data move in virtual address space, utilizing a source effective address and a destination effective address. The memory mover responds to receiving the first set of parameters by generating and launching a first asynchronous memory move (AMM) operation. When the memory mover receives a second set of parameters in a second set of registers before the first AMM operation completes, the memory mover generates and launches a second AMM operation concurrently with the first AMM operation if no address conflicts exist.
US08015379B2
A wake-and-go mechanism is configured to issue a look-ahead load command on a system bus to read a data value from a target address and perform a comparison operation to determine whether the data value at the target address indicates that an event for which a thread is waiting has occurred. In response to the comparison resulting in a determination that the event has not occurred, the wake-and-go engine populates the wake-and-go storage array with the target address. In response to the comparison resulting in a determination that the event has occurred, the wake-and-go engine issues a load command on the system bus to read the data value from the target address with data exclusivity and determines whether the wake-and-go engine obtains a lock for the target address. Responsive to obtaining the lock for the target address, the wake-and-go engine holds the lock for the thread.
US08015378B2
A method of updating memory content stored in a memory of a processing device, the memory comprising a plurality of addressable memory blocks, the memory content being protected by a current integrity protection data item stored in the processing device, the method comprising determining a first subset of memory blocks that require an update, and a second subset of memory blocks that remain unchanged by said updating; calculating, as parallel processes, a first and a second integrity protection data item over the memory blocks; wherein the first integrity protection data item is calculated over the current memory contents of the first and second subsets of memory blocks; and wherein the second integrity protection data item is calculated over the current memory contents of the second subset of memory blocks and the updated memory block contents of the first subset of memory blocks.
US08015377B2
During mirroring operations, de-duplication operations are applied to the mirror volumes. Data stored to a first volume is mirrored to a second volume. The second volume is a virtual volume having a plurality of logical addresses, such that segments of physical storage capacity are allocated for a specified logical address as needed when data is stored to the specified logical address. A de-duplication operation is carried out on the second volume following a split from the first volume. A particular segment of the second volume is identified as having data that is the same as another segment in the second volume or in the same consistency group. A link is created from the particular segment to the other segment and the particular segment is released from the second volume.
US08015374B2
A back-up solution (300) is proposed for use in a data processing system, wherein different host machines support multiple guest machines. For this purpose, a master one of the host machines owns (306) a scheduling file, which indicates which guest systems are enabled to back-up their data, and when the back-up process must be performed. Every day, each other host machine verifies (309-318) whether the corresponding guest machines are included in the scheduling file for the current day. If so, the path of the respective data to be backed-up is added (324-330) to a control file on the master host machine. At the end of the procedure, the master host machine may then back-up the required data of the different guest machines (as indicated in the control file); at the same time, any critical guest machine automatically shuts-down (342-345), so as to ensure the consistency of the corresponding backed-up data.
US08015373B2
Backup storage apparatus and related methods wherein communication capabilities are provided that allow information to be shared between devices installed in the apparatus to extend the functionality of the apparatus. A controller comprising a communication link is coupled to an operator control panel that controls functions of and displays information regarding the apparatus. An installable component that is operable to extend the functionality of the apparatus when coupled to the communication link, and is operable to discover services that are sharable between the controller and the component. When communications are established, the operator control panel via the shared services is also capable of controlling functions of and displaying information regarding the component.
US08015369B2
A method of updating a data entry stored on a data storage unit, the data entry including data elements that are unique to the data storage unit and the data entry, may begin with generating, at the data storage unit, an update request that includes the data entry for transmission to an authority authorized to update the data entry. The authority then extracts extracting at the authority the unique data elements from the update request and verifies the authenticity of the data storage unit and data entry from the unique data elements. The authority then generates an updated data entry including a further data element unique to the updated data entry and derived from the updated data. The authority then transmits the updated data entry to the data storage unit. The method may then include storing the updated data entry on the data storage unit.
US08015368B2
Enhancements to hardware architectures (e.g., a RISC processor or a DSP processor) to accelerate spectral band replication (SBR) processing are described. In some embodiments, instruction extensions configure a reconfigurable processor to accelerat SBR and other audio processing. In addition to the instruction extensions, execution units (e.g., multiplication and accumulation units (MACs)) may operate in parallel to reduce the number of audio processing cycles. Performance may be further enhanced through the use of source and destination units which are configured to work with the execution units and quickly fetch and store source and destination operands.
US08015365B2
In one embodiment, the present invention includes a method for receiving an indication of a pending capacity eviction from a caching agent, determining whether an invalidating writeback transaction from the caching agent is likely for a cache line associated with the pending capacity eviction, and if so moving a snoop filter entry associated with the cache line from a snoop filter to a staging area. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US08015360B2
Disclosed is a method for reading data in a memory system including a buffer memory and a nonvolatile memory, the method being comprised of: determining whether an input address in a read request is allocated to the buffer memory; determining whether a size of requested data is larger than a reference unless the input address is allocated to the buffer memory; and conducting a prefetch reading operation from the nonvolatile memory if the requested data size is larger than the reference.
US08015358B2
A cache memory which loads two memory values into two cache lines by receiving separate portions of a first requested memory value from a first data bus over a first time span of successive clock cycles and receiving separate portions of a second requested memory value from a second data bus over a second time span of successive clock cycles which overlaps with the first time span. In the illustrative embodiment a first input line is used for loading both a first byte array of the first cache line and a first byte array of the second cache line, a second input line is used for loading both a second byte array of the first cache line and a second byte array of the second cache line, and the transmission of the separate portions of the first and second memory values is interleaved between the first and second data busses.
US08015354B2
The present invention claims and discloses an information processor comprising: an auxiliary storing unit that has at least one and preferably two auxiliary storage devices in which at least three distributable virtual disks are formed so as to be distributed; a disk array control unit that controls the at least three distributable virtual disks that designate one of disk control modes; a CB storing unit that stores a control block in each virtual disk that includes but is not limited to first designation information for designating the disk control mode and second designation information for designating an auxiliary storage; and a device driver unit that generates control information of the disk array control unit including but not limited to the first designation information and the second designation information and that transmits the control information to the disk array control unit based on a request for accessing any of the at least three distributable virtual disks and a control block corresponding to the requested virtual disk.
US08015347B2
A memory system includes a nonvolatile memory including a plurality of blocks as data erase units, a measuring unit which measures an erase time at which data of each block is erased, and a block controller which writes data supplied from at least an exterior into a first block which is set in a free state and whose erase time is oldest.
US08015346B2
The present invention discloses a memory system having a hybrid density memory. The memory system includes a plurality of storage spaces whereby the storage spaces have respective levels of endurance and each storage space has a plurality of blocks and pre-determined weighting factors corresponding to the levels of endurance of the storage spaces. After executing a command of erasing a specific block, the system records the erase in accordance with the weighting factor of the storage space to which the specific block belongs. Whereby, the erase counts of all the blocks of different storage spaces are able to reach respective levels of endurance as simultaneously as possible.
US08015344B2
Provided are an apparatus and method for processing data of flash memory. The apparatus includes a user requesting unit to request a data operation using a predetermined logical address, a transformation unit to transform the logical address into a physical address, and a control unit to record count data counting the number of predetermined bits of data, in an index region to indicate whether the data is valid when conducting the data operation.
US08015343B2
Techniques are described for managing access of executing programs to non-local block data storage. In some situations, a block data storage service uses multiple server storage systems to reliably store block data that may be accessed over one or more networks by programs executing on other physical computing systems. Users may create block data storage volumes that are each stored by at least two of the server block data storage systems, and may initiate use of such volumes by one or more executing programs, such as in a reliable manner by enabling an automatic switch to a second volume copy if a first volume copy becomes unavailable. A group of multiple server block data storage systems that store block data volumes may in some situations be co-located at a data center, and programs that use volumes stored there may execute on other physical computing systems at that data center.
US08015340B2
A method of transmitting a stream of data bits from a memory card to a host device includes determining, at the memory card, a first number of data lines between the memory card and the host device, from one to a plurality of data lines. If the first number of data lines is determined to be a plurality of data lines, the method includes switching, at the memory card, the data stream between one of the first number of data lines and another of the first number of data lines after each occurrence of a second number of one or more bits of the data stream having passed toward the host device. The method also includes, if the first number of data lines is determined to be one data line, transmitting, from the memory card, the stream of data bits over the one data line to the host device.
US08015338B2
When initializing a card-shaped device inserted in a card interface, operation mode acquiring means incorporated in an electronic device acquires operation mode information, stored in a register file incorporated in the card-shaped device, by a predetermined procedure using a predetermined pin. Operation mode setting means incorporated in the electronic device executes signal assignment on a plurality of data pins peculiar to an operation mode indicated by the acquired operation mode information, thereby switching a data transfer width, and allowing the card-shaped device to operate in the operation mode.
US08015335B2
In a logically partitioned host computer system comprising host processors (host CPUs) partitioned into a plurality of guest processors (guest CPUs) of a guest configuration, a perform topology function instruction is executed by a guest processor specifying a topology change of the guest configuration. The topology change preferably changes the polarization of guest CPUs, the polarization related to the amount of a host CPU resource is provided to a guest CPU.
US08015330B2
In one embodiment, a method for controlling reads in a computer input/output (I/O) interconnect is provided. A read request is received over the computer I/O interconnect from a first device, the request requesting data of a first size. Then it is determined whether fulfilling the read request would cause the total size of a completion queue to exceed a first predefined threshold. If fulfilling the read request would cause the total size of the completion queue to exceed the first predefined threshold, then the read request is temporarily restricted from being forwarded upstream.
US08015327B1
Described are techniques for managing a wait queue in a system. A plurality of buckets associated with the wait queue are defined. Each of the plurality of buckets is associated with one of more queue depth values and one or more counters. For each received request for service, a current depth of the wait queue indicating a number of other requests included in the wait queue waiting to be serviced is determined, a bucket in accordance with the current depth of the wait queue is selected and information is recorded by updating said one or more counters of the bucket selected. The received request is placed in the wait queue if there is another request currently being serviced or if there is at least one other request currently in the wait queue.
US08015322B2
An information-processing system processes set-up identification information, which specifies a set-up item that is an adjustment attribute of a predetermined function of an electronic apparatus connectable to a network. The electronic apparatus that sets a parameter and the electronic apparatus on which the parameter is set are connected to each other. The electronic apparatus on which the parameter is set receives the set-up identification information from the electronic apparatus that sets the parameter. It also analyzes the set-up identification information thus received and converts the set-up identification information thus analyzed into set-up identification information of the electronic apparatus on which the parameter is set. It further changes a parameter setting of the electronic apparatus on which the parameter is set on the basis of adjustment contents of the set-up item correlated with the set-up identification information thus converted.
US08015317B2
A method for conducting Internet domain name service to users connected to the Internet comprises an automated procedure for transferring Internet domain name service from a domain name owner to a domain name manager. This method further comprises Internet sub-domain name services to prospective buyers based on domain names transferred to the domain name manager. Messages requesting domain name service, including requests from domain name owners to sub-license their particular domain name to prospective sub-domain name buyers and from prospective sub-domain name buyers to license available sub-domain names, are received and responded to by an automated domain name management system. This automated domain name management system further comprises an interactive website which includes a database, search engine, and Web server.
US08015316B2
Disclosed is a method for transmitting messages between a transmitter and a receiver on a channel on which noise may be present. The messages are constituted by a sequence of data and comprise an initial portion (header) containing data to allow recognition of the message, a central portion (body) containing the valid message to transmit and an end portion (tail) containing information to verify the completeness of the message. The method consists in inserting in the message header a signature obtained from the combination of a first fixed part and of a second validation part; and recognizing a valid message received by verifying whether the fixed part of the message received generates the same validation part.
US08015314B1
A method and system of simplified configuration of a network element. A network element having a direct access module and an arbitrary unknown address is coupled to a same physical subnet as a management node. The management node broadcasts a discovery broadcast to identify the existence of the network element. If a response is received indicating an address outside an access range of the management node, it sends an additional broadcast targeted to the network element force the network element to change its address to one within an access range of the management node. Once the address is changed, the management node may connect to and configure the network element using standard protocols.
US08015312B2
A system balances bandwidth used by a data stream. The system receives data in the data stream and partitions the data into bursts. The system then identifies whether a size of a current one of the bursts is less than a size of a maximum burst associated with the data stream and schedules an additional burst in the data stream when the current burst size is less than the maximum burst size. The system transmits the current burst and the additional burst to balance bandwidth used by the data stream.
US08015305B1
A method for implementing a SIP feature includes, in particular embodiments, establishing a communication session via a communications platform between a first and second user and receiving a request from a third user to join the communication session. The second and third users are from a plurality of users using a shared line. The method further includes integrating communications of the third user into the communication session. In particular embodiments the method includes establishing a communication session between a first and second user via a communications platform. The method also includes receiving a select request that locks the communication session so that a third user cannot resume the communication session with the first user. In particular embodiments the method includes receiving a request from a first user of a shared line to enable a privacy feature that reduces call information generated by the communications platform in remote state notifications.
US08015303B2
A method, system, and apparatus for processing messages according to one or more stateful protocols in a data communication system. Messages belonging to various communication flows (such as TCP transport layer “connections”) are processed according to a selected stateful protocol. Messages belonging to a single unified flow are distributed among different protocol processing cores (PPCs) at different times. Assignment of flows to PPCs is typically modifiable at the level of specific individual flows, permitting flexible load balancing between PPCs. The architecture of the system facilitates the method by providing a mix of pipelined and parallel processing structures.
US08015302B2
Methods, systems, and computer program products for providing media channel services are disclosed. A method includes provisioning an Internet-Protocol (IP)-enabled media channel in response to a request to create a media channel account, which includes creating an account record for the media channel account, assigning a media device identifier to the account record, assigning a network address to the IP-based media channel, and storing the network address in the account record. The method also includes populating a storage system with editable and non-editable content. The editable content is received and controlled by a user of the media channel account via a media device, and the non-editable content is controlled by a network media services application. The method further includes creating and presenting a media channel page that includes the editable and non-editable content in response to a request by the user to initiate a session for the channel.
US08015296B2
An improved system and method for implementing Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS) handover during download delivery. Various embodiments of the present invention involve the use of the HTTP/1.1 “chunked” mode to deliver updates of the file delivery table (FDT) of a session in a push-like mode. In order to allow for push delivery of the contents of a FLUTE session, each FDT instance is encoded as one part of a multipart MIME message and is sent as a separate chunk. The receiver can interpret each of the separate chunks to extract the FDT instance from the chunks. The content type of each part of the message is set to “text/xml” or another MIMI type in order to indicate that the content is an FDT instance. After parsing the FDT instance and updating the FDT, the receiver is able to identify which files of the session are of interest and can perform a HTTP GET request to retrieve a specific file.
US08015295B2
In a communication system comprising a communication device and a reproduction device capable of carrying out data communication with the communication device, the reproduction device includes a first storage unit in which content data are stored and a first communication unit engaged in data communication with the communication device, whereas the communication device in the communication system includes a second storage unit in which content data are stored, a second communication unit engaged in data communication with the first communication unit and a priority ranking determining unit that, based upon information obtained through the data communication and a priority ranking criterion, determines priority rankings for individual sets of content data in a content data group that includes both the content data stored in the first storage unit and the content data stored in the second storage unit.
US08015290B2
The invention is a method system and apparatus for a group driver. In the event that a system-wide application is needed, a plurality of devices that belong to the system are identified and divided into groups. The groups include a processor and at least one device such as a switch. Once the groups are determined, the system-wide application is transmitted to the devices via the group processors.
US08015286B2
A method of enabling a server to contact an unknown Internet account holder can begin with the server receiving a request for a resource. The server then determines whether the request for the resource warrants sending a notice, and if so, identifies a notice destination to which the notice is to be sent. The server then generates a notice comprising an apparent IP address, a time the server received the request, and a communication; and sends the notice to the notice destination via a standardized communications pathway. An ISP can receive a notice from the server via the standardized communication pathway, and based thereon can identify the account holder based the requesting IP and optionally the request time. The ISP can then send the account holder the communication by an arranged manner despite the server not having known the identity of the account holder.
US08015284B1
Bait files and signatures allow security software vendors to track both authorized and unauthorized usage of the security vendor's signatures/products by third party security vendors. A bait file providing module anonymously provides a bait file to a third party security vendor for security detection, where the bait file is a non-malware file. A signature providing module provides a bait signature corresponding to the bait file that is included in a signature database which is made publicly available. A scanner monitoring module monitors security detections made over a period of time by a security scanner operated by the third party vendor. A determination module determines whether the scanner positively detected the bait file following the release of the bait signature for the bait file. A use detection module detects, in response to a positive determination, that the third party vendor used the bait signature provided to detect the bait file.
US08015277B2
A method, system and article of manufacture for simulating latency between software applications. There is provided a middleware component, e.g., a delay driver, within a multi-tier software product, the middleware component driver enables simulation of both latency and bandwidth restrictions experienced by the components in the multi-tier software product. The middleware component determines whether I/O request packets should be delayed, selects the number and types of I/O requests packets to be delayed and the amount of time to delay processing of the packets. Through the use of such a middleware component, a user is able to simulate various conditions experienced by the multi-tier software product.
US08015269B2
The present invention is to provide a node device, a shared information update processing program, a shared information update means, and an information sharing system, which can quickly and assuredly update the shared information in each of the node devices without applying an excessive load to a specific apparatus such as a server.According to the present invention, there is provided a plurality of node devices mutually connectable through a network, each of the node devices saving shared information, used in common with the nodes, and in a case where each of the node devices transmits predetermined data to the node device, being a connection counterpart, the node device describing version information indicative of a version of the shared information, saved by the own node device, including: a data receiving means; a version judgment means; and a shared information update means.
US08015265B2
When an application server for performing a Web application is developed, a framework describing each of the modules of data, a logic, and a screen is provided. To attain this, the input contents of a Web page are converted into a data object, the combination of the type of the data object and a command is mapped in each process routine using a first foreign definition file, a process routine to be executed is determined from among prepared process logics based on the type of the data object, the command, and the first foreign definition file, and the combination of an execution result of the process logic and the type of the displaying data object is mapped in the displaying component using a second foreign definition file. These files are provided in the application server.
US08015257B2
Multiple user boxes are created beforehand in the hard disk drive of the MFP. The user specifies his own user box and saves image data therein. If the user extracts the image data from his user box and moves it to a folder on his own personal computer, the MFP 1 detects this action. When this user box is specified during a subsequent reading of image data, the storage destination for the image data is automatically deemed to be the folder on the personal computer to which the image data was previously moved.
US08015254B2
A system and method of selecting messaging settings on a messaging client are provided. A data store configured to operate in conjunction with the messaging client stores records comprising messaging settings or characteristics for previously received and/or sent messages. The messaging client is configured to send outgoing messages, each of the messages having message characteristics, to determine whether a record for an addressed recipient of an outgoing message exists in the data store, and to select messaging settings to control the message characteristics of the outgoing message based on the record where a record exists.
US08015252B2
A system provides high availability electronic message forwarding. When an electronic message is communicated to a first server, a copy of the electronic message is maintained at a second server. The electronic message is maintained on both servers until the electronic message is successfully communicated to a third server. After the message is delivered to the third server, the electronic message is removed from both the first server and the second server. If the first server fails to communicate the electronic message to the third server, the second server does so.
US08015246B1
A method, system and graphical user interface for a chat room system is disclosed. One aspect of certain embodiments includes sending messages that originate from a user's current chat room as well as messages that originate from nearby chat rooms to the user. Both types of messages are displayed in a single context to the user.
US08015243B2
A method for authenticating a requesting entity in a communications environment. In an exemplary embodiment, the method includes determining a client identification of a client node associated with the requesting entity, and determining whether the requesting entity associated with the client node is acting in a supervisor capacity. A key to the requesting entity is returned from a resource provider node upon determining that the client identification of the client node indicates that the client node is permitted to access one or more resources of the provider node, and that the client node is acting in a supervisor capacity.
US08015241B2
A system for posting web logging (blog) messages, retrieving blog messages, and being notified of the posting of blog messages by way of dispatch communications. The system includes a wireless communication system capable of setting up dispatch communications links between subscriber units and a dispatch server. The dispatch server interfaces with a blog server. Using dispatch communications, subscriber units may send messages to the blog server for posting by way of the dispatch server, may receive notification of the posting of messages from the blog server by way of the dispatch server, and may retrieve messages from the blog server by way of the dispatch server.
US08015231B2
A data processing apparatus and method includes multiplier logic operable to multiply the first and second n-bit significands to produce a pair of 2n-bit vectors. Half adder logic is arranged to produce a plurality of carry and sum bits representing a corresponding plurality of most significant bits of the pair of 2n-bit vectors. The first adder logic then performs a first sum operation with a first rounded result and a second adder logic performs a second sum operation with a second rounded result. The required n-bit result is then derived from either the first rounded result or the second rounded result. The data processing apparatus takes advantage of a property of the half adder form to enable a rounding increment value to be injected prior to performance of the first and second sum operations without requiring full adders to be used to inject the rounding increment value.
US08015227B2
The invention relates to a method in creating a two-dimensional symbol pattern which may be utilized to determine a position in a large area covered by the pattern, for example for recording handwritten information by means of a pen-like instrument. The invention is useful for creating a symbol pattern having desired properties, namely that any sufficiently large observed part of the pattern is unique, enabling an unambiguous determination of position. The symbol pattern is based on a non-repeating sequence of symbol values Sk that each corresponds to a fixed linear combination of the coefficients of the monomials in xk mod P(x), where P(x) is any polynomial of degree n in the field Fq. The symbol pattern is generated by folding the sequence according to a wrapping scheme. The invention also relates to methods and systems for finding the position of a group of observed symbol values in this symbol pattern and computer program products performing the methods.
US08015220B1
A system and method for a block based differencing algorithm which includes the ability to limit memory requirements regardless of source file sizes by splitting the source file into optimally sized blocks. The invention allows the blocks to be processed in any order allowing in-place operation. Further, the present invention allows a second stage compressor to match the compressor blocks to those used by the differencing algorithm to optimize compressor and decompressor performance.
US08015214B2
In a method of encapsulating information in a database, a message is partitioned into a plurality of object class entries within the database. An object class pointer is generated for each of a first subset of the plurality of object class entries, the generating further including executing a pointer key algorithm, the algorithm additionally generating a random number for each object class entry and concatenating the randomly generated numbers to form a single parameter string adapted to obfuscate a path between a pointer and its corresponding object class entry. The plurality of object class entries are stored in non-adjacent storage locations within the database, with each of a second subset of the plurality of object class entries stored in association with one of the generated pointers.
US08015213B2
Content is described having native and export portions. In an implementation, one or more computer-readable media includes instructions that are executable on a computing device to store content in a content container as a native portion and an export portion. The native portion is native to an application that originated the content and the export portion is to provide a published view of the content when the native portion is not supported.
US08015212B2
To provide a reproduction method for enabling an automatic selection and reproduction of a music data suitable for a user's preference during the reproduction, for reproducing a contents data given with an attribute data, and having the steps of: reproducing a plurality of the contents data in a predetermined pattern successively; monitoring an execution of a predetermined input operation during reproducing the contents data; specifying an attribute data common to the plurality of the contents data, to which the input operation is not executed during the reproduction, when a number of the input operations exceeds a predetermined value; and reproducing a contents data given with the common attribute data.
US08015205B2
An Enterprise Identity Management system includes a registration component, an ownership component, and an audit component. The registration component is configured to associate a user ID with specific accounts that are accessible via a computer system. The ownership component is configured to verify the ownership of the accounts. The audit component is configured to perform periodic checks to ensure the validity of the association between the user ID and the ownership of the accounts.
US08015204B2
Methods, systems, and data structures for communicating object metadata are provided. A generic metadata container is presented that allows object metadata to be described in an extensible manner using protocol-neutral and platform-independent methodologies. A metadata scope refers to a dynamic universe of targets to which the included metadata statements correspond. Metadata properties provide a mechanism to describe the metadata itself, and metadata security can be used to ensure authentic metadata is sent and received. Mechanisms are also provided to allow refinement and replacement of metadata statements. The generic metadata container can be adapted to dynamically define access control rights to a range of objects by a range of users, including granted and denied access rights.
US08015203B2
A document recognizing apparatus includes a display control unit which displays a document data including a character string related to a character string selected by a user, and an area that includes at least a character string of the document data.
US08015185B2
The present invention relates to a method and system for detecting a keyword whose number of being inputted from a user terminal is rapidly increased, and more particularly, to a method and system which generate rapid increase standard quotient by using the average and standard deviation for each keyword and compare the rapid increase standard quotient with measured input number in order to detect a keyword whose input number is rapidly increased.
US08015178B2
A system, method, and computer program for storing a plurality of usage conditions to a data set for retrieval by a single query statement, comprising the steps of converting a usage condition into a first normal form representation, minimizing said first normal form representation, transforming said minimized first normal form representation into a second normal form representation, and storing said second normal form representation in said data set. The method wherein the steps comprising said storing step are repeated until each said usage condition is stored in to said data set and appropriate means and computer-readable instructions.
US08015172B1
The invention utilizes local search engines to view a display of local business listings in order of relevance to the user. Relevance to the user depends on a variety of factors whose importance varies by user and business—these factors include distance from user-defined starting location, business size, whether or not the business is local, content provided with listing, and relevance based on user-defined search terms. The system collects and parses business information from Web pages and other sources, stores the information in a format that facilitates searches, provides a simple way for users to initiate searches, analyzes all the factors mentioned above each time a search is performed, retrieves listings in order of factor importance, and displays results to the user in order and formatted to make further inspection and use of the results easy for the user.
US08015169B1
A method and an apparatus request web pages and content rating information thereof have been disclosed. In one embodiment, the method includes receiving a request from a user for a web page, retrieving content rating of the web page in response to the request, and fetching the web page substantially simultaneously with the retrieving of the content rating in response to the request. Other embodiments have been claimed and described.
US08015166B2
The present invention discloses a method for characteristic string matching based on discreteness, cross and non-completeness, comprising the steps of: A. a user setting discrete number, cross number and non-complete number in the user interface, or an information processing device automatically setting the discrete number, cross number and non-complete number, and inputting the retrieval keywords; B. the information processing device performing the characteristic string matching based on the three characters, with the discrete number, cross number and non-complete number set in step A as matching constraints, for a designated text according to the keywords input by user, and output the matching result of one of the eight retrieval modes, including precise retrieval, discrete retrieval, cross retrieval and cross and discrete retrieval, non-complete retrieval, discrete and non-complete retrieval, cross and non-complete retrieval, discrete and non-complete retrieval. With simple, flexible and convenient operations, the method consistent with the invention realizes a novel operation of information retrieval and provides eight information retrieval modes capable of qualitative retrieval, error tolerant retrieval, and automatic parameter setting retrieval.
US08015164B2
An object of this invention is to allow a user to easily confirm whether the access right is set within a desired range in a system which can set the access right. To achieve the object, according to this invention, an information processing apparatus includes a unit which stores a user ID in correspondence with user attribute information, a unit which holds the user ID of an accessible user in correspondence with each file or each folder, a unit which provides a display for selecting a user accessible to the file by using the attribute information when storing the file in the folder, a unit which determines whether the user ID corresponding to the selected attribute information coincides with the held user ID, and a unit which informs the user of a warning when it is determined that the user IDs do not coincide with each other.
US08015159B2
A method and system for continually storing and cataloguing streams of broadcast content, allowing real-time searching and real-time results display of all catalogued video. A bank of video recording devices store and index all video content on any number of broadcast sources. This video is stored along with the associated program information such as program name, description, airdate and channel. A parallel process obtains the text of the program, either from the closed captioning data stream, or by using a speech-to-text system. Once the text is decoded, stored, and indexed, users can then perform searches against the text, and view matching video immediately along with its associated text and broadcast information. Users can retrieve program information by other methods, such as by airdate, originating station, program name and program description. An alerting mechanism scans all content in real-time and can be configured to notify users by various means upon the occurrence of a specified search criteria in the video stream. The system is preferably designed to be used on publicly available broadcast video content, but can also be used to catalog private video, such as conference speeches or audio-only content such as radio broadcasts.
US08015158B1
A mechanism is provided for archiving and restoring transaction files of a database system without requiring the copying of the transaction files. A server system executes a host application that implements the database system comprising a set of database files and a set of transaction files that contains updates to the set of database files, the files being stored in a storage system. A backup engine interacts with the host application to archive a transaction file having an original filename in an original directory by creating a corresponding archive filename to the transaction file in an archive directory. The archive transaction files may be used later to perform a copy-less restore process of the database system that does not require copying of any transaction files. The copy-less restore process restores any altered original filenames by replacing, in the original directory, an altered original filename with its corresponding archive filename.
US08015151B2
A system, method, and computer-readable medium having instructions thereon for executing a method are provided for effecting modification of, e.g., updating, a target application or document. An embodiment of the present invention provides for the updating of a target application or document having specific time split operations in, for example, an enterprise resources planning system (ERP).
US08015148B2
A server system suitable for processing transactions includes transaction processing means to process requests issued by client systems. A transaction profiler records information regarding transactions processed by the server. Profiled transactions are selected for inclusion in a cumulative database according to a selection criteria. The transaction processor may be an HTTP server, a file server, or a database server. The profiler may be enabled by the processing means just before processing a request and disabled upon completion. In one embodiment, the transaction profiler is configured to calculate a transaction response time as the difference between the time the transaction processing means enables the profiling means and the time the transaction processing means disables the profiling means. In this embodiment, the selection criteria includes a minimum transaction response time wherein only transaction profiles indicating a response time in excess of the minimum transaction time are included in the cumulative database.
US08015146B2
In a networked information system, a portion of the information processing is offloaded from servers to a storage system to reduce network traffic and conserve server resources. The information system includes a storage system storing files or objects and having a function which automatically extracts portions of text from the files and transmits the extracted text to the servers. The text extraction is responsive to file requests from the servers. The extracted text and files are stored on the storage system, decreasing the need to send entire files across the network. Thus, by transmitting smaller extracted text data instead of entire files over the network, network performance can be increased through the reduction of traffic. Additionally, the processing strain on physical resources of the servers can be reduced by extracting the text at the storage system rather than at the servers.
US08015143B2
A system and method for processing information in unstructured or structured form, comprising a computer running in a distributed network with one or more data agents. Associations of natural language artifacts may be learned from natural language artifacts in unstructured data sources, and semantic and syntactic relationships may be learned in structured data sources, using grouping based on a criteria of shared features that are dynamically determined without the use of a priori classifications, by employing conditional probability constraints.
US08015140B2
The invention, referred to herein as PeaCoCk, uses a unique blend of technologies from statistics, information theory, and graph theory to quantify and discover patterns in relationships between entities, such as products and customers, as evidenced by purchase behavior. In contrast to traditional purchase-frequency based market basket analysis techniques, such as association rules which mostly generate obvious and spurious associations, PeaCoCk employs information-theoretic notions of consistency and similarity, which allows robust statistical analysis of the true, statistically significant, and logical associations between products. Therefore, PeaCoCk lends itself to reliable, robust predictive analytics based on purchase-behavior.
US08015133B1
Computer-implemented systems and methods for analyzing activities associated with accesses of a computer network. A computer-implemented method can be configured to receive data related to the activities associated with the accesses of a computer network. The network activities data are segmented into a plurality of network activities segments. For each of the network activities segments, an anomaly detection predictive model is generated. The generated predictive models are for use in analyzing the activities associated with the computer network.
US08015132B2
Systems and methods that comprise receiving a training set of samples, a set of features for a first subset of the set of features, a feature value with a first subset of the training set, a weight with a second subset of the training set. Determining for a second subset of the set of features, a first threshold value with a first metric minimized, and determining, for a third subset of the set of features, a second threshold value with a second metric is minimized, then determining, for a fourth subset of the set of features, a number of thresholds, determining, for a fifth subset of the set of features, an error value based on the number of thresholds, afterward determining the feature having the lowest error, and finally updating the weights by classifying a sample as either belonging to an object class or not based on the strong classifier.
US08015128B2
A system, method and program product for providing biometric security using neuroplastic fidelity. A method is disclosed that includes: receiving biometric data; analyzing the biometric data with a probabilistic neural network and outputting a chromosome containing a binary string; mapping the binary string to a selected extractor and a selected matcher; apply the selected extractor to the biometric data to generate a template; using the selected matcher to compare the template to a set of stored templates to identify a match; and outputting a result.
US08015116B2
A method for managing access to application software contained on a computer system or network. The computer system utilizes an authentication component that is configured to receive a unique user account identifier and to generate an authentication passkey by using an identifying data element, typically called a “password”. The identifying data elements are collected from one or more input devices and used as an encryption key for the user account identifier. The generated authentication passkey is used in an authentication transaction associated with the application software instead of the identifying data element thereby reducing data security risks if the identifying data element alone were discovered due to other unknowns including the encryption elements.
US08015105B2
In one aspect, the invention comprises entering into an agreement with a borrower to provide a loan of a specified amount on a specified date, wherein the agreement further specifies a fixed rate and a spread; and on the specified date specifying whether the borrower must pay a fixed coupon at the fixed rate or pay a floating coupon based on the spread. In another aspect, the invention comprises an agreement between a lender and a borrower whereby the lender provides to the borrower a loan of a specified amount on a specified date; a fixed rate and a spread are specified; and the borrower receives the specified amount on the specified date, and during the term pays, at lender's option to be specified on the specified date, either a fixed coupon at the fixed rate or a floating coupon at a floating rate based on the spread.
US08015103B2
A method and system are provides for an auction with interest rate bidding. The system receives a starting interest rate and a maximum interest rate for an interest-paying (IP) item at a computer. The system publishes the IP item for sale at the starting interest rate, initiates a declining auction and receives bids in the declining auction for the IP item. The system terminates the declining auction based on a predetermined period of time and identifies one or more bids that respectively include an interest rate that is lower than the maximum interest rate. Finally, the system selects a lowest interest rate bid from the one or more bids as a winning bid.
US08015102B2
A graphical interface and method are provided for displaying market information corresponding to a tradeable object. One graphical interface includes a chart region for displaying historical market data in relation to a first value axis, and a market grid region in alignment with the chart region. The market grid region comprises a plurality of areas for receiving commands from a user input device to send trade orders, and the areas are displayed in relation to a second value axis. A plurality of values displayed along the second value axis is a subset of values displayed in relation to the first value axis, and can be modified to a new plurality of values that corresponds to a new subset of values on the first value axis.
US08015093B2
An apparatus and method of training helps separate emotions from decisions. A user account with single masked login allows selective access to a live account with actual funds and a demo account with false funds. A program randomly causes trading in the live and/or demo accounts according to a predetermined percentage, allowing the user to place trades/bets but without letting the user know which account is active. The present method further determines if trades/bets on the live and demo accounts are not offset/flat, and potentially forces the user to continue trading on the same accessed account. When the user logs out, the present method syncs the demo account to the live account, generates data concerning differences between live and demo accounts, and gives feedback to at least one of the user and a system controller.
US08015088B2
A method of rewarding loyalty of a user may include providing a personal terminal to the user, detecting whether the personal terminal is within proximity of an interaction terminal, and based at least in part on the proximity of the personal terminal to the interaction terminal, providing a benefit to the user.
US08015087B2
A system and method to facilitate a transaction in a network-based commerce facility is provided. The method includes presenting a plurality of listings to a user, and monitoring selection of one of the plurality of listings by the user. Thereafter, the user is provided with an indication of an equivalent periodic payment of a plurality of periodic payments associated with an offer to purchase. In one embodiment, the user is provided with an option to conclude the transaction for the selected listing based on a plurality of periodic payments. In certain embodiments, the network-based commerce facility is a web-based auction facility where the offers are in the form of bids. Accordingly, in this embodiment, the periodic payment may be a monthly payment and the products are movable goods such as motor vehicle, motorcycles, watercraft, or the like.
US08015082B2
This invention relates to a terminal device capable of communicating with an accounting center, an accounting system, and a data processing method. A point memory 45 of a recording/reproducing device 10 stores accounting point information. An HDD 15 stores information distributed from an external source. A CPU 11 updates the accounting point information stored in the point memory 45 and updates attributes of the distributed information when the distributed information is stored onto the HDD 15. Thus, such inconvenience that communication with a distribution/accounting center 1 is carried out every time information is distributed to the recording/reproducing device 10 is avoided.
US08015066B2
To provide the POS server which can respond immediately against request from local terminals, the POS server 100 according to this invention, which controls dealings of products at a plurality of stores, includes a plurality of control apparatuses 210 connecting with a plurality of local terminals 300 provided at a plurality of stores. Each of the plurality of control apparatuses 210 a dealing database 116 storing information of dealings of the products at the local terminals 300, a receiving device 152 receiving the database operating instruction for updating the dealing database 116 with the dealing of the products from the local terminal 300, and a database updating device 162 updating the dealing database 116 according to the received database operating instruction. Each receiving device 152 of the plurality of control apparatuses 210 receives the same database operating instruction which is transmitted to the control apparatuses from the local terminal 300.
US08015065B2
Methods and systems for associating an unbidded term with a bidded term and for pricing search terms. The method for associating an unbidded term with a bidded term comprises selecting a first set of search engine results for the unbidded term, selecting a second set of search engine results for the bidded second term, comparing the first and second sets, and associating the unbidded term with at least one bidded term based on the results of comparing. The method for assigning monetary values to search terms comprises receiving bids for a first term, deriving a similarity function between the first and second term and pricing the second term based upon the derived similarity function and the bid on the first term.
US08015058B2
There is provided a method and system to maintain published contact information. The system includes a storage facility to store contact information of a first entity at the system. The system further includes an interface to electronically publish, via a communications network, the contact information of the first entity to a plurality of users of the system and receive, at the system, information relating to validity of the contact information of the first entity. The information is received via the communications network from a first user of the plurality of users. The system further includes a stored value module automatically to provide a reward to the first user responsive to the receipt of the information relating to the validity of the contact information of the first entity.
US08015056B1
Data representing key performance indicators of a business enterprise are displayed by computer as a squarified tree map having major nodes each of which represents a profit center of the enterprise and minor nodes each of which represents a project associated with a particular profit center. Size, color and position of each of the minor nodes within a major node and size and position of each the major nodes within the squarified tree map is specified so as to produce a visual display which is highly appealing to the visually perceptive/intuitive processes of the human mind therefore enables rapid managerial response to visually perceived, intuitively sensed deviations from selected performance criteria.
US08015048B2
A system for matching entities having needs to entities having capability to meet the needs. A plurality of needs profiles are created, where each need profile comprises a data record specifying attributes about a need. A plurality of capability profiles are also created, where each capability profile comprises a data record specifying set of attributes of an entity having a capability of meeting a need. A matching engine is coupled to repetitively and automatically examine the needs profiles and capability profiles to identify matched profiles, wherein a match comprises a set of profiles judged to be substantially compatible based upon correspondence of the attributes specified therein.
US08015044B2
The present invention provides a method and a system for determining a promise date for a demand whose supply depends on constraints in a business environment. According to the present invention, information related to the business environment is stored within a data storage means. The present invention provides a processor coupled to the data storage means from which it requests and retrieves data. The processor also determines a plan date for each supply in the supply structure. The plan date is determined, from a highest level to a lowest level in the supply structure, based on existing and planned supply in the supply structure. After determining a plan date, the processor determines an available date for each supply in the supply structure. The available date is determined, from the lowest level to the highest level in the supply structure, based on the availability of each supply in the supply structure, and the plan date determined for each supply. Finally, the processor generates a promise date for the demand for the item based on each available date determined for a corresponding supply in the supply structure. The present invention advantageously generates promise dates based on information available in real-time on both the supply structure and the capacity constraints for a given item.
US08015036B1
An improved claim mediation process includes an automated feature permitting a software package to act as the mediator based upon a predetermined rule set. Open offers are made by both sides, but kept secret from the opposing party are criteria by which the offer can be adjusted and still be acceptable to that party. The system takes into account the open offers and the confidential adjustment criteria and, if possible according to the predetermined rule set, calculates and displays a settlement amount.
US08015027B2
The present invention is directed to a method for recommending a disposable absorbent incontinence article to be used by an incontinent person. The method comprises the steps of: (a) receiving information, from a user, about incontinence devices which are currently used by the incontinent person; (b) receiving information about the situation which is experienced by the user; and (c) selecting at least one article, based on the information received, among predetermined disposable absorbent incontinence articles. By this method, an appropriate disposable absorbent incontinence article(s) to be used are recommended depending on the user's situation. The present invention is also directed a method for evaluating the quality of life of a caregiver who takes care of an incontinent person.
US08015024B2
A system and method for managing patient-related data includes transmitting a power signal to an orthopaedic implant, receiving implant identification data from the orthopaedic implant, and retrieving patient-related data from a database based on the implant identification data. The method may also include receiving security code data and determining the validity of such security code data prior to the retrieving the patient-related data from the database. The method may further include updating an electronically-stored patient queue based on the patient-related data, assigning a patient room to a patient identified by the patient-related data, and transmitting the patient related data to a client machine located in the patient room and/or a portable media device.
US08015006B2
Systems and methods for receiving natural language queries and/or commands and execute the queries and/or commands. The systems and methods overcomes the deficiencies of prior art speech query and response systems through the application of a complete speech-based information query, retrieval, presentation and command environment. This environment makes significant use of context, prior information, domain knowledge, and user specific profile data to achieve a natural environment for one or more users making queries or commands in multiple domains. Through this integrated approach, a complete speech-based natural language query and response environment can be created. The systems and methods creates, stores and uses extensive personal profile information for each user, thereby improving the reliability of determining the context and presenting the expected results for a particular question or command.
US08015002B2
A speech enhancement system improves the speech quality and intelligibility of a speech signal. The system includes a time-to-frequency converter that converts segments of a speech signal into frequency bands. A signal detector measures the signal power of the frequency bands of each speech segment. A background noise estimator measures a background noise detected in the speech signal. A dynamic noise reduction controller dynamically models the background noise in the speech signal. The speech enhancement renders a speech signal perceptually pleasing to a listener by dynamically attenuating a portion of the noise that occurs in a portion of the spectrum of the speech signal.
US08014998B2
A storing unit stores therein a plurality of different display language data that is switchable according to a use environment of a user. A selecting unit selects a display language data from the storing unit in response to display language specification information supplied from a main unit at a time of starting the electronic device. A displaying unit displays an operation screen with selected display language data. When there is no display language specification information from the main unit, the selecting unit selects a predetermined display language data according to a difference between stored display language data and display language data set in a factory setting.
US08014995B2
The present invention provides a mechanism for recording interactions with a Mobile Device to create a map of the structure of the menu system, Mobile Applications, and Mobile Service available on the device. A Recording/Control Environment is integrated with a physical Mobile Device, controls the Mobile Device, and records the resulting data from the Device. The Recording/Control Environment then saves the data as a map of the system structure. Once this graph has been created with a state representing every page available on the device, and with links representing every way of navigating between the individual states of the device, the graph can be used to re-create the experience of interacting with the device. A user may then virtually interact with a representative device through a Run-Time Environment, which uses the map structure to replay the interactions of the mobile device.
US08014993B1
An operating environment emulation system includes a separate peripheral emulation system having a memory device. The memory device is operable to store one or more executable programs, referred to as emulators. The emulators are operable to emulate an original operating environment. Multiple emulators may be deployed on the emulation system to allow execution and presentation of an original operating environment on several different host computers. The system also includes a method for connecting the emulation system to a host computer or accessory device upon which the emulation will run. The emulator may employ insulation processes to limit interaction between the emulation system and host computer resources.
US08014989B2
The invention is directed to accurate calculation of a birefringence of a polymer stretched and oriented. Disclosed is a method for calculating a birefringence of a polymer in an information processing apparatus, having an amorphous state generating step including accepting input of a parameter, generating a model of the polymer on the basis of the parameter, and bringing the model into an amorphous state; a stretching step including stretching the model brought into the amorphous state; a birefringence calculating step including calculating a birefringence of the stretched model; and an outputting step including outputting the birefringence thus calculated.
US08014982B2
A simulation method and a simulation system for a construction crane are disclosed. The simulation system includes an input device, a processing device, and a display device. The input device is used for inputting an instruction. Furthermore, the processing device includes a computation unit, a collision detection unit, a storage unit, and a graphic unit. The computation unit is used for computing the position and the direction of each part of the construction crane and the suspension parts. The collision detection model is used for detecting whether each part of the construction crane and the suspension parts will be in collision. Besides, the data obtained from the simulation method performed in the simulation system is saved in the storage unit. The graphic unit displays the 3D dynamics images of the construction crane and the suspension parts on the display device, corresponding to the data obtained from the computation unit.
US08014978B2
The present invention provides a numerical analysis model data generating program, method, and system for generating numerical analysis model data, which is used for numerical analysis, on the basis of three-dimensional shape data of a structure that is an object of analysis. Three-dimensional shape data defining the structure is inputted. Holes included in the inputted three-dimensional shape data are extracted, and the size of each of the holes is calculated. If the size of a given hole is smaller than a predetermined size, the hole is filled. Thus, numerical analysis model data is generated. According to the present invention, when the numerical analysis model data is generated, a relatively small amount of analysis model data can be generated without adversely affecting the accuracy in numerical analysis.
US08014970B2
A novel method and software system design are presented for interchanging sensors from different vendors in a plug and play manner to drive mission critical applications within a sensor based architecture, policy based framework, event-based architecture. This technique is applicable to sensors directly attached to a computer, or sensors attached to a network, or sensors attached to a controller node which is attached to a network or directly attached to a computer.
US08014963B2
A method for correcting data from a sensor electrode in a sensor includes determining a potential difference (V) between the sensor electrode and another sensor electrode; from the potential difference (V), determining a by-pass current (Ic) between the sensor electrode and the another sensor electrode; and from the by-pass current (Ic) and a measured current (I) from the sensor electrode, determining a corrected current (J) for the sensor electrode; wherein determining a potential (V1) for the sensor electrode comprises multiplying an intrinsic impedance (Zi1) by the measured current (I). A computer program product and other embodiments are provided.
US08014960B2
A method of supporting a diagnosis of a risk of cancer recurrence is disclosed. The method provides a new determining value a recurrence risk score (RRS) which is calculated based on expression levels and activity values of two cyclin dependent kinases (CDKs). The risk of cancer recurrence is judged by comparing the RRS with a predetermined threshold level for RRS.
US08014957B2
The invention provides molecular markers that are associated with the progression of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), and methods and computer systems for monitoring the progression of CML in a patient based on measurements of these molecular markers. The present invention also provides CML target genes, and methods and compositions for treating CML patients by modulating the expression or activity of these CML target genes and/or their encoded proteins. The invention also provides genes that are associated with resistance to imatinib mesylate (Gleevec™) treatment in CML patients, and methods and compositions for determining the responsiveness of a CML patient to imatinib mesylate treatment based on measurements of these genes and/or their encoded proteins. The invention also provides methods and compositions for enhancing the effect of Gleevec™ by modulating the expression or activity of these genes and/or their encoded proteins.
US08014952B2
Certain biomarkers and biomarker combinations are useful in a qualifying lung cancer status in a subject. A diagnostic methodology employing these biomarkers and combinations can detect whether a subject has lung cancer. MARKER IDMWFRACTION IM-12011A IM-22030A IM-32069A IM-42128A IM-52146A IM-62186A IM-72232A IM-82277A IM-92295A IM-102318A IM-112411A IM-122434A IM-132467A IM-142482A IM-152498A IM-162565A IM-172574A IM-182586A IM-192605A IM-202722A IM-212746A IM-222788A IM-232855A IM-242871A IM-252984A IM-263030A IM-273144A IM-283243A IM-293273A IM-303290A IM-313369A IM-323445A IM-333483A IM-343676A IM-353779A IM-363793A IM-373893A IM-383960A IM-393972A IM-403984A IM-414068A IM-424178A IM-434287A IM-444297A IM-454309A IM-464484A IM-474649A IM-484798A IM-495104A IM-505918A IM-516122A IM-526192A IM-536452A IM-546660A IM-557768A IM-568145A IM-578954A IM-589312A IM-599449A IM-6010272A IM-6111683A IM-6213376A IM-6314698A IM-6415190A IM-6466758A IM-6515951A IM-6615172A IM-6715925A IM-6823436A IM-6939794A IM-7044166A IM-7148890A IM-7254028A IM-7360170A IM-7574372A IM-7675545A IM-7777543A IM-7879507A IM-7988854A IM-80101831A IM-81104301A IM-82125160A IM-83132978A IM-84149099A IM-852016B IM-862029B IM-872144B IM-882130B IM-892168B IM-902164B IM-912200B IM-922284B IM-932299B IM-942314B IM-952414B IM-962428B IM-972451B IM-982468B IM-992483B IM-1002565B IM-1012583B IM-1022597B IM-1032697B IM-1042715B IM-1052740B IM-1062752B IM-1072767B IM-1082885B IM-1092882B IM-1102967B IM-1112977B IM-1122994B IM-1133031B IM-1143048B IM-1153148B IM-1163166B IM-1173283B IM-1183308B IM-1193332B IM-1203432B IM-1213450B IM-1223561B IM-1233615B IM-1243714B IM-1253730B IM-1263834B IM-1273899B IM-1283969B IM-1293986B IM-1303997B IM-1314013B IM-1324181B IM-1334297B IM-1344311B IM-1354465B IM-1364484B IM-1374579B IM-1384608B IM-1394669B IM-1404747B IM-1414862B IM-1424891B IM-1435033B IM-1445077B
US08014950B2
Seismic data are processed to reduce or eliminate aliasing due, for example to sparse or irregular sampling. An iterative method includes an inhibiting function used in conjunction with a function evaluating a magnitude of Fourier coefficients that together act to reduce the effects of aliased energies and preferentially select true energies. Computational steps are conducted primarily in k-space, without returning to x-space, thereby reducing computational costs.
US08014947B2
Methods and apparatus for locating printouts are provided. In a method embodiment, a method of providing information generally includes generating directions to a first printer from a first location based on the location of the first printer and the first location. The method also includes presenting the directions to a user.
US08014945B2
Systems and method of managing map data on electronic devices such as portable electronic devices include systems and methods of preloading map data, managing map data storage, sharing point of interest or pushpin data with other electronic devices, and displaying map data.
US08014939B2
The present invention is directed to a system and method for searching and retrieving location information associated with one or more points of interests, whereby the search criteria can be dependent upon the location of a point of interest with respect to the real-time position of the user, and any preferences or search restrictions selected by the user, such as rating information about the point of interest. Upon selecting a point of interest from the search result, the user is then given further information regarding the selected point of interest, including but not limited to directions for traveling to the point of interest. Additionally, the present invention can provide to the user a proximity notification once the user is within a certain distance from the point interest. Finally, while at a point of interest, the user can provide to the system information regarding the point of interest, such as rating of the food of a restaurant, without having to specifically identify the point of interest as the system can self-identify the point of interest by using the position information of the user.
US08014928B2
Systems and methods are provided to enhance the ability of a driver to safely slipstream a leading vehicle to realize a fuel economy benefit.
US08014925B2
A control apparatus for an automatic transmission includes an operational condition detecting unit for detecting a vehicle operational condition, a slope detecting unit for detecting a road surface slope, and a shift characteristic selecting unit for selecting one of a plurality of shift maps preliminarily set according to the road surface slope. The control apparatus further includes an acceleration/deceleration calculating unit for calculating an acceleration or deceleration from the degree of increase or decrease in vehicle speed per unit time, a deceleration shift characteristic for deciding a gear position according to the deceleration and the vehicle speed, and a brake detecting unit for detecting a brake operation. When the road surface slope is determined to be a downhill slope and the brake operation is detected, the selected shift map is changed to the deceleration shift characteristic and the gear position is decided according to the deceleration shift characteristic.
US08014919B2
A vehicle control device and a vehicle are provided with compatibility between high grip performance and fuel efficiency. When a camber angle of a wheel is adjusted as a negative camber, the ground contact pressure on a first tread is increased and the ground contact pressure on a second tread is decreased, thus providing the high grip performance. On the other hand, when the camber angle of the wheel is adjusted as a positive camber, the ground contact pressure on the first tread is decreased and the ground contact pressure on the second tread is increased, thereby reducing rolling resistance and achieving fuel saving. By adjusting the camber angle of the wheel, compatibility can be provided between high grip performance and fuel saving which otherwise conflict with each other.
US08014917B2
An apparatus is provided for diagnosing the state of health of a vehicle and for providing the operator of the vehicle with a substantially real-time indication of the efficiency of the vehicle in performing an assigned task with respect to a predetermined goal. A processor on-board the vehicle monitors sensors that provide information regarding the state of health of the vehicle and the amount of work the vehicle has done. In response to anomalies in the data from the sensors, the processor records information that describes events leading up to the occurrence of the anomaly for later analysis that can be used to diagnose the cause of the anomaly. The sensors are also used to prompt the operator of the vehicle to operate the vehicle at optimum efficiency.
US08014910B2
A reference value is arbitrarily selected from a range of possible aircraft rotation speeds. A position of a trimmable horizontal stabilizer is angled in accordance with a centering of the reference value. A deviation between the reference value and an accelerating speed value of the aircraft is determined. Elevators or the horizontal stabilizer are controlled, prior to rotation, in accordance with the determined deviation.
US08014908B2
The present invention relates to methods and systems for routing mobile vehicles under maintenance and operational constraints. In the case of aircraft, the methods and systems may generate an aircraft routing proposal based on information describing a possible flight of an aircraft, determine a proposed flight assignment for the aircraft based on the generated aircraft routing proposal and complying with the information describing the possible flight of the aircraft, and determine whether the proposed flight assignment meets a decision criterion describing requirements for aircraft routing. If the decision criterion is unmet, the methods and systems may optimize the proposed flight assignment such that the proposed flight assignment meets the decision criterion. The methods and systems may also generate a flight assignment plan using the proposed flight assignment that meets the decision criterion.
US08014907B2
The invention relates to a method of assisting in the navigation of an aircraft comprising a step for updating a flight plan according to a new clearance originating from an air traffic control authority and received on board by a ground/onboard communication system. The clearance comprises an action conditional on the flight plan linked to a floating point of the path defined by a time constraint of the aircraft; on receipt of the new clearance, the update is performed directly by means of the FMS linked to the communication system. This is a predictive method.
US08014902B2
A system for load control in an electrical power system is described, wherein one or more temperature-monitoring devices are provided to control operation of a pool pump. When ambient temperatures are relatively high, and thus, electrical power demands from air conditioning systems are relatively high, the temperature-monitoring devices can remove power from the controlled device during the hottest portions of the day. The temperature-monitoring devices can provide power to the controlled devices during the cooler portions of the day. During heat waves or other periods of relatively continuous high heat, the temperature-monitoring devices can schedule power to the controlled devices to reduce overall power demands and to run the controlled devices during the cooler portions of the day when air conditioning electrical loads are reduced. The temperature-monitoring devices can also coordinate operation of the pool pump and a pool heater.
US08014883B2
An audio broadcast creation client applies the concept of style sheets to audio data intended for audio broadcasts. The creation client associates style sheet elements to sections of the audio broadcast. An audio broadcast rendering engine applies the style sheet elements at runtime to alter or enhance sections of the audio broadcast. Different style sheets may be applied to the same raw audio broadcast data to alter the end result. A template is provided for generating audio broadcasts. The user may record the appropriate audio files and refer to these audio files in fields of the audio broadcast template.
US08014881B2
In a lithographic apparatus, a feedforward transfer function of a control system is determined by: a) iteratively learning a feedforward output signal of the control system by iterative learning control for a given setpoint signal; b) determining a relation between the learned feedforward output signal and the setpoint signal; and c) applying the relation as the feedforward transfer function of the control system. A learned feedforward, which has been learned for one or more specific setpoint signals only, can be adapted to provide a setpoint signal dependent feedforward output signal. The learned feedforward can be made more robust against setpoint variations.
US08014878B2
Polymer materials are useful as electrode array bodies for neural stimulation. They are particularly useful for retinal stimulation to create artificial vision, cochlear stimulation to create artificial hearing, or cortical stimulation many purposes. The pressure applied against the retina, or other neural tissue, by an electrode array is critical. Too little pressure causes increased electrical resistance, along with electric field dispersion. Too much pressure may block blood flow. Common flexible circuit fabrication techniques generally require that a flexible circuit electrode array be made flat. Since neural tissue is almost never flat, a flat array will necessarily apply uneven pressure. Further, the edges of a flexible circuit polymer array may be sharp and cut the delicate neural tissue. By applying the right amount of heat to a completed array, a curve can be induced. With a thermoplastic polymer it may be further advantageous to repeatedly heat the flexible circuit in multiple molds, each with a decreasing radius. Further, it is advantageous to add material along the edges. It is further advantageous to provide a fold or twist in the flexible circuit array. Additional material may be added inside and outside the fold to promote a good seal with tissue.
US08014876B2
The present invention provides a treatment device for applying electrical impulses to a living body through the skin, for treating a variety of clinical conditions. The device comprises a pair of electrodes for contact with the skin, and a waveform generator for repeatedly generating an AC waveform for applying electrical impulses through the electrodes to the skin. A detector detects changes in the skin impedance and generates detector output signals representing the skin impedance. Means responsive to the detector output signals for monitor the responsivity of the skin, and indicator means activated by the monitoring means generate a first indication when a predetermined level of responsivity is reached and a second indication when a pre-determined treatment has been administered.
US08014870B2
A method and apparatus for electrically stimulating the brain to alleviate tinnitus. In one aspect of the invention the areas of the brain to which stimulation is applied are determined by a procedure which first involves analysis of the patient to determine the nature of the sound perceived by the patient to produce tinnitus. These sound frequencies are then provided to the patient while imaging studies are made of the patient's brain. These studies may include magnetoencephalography (MEG) and/or functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). These studies are then analyzed to determine the locus of the tinnitus, and one or more electrodes are placed at the indicated region in the patient's brain and a stimulation device for outputting a varying control pattern of electrical signals to the electrodes is also implanted.
US08014869B2
A method and apparatus for adjusting a visual image provided to a patient. In one embodiment, an image may be presented to the patient to obtain the patient's subjective perception of the image, and the patient may either manipulate the image to obtain a desired adjustment, or guide a clinician performing the adjustment. In another embodiment, the clinician may make objective observations of, for example, the position of an electrode array on the patient's retina, and make adjustments accordingly. The adjustment may be a spatial adjustment comprising a re-mapping performed to decreases image distortion resulting from differences in the patient's perception of stimulation of different areas of the retina. Such distortion may result from differences between the patient's perception of stimulation falling within the macula, and stimulation falling within the periphery surrounding the macula. The adjustment may also compensate for translations or rotations of the electrode array on the retina.
US08014864B2
A first lead provides therapeutic stimulation to the heart and includes a first mechanical sensor that measures physical contraction and relaxation of the heart. A controller induces delivery of therapeutic stimulation via the first lead. The controller receives signals from the first mechanical sensor indicative of the contraction and relaxation; develops a template signal that corresponds to the contraction and relaxation; and uses the template signal to modify the delivery of therapeutic stimulations. In another arrangement, a second lead, with a second mechanical sensor also provides signals to the controller indicative of contraction and relaxation. The first mechanical sensor is adapted to be positioned at the interventricular septal region of the heart, and the second mechanical sensor is adapted to be positioned in the lateral region of the left ventricle. The controller processes the signals from the first mechanical sensor and the second mechanical sensor to develop a dysynchrony index.
US08014863B2
A system including an implantable trigger event detector and an implantable ischemia detector. The implantable trigger event detector is adapted to detect at least one first condition and to output a responsive trigger signal including information about whether the first condition has been detected. The implantable ischemia detector is adapted to detect a second condition indicative of one or more physiologic cardiovascular events in a subject that are indicative of ischemia. The ischemia detector is coupled to the trigger event detector to receive the trigger signal, and the ischemia detector is enabled upon the trigger signal indicating that the first condition has been detected.
US08014859B2
An external defibrillator enclosure for use in conjunction with a defibrillator accessory, such as an electrode pad assembly, includes a front panel and a rear panel which are mated together and secured by a coupling means. The enclosure also includes a plate secured by a coupling means to the second panel. The plate and second panel are positioned relative to each other to form a slot that is sized to receive a portion of the electrode assembly. The enclosure also includes a connector port that allows for the electrode pad assembly to be pre-connected to the electronics within the enclosure. The electrode pad assembly includes a cable and a connector at the end of the cable, and the exterior face of enclosure rear panel includes a groove that is sized to receive and retain the cable. The groove holds the cable in place against the surface of the enclosure while the cable is connected to the connector port.
US08014853B2
A system and method of central auditory processing testing and evaluation provides for identifying clinically relevant neural synchrony in the auditory brainstem pathway. The system or method finds use as a tool to evaluate auditory processing disorders, and hence, potential auditory system and/or learning disabilities. The system or method may further find use in the selection and fitting of hearing corrective appliances such as hearing aid or cochlear implant devices and/or in the selection and implementation of auditory training regimens.
US08014851B2
Methods and devices for cardiac signal analysis in implantable cardiac therapy systems. Several signal processing and/or conditioning methods are shown including R-wave detection embodiments including the use of thresholds related to previous peak amplitudes. Also, some embodiments include sample thresholding to remove extraneous data from sampled signals. Some embodiments include weighting certain samples more heavily than other samples within a sampled cardiac signal for analysis.
US08014845B2
An information terminal device includes: a first housing that has a first operating unit on a face on one side thereof; a hinge member that is designed to rotate about a first axis, with respect to the first housing; a second housing that has a second operating unit on a face on one side thereof, is provided on one side of the first housing, slides in the direction of a second axis perpendicular to the first axis, and transits between a state where the second housing covers the first operating unit and a state where the first operating unit is exposed, the second housing restricting rotation of the hinge member through contact with the first housing when the second housing is in the covering state; and a third housing that has a display unit on a face on one side thereof, is provided on one side of the second housing, slides in the direction of the first axis, and transits between a state where the third housing covers the second operating unit and a state where the second operating unit is exposed.
US08014839B2
A mobile telephone includes a first body, a connecting portion, and a second body. A keyboard is formed the first body. The connecting portion is secured on the first body and rotatable relative to the first body about a first axis. The second body is secured on the connecting portion and rotatable relative to the connecting portion about a second axis. The second axis is substantially perpendicular to the first axis.
US08014836B2
Telephone apparatus in that a front cover 3 and a rear cover 4 are combined with each other to form a main body 2, and various components are provided in the main body 2. The front cover 3 includes a transmitter 5, an operating unit 6, a display unit 7, and a receiver 8 from the bottom of the main body 2. In the front cover 3, a main tone hole 85 is provided in the vicinity of a speaker 82, and a sub-tone hole 86 is provided below the speaker 82.
US08014835B2
A portable telephone set of slide type comprises a main casing, a movable casing, the two casing being slidably coupled and capable of being locked to each other, and a lock releasing element for releasing the lock. The portable telephone set further comprises an illuminating element for illuminating the lock releasing element from the inner side.
US08014829B2
A mobile station includes a wireless interface, which gains wireless access to Internet via a BTS of a mobile communication network, a storage, which stores bookmark information including information on a title, a URL, or a display mode of at least one WAP page/Web page, a display, which displays the WAP/Web page, an input, which receives the information on the title, the URL, or the display mode of the WAP/Web page, and a central processing unit, which stores the bookmark information, including the information on the title, the URL, or the display mode of the WAP/Web page input through the input, in the storage, and displays the WAP/Web page, based on data downloaded from a server on the Internet accessed through the wireless interface, through the display using the display mode information corresponding to the title information or the URL information of the WAP/Web page.
US08014824B2
An article of manufacture, such as a jacket or backpack, integrates the services of an audio delivery device, such as an MP3 player, with the services of a two-way communication device, such as a mobile phone, or a two-way radio such as a walkie talkie, citizen band radio, HAM radio, marine or aviation radio, and the like. The article integrates the reception and provision of input and output signals from both the audio devices within the article, thereby enabling a user to listen to music or to receive and place phone calls while engaged in activity. In one implementation, the article provides these functions by holding one or more devices for communicably connecting and switching the audio and communication devices, mixing signals received therefrom, and optionally enabling a user to reduce the volume or mute the signals as desired.
US08014819B2
A system and method comprising a framework configured to enable wireless devices to intelligently and simultaneously use multiple wireless interfaces of the wireless devices.
US08014818B2
A method and system applies MAC transmission opportunity (TXOP) protection for multiple mode operation in a WLAN system. In particular, MAC mechanisms are defined to support multiple mode CTS frames, and multiple mode CF-End frames sent by the AP, each in a format appropriate for the corresponding mode which also applies to a single mode as a trivial case. MAC mechanisms permit truncation of TXOP duration for releasing the unused portion of the TXOP when no further data for transmission is available. Release of unused protected TXOP is possible for both protected AP transmissions and STA transmissions.
US08014811B2
A communication system includes: an RF/IF/BB unit (21) for receiving, in a mobile station device (20), a transmission signal from a base station device; a received power calculation unit (221) for obtaining received power thereof; a communication rate modification unit (23) for changing a communication rate by changing a modulation scheme used by the base station device to modulate the transmission signal in a predetermined case; and a communication rate increase limit unit (27) for limiting the communication rate to be increased by the communication rate modification unit (23), according to received power required for the mobile station device (20) to demodulate the transmission signal and according to the received power obtained when receiving the transmission signal after the communication rate is changed by the communication rate modification unit (23) and predicted based on the received power obtained by the received power calculation unit (221) and based on a decrease amount of a transmission power of a transmission signal decreased by the base station device according to increase of the communication rate by the communication rate modification unit (23).
US08014808B2
A radio communication control system controlling a transmission power of a shared control channel for transmitting a control signal to a plurality of mobile stations. The system includes a transmission power lower limit value setting section configured to set a lower limit value of the transmission power of the shared control channel, and to set the transmission power of the shared control channel at the lower limit value when the transmission power of the shared control channel is lower than the lower limit value.
US08014795B2
A system and method are described for initiating, enabling, disabling or restoring cellphone operations when the cellphone is in a zone, which is where cellphone operation has to be so altered. A courtesy signal transmitter transmits a courtesy signal containing zone data, which is received by the cellphone's courtesy signal receiver. A GPSS receiver, embedded in the cellphone, outputs the current cellphone location. A cellphone's processor compares this location to the zone's coordinates; if it determines that the cellphone is in the zone, the cellphone's processor initiates, enables, or disables operations in it as directed by bits in the zone's data. Spread-spectrum technology securely passes zone data from courtesy signal transmitters to courtesy signal receivers in cellphones, using GPSS data to make this coding scheme more secure. Finally, the courtesy signal transmitter GPSS location is checked to determine if the courtesy signal transmitter has been moved after it is initialized.
US08014793B2
A computing device is provided for responding to a location-based query. The computing device receives the query, determines that a current position fix is unavailable, retrieves from memory a previously-calculated position fix calculated before receipt of the location-based query, and provides a response to the query based on the previously-calculated position fix.
US08014792B2
A distance between positional information added to contents and a current position detected in an information receiving terminal is calculated, and based on the calculated distance, a method for outputting the contents is controlled. Thus, since the method for outputting the contents can be changed by a positional relationship between the contents and the information receiving terminal, distance relationship between the current position and the contents can be clearly displayed so that users can easily select the contents.
US08014788B2
A method for estimating the speed and bearing of a Wi-Fi enabled device using WLAN radio signals in a WLAN based location service is provided. A method used to estimate a speed of travel of a Wi-Fi enabled device comprises the Wi-Fi enabled device receiving signals transmitted by Wi-Fi access points in range of the Wi-Fi enabled device, and using the signals to estimate the speed of and/or direction of travel of the Wi-Fi enabled device.
US08014787B2
For use in a wireless network, systems and methods for identifying radar signals and for giving the wireless network a radar-avoidance capability. The system for identifying radar signals includes: (1) a pulse analyzer, associated with a wireless device, configured to make a determination whether a received pulse is a radar pulse and not a wireless network pulse and (2) a pulse reporter configured to generate, if the determination is positive, a report thereof for transmission over the wireless network. Another system gives the wireless network a radar-avoidance capability and includes: (1) a report receiver configured to receive reports via the wireless network from wireless devices thereof and (2) a report analyzer, associated with the report receiver, configured to analyze relationships among the reports to make a determination whether a sequence of radar pulses exists and, if the determination is positive, generate a radar transmission alert.
US08014781B2
To avoid or reduce intra-cell interference, each sector of a cell is associated with a sector-specific set of system resources (e.g., subbands) and at least one non-overlapping common set of system resources. Each common set for each sector includes system resources observing little or no interference from at least one other sector in the cell. The channel condition for a terminal in a given sector x is ascertained based on forward and/or reverse link measurements for the terminal. The terminal is assigned system resources from a common set or a sector-specific set for sector x based on the terminal's channel condition. For example, if the terminal observes high interference from another sector y, then the terminal is assigned system resources from a common set that observes little or no interference from sector y. The techniques may be used for an OFDMA system that uses frequency hopping.
US08014772B2
Procedures are provided for the establishment of MBMS services in different cells of a cellular telecommunications network, in particular, for maintaining the transmission of MBMS data to a particular user equipment, even when it moves from one cell to another when the service is provided in different ways in different cells. In particular, when a user equipment receives a multimedia data service in a first cell via a certain type of connection (i.e., a point-to-point connection/while requiring an RRC Connection, a point-to-multipoint connection without/while requiring an RRC Connection), and moves to a second cell where the type of connection used to provide the service is different, specific actions are undertaken (e.g., request for an RRC Connection, release of an RRC Connection, etc), depending on the type of connection change carried out. Embodiments for the establishment of the most adequate connection (p-t-p, p-t-m) in a cell are disclosed as well (e.g., by sending a message from a SRNC to a CRNC).
US08014770B2
A push proxy server for pushing data to a wireless device having a coverage state of online or offline. The push proxy server comprises a coverage state detector, memory, a data store, and a transceiver. The coverage state detector determines the coverage state of the wireless device. The memory stores a coverage state indicator for indicating the coverage state of the wireless device. The data store stores the data to be pushed to the wireless device when the coverage state indicator indicates the wireless device is offline. The transceiver transmits the data to the wireless device when the coverage state indicator indicates the wireless device is online. A method for implementing the push proxy server is also described.
US08014765B2
A system for providing caption information for one or more mobile devices includes a communication network, and one or more mobile devices connected to the communication network. The one or more mobile devices can include a cellular device, a personal digital assistant, or a wireless device. The system includes a captioning device to present caption data on a display, and a transcription device to transcribe data. The transcription device provides near real time delivery of the data transcription. The system uses the communication network to send text from the caption data to at least one of the mobile devices, while the system sends the caption data to one or more captioning devices simultaneously.
US08014764B2
A method of and apparatus for obtaining information about a product or service offering having an associated receiver responsive to an information request or query. The method comprise providing a portable subscriber device linked with a communication network, presenting at least one selectable query for information to a subscriber via the subscriber device, selecting the at least one query for information, providing a desired privacy status of the subscriber utilizing the subscriber device, transmitting the query and the privacy status and, at the associated receiver, processing the privacy status and responding to the query by providing the requested information to the subscriber. A corresponding apparatus is also disclosed.
US08014752B2
Automatic utilization of cellular telephone device is achieved by a controller and a short-range wireless communicator mounted on a vehicle, the short-range wireless communicator having a peer-to-peer communications capability; responsive to an emergency notification message, pinging by the short-range wireless communicator a long-range communication device contemporaneously within range of the peer-to-peer communications capability, the long-range communication device being physically detached from the vehicle; subsequent to the pinging, receiving a response message indicating that user authorization is required; responsive to the response message, sending by the short-range wireless communicator to the long-range communication device a request for authorization message; subsequent to a user responding in an affirmative manner to the authorization request, receiving an authorization message to co-opt the long-range communication device; and responsive to the authorization, sending an emergency notification message from the short-range wireless communicator through the co-opted long-range communication device to a specified recipient party.
US08014747B2
An amplitude detecting device of the present art increases the slope of the change in output voltage corresponding to the change in amplitude of an input signal to improve the detection accuracy of amplitude change of input signal, without changing the dynamic range of the device. An amplitude detecting device of the art includes a plurality of amplifiers that amplify an input signal according to a predefined amplification rate, an amplitude detector that detects the amplitude of the signal amplified by the amplifiers, an operation circuit that operates the signal detected by the amplitude detector and obtains the amplitude value of the input signal, and a switch circuit that sets whether the signal detected by the amplitude detector is to be transmitted to the operation circuit or not.
US08014740B2
Aspects of a method and system for amplitude calibration for polar modulation with discontinuous phase may include amplifying a signal via a plurality of amplifiers such that a combined gain of the plurality of amplifiers comprises a coarse amplitude gain, an amplitude offset gain and a calibration gain. A gain of one or more of the plurality of amplifiers may be adjusted to set the coarse amplitude gain, and a gain of one or more remaining ones of the plurality of amplifiers may be adjusted to set the amplitude offset gain and the calibration gain. The setting of the coarse amplitude gain, the calibration gain and/or said amplitude offset gain may be adjusted dynamically and/or adaptively.
US08014732B2
A programmable antenna assembly includes a configurable antenna structure, a configurable antenna interface, and a control module. The configurable antenna structure includes a plurality of antenna elements that, in response to an antenna configuration signal, are configured elements into at least one antenna. The configurable antenna interface module is coupled to the at least one antenna and, based on an antenna interface control signal, provides at least one of an impedance matching circuit and a bandpass filter. The control module is coupled to generate the antenna configuration signal and the antenna interface control signal in accordance with a first frequency band and a second frequency band such that the at least one antenna facilitates at least one of transmitting and receiving a first RF signal within the first frequency band and facilitates at least one of transmitting and receiving a second RF signal within the second frequency band.
US08014731B2
Circuitry includes a voltage-controlled switch having a transmitter input, a receiver input, and an output that connects to one of the transmitter input and the receiver input. Passive components form a low-pass filter that is electrically connected to the transmitter input. The passive components are part of a multilayer ceramic passive module that includes a base body made of superimposed dielectric layers and electrically conductive layers. The voltage-controlled switch is on an upper portion or a lower portion of the base body.
US08014726B1
A method of collecting information on a wireless device. A wireless device may comprise a processor, a transceiver, a memory and a data collecting component. The data collecting component is operable to monitor the wireless device and collect information (e.g., wireless network information, wireless device information and wireless device usage information). In one embodiment, at least a portion of the data collecting component is installed within and/or below the operating system. For example, at least a portion of the data collecting component may be embedded within the operating system, the kernel, the firmware and/or on top of the firmware, the kernel or any combination thereof. In one embodiment, the collected information may be processed, stored and transmitted. Accordingly, the data collector component operates in a non-intrusive/transparent manner by utilizing less memory space and produces fewer errors without causing a system slowdown while maintaining high level of privacy and security.
US08014725B2
A method for safety-directed wireless signal transmission is provided. The method includes duplicating an input signal; supplying each copy of the duplicated input signal within a source unit to a transmitter module over separate, independent software paths; transmitting the copies using the transmitter module over a common wireless transmission link to a receiver module of a sink unit; supplying each transmitted copy within the sink unit over an independent software path to a comparator module; and using the comparator module to test the output copies for consistency with an output signal corresponding to the output copies being generated by the comparator module.
US08014723B2
A wireless transceiver includes a first integrated circuit and a second integrated circuit. The first integrated circuit includes a memory module that stores a plurality of operational instructions for implementing a plurality of protocol layers of a wireless protocol, a processing module that executes the plurality of operational instructions, and a first interface module. The second integrated circuit includes a second interface module that couples data to and from the first interface module, an RF transceiver that modulates a first baseband signal to produce a transmitted RF signal, and that demodulates a received RF signal to produce a second baseband signal, and a baseband module that generates the first baseband signal based on data received from the first interface module via the second interface module, and that generates data based on the second baseband signal to send to the first interface module via the second interface module.
US08014701B2
A contacting and separating mechanism which causes a first member to contact a second member and separates the first member contacting the second member from the second member is disclosed. The contacting and separating mechanism includes a pressure applying member which is rotated together with the first member by using a force of a first force applying member with a first supporting point as the center and causes the first member to contact the second member and separates the first member contacting the second member from the second member, and separates the first member contacting the second member from the second member by rotating with the first member with a second supporting point as the center by changing the position of the first supporting point.
US08014696B2
An image-forming device includes a main casing, a process casing, a photosensitive member, a charger, a first duct member, a fan, and a duct moving unit. The process casing is accommodated in the main casing and removably mounted thereon. The process casing has a casing inlet formed therein. The photosensitive member is disposed in the process casing. The charger is disposed in the process casing for charging a photosensitive member. The first duct member has a duct outlet. The fan blows air on the charger through the duct outlet of the first duct member and the casing inlet. The duct moving unit moves the first duct member between a first position in which the duct outlet of the first duct member is adjacent to the casing inlet formed in the process casing, and a second position in which the duct outlet is separated farther from the casing inlet than in the first position.
US08014691B2
A method of measuring density includes detecting movement of a moving member in a light path of light emitted from a light emitting member, measuring an output of a light receiving member for a case where the moving member is moved in the light path, as a first output, detecting that the moving member is not in the light path, measuring an output of the light receiving member for a case where the moving member is not in the light path, as a second output, and calculating density based on the first output and the second output.
US08014685B2
A coherent optical receiver of the invention combines local oscillator light having orthogonal polarization components in which the optical frequencies are different to each other, and received signal light, in an optical hybrid circuit, and then photoelectrically converts this in two differential photodetectors. Then this is converted to a digital signal in an AD conversion circuit, and computation processing is executed in a digital computing circuit using the digital signal, to estimate received data. At this time, the optical frequency difference between the orthogonal polarization components of the local oscillator light is set so as to be smaller than two times the signal light band width, and larger than a spectrum line width of the signal light source and the local oscillator light source. As a result, it is possible to realize a small size polarization independent coherent optical receiver that is capable of receiving high speed signal light.
US08014684B2
The object of the present invention is to provide a modulated optical signal generator utilizing the mechanism of a multiply optical modulator, and a modulated signal generator capable of outputting millimeter waves and the like utilizing the modulated optical signal generator.The above-mentioned object is solved by a modulated optical signal generator (1) provided with an optical modulator (2), a first optical filter (3), and a second optical filter (4), wherein a frequency of a multiplying optical modulation outputted from the second optical filter (4) is controlled by controlling the frequency of the modulating signal inputted to the optical modulator (2).
US08014678B2
A device includes a power module to produce a switched voltage and to convert the switched voltage into a waveform adapted to wirelessly pass through a structure. The device may include a data module to receive a wireless signal through the structure, where the wireless signal includes information, and to send the information toward a destination.
US08014674B2
A method for operating PON (passive optical network) user terminal and a PON user terminal equipment, when there is only few data service request in the PON, the PON user terminal operates in power saving manner which maintains low speed connection, the method comprises: a judgment condition that the PON user terminal changes to power saving state is set; the PON user terminal determines whether its own state meet the judgment condition changing to power saving state, if so, it transmits a request to change to power saving state to the OLT (optical line terminal); after the PON user terminal receives the respond that the OLT has accepted the request, it controls parts of the modules therein to change to power saving state, and intermittently switch over between power saving state and normal state. The invention allows saving power under the condition that keeps the low speed service uninterrupted, in the meanwhile alleviates the pressure of ONU terminal thermal design.
US08014670B2
Some optical communications networks include one ingress fiber, an n-way signal coupler, and n egress fibers, where each fiber may carry signals in one or both directions. A method and apparatus for testing and monitoring data communications immediately before and after the coupler is provided. Benefits include improved ability to identify and locate system faults, and improved ability to monitor data quality and content.
US08014660B2
A zoom lens includes a movable aperture-control lens group, and a variable aperture-stop mechanism provided in front or behind the aperture-control lens group. The variable aperture-stop mechanism includes an aperture blade opening/closing mechanism including at least one movable aperture blade and varies the size of an adjustable aperture. The variable aperture-stop mechanism includes a fixed circular aperture which is smaller than a large-sized adjustable aperture and greater than a small-sized adjustable aperture. The movable aperture blade and the fixed circular aperture are positioned in that order from the aperture-control lens group side. When the zoom lens retracts to the accommodated position thereof, the adjustable aperture enlarges in size while the variable aperture-stop mechanism moves to a close position to the aperture-control lens group, so that at least part of the aperture-control lens group enters the large-size adjustable aperture.
US08014658B2
An exemplary image stabilizer includes an outer housing, an inner housing, an upper cover and a driving assembly. The inner housing is moveably received in the outer housing. The upper cover is fixedly mounted on the inner housing and moveably supported by the outer housing. The driving assembly includes a first magnetic member and a second magnetic member. The first magnetic member is positioned on the inner housing. The second magnetic member is positioned on the outer housing. The driving assembly is configured for driving the inner housing and the upper cover to move relative to the outer housing in a plane substantially perpendicular to a central axis of the outer housing through interaction between the first magnetic member and the second magnetic member.
US08014657B2
A photographing apparatus includes a third optical group arranged between a second optical group and an iris, and to stabilize hand tremor, and the third optical group is moved along a sphere that has a center based on a predetermined point on an optical axis. As a result, a photographing apparatus has an efficient hand tremor stabilization.
US08014650B1
Briefly, in accordance with one or more embodiments, relatively immediate feedback may be provided for out of range signals. Embodiments may include, subsequent to an edit of at least a portion of one or more received signals, compositing the one or more received signals to provide a composited signal including an edited portion corresponding to the edit. Embodiments may also include analyzing the composited signal to determine whether the edited portion of the composited signal exceeds a predefined range. Embodiments may also include generating an error indication in response to determining that the edited portion of the composited signal exceeds the predefined range. The compositing, the analyzing and the generating are completed during a time period less than a total playing time of the composited signal.
US08014644B2
An optical waveguide comprising a core and a clad characterized in that a desired part is heated and transited to machining strain release state, the part transited to the machining strain release state is curved with a specified bending radius and transited to machining strain state. That part of the optical waveguide is heated to a temperature within a range between the bending point and softening point and transited to machining strain state. The optical waveguide is an optical fiber having the outer diameter not shorter than 50 μm. The optical waveguide has the outer diameter not shorter than ten times of the mode field diameter of the optical waveguide. The optical waveguide has a bending radius of 5.0 mm or less and difference equivalent of refractive index &Dgr;1 between the core and clad falls within a range of 0.8-3.5%.
US08014624B2
A method and an arrangement for optimizing the image quality of movable subjects imaged with a microscope system are proposed. The microscope system encompasses at least one objective that defines an image window. Motions of the subjects being observed are captured in the image frame. A computer system, having a means for determining a respective displacement vector field from a comparison of the respective pixels of two chronologically successive images, generates a trajectory from the synopsis of the displacement vector field of all the acquired images. A means for applying an operation to the image data along a trajectory is also provided.
US08014608B2
Images may be extracted from a site in a network for further processing, such as storing or printing. The extraction process may change depending on the site type or classification. Sites may be categorized as belonging to one or more predetermined types. Sites may be categorized as belonging to a recognized site list. An image extraction process may be associated with each predetermined type or each recognized site. Upon browsing to a site and initiating the extraction process, the site is identified as belonging to one of the predetermined types or recognized sites. Then, one or more images is extracted from the site using the associated extraction process.
US08014597B1
A method is described to greatly improve the efficiency of and reduce the complexity of image compression when using single-sensor color imagers for video acquisition. The method in addition allows for this new image compression type to be compatible with existing video processing tools, improving the workflow for film and television production.
US08014576B2
A system and method of computer aided analysis of medical images and detection of malignant lesions is described. Medical images obtained from multiple modalities are analyzed. Morphological features as well as temporal, i.e., kinetics features, are combined to compute a consolidated assessment of a possible lesion detected in the medical images. The system includes at least one kinetics module, which is capable of extracting kinetics features from a time sequence of MRI images or MRS data taken after administering a contrast enhancement agent to a patient. The consolidated assessment is presented to a user for confirmation or modification.
US08014575B2
Automated spine localizing, numbering and autoprescription system enhances correct location of diseased or injured tissue, even allow multi-spectral diagnosis. Externally located this tissue is facilitated by an integrated self adhesive spatial reference and skin marking system that is designed for a variety of modalities to include MRI, CT, SPECT, PET, planar nuclear imaging, radiography, XRT, thermography, optical imaging and 3D space tracking. The device ranges from a point localizer to a more multifunctional and complex grid/phantom system. The specially designed spatial reference(s) is affixed to an adhesive strip with corresponding markings so that after applying the unit to the skin/surface and imaging, the reference can be removed leaving the skin appropriately marked. The localizer itself can also directly adhere to the skin after being detached from the underlying strip. A spine autoprescription process performs image analysis that is able to identify vertebrae and discs even in the presence of abnormalities.
US08014572B2
Systems and methods are described for a face annotation framework with partial clustering and interactive labeling. In one implementation, an exemplary system automatically groups some images of a collection of images into clusters, each cluster mainly including images that contain a person's face associated with that cluster. After an initial user-labeling of each cluster with the person's name or other label, in which the user may also delete/label images that do not belong in the cluster, the system iteratively proposes subsequent clusters for the user to label, proposing clusters of images that when labeled, produce a maximum information gain at each iteration and minimize the total number of user interactions for labeling the entire collection of images.
US08014566B2
An image processing apparatus includes a moving image file storage unit operable to store a moving image file; an area selection receiving unit operable to receive a selection of a predetermined area corresponding to one of a plurality of frames forming the moving image file; a template image generating unit operable to generate as a template image an image of the selected area; an image matching unit operable to obtain the frames from the moving image file storage unit, and to match each of the frames against the template image to search for a matching frame containing an image similar to the template image; and a scene change detecting unit operable to detect a start and an end of a scene containing the matching frame.
US08014559B2
A first-information obtaining unit that obtains first information and a second-information obtaining unit obtains second information. The second information has a higher degree of importance than that of the first information. A generating unit generates watermark image data including a group of first dot patterns including the first information and a group of second dot patterns including the first information and the second information and having a dot size enlarged from a dot size of the first dot patterns. A superposing unit superposes the generated watermark image data on a target image data.
US08014556B2
A headgear system enhanced for generating sound has at least one speaker apparatus connected to or integrated into the structure of the headgear system, the speaker apparatus including a magnet suspended in a magnetic fluid, and at least one resonator connected to the at least one speaker apparatus. The system is characterized in that excitation of the magnet produces vibration translated to the resonator to generate the sound.
US08014551B2
There is provided a behind-the-ear hearing aid that makes it easy for a hearing aid wearer to estimate a position of a sound source with respect to a front-back direction and that enables an increase in aesthetic property when the hearing aid is worn. A behind-the-ear hearing aid of the present invention is used while fitted to an ear of a human body, and includes at least a microphone 101 which collects ambient sound, thereby generating an input signal and signal processing unit 102 that generates an output signal from the input signal. The hearing aid also has a behind-the-ear portion 110 that can be fitted to the ear and a receiver 103 that reproduces output sound from the output signal. When the behind-the-ear portion 110 is fitted to the ear, the microphone 101 is arranged in an entrance of an ear canal that lies in the extension of an ear canal 220 and that is disposed closer to an eardrum than to a plane that is defined by a helix 901, a tragus 902, and an earlobe 903.
US08014549B2
A dynamic range compression system is provided, using either a sample-by-sample or a block processing system. Such a system can be used, for example, in a hearing aid. The system, using a frequency-warped processing system, is comprised of a cascade of all-pass filters with the outputs of the all-pass filters providing the input to the frequency analysis used to compute the filter coefficients. The compression filter is then designed in the frequency domain. Using a compression filter having even symmetry guarantees that the group delay is constant and does not depend on the compression gains at any given time. Additionally, due to the use of all-pass filters, the compression filter group delay more closely matches human auditory latency. An inverse frequency transform back into the warped time domain is used to produce the compression filter coefficients that are convolved with the outputs of the all-pass delay line to give the processed output signal.
US08014538B2
An active noise reducing device includes switchover frequency memory which stores a speaker having weaker influence of level drop or dips in gain characteristics of transmission from first speaker and second speaker both working as secondary noise generators to microphone working as a residual signal detector, and also stores a frequency band of that speaker. Output switcher appropriately and selectively switches first speaker over to second speaker in response to the noise frequency at present calculated based on the rpm of engine by frequency calculator. This structure allows the active noise reducing device to work steadily even if level drop or a dip occurs in the gain characteristics of transmission from the speaker to the microphone, and allows suppressing the occurrence of abnormal sound due to divergence or distorted sound due to excessive output. Ideal noise reduction effect can be expected.
US08014535B2
A method and circuit for deriving a set of multichannel audio signals from a conventional monaural or stereo audio signal uses an auxiliary multichannel spectral mapping data stream. Audio can be played back in stereo and multichannel formats from a conventional stereo signal on compact discs, FM radio, or other stereo or monaural delivery systems. The invention reduces the data rate needed for the transmission of multichannel digital audio.
US08014533B2
An audio output circuit includes an on-chip left channel amplifier module, an on-chip center channel amplifier module, and an on-chip right channel amplifier module. A left channel IC pin is operably coupled to an output of the on-chip left channel amplifier module. A right channel IC pin is operably coupled to an output of the on-chip right channel amplifier module. A center channel IC pin is operably coupled to an output of the on-chip center channel amplifier module. A center channel feedback IC pin is operably coupled to an input of the on-chip center channel amplifier module to provide a feedback loop. A left jack connection is operably coupled to the left channel IC pin. A right jack connection is operably coupled to the right channel IC pin. A jack return connection coupled to the center feedback IC pin. An inductor has a first node coupled to the jack return connection and a second node coupled to the center channel IC pin.
US08014531B2
An adder mixes an L-channel sound signal and an R-channel sound signal with each other and then outputs a mixed signal. A switching unit performs a switching operation such that, if power is being supplied to loudspeaker amplifiers, the L-channel sound signal and the R-channel sound signal are respectively supplied to the loudspeaker amplifiers, and if power is not being supplied to the loudspeaker amplifier, an output signal of the adder is supplied to the loudspeaker amplifier. A power down control unit forces a loudspeaker amplifier to which power is not supplied and a preamplifier for driving the loudspeaker amplifier to be in a power-down state.
US08014530B2
A method and apparatus for authenticated recoverable key distribution are described. In one embodiment, an application key is provided to an integrated chip platform. In one embodiment, the integrated chip platform encrypts the application key with a Key Encryption Key, which is stored within the persistent memory on the platform, and outputs a ChipID and the encrypted application key to enable recovery. In one embodiment, the platform can provide the ChipID to a recovery database to replace a lost encrypted application key. In one embodiment, the ChipID is the public key of a public/private key pair, and the application key is provided to the integrated chip platform by encrypting it using this public key. In one embodiment, the ChipID and the Key Encryption Key are derived from a secret random number programmed into the integrated chip. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
US08014520B2
Method and apparatus for data security using exponentiation. This is suitable for public key cryptography authentication and other data security applications using a one-way function. A type of exponentiation is disclosed here where the bits of an exponent value expressed in binary form correspond to a course (path) in a given graph defining the one-way function. This uses an approach called here F sequences. Each value is in a ladder of a sequence of values, as defined from its predecessor values. This ladder satisfies certain algebraic identities and is readily calculated by a computer program or logic circuitry.
US08014518B2
A patch panel apparatus, system, method and computer program product for patch cord path tracing is provided.
US08014504B2
A system for generating usage statistics for a communications routing system from data generated at routing points and at end points of the system has a processor having access to the communications routing system for analyzing the data and generating the statistics, and a server having access to the processor for rendering the generated statistics into a format for display. The data used to generate the statistics includes routing path information for events routed through the communications routing system and optionally interaction histories recorded at certain routing points and end points in the communications routing system.
US08014497B2
A presence aware communications system, comprising a messaging system configured to perform at least one of the following operations: (a) provide a subscriber's communication device with information regarding an incoming contact during a messaging session between the subscriber's communication device and the messaging system; (b) provide the subscriber's communication device with a text message containing information regarding one or more messages when a notification is received that the subscriber's communication device is available; (c) provide the subscriber's communication device with a text message relating to a voice message from a different first party received by the messaging system; (d) in response to the subscriber's communication device requesting a connection with at least one of an inputted telephone number and address, provide the subscriber's communication device with a notification respecting at least one eligible message from a second party associated with the at least one of an inputted telephone number and address; (e) while a contact between the subscriber and a different third party is in progress, provide the subscriber's communication device with information respecting the at least one eligible message from the third party; (f) transform an audio messaging session between the messaging system and the communication device of a contacting party into a graphical user interface-based audio session; and (g) transform the audio messaging session into a session having a video channel or both audio and video channels.
US08014495B2
A rotating anode plate for rotating anode x-ray tubes, has a curved disc to be attached positively on a rotation center. The curved disc is formed of a material with high thermal shock resistance that is creep-resistant and simultaneously highly heat-conductive. Particularly suitable materials are ceramics made of silicon carbide (SiC) or alloys made of molybdenum-titanium-zirconium (TZM).
US08014487B2
A counter circuit and method of controlling such a counter circuit, including a first counting section that counts in accordance with a state-cycle, and a second counting section clocked by the first counting section. At least one invalid counting state is introduced by controlling the second counting section to change its state before the first counting section has completed the state-cycle; and the invalid counting state is then detected and corrected. Thereby, some redundancy is introduced in the counter, which can be used to detect and correct incomplete switching of counter states.
US08014486B2
Methods and systems of generating a frequency switching local oscillator signal are disclosed. One method includes generating a reference clock signal, and clocking a counter with the reference clock signal. The counter controls selection of a one of a plurality of analog values stored in at least one of a plurality of periodic signal generators. The frequency switching local oscillator signal is generated by selecting an output of a one of the plurality of periodic signal generators.
US08014484B2
When recording stream data, index information and time correction information are recorded in correspondence with the stream data. The index information specifies a position of an invalid section in the stream data. The time correction information specifies a time which, supposing that a PCR included in the invalid section was able to be got, a time clock would have shown in synchronization with the PCR. When reproducing the stream data recorded together with the time correction information and the index information, at a position where the invalid section ends, the time clock can be set to a time intended by a broadcasting system, by referencing the index information and the time correction information.
US08014483B2
A receiver in an impulse wireless communication. The receiver (300) includes a pulse-pair correlator (304) that receives a signal (316) and divides it into two signals for paths. One of the signals is input to signal multiplier (312) while another signal is delayed by a delay unit (310). The signal multiplier (312) multiplies the received signal (316) by a delayed signal (318). An integrator (314) integrates an output signal (322) over a designated period of time. An adding module (306) sums an output signal (324) from the integrator (314). An acquiring module (308) compares an summing-up output (326) from the adding module (306) with a predetermined threshold value to detect the existence of a transmitting-standard preamble.
US08014481B1
In a method for recovering a data rate of an upstream transmission having rising edge transitions and falling edge transitions, an upstream transmission is coupled into a plurality of register banks, each register bank adapted to oversample the upstream transmission at a different phase offset of a clock signal. An edge transition state is determined for each of the register banks, each edge transition state corresponding to either a rising edge transition or a falling edge transition in the upstream transmission over a clock cycle. The edge transition states of the register banks are analyzed to determine a sampling point of the clock signal for sampling the upstream transmission. The upstream transmission may be transmitted through multiple data rate recovery circuits each operating at a different clock rate, for determining the optimal sampling point and the original data rate of the upstream transmission.
US08014473B2
Techniques for detecting received sequences when certain signaling characteristics (e.g., transport formats, rates) are not known a priori at the receiver. In one method, a sequence for a transmitted message is received, and a metric value is computed for each of a number of hypothesized messages corresponding to a number of hypotheses for the unknown signaling characteristic of the transmitted message. The metric value is computed based on a MAP metric derived to approximately maximize a joint a posteriori probability between the received sequence and the hypothesized messages. The hypothesized message having the best metric value is selected as the transmitted message. The specific form of the MAP metric is dependent on the particular signaling scheme used to map the message to its corresponding sequence, and may be used for blind transport format detection (BTFD) in a W-CDMA system and blind rate detection in an IS-95 CDMA system.
US08014472B1
Systems and techniques relating to wireless communications are described. A described technique includes receiving a plurality of symbols, observing a plurality of data samples in adjacent symbols, and calculating an estimate of an integer portion of a carrier frequency offset based on a cyclic shift and a phase shift of the data samples between symbols. Calculating the estimate can include calculating sum values corresponding to respective symbol indices. Each of the sum values can be based on a summation of max values that correspond to respective data subcarrier indices, the max values being based on a maximum of an absolute value of a real component of a base value and an absolute value of an imaginary component of the base value, where the base value is based on at least one of the data samples.
US08014461B2
An adaptive baseband processing system having a scalable architecture to allow scaling to support adaptive transmission and receive, at different granularity, channel vs. subchannel, for different number of antennas and/or users, including their components, are described herein. In various embodiments, the components include a front-end processor, an AAS processor and a back-end processor.
US08014457B2
A received signal having pilots is converted to a first signal in the frequency domain having the pilots. The pilots are extracted from the first signal to obtain extracted pilots to form a second signal. The second signal is used to provide a first estimate of a channel. The first estimate is converted to the time domain. Noise is removed from the first estimate in the time domain to provide a second estimate of the channel in the time domain. An autocorrelation of the channel in the frequency domain is determined using the second estimate of the channel. Extension signals are determined using the autocorrelation. The extension signals are appended to the first estimate of the channel to obtain a third estimate of the channel. The third estimate is used to provide a data signal in the frequency domain.
US08014450B2
Techniques and tools are described for flexible range reduction of samples of video. For example, an encoder signals a first set of one or more syntax elements for range reduction of luma samples and signals a second set of one or more syntax elements for range reduction of chroma samples. The encoder selectively scales down the luma samples and chroma samples in a manner consistent with the first syntax element(s) and second syntax element(s), respectively. Or, an encoder signals range reduction syntax element(s) in an entry point header for an entry point segment, where the syntax element(s) apply to pictures in the entry point segment. If range reduction is used for the pictures, the encoder scales down samples of the pictures. Otherwise, the encoder skips the scaling down. A decoder performs corresponding parsing and scaling up operations.
US08014449B2
Communications signal transcoder. A solution is provided to transcode a signal from a first signal type to a second signal type to ensure proper interfacing between devices that may operate using different signal types. For example, within a communication system, a first signal type (having a first modulation type, e.g., 8 PSK) may be received. The transcoder then ensures that this signal, after it has undergone any initial processing (such as tuning, down-converting, decoding, and so on), is encoded into a second signal type (having a second modulation type, e.g., QPSK) such that it can interface properly with a device for which the received signal is intended. This transcoder functionality may be implemented within discrete components, or it may alternatively be integrated within a functional block of an integrated circuit. This functionality may be implemented in a variety of communication systems including satellite, cable television, Internet, and others.
US08014444B1
An algorithm is provided that computes values for correcting for DC offsets of baseband I and Q signals, compensates for amplitude imbalance between the baseband I and Q signals and compensates for phase imbalance between the baseband I and Q signals. Test signals are injected into the I and Q signal processing paths (either or both of the receiver path and baseband path in a modem). Samples of the I and Q signals produced in the I and Q signal processing paths are generated and analyzed to determine DC offsets of the I and Q signals, amplitude imbalance between the I and Q signals and phase imbalance with respect to a desired orthogonal relationship between the I and Q signals.
US08014442B2
This disclosure relates to varying load and modulation applied to each of multiple frequency subchannels based on anticipated attenuation experienced by those subchannels. Communicating data includes identifying a static component of a transmission medium for wideband communications having at least two subchannels determining a function of noise is attenuation versus frequency for the static component selecting wideband modulation schemes for the subchannels based on the function determined and communicating a data signal over the subchannels. The transmission medium includes a medium other than a copper telephone wire between and including a carrier facility and a termination of the copper telephone wire at an access point at a user premise and copper telephone wire in a cable riser in multitenant units and multi-dwelling buildings. Independent demodulation functions may be applied to at least two of the subchannels.
US08014441B2
A communication channel establishing method is provided that is used in a communication system including a base station that transmits a beacon on a predetermined communication channel and a communication apparatus that receives the beacon from the base station and establishes communication with the base station using the predetermined communication channel. The method involves detecting at the base station whether a main power supply has been shut off, driving the base station by a backup power supply and transmitting a power supply shutoff notification signal from the base station to the communication apparatus upon detecting that the main power supply has been shut off, storing a current communication channel of the communication apparatus when the power supply shutoff notification signal from the base station is received by the communication unit, and reestablishing communication with the base station at the communication apparatus using the stored current communication channel upon recovery of the main power supply.
US08014439B2
A communication device selects an optimal modulation method even when a propagation path condition is changed. In the communication device, a second communication device has a transmission path condition estimation unit for estimating the propagation path condition change speed and a communication quality estimation unit for modifying the communication quality estimation method according to the speed of the change of the propagation path condition and for estimating the communication quality according to the modified estimation method. The information on the estimated propagation path condition and the information on the communication quality are transmitted from a transmission processing unit, and an adaptive modulation control unit of the first communication device sets a condition for selecting the modulation method and decides the modulation method according to the set condition and the information on the communication quality.
US08014429B2
A wavelength conversion laser is provided with a pair of fundamental wave reflecting surfaces for reflecting a fundamental wave to define a plurality of fundamental wave paths passing a wavelength conversion element at different angles, and a control unit for controlling wavelength conversion efficiencies so that the wavelength conversion efficiency on a specific one of the plurality of fundamental wave paths extending in different directions between the pair of fundamental wave reflecting surfaces is highest.
US08014428B2
The present disclosure provides in a first aspect a mode-locked laser for generating laser pulses. The mode-locked laser comprises an optical coupler and a first optical path capable of carrying optical signals from and to the optical coupler. The first optical path includes an optical amplifier that is arranged so that saturation of optical amplification causes amplitude modulation of the light. The optical amplifier has a saturation time that is shorter than a pulse transition period of the mode-locked laser and is arranged for recovery of amplifying properties after the saturation within a period of time that is shorter than the pulse transition period of the mode-locked laser. The laser further comprises a second optical path capable of carrying optical signals from and to the optical coupler. The second optical path includes an optical isolator. The first optical path has a non-linear property and is arranged so that, when a light pulse that is received from the second optical path is split by the optical coupler into component light pulses that are directed in opposite directions in the first optical path, the component light pulses experience differing shifts in phase and wherein the mode-locked laser is arranged so that mode-locked lasing is initiated by a light pulse that is amplitude modulated by the optical amplifier.
US08014422B2
Methods and systems for utilizing a single PLL to clock an array of DDFS for multi-protocol applications are disclosed. Aspects of one method may include generating a first signal for use in generating a plurality of local oscillator (LO) signals. The first signal may be communicated to a plurality of LO generators. Each of the LO signals may be generated independently of each other by a corresponding one of the LO generators. Each of the LO signals may be communicated to one or more mixers, where each mixer may perform down-conversion or up-conversion. A LO generator may utilize, for example, a DDFS or a digital delay circuit. A frequency of a LO signal may be varied by adjusting a divide factor for a divider that generates a reference clock for the DDFS or for a divider that generates a second signal used for mixing with a signal generated by the DDFS. The LO signal frequency may also be varied by adjusting frequency control words received by a DDFS.
US08014420B2
A label switching type packet forwarding apparatus having a routing information table in which a forwarding type of a reception packet, output port identification information, and output routing information of a specific layer in the OSI reference model determined by the forwarding type are defined in correspondence with routing information which is found upon reception of a packet, for converting a header of a reception packet in accordance with the packet forwarding type and the output routing information obtained by a table search.
US08014414B2
One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a method of generating a packet identifier table that comprises reading a packet identifier value from a received transport stream packet, identifying a type of data contained in the received transport stream packet, and generating a table with mapping information between the packet identifier value and the identified type of data.
US08014412B2
A power supply system for providing power to a powered device over a communication link includes a power supply device capable of supporting an AC disconnect-detect function. The power supply device has a controller, an output port coupled to the communication link, and a bipolar junction transistor (BJT) controlled by the controller to provide power to the output port. The BJT may be turned off to present a high impedance required to support the AC disconnect-detection function.
US08014408B2
The invention relates to a network with several subnetworks, which are organized either decentrally or centrally and can be connected in each case each by bridge terminals, a proxy terminal for a bridge terminal being set up in at least one of the subnetworks, which proxy terminal during an absence (dictated by frequency, time, code, or other factors) of the bridge terminal accepts all data directed to the bridge terminal or to be forwarded thereby, temporarily stores the data, and forwards said data to the bridge terminal when this is present again.
US08014406B2
There is provided a method and system for inserting a second node into a virtual ring, wherein the virtual ring comprises at least a first node, wherein the first node comprises a virtual ring manager for the virtual ring and wherein the first node is linked with a database.
US08014401B2
An electronic device is provided comprising an interconnect means (N, sw0-sw2) for connecting a plurality of modules (IP); and at least one network interface (NI) for coupling at least one of the plurality of modules (IP) to the interconnect means (N; sw0-sw2) and for packetizing data from the modules (IP) into first packets (pck). The communication over the interconnect (N; sw0-sw2) is based on time slots, wherein a second packet (μpck) is transferred during one time slot. A data traffic over the interconnect means (N; sw0-sw2) comprises at least one guaranteed service traffic class (GS) and/or at least one best-effort service traffic class (BE). First packets (GSpck) relating to the at least one guaranteed service traffic class (GS) are transferred in second packets (μpck) within time slots reserved for the guaranteed service traffic class (GS). First packets (pck1-pck6) relating to the at least one best-effort service traffic class (BE) are transferred within unreserved second packets (μpck) and/or within unused portions (uu) of the second packets (μpck).
US08014396B2
A base station apparatus that limits the influx of speech data into a packet channel and that enables the service quality of the packet channel to be prevented from degrading. In this apparatus, a protocol detecting section (301) detects a protocol contained in an IP header of a packet. Based on the protocol, a packet type detecting section (302) detects a type of packet. Based on the type of packet, a delay addition control section (303) determines whether or not to add a delay. Specifically, when the packet is of VoIP, the delay addition control section (303) instructs a switching section (304) to output the packet to a delay adding section (103), and further instructs the delay adding section (103) to add a delay. Meanwhile, when the packet is an IP packet, the delay addition control section (303) instructs the switching section (304) to output the packet to a scheduler (104).
US08014393B1
A technique is provided for rapid channel change (RCC) processing in a programming distribution network. The RCC process herein is configured to transmit unicast stream of packets (“RCC burst”) during a “fast-fill” interval for up to a full duration of the multicast join window, or until it is stopped by a an explicit message sent from the user terminal. The unicast stream of packets is transmitted at a full rate of an access link (i.e., the bottleneck link) on a path to the user terminal beyond an earliest time when the user terminal could join a multicast stream of packets for a new channel requested by the user terminal.
US08014387B2
A mechanism is provided for transmitting data from a first processor of a data processing system to a second processor of the data processing system. In one or more switches, a set of virtual channels is created, the one or more switches comprising, for each processor, a corresponding switch in the one or more switches. The data is transmitted from the first processor to the second processor through a path comprising a subset of processors of a set of processors in the data processing system. In each processor of the subset of processors, the data is stored in a virtual channel of a corresponding switch before transmitting the data to a next processor. The virtual channel of the corresponding switch in which the data is stored corresponds to a position of the processor in the path through which the data is transmitted.
US08014380B2
A method and apparatus for unilaterally forming a bi-directional label switched path between first and second routing devices in a network is disclosed. The method of the preferred embodiment is comprised of the steps of: sending a first LSP path message comprising a first bi-directional indicator from the first routing device to the second routing device; and automatically sending a second LSP path message from the second routing device to the first routing device in response to the first bi-directional indicator. The resulting two unidirectional label switched paths may be associated with one another at the endpoints to form a bi-directional LSP. The bi-directional indicator is preferably an RSVP protocol opaque object used in part to specify the router resources required for the return LSP, which may be different than the resource requirements of the forward LSP specified in the first LSP path message.
US08014373B2
An antenna assembly for a wireless communications device has an antenna, a filter circuit, and a connector constructed to engage a wireless communications device. A filter circuit includes a band-pass filter and a first notch filter disposed in serial electrical communication with the band-pass filter, the band-pass filter operable to permit the passage of oscillatory electrical signals in a first frequency range, the first notch filter operable to impede the passage of oscillatory electrical signals in a second frequency range, the second frequency range residing within the first frequency range.
US08014372B2
A method and a system are disclosed for providing quality of service (QoS)-driven channel access within a basic service set (BSS) in a wireless network. At least one available TO is allocated to a selected non-PC station having traffic to transmit. A multipoll frame containing information relating to at least two allocated TOs is then sent from the PC station containing information relating to each allocated TO.
US08014369B2
Adaptive power management methods and systems for a first station and a second station in a wireless network. Each station operating in the power-saving (PS) mode adaptively determines a “listen interval” (LI) according to residual power state, quality-of-service requirements, or other considerations. The LI is composed of a “normal beacon interval” (NBI) followed by the combination of “beacon-window-only beacon intervals” (BBIs) and “sleep beacon intervals” (SBIs). The LI value is one or a prime number which is larger than two, and the positions of the NBI and BBIs in an LI form a cyclic difference set. Each station broadcasts a beacon frame comprising at least information about “the remaining number of BIs (RBI)” within a beacon window. Once the first station correctly receives the beacon frame from the second station, the first station predicts the awake/sleep schedule of the second station, and transmits data frames to the second station at the NBI of the second station.
US08014367B2
System for application server autonomous access across different types of access technology networks
An Application Server Autonomous Access (ASAA) system for providing autonomous access to a wireless infrastructure by devices employing different types of access technology. The system includes a server, having an associated data storage device, for storing at least one policy, and a plurality of subnetworks, coupled to server, for providing access to the server. The plurality of subnetworks employ at least two different types of access technology. A plurality of wireless transmit/receive units (WTRUs) are wirelessly coupled to at least one of the subnetworks. The server monitors the wireless coupling and, depending upon the at least one policy, switches the WTRUs between different ones of the subnetworks.
US08014366B2
A method for communication over a wireless local area network (WLAN) includes receiving uplink signals from a plurality of stations in the WLAN. Responsively to the uplink signals, a set of the stations is selected for inclusion in a spatial multiplexing group. Downlink signals are transmitted simultaneously to the stations in the set using spatial division multiplexing (SDM).
US08014359B2
A method and apparatus for assigning radio resources and controlling parameters for transmission over a random access channel in wireless communications by enhancing a random access channel is disclosed.
US08014358B2
Provided is a method for receiving a notification indicating a completion of a network re-entry procedure by a Base Station (BS) in a communication system. The method includes transmitting, to a Mobile Station (MS), a RaNGing ReSPonse (RNG-RSP) message including information indicating whether to omit any of processes or transmission of messages for performing a network re-entry procedure with the BS; and receiving, from the MS, a notification indicating the completion of the network re-entry procedure.
US08014351B2
A method and apparatus for receiving system information from a Base Station (BS) in a Mobile Station (MS) in a mobile communication system are provided, in which it is determined whether there is buffered system information in a buffer, if current system information has an error, it is determined whether a combining condition is satisfied, in the presence of the buffered system information, the combining condition being defined by at least one of a Master Information Block (MIB) value tag, a System Information Block (SIB) value tag, and modification time information that are associated with the current system information, and the current system information is combined with the buffered system information, if the combining condition is satisfied.
US08014347B2
A method for controlling a user equipment (UE) having at least an upper layer which is above a radio resource control (RRC) layer, wherein the UE is capable of receiving a point-to-multipoint service and performing cell reselection in a wireless communication system comprises receiving an establishment parameter from the upper layer. The method also includes transmitting an RRC connection request to a network, and determining, in the RRC layer upon the cell reselection, whether to continue an RRC connection procedure to the network based on the establishment parameter. The method also includes terminating the RRC connection procedure to the network based on a result of the determining step. The RRC connection procedure may be terminated if the establishment parameter indicates a point-to-multipoint service reception.
US08014342B2
By adapting its search procedures, a user equipment in a mobile communication system can shorten the time needed to find a cell or public land mobile network. If a first cell in a first radio access technology has been found, the equipment can exclude one or more frequencies from a search for cells in a second radio access technology. Thus, time and power are not wasted searching for cells in the second radio access technology that cannot be found.
US08014341B1
Methods and an intermediary device are disclosed for sending a civic address and other information from the intermediary device to an apparatus associated with a predefined number (such as Public Safety Answering Point). The civic address may include a street number, street name, street type, and postal mailing code, all of which may be associated with a wireless calling access line assigned to the intermediary device. A calling mechanism (e.g., a telephone) operating in an off-hook state initiates a communication with the apparatus. The intermediary device may enter the off-hook state in response to the calling mechanism entering the off-hook state. The intermediary device can continue to operate in the off-hook state so as to send the civic address to the apparatus (e.g., a PSAP) even if the calling mechanism switches to an on-hook state prior to the civic address being sent to the apparatus.
US08014339B1
A wireless network access point that is compatible with multiple wireless network access profiles. The wireless network access point of the present invention allows devices with heterogeneous wireless network access profiles to access the network over the same network access point (NAP). This enables existing networks to upgrade NAPs without being forced to upgrade all the wireless devices within the network. In addition, the NAP of the present invention enables wireless devices to utilize network access profile features available in network access profiles other than the one loaded on the wireless device itself.
US08014334B2
Base stations control the transmission rate that is used by UE (user equipment) to forward them information. A UE periodically forwards a rate request to a base station if the UE needs to have its data transmission rate to the base station increased or decreased, and the base station responds with a rate command. An error can occur in the transmission of the rate command, such that a rate Rnb transmitted by the base station and detected by the UE as Rue may not match. Various schemes are proposed for reducing and correcting such transmission errors. A first scheme involves periodically resetting the transmission rate of the base station and UE with a reference rate. Second to fourth schemes involve periodically comparing the transmission rates of the base station and UE, and replacing the rate of the UE if they differ. A fifth scheme involves a filtering of the feedback command in order to reduce the impact of error propagation. A sixth scheme, which may be used separately or in conjunction with any of the foregoing schemes, involves adjusting a power offset with a repetition factor. All of the schemes are modified during a soft handover of the UE from the base station to a new base station.
US08014333B2
A digital broadcast system and a method of processing data disclose. A receiving system of the digital broadcast system may include a baseband processor, a management processor, and a presentation processor. The baseband processor receives broadcast signals including mobile service data and main service data. The mobile service data configures a RS frame, and the RS frame includes the mobile service data and at least one type of channel setting information on the mobile service data. The management processor decodes the RS frame to acquire the mobile service data and the at least one type of channel setting information on the mobile service data, then extracts position information of an SDP message. Herein, the SDP message includes Codec information for each component in the respective virtual channel from the channel setting information, thereby accessing the SDP message from the extracted position information and gathers SDP message information. The presentation processor decodes mobile service data of a corresponding component based upon the gathered SDP message information.
US08014328B2
A translator is connected to a first network for transferring data in a first protocol, to a second network for transferring data in a second protocol, and to a translation server to which other translators are connected, for retaining translation information for a protocol translation between the first protocol and the second protocol. The translator generates a second address in the first protocol corresponding to a first address in the second protocol provided to a terminal accommodated in the second network. It retains a correspondence between the first address and the second address as the translation information and registers the correspondence at the translation server.
US08014320B2
A method and arrangement for discovering the physical topology of a telecommunication network having switches, routers, and a management node interconnected by links in a spanning tree and links to blocked interfaces. The management node broadcasts a ping message and adds replying nodes to the topology. The management node discovers the spanning tree by retrieving address forwarding tables from the switches, assigning them a ranking value, and connecting from the highest ranked nodes to successively lower ranked nodes. The management node discovers the blocked interfaces by configuring a VLAN to include the spanning tree and disabling the spanning tree protocol. The blocked interfaces are turned on and off while matching link down traps are noted and the corresponding links are discovered. Only basic management features of the switches are needed, and all nodes and links are discovered.
US08014318B2
A node in an overlay network requests a ranked list of other nodes in the overlay network that can provide a desired piece of content or service to the requesting node. A separate node such as a router generates the ranked list using a routing algorithm, returning the list to the requesting node so that the requesting node may acquire the desired content or service from the nearest node in the overlay network.
US08014312B2
Certain embodiments of a method and system for handling connection setup in a network may comprise a network interface hardware device (NIHW) that may be operable to receive a services list and/or connection acceptance criteria from a first guest operating system running on a host system, receive a connection request from a second guest operating system running on the host system, and determine whether to allow establishment of the requested connection based on one or both of the services list and the connection acceptance criteria. The determination may be made prior to or during connection set up. The NIHW may maintain a connection state comprising information regarding set up of the requested connection. The services list may comprises one or more of a local network address, a local transport address, a network protocol, and a transport protocol. The communicated acceptance criteria may comprises packet filtering operations and/or security operations.
US08014305B1
Transmission monitoring can be used to determine the optimum data rate for a channel. The transmission monitoring can include sending data packets in the channel using various data rates. At least some data packets are sent using the current optimum data rate, a rate lower than the current optimum data rate, and a rate higher than the current optimum data rate. One of these data rates can be selected as the new optimum data rate. In one embodiment, if the current optimum data rate is less than a predetermined data rate, then the client is triggered to begin scanning for other available access points.
US08014295B2
There are disclosed an apparatus, process, and computer readable storage media for processing received packets. The apparatus may include a plurality of packet processors. A session active checker may identify a session associated with a first received packet and may determine if any other packet belonging to the identified session is currently being processed by any of the plurality of packet processors. The first receive packet may be sent to a selected one of the plurality of packet processors when no other packets belonging to the identified session are currently being processed.
US08014288B1
A packet switch including input ports having various input bandwidths initializes credit values for the input ports. An arbiter of the packet switch selects input ports based on the credit values and routes data packets from the selected input ports to a switch fabric of the packet switch. The switch fabric routes data packets from the selected input ports to output ports of the packet switch. Moreover, the arbiter modifies the credit value of each selected input port based on the latency for routing the data packet from the selected input port to the switch fabric. In this way, the arbiter promotes fairness in routing additional data packets through the packet switch. In some embodiments, the switch fabric includes a buffered crossbar and the arbiter modifies credit values of crosspoints in the buffered crossbar based on the latency for routing data packets from the crosspoints to the output ports.
US08014284B2
In a cellular network system, an add-on base station comprising: A. a first channel for connecting to a customer's phone; B. a second channel for connecting to a network; C. circuits for connecting the customer's phone to a destination on the network; and D. billing means for collecting a payment for services related to connecting the customer's phone to the network. The customer's phone may be connected through a wireless link. A method to establish a link between a caller and an addressee comprising the steps of: A. The caller sends a request to a cellular center requesting to connect to a specific addressee, using a message encrypted with the public key of the center; B. the center decrypts the message, identifies the caller and the addressee; C. the center composes a message for the addressee and encrypts it with the public key of the addressee. The message is then sent to base stations; D. the base station transmits the message “as is” or in a modified form; E. only the designated addressee will be capable to decrypt the message, and will be thus notified of the attempted connection.
US08014282B2
The disclosure includes a description of an apparatus having circuitry to determine a first hash value for a first packet tuple of a first packet traveling in a first direction of a duplex connection and determine a processor for the first packet from a set of multiple processors based, at least in part, on the first hash value. The apparatus includes circuitry to determine a second hash value for a second packet tuple of a second packet traveling in a second direction of the duplex connection and determine the same processor for the second packet from the set of multiple processors based, at least in part, on the second hash value.
US08014272B2
A method is provided for minimizing the peak power level in a combination of orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) tones. The method is particularly effective when the information to be communicated is digital data consisting of long patterns of “1”s or “0”s. The digital data of the message is combined with a scrambling vector before the data is modulated. The randomization of data patterns, in turn, leads to a more random combination of OFDM tone amplitude being transmitted. The message is recovered at the receiver by removing the scrambling vector. A table of scrambling vectors is maintained at the transmitters and receivers. The table pointer to select the scrambling vector is selected in response to the position of the message in the communication structure. An OFDM communication system using the above-described method is also provided.
US08014271B2
A method for reducing the peak-to-average ratio in an OFDM communication signal is provided. The method includes defining a constellation having a plurality of symbols, defining a symbol duration for the OFDM communication signal, and defining a plurality of time instants in the symbol duration. A plurality of tones are allocated to a particular communication device, and a discrete signal is constructed in the time domain by mapping symbols from the constellation to the time instants. A continuous signal is generated by applying an interpolation function to the discrete signal such that the continuous signal only includes sinusoids having frequencies which are equal to the allocated tones.
US08014261B2
An optically-readable disk includes a device that disrupts readability of the disk when the disk is spun at an angular velocity substantially greater than required to play the disk in its intended playing device, or for when a defined integral of velocity and time is exceeded. The device may include a fluid container that disperses a data-disruptive fluid. The device may include a membrane or layer that is disrupted when the disk is rotated above a defined angular velocity, or when a defined integral of velocity and time is exceeded.
US08014260B2
An optical information recording medium is provided with a substrate having a pregroove formed on one main plane; a reflecting layer arranged on the one main plane of the substrate and reflecting an access controlling laser beam; a selective reflecting layer arranged on the reflecting layer, transmitting the access controlling laser beam and reflecting a recording laser beam; a recording layer arranged on the selective reflecting layer for having information recorded thereon by the recording laser beam; and a reflection preventing layer arranged on the recoding layer. On the substrate, a dummy groove having a shape similar to that of the pregroove is formed on forming regions adjacent to an effective access region on the one main plane.
US08014257B2
An object of the present invention is to provide an extraction optical system capable of separating and extracting a signal light and a stray light with a simple configuration, and an optical head device including the same. A phase plate and a phase plate are +λ/4 phase plates, while a phase plate and a phase plate are −λ/4 phase plates. A focal line, a focal line and a focal line represent a focal line of a stray light, a focal line of a reproduction light and a focal line of a stray light, respectively. All beams of the reproduction light enter the state in which a polarization direction is rotated by 90 degrees after passing through the phase element. In contrast to the all light bundles of the reproduction light, polarization directions of all light bundles of the stray lights and are not rotated even after passing through the phase element.
US08014249B2
The present invention relates to a method for operating an optical drive system (12) capable of reproducing/recording information from/to an optical carrier (1), wherein the optical drive system includes a focus controller (PID) for controlling a focus actuator (4), and a focus memory loop (ML) for applying a stored correction signal to the focus actuator (4). The method aims at avoiding impacts between the focussing means (3) and the optical carrier (1), by gradually stopping the focus control loop in response to an event, such as a user initiated ejection of the optical carrier. The gradual stop of the focus control loop is achieved by gradually reducing a memory loop parameter of the focus memory loop (ML), and by gradually reducing a controller parameter of an integrating part (I) of the focus controller (PID). It is an advantage of the invention that the phase of the stored correction signal is synchronized with the angular position of optical carrier (1) during the gradual stopping.
US08014238B2
An optical pickup device to provide a stable operation in both low-speed and high-speed modes by controlling a change in natural frequency, the optical pickup device including: a lens holder to support an objective lens; a supporting unit spaced apart from the lens holder; and a plurality of suspension members each having one end fixed to the lens holder and another end supported by the supporting unit to enable a movement of the lens holder, wherein the supporting unit includes a fixing member, a coupling portion provided in the fixing member to couple each suspension member, magnetic fluid received in the coupling portion, and an excite device to apply a magnetic field to the magnetic fluid.
US08014222B2
A memory device includes a command decoder and control interface logic. One or more external inputs, such as row and column address strobes, communicate with the command decoder through the control interface logic. A control signal is also in communication with the control interface logic. During operation of a drowsy mode in the memory device, a self-refresh signal causes the control signal to disable the external inputs. With the external inputs disabled, command hazards are reduced when exiting drowsy mode.
US08014207B2
A nonvolatile memory device includes an encoder configured to perform a scramble operation on input data, a digital sum value (DSV) generator configured to generate a DSV indicating a difference between a number of data ‘0’ and a number of data ‘1’ in the input data encoded by the encoder, a main cell unit of a page of a memory cell array, wherein the main cell unit is configured to store the input data encoded by the encoder, a spare cell unit of the page, wherein the spare cell unit is configured to store the DSV generated by the DSV generator, and a read voltage setting unit configured to determine a read voltage for the page by comparing a DSV generated from the stored data of the main cell unit and the stored DSV of the spare cell unit.
US08014202B2
In a non-volatile semiconductor memory device, variations in voltage applied to a bit line when an erase voltage applying step is repeatedly executed are suppressed, thereby reducing variations in Vt after erasure. A memory array includes memory cells arranged in an array, a plurality of word lines, and a plurality of bit lines and main bit lines. The memory array also includes a usable region which can store data and an isolation region which cannot store data. Each bit line provided in the usable region is connected via a select transistor to the corresponding main bit line. At least one main bit line is connected not only to a bit line of the usable region, but also to a bit line of the isolation region via a select transistor.
US08014194B2
A phase change memory (PCM) in which the phase change storage element is crystallized by a gradually increasing/decreasing operating current. The PCM comprises a switching circuit, the phase change storage element, a bit select switch, a pulse generating module, and a counting module. The switching circuit comprises a plurality of switches, selectively providing branch paths to an output terminal of a current source. The bit select switch controls the conduction between the phase change storage element and the output terminal of the current source. The pulse generating module outputs a pulse signal oscillating between high and low voltage levels. When enabled, the counting module counts the oscillations of the pulse signal, and outputs the count result by a set of digital data. The set of digital data are coupled to the switching circuit to control the switches therein.
US08014169B2
The present invention provides a shield structure for an electronic device allowing conductive members to be connected electrically to each other at low impedance while preventing the leakage of electromagnetic waves effectively. The first conductive member and the second conductive member for enclosing the electronic device respectively have laid portions that are laid one on the other and fastened to each other at plural positions by means of screw members. Through-holes into which the screw members are to be inserted are formed on both of the laid portions. Protruding portions, which protrude toward the laid portion of the second conductive member, each are formed between the adjacent through-holes on the laid portion of the first conductive member. The protruding portions each have a shape extending in the direction connecting the adjacent through-holes and bulging from both ends toward the center thereof in a smooth curve.
US08014160B2
A USB memory device includes a main body, a USB plug, and a circuit. The main body includes a front rigid section, a rear rigid section, and a middle flexible section connected to the front rigid section and the rear rigid section respectively. The USB plug is connected to the front rigid section. The circuit is received in the rear rigid section and electrically connected to the USB plug.
US08014158B2
In an electronic control apparatus, a connector mounted on a circuit board accommodated in a casing body constructed with top and bottom casings is partially exposed outside the casing body to be mated with an external connector. A sealant is interposed between the top and bottom casings, between the top casing and the connector, and between the bottom casing and the connector. A sealing part of at least one of the top and bottom casings has a substantially rectangular ring shape with rounded four corners. A sealing part of the connector faces two adjacent corners of the rectangular sealing part and one side of the rectangular sealing part directly connecting the two adjacent corners.
US08014155B2
A housing accommodates a circuit board and an electronic component electrically connected to the circuit board, and is used for an electronic apparatus that includes the circuit board and the electronic component. The housing includes a cover that is made by extrusion molding of metal.
US08014150B2
Cooled electronic modules and methods of fabrication are provided with pump-enhanced, dielectric fluid immersion-cooling of the electronic device. The cooled electronic module includes a substrate supporting an electronic device to be cooled. A cooling apparatus couples to the substrate, and includes a housing configured to at least partially surround and form a sealed compartment about the electronic device. Additionally, the cooling apparatus includes dielectric fluid and one or more pumps disposed within the sealed compartment. The dielectric fluid is in direct contact with the electronic device, and the pump is an impingement-cooling, immersed pump disposed to actively pump dielectric fluid within the sealed compartment towards the electronic device. Multiple condenser fins extend from the housing into the sealed compartment in an upper portion of the sealed compartment, and a liquid-cooled cold plate or an air-cooled heat sink is coupled to the top of the housing for cooling the condenser fins.
US08014149B2
A fan module is disposed in an electrical device. The electrical device has a main board and a casing. The fan module includes a vane module, a fan motor, a circuit board and a fan housing. The vane module has a hub and a plurality of vanes disposed around the edge of the hub. The fan motor is disposed in the hub. The circuit board is used to control the fan motor, so that the vanes rotate related to an axis of the hub for generating an air flow. The fan housing has a main body portion, a protruding portion and a fixing portion, wherein the protruding portion is located in a side of the main body portion, the vane module and the fan motor are disposed in the main body portion and the circuit board is disposed in the protruding portion.
US08014145B2
A cooling plate for a notebook comprises a base, a deck, a support jig, and a mouse piece, wherein the base is axially connected with the deck and includes an air hole formed thereon, the air hole includes a fin and a fixing panel connected therewith, the base also includes a recessed opening adjacent to the air hole, the deck includes a chamber formed on a middle portion thereof and having a number of positioning tabs attached on two sides of the chamber individually, and includes two covers disposed on two sides thereof respectively, each cover includes a cut mounted on an inner side thereof and a plurality of engaging protrusions adjacent to an inner side of a bottom surface thereof, the support jig is pivotally disposed in the opening of the base, and the support jig includes two retaining foots arranged on two sides of the rear end thereof.
US08014136B2
One embodiment of the present invention relates to a modular computer system for use in residential, recreational, and commercial regions. The system is a computer system disposed within an existing outlet receptacle housing. The receptacle includes a conventional NEMA standard OS1 and OS2 type electrical housing and electrical line designed to accommodate a residential or commercial light switch, electrical outlet, etc. The computer system is electrically coupled to the electrical line disposed within the housing of the receptacle and includes a mechanically extendable expansion bus configured to mechanically support and data inter-couple a set of modules for providing computer functionality. The expansion bus can be extended to access the modules or collapsed within the receptacle so as to be externally visually obscured by an interface module or cover. The computer system is configured to dynamically detect and data couple with other modular computer systems in a particular region.
US08014130B1
Various embodiments of a USB drive pen device are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, a USB drive pen device includes a USB plug assembly having a flash controller and a flash memory device, a pusher assembly including a rotator having one or more tabs disposed thereon, and a housing for housing at least a portion of the USB plug assembly and the pusher assembly. The housing includes a tunnel and an inner tube extended from the tunnel disposed within the housing. An intersection between the tunnel and inner tube includes one or more angled corners to lock the USB plug assembly in either a deployed position or a retracted position. Other methods and apparatuses are also described.
US08014128B2
The present invention provides means for forming an oxide film on a metal surface, means for repairing a defect of an oxide film, a high-performance electrolytic capacitor using the means, and an electrolyte of the capacitor. Namely, the prevent invention provides a method for easily forming an oxide film on the surface of a metal or an alloy thereof by anodization using a solution containing an ionic liquid. In an application of this method, an electrolytic capacitor having means for repairing a defect of an oxide film can be formed by a method using, as an electrolyte, an ionic liquid, a solution containing an ionic liquid and a salt, or a solution containing an ionic liquid and a conductive polymer or a TCNQ salt, and a valve metal or an alloy thereof as a metal.
US08014126B2
Electronic device 1 comprises an element body 10, comprising a dielectric layer 2 constituted by a dielectric ceramic composition, and a terminal electrode 4, formed outside of the element body 10. The dielectric ceramic composition comprised a main component including barium titanate; a first subcomponent including at least one oxide of Mg and Ca; a second subcomponent including SiO2; a third subcomponent including at least one oxide of Mn and Cr; and a fourth subcomponent including an oxide of rare earth elements, wherein the net valence of Mn and/or Cr in the third subcomponent is 2.2 to 2.4. According to the electronic device 1, both high temperature accelerated lifetime characteristics and capacity stress aging characteristics can be improved in a balanced manner.
US08014107B2
A suspension device including a flexure with conductors is provided with an anti-ESD section. The anti-ESD section includes a metal plate, a insulating layer, a first electrically conductive member formed of a pair of read conductors, a second electrically conductive member formed of a pair of write conductors, a heater conductor, semiconductive layers, etc. The semiconductive layers are grounded to the metal plate and electrically isolated from one another by an insulating portion.
US08014095B2
A magnetic disk for a hard disk drive comprising a plurality of physical sector sizes is disclosed. The magnetic disk includes a first sector size area physically formatted according to a first physical sector size and a second sector size area physically formatted according to a second physical sector size different from the first sector size by a multiple of the first sector size wherein the second sector size can be presented externally as multiple sectors of said first sector size.
US08014091B2
A camera module according to an aspect of the invention may include: a housing; a fixed unit fixed to the inside of the housing; a lens barrel provided in the housing and having at least one lens; and a moving unit moved and supported by the fixed unit by a predetermined magnetic force, and moving the lens barrel along an optical axis, such that driving accuracy and reliability can be increased when performing auto focus or zoom.
US08014090B2
A lens device includes: a lens barrel body having holes; guide bars supported by the lens barrel body and one ends of the guide bars are inserted in the holes; lens holding frames supported so as to be movable along the guide bars and are engaged with the guide bars; and pressing members that press the one ends of the guide bars in a direction perpendicular to the guide bars and are inserted in the holes. The pressing members have a falling-off prevention engagement protrusion engaged with the lens barrel body.
US08014089B2
Object of the present invention is to provide a lens driving unit in small size and perform a high ratio optical zooming and a lens driving device. To achieve the object, the lens driving unit in which the lens group holding frame supported to be able to slide by connecting to a guide pole arranged in parallel with the optical axis; and a drive transmission unit consisting of a pinion mounted on the output shaft of the motor and a rack formed in the lens group holding frame is adopted, and a driving force of the motor is transmitted to the lens group holding frame by gearing the pinion with the rack to make the lens group holding frame slide along the guide pole, and a lens driving device comprising the lens driving unit is adopted.
US08014083B2
The present invention is an imaging lens of which optical performance does not deteriorate even in a high temperature environment, various aberrations are well corrected, optical length is short, and back focus is sufficiently secured, the imaging lens comprising a first junction type compound lens, an aperture stop S, a second junction type compound lens, and a third junction type compound lens, which are arranged in this sequence from an object side to an image side. The first junction type compound lens comprises a first lens L1, a second lens L2 and a third lens L3 arranged in this sequence from the object side to the image side, the second junction type compound lens comprises a fourth lens L4, a fifth lens L5 and a sixth lens L6 arranged in this sequence from the object side to the image side, and the third junction type compound lens comprises a seventh lens L7, an eighth lens L8 and a ninth lens L9 arranged in this sequence from the object side to the image side. The first lens, the third lens, the fourth lens, the sixth lens, the seventh lens and the ninth lens are formed of a curable resin material, and the second lens, the fifth lens and the eighth lens are formed of a high softening temperature optical glass material.
US08014077B2
On condition that a first lens group adopts at least one plastic lens; a second lens group adopts at least any two adjacent plastic lenses; the first lens group monotonously moves from an object side to an image plane side in a zooming; the second lens group monotonously moves from the image plane side to the object side; wherein fw/fpi represents a ratio of refractive power of the entire system achieved at a wide angle end to refractive power of the respective lenses; P1 represents a total of fw/fpi of the plastic lenses of the first lens group; and P2 represents a total of fw/fpi of the plastic lenses of the second lens group, the following conditional expressions −0.22
US08014075B2
A projection type image display device comprising: a projection optical system having a first refracting optical section having a plurality of lenses, a reflecting optical section having at least one concave reflecting surfacer and a second refracting optical section in order from a reduction side; and an image forming optical section disposed on an anterior stage of a light path as the reduction side of the projection optical system, wherein the second refracting optical section has an exit lens having either: (1) a roughly constant thickness and disposed in a posterior stage of the light path from an exit pupil position at which a principal ray reflected by the reflecting surface and proceeding towards the maximum field angle and the optical axis of the reflecting optical section intersect with each other, and an optical surface of a magnification side of the exit lens has a shape convex towards the magnification side; or (2) a roughly constant thickness and disposed between the reflecting optical section and an exit pupil position at which a principal ray reflected by the reflecting surface and proceeding towards the maximum field angle and the optical axis of the reflecting optical section intersect with each other, and an optical surface of a magnification side of the exit lens has a shape concave towards the magnification side.
US08014074B2
A finder optical system includes an image taking lens configured to form a photogenic subject image, an erecting image forming member configured to convert the photogenic subject image an erecting image, and an ocular lens configured to enable observation the erecting image of the photogenic subject image therethrough, wherein the ocular lens includes, in an order from the erecting image forming member to the observation side, a first lens group of negative refracting power, a second lens group of positive refracting power and configured to move in an optical axis direction to perform diopter adjustment, and a third lens group having at least one positive lens and at least one negative lens and having a positive or negative overall refracting power, and wherein, when a focal length of the whole system as the ocular lens is at −1 diopter is denoted by f, a composite focal length of the negative lens or lenses of the third lens group is denoted by f3n, a conditional expression −0.55
US08014071B2
The present invention provides a light selective transmission filter which selectively shields light and has a high transmittance of light at a specific wavelength such as visible rays, and which has a sufficiently reduced thickness and excellent heat resistance. The present invention further provides a lens unit including such a light selective transmission filter. The light selective transmission filter selectively reducing a transmittance of light has a thickness of less than 200 μm and includes a base material containing a functional film with reflow resistance. The lens unit includes such a light selective transmission filter and a lens.
US08014070B2
A method of fabricating a membrane structure for a diffractive phased array assembly is provided. The method includes the steps of providing a wafer having a body and at least a membrane layer and a backside layer disposed on opposite faces of the body, forming a grating pattern on a surface of the membrane layer, and forming a window through the wafer to expose a back surface of the membrane, thereby allowing light to pass through the membrane.
US08014069B2
A stress-induced polarization converter in the form of a zero power optical window or, alternatively, a single element, positive or negative power optical lens, that is subject to a controlled amount of symmetric, peripheral stress. The stress may be provided by appropriate mechanical, thermal, hydraulic, electromagnetic/piezo, annealing/molding, or other known techniques and may be trigonal or four-fold. Axial foci can be created by applying the controlled, symmetric, peripheral stress. The separation distance between the foci can be controlled by controlling the magnitude of the applied symmetric, peripheral stress.
US08014068B2
A wire grid polarizer and a method of manufacturing the wire grid polarizer are provided. The wire grid polarizer includes: a substrate; and a plurality of core-shell nano wires arranged on the substrate and including wire cores and polymer shells enclosing the wire cores to a predetermined thickness.
US08014066B2
A reflection-type projection screen is provided having uniformly high gain over a wide range of viewing angles. The projection screen includes a dual-purpose light reflective, supportive substrate including at least one unpigmented flash-spun plexifilamentary film-fibril sheet having a light reflectance of greater than about 85% and a gloss of less than about 10% when measured at a 60° incident angle, and an optical diffusion layer of a light transmissive melt-processible polymer containing diffusion-enhancing particles covering at least one surface of the substrate. The projection screen has an optical gain of between about 0.90 and about 2.0 and the optical gain deviates by no more than about 8% over viewing angles between −60° and +60°. The projection screen has good drapeability, rollability the ability to lay and hang flat. The projection screen can also be recycled.
US08014061B2
To provide a variable-focal length lens capable of altering its focal length at high speed. The variable-focal length lens has an electrooptic material and electrodes formed on an incident surface of light and on an exit surface of the light of the electrooptic material. An optical axis is set so that the light is inputted into a gap where the electrodes of the incident surface are not formed and is outputted from a gap where the electrodes of the exit surface are not formed. A focus of the light that is transmitted through the electrooptic material becomes variable by varying an applied voltage between the electrodes of the incident surface and the electrodes of the exit surface.
US08014053B2
The invention relates to a pinhole disk, which can be used in a transmitted light mode as a filter disk, in particular in confocal microscopes, and consists of an optically transparent material with an inner hole having a fixed outer radius rmax and inner radius rmin. The optically transparent material is covered with a non-transparent layer, at least over a large area, the area being provided with a pattern of transparent pinholes. The pinholes are arranged according to a rule, in such a way that a quasi-uniform point density is obtained on the disk.
US08014045B2
An image scanner in which in scanning an image of a document placed on a scanner body, an image scanning device moves and scans the image of the document. In scanning an image of a document fed by a document feeder to the scanner body, the image scanning device moves to a predetermined scanning position and then scans the image of the document in the scanning position. When the image scanning device arrives at the scanning position, the image scanning device is pressed against a stopper that is positioned relative to the document feeder.
US08014041B2
An optical scanning apparatus which includes: a light source unit which emits a light beam; a deflection scanning device which deflects the light beam emitted from the light source unit; an optical scanning unit having a scanning imaging lens and which scans a surface to be scanned; and a light beam detector which detects a position in a sub-scanning direction of the light beam, and is disposed in a position maintaining a correlation, in a time-varying characteristic, between an amount of change of a position in the sub-scanning direction of the light beam on the surface to be scanned and an amount of change of a position in the sub-scanning direction of the light beam detected by the light beam detector, in which a difference between the amount of change of the position in the sub-scanning direction of the light beam on the surface to be scanned and the amount of change of the position in the sub-scanning direction of the light beam detected by the light beam detector is equal to or less than a set value.
US08014037B2
A facsimile apparatus in which a large display apparatus can be mounted while realizing miniaturization of an apparatus main body, an operation panel having excellent operability is realized, excellent inserting performance of documents and recording paper can be assured, compatibility between simple operability and multifunctional operability can be realized, is provided. The apparatus has: an operation panel 71 arranged in an upper front portion of the apparatus main body; a display unit 14 which is closably arranged to the operation panel 71, located in an upper rear position of the operation panel upon opening, and overlaid onto the operation panel upon closing; and a document inserting port 44 and a recording paper inserting port 29 arranged behind the operation panel in the upper portion of the apparatus main body and behind the display unit 14 upon opening.
US08014035B2
What is disclosed is a novel system and method for encoding/decoding data in a cover contone image via halftone dot orientation modulation. Arrays of halftone threshold values are used to determine a desired orientation, e.g. 0/90°+/−45° for a given single data value of the original message to be embedded. Message data is embedded as a function of halftone dot orientation. Detection modeling of the print-scan process enables the determination of dot orientation from the image scan via statistically motivated image moments. A probabilistic model of the print-scan channel conditions received moments on input orientation. Density values of the received moments are used to determine dot orientation for each halftone cell. The embedded data is retrieved based on the determined orientations. The present method is applicable to areas of data embedding, document security, and the like.
US08014031B2
A gradation conversion process section converts gradation made up of a plurality of filled regions and filling colors thereof into one-line image data of a filled region into which the plurality of filled regions is unified. A data transmitting process section transmits the one-line image data to a data reception process section. The received one-line image data is interpreted by a PDL interpretation process section, and converted into data which can be interpreted by a rendering process section, and the data is saved on a display list. The rendering process section converts the saved data into gradation made up of a plurality of filled regions and filling colors thereof, and renders the gradation.
US08014030B2
An image processing apparatus includes a contour pixel extraction unit configured to extract a contour pixel component from a bit plane. The bit plane is a set of bits, the number of which is equal to the number of pixels, and each of which is 1 bit of a plurality of bits representing an intensity of each of pixels. Also provided is a connectedness detection unit configured to detect equivalent bits adjacent to each other in a window including a bit corresponding to a target pixel on the bit plane. Also provided is a filter unit configured to reduce an intensity of the target pixel by a reduction amount determined in accordance with the contour pixel component extracted by the contour pixel extraction unit and the equivalent bits adjacent to each other detected by the connectedness detection unit.
US08014023B2
Memorializing a printed image, including detecting at least one attribute associated with the originally printed image, the attribute identifying a user-selectable feature on a print device, generating an image attribute tag after a request to print has been communicated to the print device, the image attribute tag including a description of the detected attribute, and printing the image attribute tag.
US08014021B2
An image processing method includes the following steps. Firstly, a specified digital image and a designated text/graph are retrieved. Then, the specified digital image is processed to obtain image information associated with a right-side-up image of the specified digital image. Afterwards, the designated text/graph is automatically adjusted and attached on a specified position relative to the right-side-up image according to the image information, thereby printing the specified digital image and the designated text/graph.
US08014018B2
A printing apparatus is provided. The printing apparatus includes at least two print heads, at least two print head drive units, and a cooperation controlling system to control printing operations in the printing apparatus. When a first printing operation and a second printing operation are conducted successively, the cooperation controlling system controls at least one of a second print head and the second print head drive unit so that a second pre-print operation is conducted at least partially simultaneously with the first printing operation and a first after-print operation is conducted at least partially simultaneously with the second printing operation, and the first print head and the first print head drive unit so that a first pre-print operation is conducted at least partially simultaneously with the second printing operation and a second after-print operation is conducted at least partially simultaneously with the first printing operation.
US08014013B2
A method for modifying settings in printing a document is disclosed. Document data is provided that comprises multiple graphical elements. The document data is converted into printing instructions. At least one setting is applied to the printing instructions. A preview is presented of the printing instructions to a user through a graphical display. The method enables the user to select a specific graphical element from the preview and to change the setting to a new setting. A device specific rendering is simulated using the new setting. The user is provided with the option of saving the new setting.
US08014011B2
An Internet/web page printer printing other web pages linked to a printed web page and a method thereof. A URL hyperlinked to the printed web page is extracted from web page information, which is obtained through a network via a web browser and converted into image information to be printed. From the converted image information, URL region information is obtained indicating a print region in which a URL anchor corresponding to the extracted hyperlinked URL is located on the printed web page. Location information input through a location input unit corresponding to the printed image information is compared with the URL region information to select an extracted hyperlinked URL corresponding to the input location information. The selected extracted hyperlinked URL is provided to the web browser so that corresponding web page information is obtained, thereby obtaining other web pages hyperlinked to the printed web page.
US08014010B2
An image processing apparatus that can execute a job in accordance with job data read from a portable storage medium. Upon deciding that the image processing apparatus is not able to execute a mode set in the job data, the image processing apparatus can change the mode set in the job data to a mode that is executable in the image processing apparatus.
US08014004B2
A method of determining a physical property of a substrate includes recording a first spectrum obtained from a substrate, the first spectrum being obtained during a polishing process that alters a physical property of the substrate. The method includes identifying, in a database, at least one of several previously recorded spectra that is similar to the recorded first spectrum. Each of the spectra in the database has a physical property value associated therewith. The method includes generating a signal indicating that a first value of the physical property is associated with the first spectrum, the first value being determined using the physical property value associated with the identified previously recorded spectrum in the database. A system for determining a physical property of a substrate includes a polishing machine, an endpoint determining module, and a database.
US08014000B2
A spectroscopy system is provided which is optimized for operation in the VUV region and capable of performing well in the DUV-NIR region. Additionally, the system incorporates an optical module which presents selectable sources and detectors optimized for use in the VUV and DUV-NIR. As well, the optical module provides common delivery and collection optics to enable measurements in both spectral regions to be collected using similar spot properties. The module also provides a means of quickly referencing measured data so as to ensure that highly repeatable results are achieved. The module further provides a controlled environment between the VUV source, sample chamber and VUV detector which acts to limit in a repeatable manner the absorption of VUV photons. The use of broad band data sets which encompass VUV wavelengths, in addition to the DUV-NIR wavelengths enables a greater variety of materials to be meaningfully characterized. Array based detection instrumentation may be exploited to permit the simultaneous collection of larger wavelength regions.
US08013993B2
In a spectroscopy module 1, a light passing hole 50 through which a light L1 advancing to a spectroscopic portion 4 passes is formed in a light detecting element 5. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the relative positional relationship between the light passing hole 50 and a light detecting portion 5a of the light detecting element 5 from deviating. Moreover, the light detecting element 5 is bonded to a front plane 2a of a substrate 2 with an optical resin adhesive 63. Thus, it is possible to reduce a stress generated onto the light detecting element 5 due to a thermal expansion difference between the light detecting element 5 and the substrate 2. Additionally, the light transmissive plate 16 covers a part of a light incident opening 50a. Thus, a light incident side surface 63a of the optical resin adhesive 63 becomes a substantially flat plane in the light passing hole 50. Therefore, it is possible to make the light L1 appropriately incident into the substrate 2.
US08013988B2
An apparatus for detecting electromagnetic wave includes an electromagnetic wave sensor, a first electrode and a second electrode spaced from each other and electrically connected to the electromagnetic wave sensor, and a measuring device electrically connected to the first electrode and the second electrode. The electromagnetic wave sensor includes a carbon nanotube structure. The carbon nanotube structure includes a plurality of carbon nanotubes extending along a same direction from the first electrode to the second electrode. The measuring device is capable of measuring resistance of the carbon nanotube structure.
US08013971B2
A display medium includes: a pair of substrates that have light transmittance; electrode members that are respectively formed on the opposing surfaces of the substrates, have light transmittance, and are capable of carrying an electric current; a display member that is interposed between the electrode members and displays display information when the electric current is supplied; a terminal portion provided at one electrode member; a reinforcing portion that has electrical conductivity and is joined to the terminal portion; and a mounted electrode that has electrical conductivity and is joined to the terminal portion by a joining material that has, after curing, a cohesive force larger than that of the reinforcing portion. The area of a reinforcing joining region of the terminal portion to which the reinforcing portion is joined is smaller than the area of a mounted joining region of the terminal portion to which the joining material is joined.
US08013963B2
A color filter is described, including a first color filter layer, a first light absorbing layer, a second color filter pattern and a second light absorbing pattern. The first color filter layer is disposed over a substrate. The first light absorbing layer is disposed between the substrate and the first color filter layer. The second color filter pattern covers a portion of the first color filter layer. The second light absorbing pattern is disposed between the second color filter pattern and the first color filter layer.
US08013957B2
The construction of electrodes for liquid-crystal displays using larger grain lower absorption (LGLA) poly-Si showing an absorptivity below 20% in the visible light region is described. Integration in the manufacturing of substrates for active-matrix LCDs is shown. Source, drain and channel region (108b, 108c, 108d) of the TFTs as well as the pixel-electrode (108e) are formed conjointly in a single poly-Si layer.
US08013956B2
A front filter being attached to a front surface of a flat panel display device includes a NIR (near infrared ray) blocking film for blocking the emission of near infrared rays to outside; an EMI (electromagnetic interference) shielding film for absorbing electromagnetic waves and for preventing the electromagnetic waves from being emitted to outside; a glass formed on a front surface of the EMI shielding film; and an antireflection coating for preventing incident rays from outside from reflecting back to the outside, in which the EMI shielding film includes a mesh unit formed of conductive meshes that are intersected with each other; and a mesh frame for surrounding the mesh unit to support the mesh unit and to define an effective display area on a screen.
US08013945B2
A display substrate includes a gate line, a gate insulating layer, a data line, a thin-film transistor (TFT), a storage line, a passivation layer, a color filter layer, a pixel electrode, a first light-blocking layer and a second light-blocking layer. The storage line includes the same material as the gate line. The passivation layer covers the data line. The color filter layer is formed on the passivation layer. The pixel electrode is formed on the color filter layer in each pixel. The first light-blocking layer is formed between adjacent pixel electrodes, and includes the same material as the gate line. The second light-blocking layer is formed between the first light-blocking layer, and includes the same material as the data line. Therefore, an aperture ratio may be increased.
US08013944B2
The present invention relates to a display device, intended to display different images in different angular regions in front of the display, i.e. a first image to the right and a second image to the left. The display device therefore comprises an imaging layer and a light directing layer, comprising e.g. cylindrical lenses. In order to avoid cross-talk close to where the different regions intersect, the imaging layer comprises liquid crystal cells, which, close to the normal direction of the imaging layer have low contrast and/or brightness. This substantially eliminates cross-talk between the two displayed images.
US08013942B2
A method and apparatus for assisting a user in programming a universal remote control. More specifically, a method and apparatus for helping the user reestablish system configurations, providing feedback, instructing the user, and supplying system information.
US08013941B2
A DTV receiver includes a tuner, an information detector, a demodulator, and a channel equalizer. The tuner receives a broadcast signal including valid data in which a known data sequence is periodically repeated. The information detector detects location information of the known data sequence and a coarse frequency offset value of the broadcast signal. The demodulator demodulates the broadcast signal by estimating a fine frequency offset value using the detected location information and by compensating a frequency offset of the broadcast signal using the course and fine frequency offset values. Finally, the channel equalizer compensates channel distortion of the demodulated signal using the detected location information.
US08013940B2
An integrated station for recording and sending audio and video signals, apt to have remote access to telecommunication networks for carrying out information services and pre-arranged for implementing camera set-ups and for transmitting broadcast-quality audio and video signals. The station includes a temporary camera set-up for acquiring broadcast-quality audio/video signals and includes multiple wing panelling which may have a column-shaped structure with wings that may be opened to provide a background for television shooting.
US08013939B2
A video decoder removes noise caused by a luminance signal component when separating a chrominance signal from a composite video baseband signal. The video decoder includes a first signal generator generating a first signal, a second signal generator generating a second signal, a third signal generator differentiating the first and second signals and performing a predetermined operation on the differentiated signals to generate a third signal, an operating unit performing a predetermined operation on the third signal to output the chrominance signal, a fourth signal generator performing a predetermined operation on the first and second signals to generate a fourth signal having a value corresponding to the amplitude of the chrominance signal, and a noise removal unit correcting the chrominance signal in response to the third and fourth signals to remove luminance component noise included in the chrominance signal.
US08013935B2
According to one embodiment, an image processing circuit comprising first memory unit which stores image signal, equalizing circuit which, when there is no movement between two picture signals, outputs average signal between the both signals, second memory unit which stores the average signal, pull-down detecting circuit which outputs pull-down interpolation signal for deinterlacing process from a plurality of frames of the pull-down signals when it is determined that the picture signal is based on the pull-down signals upon receipt of the average signal, an output from the second memory unit, and output from the first memory unit, interpolation signal generating circuit which generates interpolation signal, the outputs from the first and second memory units, and noninterlaced scanning conversion circuit which generates noninterlaced signal by adding the pull-down signals to the output from the second memory unit when the picture signal based on the pull-down signals.
US08013934B2
An exemplary portable electronic device includes: a main body, a camera module, a protecting cover, and a fill-in light emitting module. The camera module has a camera, and the camera module is disposed in the main body. The camera is exposed and positioned against an outer surface of the main body to take pictures. The fill-in light emitting module is fixed on the protecting cover. The protecting cover is movably connected to the main body adjacent to the camera for covering the camera or exposing the camera.
US08013924B2
The invention relates to an electronic motion picture camera having an optical receiving system and a beam splitter which splits the receiving beam path into a taking beam path leading to an optoelectronic taking sensor and a viewfinder beam path leading to an optical viewfinder. The camera has an electronic display for the reproduction of an additional image. An optical vision mixer is arranged in the viewfinder beam path by which the taken image and the additional image can be directed in the direction of the viewfinder such that the taken image or the additional image, or the taken image and the additional image as a uniform image, can be observed in the viewfinder.
US08013920B2
An imaging system provides a serial video signal that is indicative of the intensity of the light. The imaging system has an array of pixel image sensors arranged in rows and columns. A control circuit is in communication with the rows of the array and the plurality of column switches. The control circuit generates reset control signals, transfer gating signals, pixel image sensor initiation signals for each selected row for controlling resetting, integration of photoelectrons generated from the light impinging upon the array of pixel image sensors, charge transfer of the photoelectrons from the photosensing devices to the charge storage device, and to activate the photoelectron sensing devices on each row to generate output signals from each of the pixel image sensors on a selected row. The control circuit generates the column selection signals for transfer of the output signals from selected rows to form a serial video output signal.
US08013915B2
An anti-eclipse circuit of an image pixel includes a clamping circuit for pulling up a voltage of a reset signal output by the pixel and an eclipse detection circuit for controllably coupling the clamping circuit output to the output of the pixel. The clamping circuit includes a source follower transistor and a switching transistor. The eclipse detection circuit includes a comparator that is operated to detect an eclipse condition. The eclipse detection circuit outputs a control signal to cause the switching transistor to conduct only when a eclipse condition is detected while the pixel is outputting a reset signal.
US08013912B2
An image server includes: a focus position control unit for determining a focus position based on a maximum value of focus evaluation detected by a picture signal level detection unit; and a focus lens driver for moving the focus lens in predetermined control volumes based on an instruction from the focus position control means; characterized in that, in case the exposure time is changed to a longer cycle than a predetermined cycle, the focus position control unit determines a large control volume corresponding to the change in exposure time and moves the focus lens with the control volume to detect the maximum value of focus evaluation and performs focus control.
US08013911B2
A wide dynamic range image sensor method combines the response of high-gain sensing cells and low-gain sensing cells with better linearity than the prior art. A search is made in successive central regions within the response curve of the high-gain and low-gain cells to find a highest slope linear fit. This highest slope and the corresponding offset are used in mixing the high-gain and low-gain responses to achieve a wide dynamic range.
US08013910B2
An image by using a solid-state imaging sensor, the imaging apparatus including: a compression section configured to compress image data by dividing the image data into blocks each composed of same color component pixels adjacent to each other as a unit of compression; a memory used for temporarily storing compressed image data; a decompression section configured to decompress the compressed image data read out from the memory; and a signal processing section configured to carry out an image-quality correction process on decompressed image data, wherein each of the blocks is split in advance into two quantization-subject areas, block types are distinguished from each other by the position of the inter-area boundary between the two quantization-subject areas, and the compression section has a dynamic-range computation sub-section, a block-type select sub-section, and a quantization processing sub-section are provided.
US08013908B2
An exemplary auto white balance system for an image sensor includes a global positioning system (GPS) receiver, a memory, a setting determining unit, and a white balance unit. The GPS receiver is configured for receiving signals from a satellite, and calculating its position and local time using signals received from at least four satellites. The memory is configured for storing a number of white balance settings. The setting determining unit is configured for determining which one of the white balance settings is suitable for the current ambient light conditions based on the received signal of the global positioning system receiver. The white balance unit is configured for adjusting the color temperature of a current image captured by the image sensor using the determined white balance setting.
US08013897B2
A digital camera 100 is provided with an optical unit 1, CCD 3, a CCD holder 27 for holding CCD 3, actuator 10 for connecting the CCD holder 27 with the optical unit 1, wherein the actuator changes in shape when a voltage is applied across a front surface and rear surface thereof, and flexible printed circuits 8, 9 for applying voltages to driving members 10a, 10b, 10c and 10d in response to detection of camera shake to move the CCD holder 27 such that an optical axis Z of the optical unit 1 passes through the center of the image capturing plane 300 of CCD 3.
US08013896B2
An imaging apparatus includes a first imaging sensor, a second imaging sensor, a display unit, an electronic viewfinder unit, a position changing unit and a sensor-shift shaking correction unit. The first imaging sensor acquires an image relating to a subject at the time of main photography. The second imaging sensor acquires an image relating to the subject before the time of main photography. The sensor-shift shaking correction unit performs shaking correction at the time of the main photography, by changing a position of the first sensor with the position changing unit. The electronic viewfinder unit performs consecutive image display on a display screen of the display unit, based on images sequentially acquired by the second imaging sensor before the main photography, and includes an electronic shaking correction unit that performs shaking correction of the consecutive image display, by changing the display position of the images on the display screen.
US08013889B1
A peripheral viewing system for a vehicle includes a pair of digital cameras, each positioned on the exterior of the vehicle proximately positioned where a side view mirror would typically be mounted. An additional digital camera is mounted on the vehicle roof immediately adjacent the top edge of the rear window. A plurality of LCD's each discretely associated with a corresponding camera are mounted within the vehicle passenger compartment at a location that is readily observable by the vehicle driver. The driver can panoramically view trailing traffic by observing the LCD's in the passenger compartment. One or more infrared phototransistor receivers are positioned at the rear of the vehicle for detecting oncoming vehicles. If the driver attempts to change lanes and activates a turn signal, a warning message will be emitted within the passenger compartment if any of the transistors detect an approaching vehicle within a predetermined range of the vehicle.
US08013882B2
An image forming apparatus is described. The image forming apparatus may include a casing including an image forming section, an ejecting section provided above the image forming section and an image scanning section provided above the ejecting section, formed with an ejecting port communicating with the ejecting section; and an operating section. A side surface of the casing closer to the ejecting port includes a generally vertical surface and an upper surface of the casing includes a generally horizontal surface. The casing is provided with an inclined surface inclined along a direction intersecting with the generally vertical surface and the generally horizontal surface for connecting the generally vertical surface and the generally horizontal surface with each other, and the ejecting port is formed on the inclined surface, while the operating section is arranged above the ejecting port on the inclined surface.
US08013880B2
An apparatus for driving a display device including a plurality of four color pixels is provided, which includes: an input unit receiving input three-color image signals; an image signal modifier converting the three-color image signals into output four-color image signals such that a maximum gray of the input three-color image signals is equal to a maximum gray of the output four-color image signals; and an output unit outputting the output four-color image signals.
